The Four of Us (57 page)

Primmie hesitated again. Until now she'd respected Geraldine's wish that Artemis and Kiki not be told just how ill she was. Now, though, in order for Kiki to appreciate how necessary Francis's presence was, Kiki was going to have to be told.

‘Geraldine's illness is far more critical than she's made out to you and Artemis,' she said, seeing with relief that Kiki no longer looked as if her attention was on Jerry Lee Lewis. ‘If she doesn't have a bone marrow transplant her life expectancy can be measured in months – and for any chance of success, especially at her age, the transplant needs to come from a sibling. As the nearest thing to a sibling that Geraldine has is Francis, I've been trying to contact him. And succeeded. He's here now. Being reunited with Geraldine down by the paddock.'

There were times when Primmie felt that Kiki really came into her own, and this was one of them. There was no need to ask her not to make a problem or a drama out of Francis's presence. All Kiki was interested in was Geraldine.

‘Why didn't she say how ill she is?' she demanded, springing to her feet. ‘Why didn't she say she needed a transplant? I could have samples of my bone marrow taken to see if it would match. I can still do that. Where do I have to go to have it done?'

‘Francis's bone marrow is a far likelier bet, Kiki. Unrelated bone marrow tissue rarely, rarely matches. Volunteer donor registries worldwide have Geraldine on file as needing a match and so far there's only been even one near miss.'

Kiki strode across to the window to see if she could catch a glimpse of Geraldine down by the paddock. What she saw was Geraldine with a frail-looking, shabbily dressed man who looked to be at last fifteen years her senior. ‘Wow!' she said expressively. ‘If that's Francis, then I wouldn't have recognized him on the street in a hundred years.'

‘It isn't going to be difficult for you, meeting him again?'

‘In what way?' Kiki looked at her blankly. ‘It's
decades
since we were an item. All I want from Francis Sheringham now is help for Geraldine.'

‘And so Geraldine and Francis are, as we speak, on their way to see Geraldine's consultant, Mr Zimmerman, in Paris,' Kiki said to Brett as, naked in the cosy warmth of their caravan, she straddled him, moving in slow, languorous rhythm.

‘And this bone marrow tissue that her cousin is going to have taken? What are the chances of it being a successful match?'

‘According to Primmie, heaps and heaps higher than a random match, but not as much of a dead cert as a brother or a sister match.'

Propped by a couple of pillows and with his hands folded behind his head, Brett kept tight rein on the almost unbearable sexual excitement she was arousing in him and regarded her with deep fascination.

It was a fascination she had exerted on him from the moment they had met and which, in the five months since then, hadn't waned. When she'd told him about Primmie having contacted Geraldine's long-lost first cousin – a cousin she had, some thirty years ago, been on the point of marrying – and when he had idly queried as to why their marriage had never taken place, she had said simply, ‘Because I ran off with him on the wedding morning. We were together for quite a few years – I can't remember how many – but the experience was no very big deal. His being my manager and agent and my being his ticket to glitz and glamour was really what our relationship was about. I thought our being a couple would mean he'd work his arse off for me, but my judgement, as always, was way off beam. All Francis wanted was to be out of his head on cocaine.'

She'd been just as prosaic when she'd explained the Primmie/Artemis/Destiny situation to him. ‘Primmie fell in love with my father – who was divorced – and he with her. It would have been all wedding bells and confetti, but I took exception to the prospect of having Primmie as my stepmother and told my father so in no uncertain terms. I didn't know, though, that Primmie was having his baby – and neither did he.

‘He called the wedding off. Primmie never told him she was pregnant. Artemis and Rupert couldn't have children and when Destiny was born they adopted her. Everything in the garden was lovely until Destiny showed signs of having a learning disability. Rupert was mortified at the thought of people knowing his daughter wasn't very bright – especially as he seems to have taken the line that she wasn't really his daughter, being adopted – and he solved his problem by offloading her into a residential care home, covering his action with his “she's drowned in Spain” story. None of which,' she had finished bluntly, ‘would have happened if I hadn't emotionally blackmailed my father into not marrying Primmie.'

‘Jeez,' he'd said expressively. ‘So you fucked up both Geraldine's
and
Primmie's life. What about Artemis? How did you trash things for her?'

‘I didn't,' she'd said, affronted. ‘Just the opposite. When we were teenagers I probably saved Artemis's life.'

The story of the Vietnam anti-war battle in Grosvenor Square had been light relief after some of the other glimpses into her past.

What intrigued him about her was that, though carelessly amoral and endlessly thoughtless, there was no real meanness in her. The other thing that constantly intrigued him was her attitude to their own, where their ages were concerned, bizarre relationship. She was twenty years his senior and yet not once had he been aware of her being self-conscious about it. She never needed her confidence boosting where her looks or figure were concerned. In the past, he'd had girlfriends who'd constantly needed to be told that their bums weren't big, or that they truly were the most glam babe in the room. Kiki just took it for granted that she was head turning. Which she was. And she also took it for granted that he should consider himself bloody lucky to be her boyfriend. Which he did.

There was unfettered pleasure in his eyes as, having imparted all her information re Geraldine and Francis, Kiki tilted her head back, her eyes half-closed, and began to move her hips with increasing speed.

Her breasts were small and firm, her nipples a dark wine red. He removed his hands from behind his head to cup them and then, as she gave a soft, vibrant moan, abandoned all thought of anything but lovemaking.

With Geraldine and Francis en route for Paris, Primmie took a solitary walk across the headland, not to the cove, but to the church. When she'd first arrived at Ruthven the church doors had been firmly locked on all but a few, rare occasions. Since asking the Reverend John Cowles if she could periodically polish the pews and the brasswork, she had been entrusted with a key, and regular quiet time within it was now something she treasured.

After arranging a posy of snowdrops in the small vase that stood near the foot of the altar, she seated herself in one of the lavender-waxed pews, her thoughts on Geraldine. ‘Please, Lord,' she prayed silently, ‘please let Francis's bone marrow tissue be a perfect match for Geraldine. Please let her be able to have a successful transplant. Please.
Please
.'

In the days that followed, she kept herself busy by making marmalade with the Seville oranges that were still glutting the greengrocers in Calleloe.

‘Are you going into full-time production, sweetheart?' Matt asked, stepping into the kitchen to be met by the sight of preserving pans, muslin sieves, a huge stoneware bowl, piles of fruit, stacks of sugar and a vast array of glass jars. ‘Because unless you are, we're going to be eating marmalade from now until doomsday.'

‘No we're not. Peggy's been too busy to make marmalade this year, and so she's going to be taking at least a dozen jars from me.' With her back towards him, she continued stirring the contents of her preserving pan. ‘John Cowles is unmarried and so he'll be grateful of a gift of half a dozen jars – and I'm sure he'll have lots of parishioners who'd be happy to be given a gift of home-made marmalade. Artemis is too busy making wedding plans to be knee-deep in oranges, so she'll be grateful for some as well. All of which means that far from being snowed under with it, we're going to be lucky if we have enough to see us through the year. That's nice,' she added, as he kissed her on the back of her neck.

As the pungent aromatic scent of oranges filled the kitchen, Matt said, ‘Hugo has asked me to be best man. Did you know?'

‘No, but I'm very pleased. Will you have to hire yourself a morning suit?'

‘I expect so. I can't imagine either Hugo or Artemis settling for anything less.'

Primmie turned away from the Aga and gave him a kiss. ‘You'll look splendid. Almost as splendid as Kiki is going to look as her maid of honour.'

Matt's eyes creased at the corners. ‘Speaking of which, I didn't see the Harley when I arrived. If she isn't in, could we perhaps take advantage of the fact?'

Primmie gave the preserving pan an assessing look, judged that its contents would be quite safe left to their own devices for a half hour or so and, sliding her hand into his, said equably, ‘What a jolly good idea, Matt.'

The next few weeks, as February gave way to March, were taut with tension. First came Geraldine's telephone call to say that Francis's bone marrow tissue was a match. Then came a moment so dreadful she never knew how she survived it.

‘They're not going to use it.' Francis's voice over the telephone had been raw. ‘It's deemed unsuitable because of my long history of drug abuse. But there's another donor, Primmie. They've found a match. A transplant
is
going to take place.'

Even after the transplant had taken place, the tension was excruciating. Not until Francis finally telephoned to say that there was no longer any fear of the graft being rejected did Primmie give way to boundless relief and joy.

There was no quick return to Cornwall for Geraldine. ‘Mr Zimmerman wants me where he can keep a close eye on me for a few weeks,' she said over the telephone to Primmie, ‘and so I'm back in my house in the Opera quarter and Francis is staying with me. Since being here, he's been in contact with his father and when I do get the final all-clear we'll be paying a visit to Cedar Court before continuing on down to Ruthven for Artemis and Hugo's wedding.'

‘But is she coming back to Cornwall just for the wedding, or for good?' Artemis said to Primmie, when Primmie relayed Geraldine's news to her. ‘And do you think she and Francis might get back together?'

Primmie, remembering the depth of feeling there had been in Francis's voice when he had told her of his lover who had died, said, ‘I hope she's coming back to Cornwall for good, but you can forget about a wedding where Geraldine and Francis are concerned, Artemis. They both know now that marriage isn't what their relationship is about. If they live together, it will be as cousins and friends.'

‘Then though it's selfish of me I hope they do so in Calleloe and not Cedar Court. Isn't it wonderful news that Lucy will most definitely be home from her travels by the end of April and that she'll be at my wedding, and that Sholto and Orlando are both coming down to Cornwall for it? There have been times when I thought Sholto might cry off, but he seems quite happy now about my marrying Hugo. Perhaps it's because he has a steady girlfriend – or so Orlando has hinted. Oh God, Primmie. I can't believe that in five weeks time I'm going to be married to Hugo. I'm so happy, I could burst!'

Primmie well understood that Artemis's thoughts were now centred almost entirely on her approaching wedding day. Her own thoughts, though, were still centred almost entirely on the ongoing search for Destiny.

Every morning, after her animals were tended and fed and the breakfast things were cleared away, she sat at the kitchen table with the telephone, a county directory and her laptop.

With no responses coming from any of the organizations that she, Geraldine, Artemis, Kiki, Matt, Hugo and Brett had contacted, she had begun devoting herself to the task of telephoning every residential child-care home in the country, asking the bursar if he, or she, would search their records for 1978 to see if a five-year-old child named either Destiny Surtees or Destiny Gower had been handed into their care by her father.

Where Northumberland and Cumbria were concerned, she had now contacted not only every care home for children with special needs, but every other type of care home, orphanages included. It had been a long, laborious task, for no one was ever able to check records immediately. She had to trust that people would telephone her back. And when they didn't, which was often, she had to telephone them again. There was also the constant brick wall refrain of ‘We're not at liberty to divulge that information'to be met with and, whenever possible, overcome. For all the numberless times it couldn't be overcome, the name and address of the care home was marked with an asterisk on the mammoth list in her laptop file, so that, at a future date, they could be approached again, with legal back-up.

Now she was trawling through Yorkshire, a huge task that was likely to take her many weeks. ‘Good morning, I wonder if you could help me,' she said for the fiftieth time one glorious morning, as palest pink drifts of clematis montana nodded against her kitchen window. ‘I'm trying to trace whether my daughter, Destiny Surtees, was in your care some time from 1978 onwards. It's possible that she may have been known as Destiny Gower. She was born on the sixth of January, 1973, in London. My name is Primmie. Primmie Dove, formerly Surtees.'

‘Destiny?' a woman's voice said musingly. ‘We've ever only had one Destiny at Rydal Hall. It isn't a name to forget, is it?'

Primmie was so locked into expecting a negative response that at first she didn't register that she hadn't met with one. She was, in fact, beginning to write a shopping list as she waited for the voice on the other end of the telephone to say either that she would telephone back when she'd had the time to check the home's records, or that such information wasn't disclosable.