The Four of Us (52 page)

‘But he and the other children go home on Saturday!'

‘True.' She moved her hand lower and saw, with gratification, that his eyes began to darken with desire again. ‘But a donkey is obviously an essential for next year, when children will be staying regularly, and so I thought I'd buy one now, and make Jimmy happy. Do you know where I can get one from?'

‘There's a donkey sanctuary on the outskirts of Penzance.' With that information out of the way, he bent his head and kissed her long and tenderly.

Primmie closed her eyes in happiness. She was fifty-two and the impossible had happened. She was in love again – and just as deeply in love as she had been with Ted.

‘We can go tomorrow,' he said when he finally raised his head from hers. ‘And we can take Jimmy and one of his cohorts with us, if you think they'd like to come.'

‘I'm sure they'd love to.'

Their eyes held. Gently he cupped a full breast in a strong, capable hand. ‘I love you, Primmie,' he said simply.

‘Yes.' She smiled. ‘I know.' She curled her legs round his, determined not to tell him yet that she was in love with him. It was a long time since she had embarked on a love affair and she wanted to take every step slowly in order to savour it. The relationship she and Matt were building between them was very special and she was determined that its foundations would be deep and solid. There was no need to rush things. In another week, then perhaps she would tell him that she loved him – and she would tell him that he was her peace and her future, for she was certain that he was.

For now, she merely drew his head down to hers again, whispering softly against his ear, ‘Love me again, Matt. Please love me again.'

‘And so I'll be in Paris for three days, maybe four, to see my consultant, Mr Zimmerman, and to have my monthly blood transfusion,' Geraldine said to Primmie the day before the children were to leave. ‘There's no need to go into explanations with Kiki and Artemis. They both have so much going on in their lives at the moment that I doubt they'll even know I'm gone.'

It wasn't quite true, but certainly neither Kiki nor Artemis asked any awkward questions. For several days, as Kiki remained with Brett in his caravan at nearby Coverack and Artemis spent a great deal of her time at the art gallery with Hugo, Primmie almost had Ruthven to herself again. She used the time productively, able to appreciate, for the first time, just how much produce she was going to be able to garner from the orchard. As well as apple trees there was also a pear tree and a plum tree, its branches bending earthwards under the sheer weight of its fruit.

With Rags her companion whenever he got bored with watching Kiki and Brett working on the barn, she gathered the ripe plums into large plastic buckets and then later, listening to
Woman's Hour
on the radio, began the mammoth job of stoning them.

As she worked, her thoughts were full of Geraldine. When Geraldine had first told her what it was she was suffering from, and that two of the main drawbacks to a successful bone marrow transplant operation were the difficulty of getting a match, unless the donor was a sibling, and that transplants were generally only carried out on patients under forty, she had thought that the age difficulty was simply a case of priority being given to younger people, not that there were medical difficulties in a successful transplant in older patients. Now, thanks to the Aplastic Anaemia Trust website, she knew differently. Which meant that even if she succeeded in tracing Francis, and even if his bone marrow tissue was a suitable match, a transplant was still not a foregone conclusion.

She was still mulling the difficulty over as she sprinkled cinnamon on the stoned plums, doused them in clear honey and then began cooking them in relays in the oven.

When the telephone rang, and Geraldine's voice, taut with tension, said, ‘Mr Zimmerman has found a bone marrow match for me and he's going to carry out the transplant,' she thought at first that she'd dozed off and was dreaming.

‘But that's wonderful news! Mega news!' she gasped, as reality sank in.

‘Isn't it just?' There was indescribable emotion in Geraldine's voice. ‘I'll ring you again, Primmie, when I have further news. For the moment, just keep fingers crossed.'

As Geraldine rang off, Primmie sat down abruptly in the rocking-chair, certain that her legs were going to give way. Geraldine was being given the chance of a full return to health – and it could very well be the only chance she would ever have.

‘What are we going to do for Christmas?' Artemis asked a little prematurely at dinner that evening. ‘Are we going to have Christmas dinner here, at Ruthven, with Hugo and Matt as guests?'

‘Excuse
me
,' Kiki said heavily, before Primmie had the chance of replying, ‘but aren't you forgetting someone? What about Brett?'

‘And Brett, too, if he hasn't parents who will expect to see him for Christmas Day dinner.'

‘He hasn't. But what about Primmie's kids, and yours? Won't they be expecting to spend Christmas with you?'

‘Mine probably will be,' Primmie said, not sounding very sure. ‘And I shall be inviting them, though Joanne and her husband nearly always spend Christmas Day with his parents and Millie usually goes abroad with whomever it is she's with at the time. With luck, Josh might come and stay for a few days and Lucy intends being home from Australia for Christmas.'

She looked across at Artemis. ‘What about Orlando and Sholto, Artemis? Would you like to ask them to come and stay over Christmas? The more guests we have, the merrier it will be.'

‘I'd love to ask them.' The familiar wobble was back in Artemis's voice. ‘I know they've been a bit insensitive about things, but I do love them and I do miss them. They may even like to do a bit of house hunting with me. Did I tell you that I've spoken to all the local estate agents, detailing the kind of property I'm looking for?'

The conversation drifted on to other things and Primmie's thoughts went back to Geraldine. If Geraldine's transplant were a success, would Geraldine also be spending Christmas with them at Ruthven? And would Geraldine, too, like to invite someone to spend Christmas with her in Cornwall? Perhaps her French friend, Dominique?

If it hadn't been for her anxiety over what was happening in Paris, Primmie would have enjoyed the next couple of weeks. With the plums batched up in plastic containers and stacked in the deep freeze, she had turned her attention to poaching pears in red wine, spiced with cinnamon and cloves and sweetened with sugar. Artemis, too, had caught the autumn freezer and bottling bug.

‘I've found a recipe for tomato chutney I'd like to try,' she said, ‘It will put your glut of tomatoes to good use.'

Companionably, they had begun skinning the tomatoes, putting them in a large conserving pan with sugar, spiced white vinegar and a pinch each of salt, paprika and cayenne pepper. As the brew simmered and reduced, Artemis said, ‘I think I'm happier now than I've ever been. It's incredible, isn't it, when only a short time ago I thought my world had come to an end?'

‘It's not too incredible, Artemis. My world has changed pretty drastically, just as quickly, more than once in my life.'

Artemis stirred the tomato mixture, a frown puckering her forehead. ‘But mine has only changed because of you, Primmie. If it hadn't been for you, I would still be in Gloucestershire with everyone I met knowing Rupert had dumped me for an upper-class bimbo – and I'd be mortified and unable to envisage any other kind of life but the one I'd led for the last thirty-two years. I certainly wouldn't be working as a receptionist in an art gallery. I wouldn't be surrounded by friends.' She paused, her cheeks flushed. ‘And I wouldn't have met Hugo.'

‘And Hugo is exceptionally special, isn't he,' Primmie said, more as a statement than a question needing an answer.

Artemis answered her, though. ‘Hugo is
wonderful
.' Her eyes glowed. ‘He's the kindest man I've ever met – not just to me, but to everyone he comes into contact with. I can't imagine why he's never been married.'

Primmie began putting bottling jars into the oven to heat. ‘Perhaps it's because he's an incurable romantic who never found his dream package – though I think he's found it now.'

‘Me, do you mean?' Artemis scooped a spoonful of the tomato mixture from the pan and put it on a cold plate to test its consistency. ‘I do hope you're right, Primmie,' she said fervently. ‘Oh God, I do hope you're right!'

A few days later, when shopping in Calleloe, Primmie went into the art gallery to see for herself just how much Artemis was enjoying her new lifestyle. Seated behind an elegant nineteenth-century French writing desk, surrounded by opulently framed works of art, Artemis looked utterly at home in her surroundings in a way Primmie had never seen her do before. Her pink and mauve floral silk dress was softly draped at the neck and three long strands of pearls lay at just the right depth on her magnificent bosom.

Set against the background of the Arnott Gallery's sumptuously over-the-top decor, all grey silk wallpaper and glittering chandeliers, Artemis looked almost understated. Primmie had heard Hugo tell Matt that American tourists were absolutely bowled over by Artemis, and now she could quite clearly see why.

‘Primmie!' Artemis rose instantly from behind her desk, smelling fragrantly of Patou's Joy. ‘I didn't know you were coming into Calleloe today. Have you time for a coffee or a white wine?'

Primmie put her basket of groceries down and flexed her aching arm muscles. ‘It's only eleven o'clock, Artemis. Isn't it a bit early for wine?'

‘Hugo says wine should always be offered to clients who look as though they're going to spend a lot of money – which usually means American clients.'

‘Well, that rules me out. I'll have a coffee though, and a biscuit if you have any.'

While Artemis walked with poise born of her modelling days towards the rear of the gallery and the kitchen, Primmie, fearful she would find that her favourite picture had been sold, went in search of it.

It was still there.

Somehow, now that she, Artemis, Geraldine and Kiki had all been reunited, the large oil painting of the four girls in an Edwardian summer garden moved her even more than it had the first time she had set eyes on it. As she looked at two of the girls on the wide swing, the two who, one golden haired and one titian haired, reminded her of Artemis and Kiki, she wondered what their lives had been like when they had reached Artemis and Kiki's age. Had they, like Artemis and Kiki, reached a moment in time when all seemed to be disappointment and unfulfilled dreams? And had they, as Artemis and Kiki were doing, discovered a whole new lease of life just when all seemed most hopeless?

‘It's gorgeous, isn't it?' Artemis handed her a bone china cup of freshly percolated coffee, a bourbon biscuit resting in its accompanying saucer.

‘It's us,' Primmie said simply, filling with emotion. ‘It's us, when we were schoolgirls, sunbathing in Kiki's garden at Petts Wood. The two girls with their arms round each other are you and Kiki, and the dark-haired girl looking so coolly and clearly out of the picture, her head resting against the rope of the swing, is Geraldine.'

Artemis drew in a deep, unsteady breath. ‘And that's you, looking towards the three of us, with a pale blue sash round your waist and a beribboned sun hat in your hand.'

‘Except that our garden idyll wasn't in Edwardian times, but in the sixties, and we weren't wearing white broderie anglaise dresses, but either hideous Bickley High uniforms or skinny-rib jumpers and mini-skirts!'

Artemis gave a chuckle of reminiscence and then, still looking at the painting, said, ‘I wonder who the girls were? I wonder what happened to them?'

It was an echo of her own thoughts. ‘I don't know, Artemis,' she said, ‘but I do know that this is my favourite painting in all the world.'

She was still thinking about the painting as she turned down the high-hedged track towards Ruthven, wondering if perhaps Hugo, who would know the provenance of the painting, could find out for her the identity of the four girls in their garden idyll.

As she rounded the last curve of the track, before reaching Ruthven's gates, she sucked in her breath, almost rigid with shock. Parked this side of the closed gates was Geraldine's Ferrari.

Her heart began to race. Geraldine wouldn't have returned without telephoning first to say that she was doing so and that her transplant had been successful. Only if she had bad news would she not have been instantly on the telephone.

With hands clammy on the wheel, she came to a halt behind the empty Ferrari. There was no sign of Geraldine and, after glancing up the track leading to the house and seeing it empty, she trusted instinct, slammed her car door behind her and set off across the headland to the cove.

The instant she saw Geraldine's tall, ethereally slender figure, a silver-grey metallic raincoat tie-belted round her waist, the collar turned up in protection against the sea breeze, she knew that the transplant had failed. Despair was in every line of Geraldine's body and when, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her raincoat, she raised her head at her approach, Primmie read everything she needed to know in the dark, hopeless depths of her eyes.

‘It never happened, Primmie,' she said starkly as Primmie ran towards her. ‘It seemed like a perfect match, but it wasn't.' And then, as Primmie's arms went round her, she lost all her tightly reined control, tears spilling down her cheeks at the knowledge that, for her, the sands of time were fast running out.

Life settled into a routine for the four of them. Geraldine remained at Ruthven for most of the time, conserving her strength. Kiki divided her time between Ruthven and Brett's caravan, seldom mentioning her three decades as a rock singer and, instead, talking with increasing knowledge about foundation excavations and different brick courseworks as she accompanied Brett as a glorified labourer on whatever building job he was working on. Artemis remained living in the flat above the gallery, spending part of every day acting as the gallery's receptionist and most of the rest of every day with Hugo, looking for a suitable house to buy.