Forgive Me (60 page)

‘It’s equally wonderful to see
you looking so fit and well,’ he said. ‘But it’s too hot for me down
here. Shall we go up into the garden and have a drink or two?’

‘What made you come?’ she asked
later, when she’d dried herself off, put on a sarong and they were sitting at a
table under the trees.

‘To get you to come home,’ he
said simply. ‘Phil showed me the postcards you’d sent him a couple of nights
ago when I called round to see him. I got the distinct impression from them that you
might be miles away but he was still in your heart.’

‘He is,’ she admitted.
‘But I’ve hurt him too badly to hope that he still feels anything for
me.’

‘He isn’t one to wear his heart
on his sleeve or to cry into his beer, but I know he wants you back.’

‘He does?’

Patrick put one of his hands over hers and
smiled at her. ‘Yes, he does, Eva. He understood why you felt you had to run away.
He said if he’d been through what you had, he’d have done the
same.’

A delicious bubbly feeling coursed through
her veins. ‘Does he know you’ve come here?’

‘No, I came on an impulse after I
phoned the hotel. But the fact you were still here might have meant you had someone new,
so I wasn’t going to give Phil false hope. Have you got someone?’

She shook her head. ‘There
hasn’t been anyone at all. I don’t want anyone but Phil.’

Patrick grinned. ‘Well then, this
wasn’t a wild goose chase. I suggest we ring the airport and get you on a plane
home tomorrow.’

The waiter came, and Patrick ordered a
bottle of wine. Then he beamed at her. ‘You mentioned on my card you were writing
a book. Tell me about it?’

Eva laughed. ‘Oh, it’s just
rubbish really – certainly not publishable. But writing it brought back my sanity. It is
very cathartic. While pretending something is fiction you can write stuff that really
happened, and make it so it doesn’t hurt any more.’

He put a hand over hers. ‘I can see
that you are mended. You look fabulous – shining eyes, glowing skin – the way you looked
the first time I met you. You know that I went through something like this after Flora
left me. I know how it feels. I cured myself too by going to Canada. I wrote very bad
poetry, I drank far too much, and then gradually that black mist lifted. But no one ever
captured my heart again the way Flora did. I sometimes think if I’d gone up to
Scotland and found her, that maybe …’ He paused. ‘I think she sent me
that picture of the cottage because she wanted me to come. But I was too hurt and weak
to do that. Phil is stronger than that. I dare say some people would say he let you walk
all over him. But in my opinion only the strongest of men can let their woman go, and
trust that love doesn’t die, and she’ll come back.’

Eva’s eyes filled with tears.

‘Don’t cry,’ Patrick said
reprovingly. ‘Today is for celebrating. I’ve got something else to tell you
too. Your sister, Freya, is in London. I met her with Phil a few weeks ago.’

‘Really!’ she exclaimed.
‘Where? What is she doing? Is she OK?’

‘Don’t look so anxious,
she’s a great little thing. As
forthright as you! It seems after
you saw her in hospital she had a spell working in a nursing home, which she hated. She
didn’t ring you, because she was too proud. She said she was determined to get a
good job before she contacted you again. She said something about you both making a
promise to see each other in a year’s time.’

‘Yes, we did.’ Eva grinned.
‘But I’d forgotten about that. So tell me, what is she doing?’

‘Well, she managed, in her words, to
“blag her way on to a training course in computers”. That was in Newcastle.
She lived in some seedy digs while she did it, passed with flying colours and got taken
on by one of the big computer companies in London. I can’t remember the name of
it.’

‘That is amazing!’ Eva felt
jubilant to hear such unexpected good news.

‘She’s a tough cookie and
fiercely independent. She’s sharing a flat in Hammersmith with three other girls,
and she only rang to speak to you at Phil’s after she’d settled in. Phil was
a bit worried about meeting her alone, having to explain how things had been for you and
such like. So he took me along. I really liked her – she’s an awful lot like
you.’

‘Did she say anything about her
mother … ?’ Eva paused. ‘Our mother,’ she added.

‘She still hasn’t surfaced, and
Freya said quite bluntly that part of her reason for coming south was so that Sue will
never be able to find her. Both Phil and I thought that was both wise and
brave.’

‘What did Phil tell her about me being
away?’

‘The truth, Eva. That everything got
too much for you after Sophie died, and that you were cracking up. Do you know what she
said?’

‘No, tell me.’

‘“I felt so ashamed that I
didn’t tell her how glad I was she
came to see me. She bought me
such lovely clothes, and it was she who really motivated me to get myself together. I
have to be on my own too when I’m troubled. I bet even now she’s wanting to
come back, but afraid you don’t want her any more.”’

Eva’s eyes filled up again.

‘Don’t,’ Patrick said, and
with his thumb he wiped her tears away. ‘Celebration time now. So let’s
drink to the future? You’ve got a good man, a sister and a brother to go back to.
And I’ll be around too.’

Eva had felt she was happy earlier, but now
she felt she just might burst with it. Life, it seemed, was offering her a second
chance. She was going to take it with both hands.

‘To new beginnings,’ she said,
raising her glass.

Patrick clinked with his glass. ‘And
happy ever after, like my Mr Bear books,’ he grinned.

It was two thirty in the afternoon on the
following day when Patrick put Eva’s case into a taxi to take her to Naples
airport. He was going to stay on at the hotel for a few days, then go to Rome to meet up
with an old friend. He said he had rung Phil that morning, as soon as he’d
arranged her flight home.

‘I’m scared,’ Eva admitted
and leaned against his chest.

Scared didn’t really cover it. She was
in a state of elation mixed with terror.

‘Flying’s nothing these
days,’ he said, even though he knew perfectly well it wasn’t the flight home
she was afraid of. He hugged her tightly. ‘Everything will be fine, trust me. Now
clear off so I can get back to some sunbathing.’

She laughed then.

‘That’s better,’ he said
approvingly. ‘And I forgot to say you look so gorgeous that if there’re any
newshounds at
Heathrow waiting for someone famous to appear,
they’ll think you’re a celebrity and they’ll start snapping
you.’

Eva was actually very pleased with her
appearance. She’d bought the short pink silk dress and matching jacket a couple of
weeks earlier in Capri, and had been shocked at how many lira it cost. But it had been
irresistible; it fitted her perfectly, and it made her feel like a film star.
She’d had her hair cut and blow-dried that morning, and she looked so different
from the pale miserable girl who had left London four months ago. She could hardly
believe it.

‘Off with you.’ Patrick kissed
her on both cheeks and nudged her into the taxi. ‘When I get back, we’ll all
go out to dinner.’

Eva’s suitcase was one of the first
to come round on the carousel. As she moved forward to take it off, a man lifted it for
her and smiled at her. ‘A pretty woman shouldn’t have to haul her own
case,’ he said.

She blushed and thought how odd it was that
she got compliments like that all the time now. But perhaps it was only her tan.

Clutching the bag with duty-free Bacardi and
some Chanel aftershave for Phil in one hand, and dragging her case along behind her, she
passed through Customs and out into the arrivals hall, wondering whether she could
justify the expense of a taxi rather than a bus or the tube. There were lots of people
waiting, many of them holding up cards with a name on, and a young man just ahead of her
was nearly knocked over by a girl who ran towards him full tilt to welcome him with a
hug.

Then she saw Phil.

He was just leaning on the rail, smiling at
her, and he’d clearly spotted her some time before she’d seen him. Her
legs turned to rubber, her heart began to race. How like him to
surprise her.

He looked far more handsome than she
remembered. He was very tanned, wearing a pale-blue short-sleeved shirt and smart grey
trousers. His smile lit up the whole arrivals hall.

She tried to run to him, but the wheels on
the case seemed to stick to the floor. But suddenly he was there in front of her, arms
open wide, and she forgot the case and threw herself into his embrace.

‘Welcome home, babe,’ he said.
‘You look amazing.’

He caught hold of the case with one hand,
and her with the other. Then he drew her over to a spot near a wall, and kissed her.

Nothing in the world was so good. Warm,
loving and full of promise for the night ahead. It sent tingles all through her body to
her toes.

‘Patrick said you’d be waiting
at home,’ she said when he finally released her.

‘Do you really think I could wait
there?’ He laughed. ‘Anyway, we aren’t going home tonight. My brother
is back there again. So I’ve got us a room in a posh hotel in Bayswater.
We’ve got a lot of time to make up for.’

Eva felt unable to speak as they walked to
the car park. There was so much she wanted to say, to ask, but the words just
wouldn’t form.

As they approached the van she remembered
the day they first met, and how he’d helped her into the front seat and put the
seat belt around her as if she was a child. And all at once she knew what she had to
say.

‘Will you forgive me?’

He stopped, reaching out to tuck a strand of
hair behind her ear, and his hand lingered on her cheek. ‘For what?’ He
smiled. ‘For just having a wobbly attack and needing space?
You
don’t need forgiveness for that. I’m your lover, not your keeper.’

She put her arms around him and stood on
tiptoe to kiss him. Just the word ‘lover’ sent delicious thrills down her
spine.

It was going to be a night to remember.

A huge thank you to Emma Housby, who sent
me so much material about Carlisle in the 1970s. It never ceases to amaze me that people
I have never met will rally round to help with research just because they are kind.

Also, thank you to everyone in Carlisle who
offered me snippets of information while I was there researching. You are wonderful.

Last, but not least, a virtual hug to
everyone at Carlisle Central Library for the warm welcome you gave me. I love your city
and its friendly people so much.

Not too much to ask, is it? It was in 1935 when Allen Lane, Managing Director of
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him to found a company – and change the world.

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intelligent books at a low price, and staked everything on
it’
Sir Allen Lane, 1902–1970, founder of Penguin
Books

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