“It is in the past now,” she whispered, bringing me back to her.
“I am healthy now.”
I took slow, deep breaths. This was about her hurt, not mine. Pull
it together, Saunders. I wanted to ask if she’d hurt her head, if that was why
she couldn’t drive. I wanted to know why she was unconscious, how long for, and
just what damage had been done. Oh, I felt sick now, sick and clammy and like
I’d faint at any moment.
“Does Babs know?”
Berne shook her head.
“She will so kick your ass,” I managed. Well done, Saunders, make
her feel guilty about it, why don’t you.
Berne nodded.
“I’ll protect you.” Because I was sooo scary.
She leaned in and kissed me. I slid my arms around her neck and
caressed the scar. I wanted her to know I loved her, every inch. She moaned as
I did it. Ooh, it was sensitive. I could work with that.
Her mother cleared her throat beside us.
I jumped.
The chair leg dropped off the stone patio. I lurched and ended up
in a heap on the lawn.
“
Bonjour
, Pepe,” Berne’s mother said with a hint of
laughter in her voice.
I pulled myself up from the grass and tried to regain some
dignity. Why I was bothering, I wasn’t sure. I had all the grace of a peanut.
“
Bonjour
, Madame Chamonix.”
Her face, lined and ever smiling, was contorted with her attempt
not to burst into laughter. The giveaway was her white puff of hair wobbling
with the internal giggling. At seventy-five, she still had the spirit of a
joyful teenager and was still quite the looker herself. Combined with her
bubbly nature, Madame Chamonix was poles apart from my own mother.
“You are ever the suave seducer, Pepe.” Her
laugh rumbled through her words. “I can see why she finds it so hard to resist
you.”
It didn’t matter how many times I was teased by the woman, the
inbuilt need to run and hide from a parental unit who had caught us pulsed
through me.
Berne’s mother was as laid-back as you could get with every facet
of life. Nothing at all fazed her. She found my discomfort hilarious.
“Yes . . . well . . . it’s all in the jumping technique.”
With Berne sniggering and her mother breaking into laughter, I
found myself grinning. How different it was here, with them. How much I loved
it.
“I see that you come to experience the celebration.” Berne’s
mother clapped her hands. “It will be the first of many,
non
?”
“Maman—”
Her mother tutted. “I see that she is here in heart. I also see
that ring on her finger.” She beamed at me. “I knew you would see sense.”
At least someone had. “Thank you for the faith.”
With a quick nod, she tapped Berne on the arm, ordering her into
the kitchen.
Berne shot a nervous smile my way.
“I will be back later. I promise.”
Her eyes lingered on mine for a few seconds and she disappeared
into the house.
With grass stains on my knees, I wandered back onto the street. I
waved to Rebecca, who dropped what she was doing to come to me. “You going to
see him?”
“I am,” I said, attempting to pick blades of green out of my knee
cap. How did they get so stuck? “The sooner I leave that behind, the sooner I
can start anew.”
Mean, Saunders. That sounded cold, mean, and ungrateful.
“Er . . . It’ll be better for him too.”
“I’m coming with you,” Rebecca said, taking off her rings. “I’ll
hang back outside but no way am I letting you do this alone, you got that?”
Apart from removing jewellery as though she were about to duff
someone up, I was so relieved that I wanted to sing with it. “Yes, please.”
“Settled.” Rebecca motioned to Babs and gave her a thumbs up.
Babs nodded and yelled, “
Bonne chance
,” at the top of her
lungs.
“Wow, you speak your own language or something?”
Rebecca nudged me as we walked up the huge hill. “Nah, we were
just talking about you. Babs is right behind you too.”
Didn’t that bring a lump to my throat? Ah, did
I love these ladies. “I’ll keep that in mind when I’m stammering like an
idiot.”
The hill was steep and I was unfit. Plus I was oddly tired for
some reason. “So things seem to be going well?”
Rebecca bumped my hip as we walked. “This is about you, Pip. I’m
really proud of you.” She laughed and I glanced at her. “It’s good to see you
so . . . whole.”
It was a good word, whole. Was that just down to Berne? “I get
flashbacks sometimes, nightmares.”
“From Catherine?”
“From everything. You know those dreams you get when something
chases you?” I swore I was the only person whose issues could be represented in
a nightmare by a giant sock. I spent my nights being pursued by knitted
footwear. I really
did
need locking up.
“Yeah?” She didn’t. Rebecca never remembered her dreams. She was
one of those annoying people who, once her head hit the pillow, she was snoring
for Gloucester.
“Liar.”
She shrugged. “Bet you didn’t get any last night?”
“That’s because I didn’t sleep—” I clamped my hands over my mouth.
She chuckled at me, her loud bellow drawing the attention of two elderly men
strolling on the other side of the road.
I waved at them, plastering a cheery grin on my face. “Yes, yes,”
I muttered at Rebecca, thumping her arm to stop her cackling. “I had sex, why
is that so funny?”
“It’s the fact it meant so much that your eyes glazed over when
you said it.” Rebecca wagged her finger at me. “You are completely gone on
her.” She grinned. “It feels great to see it.”
I took her hand and kissed her on the cheek. “I love that you know
me so well.”
“Me too.”
We rounded the corner to the cottage. My stomach seemed like it
dropped out and made a sprint for it down the hill.
“Oh shit.”
Rebecca gripped my elbow. “It’s okay, I’m here. I’m not leaving
your side.”
I gripped hold of her, bending at the waist. I was winded. How
could I be winded just by seeing them. Rebecca held on, grounding me.
“You can do this, Pip. You’re not alone anymore.”
Panic soared through me. My shirt felt like I’d dived into the
Ardèche. Nope, I was going to pass out. It was official. I was the biggest wimp
on the planet.
Rebecca rubbed my back. “You have to face them. Just think about
how you felt this morning, yeah?” She pulled me up to look into her eyes.
“Focus on how good you felt being yourself.”
“Myself, right.” I swallowed. My throat decided it had forgotten
how to, again. Wonderful. I’d face them all with grass stuck to my knees,
soaked through, stinky, and dribbling because I couldn’t swallow. Suave,
Saunders, really suave.
Rebecca held me by the shoulders. “You can do this.”
I could. I could do this. It helped me get my feet moving and I
stumbled towards the group waiting for me.
Doug, my parents . . . and Catherine.
Oh shit.
“Deep breaths. You’re not alone. You love Berne right?”
I nodded. Why did the ability to swallow seem to be so
intermittent these days?
“Do you love her, Pippa?” Rebecca turned me to look at her. “Do
you?”
“Yes . . . Yes, I do.”
Catherine was there. She looked mad. She looked livid. Oh boy. I
couldn’t face her.
“Tell me what you said this morning,” Rebecca whispered. “Tell me
out loud.”
Panic seemed to have taken up residence in my soul, right
alongside fear. Why were they all here? What were they doing here? Why were
they waiting for me?
Oh shit, shit, shit.
“Pippa, tell me.”
I focused on Rebecca’s eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m gay. I
love Berne. I want to be with Berne.”
“Do you?” Now she sounded like she was recruiting me for the army.
“Is that what you want?”
There was no doubt whatsoever. “Yes, I want that, I want to be
with her.”
Rebecca smiled. “Then, whatever they say, let it go. This is for
you, not them, live for you.”
“You’d make a great coach,” I mumbled, in a half-hearted attempt
at humour. My brain seemed wired to go on strike at any moment.
“Phillipa, why are you loitering there? Where are your manners?”
My mother’s voice ripped through my resolve until my knees wobbled.
Rebecca squeezed my elbow. “I got your six, Saunders. You can do
this.”
“Good morning, Mother.” Strained, polite, terrified. What was I
doing? I couldn’t face them. I couldn’t tell them.
Rebecca squeezed my shoulder as I dared meet my mother’s eyes.
“Is it?” She tapped her watch. “It’s two pm, young lady.
Where
have you been?”
Why did young lady make me want to run to the nearest bedroom and
barricade myself in. Deep breath, slow breath. Calm. “With Babs, Rebecca and .
. .” I rubbed at my throat. Say it. Be a grown-up. “Berne.”
Catherine’s eyes narrowed.
Rebecca gripped my elbow harder.
Doug and my father seemed oblivious to it all. They were too busy
chatting to one of the workmen.
“Well, that’s wonderful,” my mother said. “Why haven’t you called?
I know that hen weekends are all the rage these days but really, in your
condition.”
I felt like I was walking into battle, striding into the hail of
verbal bullets being fired off by an overwhelming enemy.
Rebecca held fast, not a word, only her physical presence.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Doug said, walking towards me. “You look like
crap.”
Incoming at twelve o’clock. Verbal volley from the fiancé.
“You look fine, Pip,” Rebecca whispered. “Berne loves you just the
way you are.”
She did. Berne loved me. She knew how much of a complete coward I
was and she still loved me.
“I’m going in,” I whispered back. “Cover me?”
Rebecca mock saluted, which made me giggle. It was a nervous “what
am I doing, save me” giggle. Feeling slightly unhinged, I strode out to face
foe number one. Doug deserved an explanation, a private one.
He ducked to kiss me. I turned so he found my cheek.
“We need to talk,” I managed.
Ugh, I hated those words, they were never good.
“Alone.”
He nodded, casting a glance at my mother. “Of course.”
I led him towards the house, glancing over my shoulder. Rebecca
ignored the glares from mother and Catherine, instead launching into a
conversation with my father.
Her voice cocky and confident and every inch pouring love out
towards me.
She believed in me.
I could do this.
“Look,” Doug said as we got into the house. “I know what you must
think. I wanted to tell you. It was a horrible mistake.”
“It wasn’t your fault. The way I acted, it would make anyone think
that way.” I felt for him, he’d obviously realised that I wasn’t pregnant,
thank goodness.
“No, I take full responsibility for this,” he said, running a hand
over his stubble. “I didn’t realise that she’d contacted you.”
Blinking a few times at him, I tried to figure out what that
meant.
Did he mean my mother? “Who?”
Doug took my hand. “I knew something was wrong when you left that
day in Paris. Then I got a call from her. I knew then. Pippa, I never meant to
hurt you.”
Did I walk through the door into another book or something? I
wandered over to it and peeked outside. There was Rebecca, my parents, and
Catherine. It all looked the same.
“Pippa?”
I turned back and frowned. “What did you do to hurt me?” Okay, so
he’d been a bit of a patronising twit on the phone and there was the whole
securing the heir stuff, but he hadn’t been
that
bad.
Doug sighed and paced around the creaky floor. Why he was in a
shirt and trousers in this weather I didn’t know. “Fine, I deserve it. Make me
say it.”
Either he was crazy or I was. More likely me but completely
confused, I managed a “huh?”
“Brandy,” he said as though that revealed everything.
“It’s a little early to drink, Doug.”
He folded his arms, then dropped his chin to his chest. “Oh, you
don’t know, do you?”
Whether it was too early to drink? It was two o’clock in the
afternoon.
“Are you telling me you’re an alcoholic?” I’d seen no signs. How
much did Doug drink when he was out of sight? Why hadn’t I spotted it? He
didn’t seem like he had a problem.
“No,” he grunted. “Brandy. The girl in my office.”
Who called their child Brandy? I guessed someone rather fond of
the beverage?