Читать книгу Book Club Reads: 3-Book Collection: Yesterday’s Sun, The Sea Sisters, Someone to Watch Over Me - Amanda Brooke, Amanda Brooke - Страница 20

Chapter 10

‘Move your hand a little bit. Ooh, that’s good. Now just a little bit more,’ Holly said with growing excitement. ‘No, no, not that much. Now move to the left a bit. Slowly does it, nearly there. That’s it, that’s it. Don’t move!’

‘I’m getting tired,’ groaned Tom.

‘Stop complaining, we’ve only just started.’

‘This wasn’t exactly how I imagined spending my time at home. Semi-naked, yes. Experimenting with lots of positions, yes. Standing in the middle of your studio, holding a plastic doll? Not exactly part of my plan.’

‘We’ve already wasted a whole weekend in bed,’ Holly reminded him.

‘Wasted?’

Holly grinned and acknowledged every aching muscle in her satiated body. ‘OK, not wasted. Trouble is, I may be able to take time off from the teashop while you’re home but I can’t afford to fall behind schedule with Mrs Bronson’s commission. I love you and adore you and, if nothing else, this only gives me more time to stare at your gorgeous if not slightly undernourished body.’

Holly had practically completed the base. A dark, nebulous spiral had emerged from the large stone block and, unlike the scaled version, this one had the finer detail. There were eerie suggestions of figures which made up its curves, depicting the generations that came before, the foundations from the past that supported the future.

The upper section was going to be more of a challenge and Holly wanted to work up some additional sketches before she started constructing the wire skeletons which would support the mother and child figures that were to be moulded from clay. She had persuaded Tom to strip down to his waist and drape a dust sheet around himself, holding a baby doll in his arms. Tom wasn’t exactly the figure of the mother she had in mind, but he was certainly less of the man she had waved goodbye to.

‘Well, if you’d seen what it was like, you’d have come back half-starved too. It wasn’t that we weren’t well catered for, we were. But I couldn’t switch off what was happening around me, none of us could,’ Tom had told her.

When he had set off to Haiti he had been a highly polished, slick anchorman in the making with his cropped hair and shiny suit, but his transformation had shocked Holly. He’d appeared on screen reporting in Haiti and each time Holly had seen him, he had looked just a little bit less polished, a little less slick. In some ways, Holly had been glad to see him reverting back to his old dishevelled self, but he had gone beyond dishevelled and had acquired a look that was gaunt, tortured even. It was more than evident that the changes weren’t only physical.

‘Well, you’re home now. I know you’re not going to be able to forget what you’ve seen, but you can’t fix it, not everything, not on your own. You are making a difference, Tom. It’s a demanding job but it’s the job you always dreamed of, and who knows where it will lead to?’

‘Straight back to the studio, that’s where. It’s only a secondment, remember. What difference will I be able to make then?’

‘You’ll make a difference,’ Holly said, in a weak attempt to reassure him. ‘Now stop moving and keep your arm straight.’

‘I know I shouldn’t complain, it’ll be worth it in the end. I can’t wait to be a dad,’ he said with growing excitement as he cradled the plastic doll in his arms.

‘We’ll see,’ whispered Holly, desperately trying to focus on her sketch and not resurrect the drunken argument that had been so narrowly avoided at the disastrous Sunday lunch.

‘What’s happened, Holly? Last time I was home you were so keen to start a family. Now, every time I raise the subject, you’re freezing me out again.’ Tom had kept to his pose so he wasn’t looking at her, but still he sensed the sadness that was threatening to overwhelm her.

‘What if we can’t have children?’

‘Of course we’ll be able to have children. Just look at this baby-making physique.’ Tom flexed non-existent muscles in a rather scrawny arm as if to prove the point.

‘Would our relationship survive if we couldn’t?’ Holly’s voice echoed across the studio. The photos hanging around the room swayed mournfully in an invisible breeze, their hopeful smiles mocking her. She wished she knew with absolute certainty the answer to the one question that was still haunting her. Would the moondial ever show her that she could be a mother and survive to watch them grow? Holly visualized rain trickling down a windowpane. Each raindrop represented an unborn child and, in her mind’s eye, each one trickled towards the same path. Would there be no way to avoid paying her dues to the moondial for the rest of her life?

Tom finally broke from his pose and looked over to her. ‘We’d survive anything, Hol, I promise. But it’s not going to come to that. As long as it’s still what you want. You do still want kids, don’t you?’

‘I do. You wouldn’t believe how much I do now, but …’ stumbled Holly just as the door to the studio swung open, bringing with it a blast of cold air.

‘Whoops, am I interrupting?’ Billy was standing at the studio door covering his eyes from the sight he’d just seen.

‘It’s all right Billy, you can look,’ Holly said, casually wiping the corners of her eyes in case either of them noticed her newly formed tears.

‘I hope he isn’t naked underneath that sheet,’ warned Billy.

‘It could be worse, he could be standing there without the sheet!’ Holly laughed as Billy pulled a face of disgust.

‘Hey, I take exception to that,’ complained Tom, who was now trying to flex his muscles and hold onto the doll at the same time.

Holly and Billy stood staring at Tom’s less than manly stance. ‘I think you should pick your models a little more carefully next time,’ suggested Billy.

‘I thought us men were supposed to stick together,’ replied Tom, indignantly.

Holly had a feeling this childish banter could go on all morning. ‘Listen, boys, I’ve got work to do. Billy, you’re distracting my model. What is it we can help you with?’

‘I was only dropping by to say hello,’ Billy answered sheepishly.

‘So what’s that rolled up under your arm?’ Holly demanded.

‘This? Oh, just a little plan for a job I’m doing. It’s nothing much.’

‘Hand it over.’ Holly had assumed the tone of a parent chastizing her child and the irony didn’t escape her.

Billy looked beseechingly at Tom, but Tom was looking equally uncomfortable.

‘It’s the plan for the garden, isn’t it?’ Holly asked when neither man made a move.

‘Might be, then again it might not,’ muttered Billy, again looking to Tom for help.

‘I’ve just remembered, I need to phone the studio,’ Tom said, letting the sheet slip to the ground and tossing the poor baby doll onto the workbench some ten feet away.

Wearing nothing but boxer shorts, he headed for the door. Billy tried to follow suit, but Holly grabbed him by the shoulder.

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Holly said. ‘You’ve lost me my model and you’re just going to have to take his place.’

‘Me?’ stammered Billy.

‘Sorry, Bill,’ Tom said, taking the plan from him and disappearing out the door.

‘Didn’t you know I was always after your body?’ Holly told Billy with a mischievous wink.

Two weeks together was all they had and for that brief time Holly tried hard not to think about the future. Life was all about living in the present. Tom’s next trip was to be his last assignment; he was going to South America to film a piece on the lives of young children who made their living scavenging on landfill sites. The subject matter promised to be as harrowing as he’d encountered in Haiti, and Holly worried how this new assignment would affect Tom. She wondered if he would be in any fit state to deal with the news that she would have to break to him when he returned. Part of her was looking for more excuses to put off her confession, but she knew that one day soon she was going to have to tell him about the moondial.

It had taken the full fortnight to get Tom looking like his old self, but the hollow anxiety etched around his beautiful green eyes had gradually filled out after copious amounts of rest, relaxation and home cooking, even including Holly’s burnt offerings.

‘I’m glad your hair’s growing back.’ Holly was watching Tom run his fingers through his damp, freshly washed hair. It was the early hours of the morning and the taxi was already on its way to pick him up. Holly lay back on the bed watching him pack up the last few things that had actually made it out of his suitcase.

‘You do realize that the studio is going to make me get it cut again as soon as I get back from South America,’ warned Tom. ‘While we were in Haiti, they tried to bribe the crew into cutting it while I was asleep.’

‘So why didn’t they?’

‘I put in a higher bid. You’ll spot a rather large payment at the duty-free shop on our credit-card bill.’

‘Well, I hope the crew will be looking after you on this trip too.’

‘They will, we’ll look after each other, don’t you worry.’

Tom sat down on the bed to put his socks on and Holly crawled up behind him and wrapped her arms around him.

‘But I do worry,’ Holly said, kissing the top of Tom’s head.

Tom pulled Holly around so that she was sitting on his knee. ‘I’m going to miss you.’

‘You’ll be back soon enough. It’s not for ever.’ As Holly wrapped her arms around his neck and felt her heart beating against his chest, she could also feel it ache. She reminded herself that the decision she was about to take was as much for him as it was for both of them and she tried desperately not to think of the one thing, the one person that made that decision so heartbreaking.

‘We could just stay here,’ Tom suggested, pulling Holly onto the bed and kissing her slowly and sensuously.

‘Don’t,’ moaned Holly. ‘I’ll never let you go if you say that.’

‘I love you, Hol.’

‘I love you too,’ Holly croaked, holding back the tears.

‘The taxi will be here soon but, oh, how I wish we had more time,’ Tom said, peeling himself from her and reluctantly getting up off the bed.

‘We will have more time. One day soon we’ll have the rest of our lives to spend together,’ promised Holly, squeezing her eyes shut against the vision of Libby’s beautiful green eyes staring back at her.

She lay where Tom had left her, watching him in silence as he quickly dressed and finished off his packing. A solemn knock on the door announced the arrival of the taxi. Tom leaned over and kissed the top of her head.

‘By the way …’ Tom said, kissing Holly gently on the lips.

‘What?’ she asked, looking up into his green eyes.

‘Your breath stinks.’ Tom smiled his beautiful mischievous smile.

‘Well, you’ve got a bogie hanging from your nose,’ countered Holly.

‘And with those loving words of endearment, I’ll leave you in peace. Go back to sleep.’

Holly wrapped her arms around Tom and held onto him tightly. There was another knock at the door, firmer this time, but Tom didn’t pull away, it was Holly who had to let him go.

The all too familiar sense of loneliness settled around her even before she heard the front door slam and the taxi pull away.

Holly had made little to no progress on Mrs Bronson’s sculpture while Tom had been at home but she couldn’t just blame her husband. She knew she had been deliberately prevaricating. The figure of the baby she was about to create would be based on Libby’s image, not Mrs Bronson’s son, whose photographs were now lost at the back of a drawer somewhere. She was torn between wanting to create an image of Libby and the fear of seeing her daughter’s beautiful, trusting face looking back at her. But Libby wasn’t the only reason she was prevaricating. Holly had been uneasy about the concept of the sculpture long before her embryonic maternal instincts had been crushed by the moondial and its rules. She couldn’t start work in earnest until her belief in the design was firmly established. She needed a second opinion.

‘I just don’t know what it is that’s missing,’ Holly said, staring at the sculpture. She had been constructing the figure of the mother and child from chicken wire and steel poles drilled into the marble base and it was a true reflection of the scaled-down version Mrs Bronson had signed off.

‘The base is absolutely beautiful.’ Jocelyn was standing shoulder to shoulder with Holly at the far end of the studio, as far back from the sculpture as they could get. The biting October wind outside was making the withered branches of nearby trees scratch forlornly at the windows.

‘Which means you don’t like the top half,’ Holly answered flatly.

‘Now I can hardly make a fair assessment on a twisted pile of chicken wire,’ scolded Jocelyn. She turned her attention to the scaled-down version and went over to trace her fingers along the figures of the mother and then the baby. ‘It is beautiful and I know you’re going to do justice to the full-size version. Is this Libby?’

Holly nodded, unable to trust herself to speak without her voice cracking with emotion.

‘She’s beautiful.’

‘And I’m a terrible mother,’ Holly added, voicing her guilt.

‘You have no choice, we both know that.’

‘I know. I just don’t know how I can live without her. I know I’ve been given a chance to save my life and it’s wonderful that I ever got to meet her at all, but it breaks my heart.’

‘So this sculpture, then,’ Jocelyn said, deliberately changing the subject. ‘It’s meant to represent the generations, each child becoming the mother of the next?’

‘Yes,’ Holly said with a sigh. ‘What I’m trying to do with the base is show the link from one generation to the next – and believe me, I was tempted to slip in a broken link in there somewhere.’

‘To reflect your relationship with your own mother, by any chance?’ Jocelyn asked, knowing enough of Holly’s past to understand why she had struggled with this aspect of the sculpture.

‘The only foundation my mother laid for me was a foundation of doubt.’

‘Libby has shown you how to be a mother and for that reason she’ll always be a blessing in your life, even if she can’t share it with you.’

‘I know. That’s why it’s more important than ever to get this right. I’m the first to admit that I didn’t put my heart into it at first, but now it’s about the only thing in this whole mess that I still have complete control over. I just can’t shake this feeling that something doesn’t work. It’s the pose that’s wrong, I think.’

‘Well, explain it to me. How does it make you feel?’

Holly concentrated on the scaled-down sculpture. She walked around it, following the spiral at the base, the vague images of the figures and then the upper section where the mother continued the spiral upwards. ‘The linked figures don’t just represent the connections between mother and child, they also show how each generation forms the base for the next. The spiral adds the dynamics to the piece. There’s always a corner to turn, venturing into the unknown.’ Holly paused and laughed. ‘Quite ironic, as it turns out, don’t you think?’

‘Not everyone has the chance to see what lies ahead,’ Jocelyn added, always the defender of the moondial.

‘Anyway, the mother and baby represent the present generation.’

Jocelyn tapped her chin, deep in thought. ‘So why is the mother holding the baby and looking down? Is that because it’s in the present?’

Holly stopped still. She walked quickly around the sculpture again. Then she rushed over to Jocelyn and gave her a big hug. ‘You clever thing! That’s it, that’s why it wasn’t working.’ Holly released Jocelyn just as quickly and rushed over to her workbench to grab her sketch pad.

Scribbling away, she explained to Jocelyn what she was doing. ‘I paid too much attention to Mrs Bronson’s need to be centre of attention, so much so that I didn’t follow the concept all the way through.’

‘I’m still not following you,’ Jocelyn said.

‘The base is a perfect representation of the concept, the spiral, the links, one generation providing the foundation for the next. The top half, though, the mother and child, that was only my naive interpretation of the relationship between the two. The mother is turned in a way that continues the spiral but the way she’s holding the baby, it’s all wrong. Protective yes, but she’s holding it like it’s a possession. She needs to be holding the baby up, supporting it on its journey into the future, carrying on the theme of one generation being the foundation for the next.’

‘Can you change the design now? Hasn’t Mrs Bronson already signed it off?’ warned Jocelyn.

‘To hell with Mrs Bronson. It’s my work and I struggled with this piece from the very beginning. I haven’t been able to fully connect with it because I knew something wasn’t quite right. I put a part of me in every piece I create, but with this sculpture I’m putting in a big piece of my heart and all of my soul. Now I know what’s wrong, I have to change it.’

Jocelyn looked at Holly and smiled. ‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen that twinkle in your eye.’

Holly smiled back at Jocelyn. She was right. For the last few months, Holly had seen each day as a battle with her emotions and working on the sculpture was a challenge. A piece of the jigsaw had now fallen into place and Holly was eager to demolish the chicken wire structure and start again from a new perspective.

Jocelyn told Holly that she would leave her to it, but she hovered by the door of the studio, reluctant to say goodbye.

‘Is there something else?’ asked Holly, aware that her friend still had something on her mind.

‘It’s a full moon tonight,’ Jocelyn replied with an anxious smile.

‘I know, and don’t worry, it’s still under wraps.’

‘You won’t use it again?’

‘Not yet, at least. Perhaps one day, I don’t know. I’m scared what the future now holds for me,’ confessed Holly.

‘It holds you and Tom,’ Jocelyn assured her. ‘You’re doing the right thing.’

Jocelyn eventually left, believing, as did Holly, that her resolve was strong enough to resist the pull of the moondial and that she didn’t need Jocelyn’s help.

Left to her own devices, Holly threw herself back into her work. But if she had hoped that the new surge of creativity would help distract her, she couldn’t have been more wrong. She had sketches of Libby’s face scattered all over the studio and they all looked out to her, calling for her attention. She knew there was still a chance that the future hadn’t been rewritten yet. She hadn’t actually acted upon her decision not to conceive Libby. Her next appointment for the contraceptive injection wasn’t until the following month. That would surely trigger the changes that would erase Libby from the future, but right now, as the full moon crept ever closer, Holly sensed that she was still travelling the same path.

She looked around her, her eyes moving from one image of her daughter to another. Then she looked at the new sketches she had drawn of the mother holding up her child. Her body tingled with excitement as she remembered what Jocelyn had said about her reflection being stronger in the moonlight. Tonight might just be the one and only chance she would have to hold Libby.

Holly was almost buzzing with anticipation and for the first time since the moondial had entered her life she was actually looking forward to seeing the moon’s perfectly formed and hopefully benevolent face.

* * *

The cloudless sky had warmed the day with weak autumn sunshine but the moon that replaced it held no warmth of its own and a halo around its edges promised an early frost. The trees in the orchard rattled in the desolate wind, shedding leaves in grief for the lost summer, and the white dustsheet fluttered like a ghost as Holly uncovered the moondial.

The dial practically glowed in the moonlight and the brass claws of the dial reached out beseechingly, ready to grasp the glass orb that Holly held in her trembling hand. As she dropped the orb into place and waited for the shower of moonbeams to consume her, Holly focused on the orchard. It had been three months since she had last used the dial when it had taken her to a cold January night. If the dial continued to open a window eighteen months into the future, then the autumn landscape would be transformed into spring and the orchard would be the first sign of hope that the future she had seen still remained intact and that her seven-month-old daughter would be there waiting for her. If the orchard showed her something else, Holly knew she was opening a window to a world she wasn’t prepared to see yet.

‘Please don’t take her from me, not yet. You can’t be that cruel,’ she whispered as she was forced to close her eyes against the shards of moonlight that spun across the surface of the dial and the world beyond.

As the dancing light faded, Holly blinked her eyes, desperate for that first glimpse of her new surroundings. The rambling chaos of her garden had been replaced by clean, manicured landscaping, but Holly held her breath as she looked beyond the garden towards the orchard. The apple blossom was only just starting to peek through the darkness but it was enough to give her hope.

Holly opened the back door with ease, her determination to see her daughter giving her the strength of presence she had struggled with in her earlier visits. The house was in complete darkness as Holly crept stealthily through the kitchen and into the hall, eager to reach Libby. It was only when she realized the house was completely still that she forced herself to stop and catch her breath and her thoughts. The occupants were either in bed or not there at all and a knot of fear caught Holly by surprise. She couldn’t face going upstairs until she was sure Libby hadn’t already been written out of her future. She took a breath, building up the courage to go into the living room, where she would find enough evidence to confirm whether or not her meddling had already taken her daughter from her.

In the eerie darkness of the room, Holly picked out some familiar silhouettes, the sofas, the TV stand, the fireplace and even the outline of the China cat on the shelf. She knew it was smiling at her smugly even though she couldn’t see its face. Holly wondered how the cat could still be there when she had already smashed it, but she wasn’t about to be distracted from her desperate search for confirmation that Libby was safe. Stepping deeper into the darkness, Holly accidently kicked something that rattled and rolled across the floor. She picked it up and smiled at the baby rattle in her hand. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

Before she left to search out Libby, Holly’s curiosity got the better of her and she crept over to the shelf to peer at the China cat sitting proudly in front of her. In the dim light it looked in pristine condition but as she let her finger follow the curve of its body, she felt a telltale ridge at its neck. The shattered pieces of the cat which she had left to gather dust behind the sofa had at some point been retrieved and glued back together.

Holly took the stairs two at a time. She might now know that Libby still existed but she wasn’t yet sure whether or not she was at home. Tom could be away somewhere with Libby, staying over with his parents perhaps. The gatehouse had only two bedrooms and Holly ignored the first door to the master bedroom with only a faint tug at her heart to see Tom. Holly knew if he was there she couldn’t give him comfort, and she didn’t think she could bear to see any more of his pain. Besides, she didn’t need to, she told herself. She was going to make sure that Tom would never suffer her loss.

The door to the second room was slightly ajar and there was the faint glow of a nightlight coming from the room. Holly knew in her heart that Libby was in there and she had to take a moment to compose herself before entering the room. Her body shook with raw emotion and anticipation, her heart hammering in her chest. She had used the dial with a single purpose in mind but as she paused at the doorway, her courage failed her and she fought the urge to turn and run. Holly had to face her daughter and she wasn’t about to make it easy on herself. She had to tell Libby that she was sorry for what she was being forced to do, to choose who should live and who would never be born.

The room she entered was no longer a spare room full of junk. It was a beautiful nursery and Holly felt as if she was walking into a wonderland. It was decorated precisely as she would have liked it, in soft pastel tones but with a modern twist. The walls were painted in a delicate pale yellow but the accessories picked up deeper, contrasting colours and there was a beautiful fairytale tapestry hanging from one wall.

An ornate white cot was positioned against the far wall and a colourful mobile dangled above Libby, who was snoring softly beneath it. Holly leaned over and just breathed in her baby smell. Her racing heart slowed and warmth radiated through her chest and then spread across her entire body, relieving some of the tension in her muscles. She took in every detail of her baby’s features, features she had tried so hard to burn into her memory since her last visit. The baby’s face was heart-shaped with those perfectly chubby cheeks Holly remembered. Her rosebud lips were ruby red against her iridescent skin and her hair was a halo of soft, blonde curls.

As she reached out to stroke the sleeping baby’s cheek with a trembling finger, Libby’s eyes fluttered open and Holly gasped. ‘Hello, sweetheart, did I wake you?’ she soothed.

Joy was replaced by pure panic as Libby’s lips trembled and Holly thought she was about to wail. She hadn’t considered the possibility that the baby might actually be frightened of her. Holly’s maternal instincts were fragile and she didn’t think she could comfort a crying baby, not even Libby.

Fortunately Holly wasn’t put to the test as the anxiety in Libby’s face softened and the look of fear was replaced by a smile. Libby rolled onto her tummy and started pulling herself up towards Holly. ‘Wow, you’ve grown,’ gasped Holly in amazement, although her confidence was still dented and she wasn’t at all sure what to do next.

Libby was by this time kneeling up against the bars of the cot, but then she leaned back to pick up a ragdoll that had been lying next to her. She looked up expectantly at Holly, waiting to be picked up. ‘Mmm, nnn,’ she babbled loudly and excitedly.

Still in a panic and now worried that Libby might wake Tom, Holly turned to the window and tugged desperately at the blinds. As moonlight seeped through the yawning window, the task became easier until at last, the bright face of the moon was revealed, surrounded by a million twinkling stars. Libby was still babbling impatiently behind her. ‘Well, the plan’s going well so far,’ Holly whispered, her voice trembling. She was relieved to see the moonbeams lighting up the nursery and desperately hoped that the reflection of light from the moon would give her the strength of presence to do what she had failed to do in her previous visits.

She turned back to Libby and took a long, deep breath. The anticipation growing inside her was almost too much to bear. She had longed to hold Libby, to the point of obsession, and this could be the moment that dream came true, to feel Libby in her arms for the first and the last time.

When Holly reached out towards Libby, the baby lifted her arms towards her mother, her hands clasping and unclasping in excitement. Holly felt the softness of Libby’s pyjamas, felt the warmth of her body as she carefully placed her hands beneath her baby’s arms. Holly paused, preparing herself for the joy of lifting her up or the frustration of lifting nothing but despair. Libby looked up expectantly into Holly’s eyes and the fragile connection that had formed between them took on a new strength that Holly believed could never be broken, should never be broken. As Holly’s heart lifted, so did Libby, straight into her mother’s arms.

‘Oh my sweet, sweet, Libby,’ cried Holly, holding her against her thundering heart. She kissed the top of Libby’s head, her cheeks, her nose, her neck. Libby wriggled with excitement and grabbed at Holly’s hair. ‘Mmmm, mmm,’ she said, hitting Holly in the face with her ragdoll.

‘What is that?’ asked Holly, trying to pull the soft toy from Libby’s grasp but Libby held on tight and grumbled disapprovingly at her mother.

‘OK, you keep hold of it,’ apologized Holly. She could feel the full moon looking over her shoulder and she sensed it smiling down at her. In this moment at least, Holly was thankful that the moondial had given her this gift. She wished it could last forever.

Holly was only barely aware that she had been rocking Libby from side to side and as Libby yawned, she rested her head softly on Holly’s shoulder. Slowly and gently, Libby was falling back to sleep and her eyes started to flicker whilst her fingers played rhythmically with the folds of her ragdoll. It was a strange toy, thought Holly. It had a soft ball head with a floppy hat and a square piece of soft cloth hanging down from its neck to form the doll’s body. It had probably once been cream but now looked a worn shade of grey.

Holly continued rocking Libby long after she had fallen asleep. This was going to be the last time she held her daughter and, although she had thought about what she had to say to her, when the moment came, Holly struggled to find the words. There really was only one thing that she wanted to say.