The Moment She Left (36 page)

If it was going to be a bigger affair he’d better call now to let them know.

It was feeling eerily quiet, almost other-worldly, as Andee drove along the avenue of limes towards Burlingford Hall. No one was around; the grounds staff had taken the day off to attend the funeral, and were now at Jessica and Matt’s favourite beach bar for the celebration of her life.

The church service had proved memorable in every way with so many young people taking part, reading poems they’d chosen specially, or even written themselves, and joining with Matt to perform some of Jessica’s favourite songs. Somehow Andee had managed to hold it together, desperate not to break down in front of her mother, who’d insisted on coming, but then something had happened that she knew she would never forget. Matt had been partway through performing a duet with a recording of Jessica singing ‘Fields of Gold’ when he’d suddenly found himself unable to continue. He took a breath, but nothing seemed to help, until his parents came to stand either side of him and together the three sang, with Jess, to the end of the song. Andee had never seen anything so brave or so moving. Even the minister had wiped away a tear, while the rest of the gathering broke into a
spontaneous repeat of the chorus before Blake and his family returned to their seats.

After the service Andee’s mother had intended to return home, but Blake and Jenny had persuaded her to attend the celebration, and when Andee had last seen her she, Rowzee and Pamela, much to the youngsters’ delight, had been showing off their skills on the dance floor. She’d have willingly joined in, along with Jenny and Graeme’s nieces who were frantically waving her over, had she not promised to go and see Charles and Gina before they left this evening.

‘I’ll call when I’m leaving the Hall,’ she’d told Graeme as he walked her outside, ‘and if the party’s still going I’ll come back.’

‘Andee,’ Blake called out, coming up behind her. ‘Can I have a word?’

Clearly sensing that Blake wanted to talk privately, Graeme excused himself and returned to the party.

‘I couldn’t imagine giving up on her,’ Blake said when they were alone. ‘As her father, it just wasn’t something I was able to do, even when the police seemed to.’

Remembering how it had been for her own father, for her and her mother too, Andee squeezed his hand. ‘You were right not to give up,’ she told him. ‘I’m glad you didn’t.’

Looking deeply into her eyes he asked softly, ‘Does there ever come a time when you do?’

She nodded. ‘For the sake of your own sanity you have to, but two years wasn’t so very long. In my family’s case it’s been over thirty, so we’ve had to let go.’
Not always successfully, she didn’t add, because it was something he didn’t need to know.

‘Thank you for not turning me away,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have known how to carry on alone, and whatever you say about Rowzee finding her, which of course she did, it was you who connected the name Yoder to Stamfield, and you who he finally confessed to.’

Guessing the police had told him that, Andee watched him kick a stray football back to a group of children and smiled as he looked at her again.

‘Have you seen Stamfield since?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she replied.

He turned to gaze at the blinding sunlight on the waves, the swoop and soar of gulls over the bay. ‘Is that where you’re going now?’ he finally managed, bringing his eyes back to hers.

Deciding not to deny it, she said, ‘I know it probably doesn’t help, and you’ll say he deserves it, but he’s suffering terribly for what he did. We’ve all seen how viciously he’s been attacked by the media, but even they won’t be making him feel as bad as he’s made himself feel since it happened.’

He swallowed hard as he said, ‘Maybe it does help to know that. If she hadn’t mattered to him, if he’d gone on living his life as though nothing had happened . . .’ There was a tightness to his features, an edge to his voice that did more to express his feelings than the words he was struggling to find.

Understanding, she glanced back to the bar as she said, ‘I think they’re calling for you.’

Still holding on to her hand, he said, ‘Tell Stamfield from me . . .’ He broke off, shaking his head. ‘I have nothing to say to him. Nothing at all.’

Now, as Andee pulled up outside the Hall, she was recalling those words and understanding their meaning – there could be no forgiveness at this time, and probably none later either.

By the time she got out of the car the main front door was opening, and to her surprise it was Lydia who came to greet her. She was a tall, arrestingly attractive young woman with her mother’s striking colouring and her father’s deep-set intelligent eyes. Her air of confidence and sophistication had always made her seem a good ten years older than she was, but today, with so much grief and confusion in her heart, she looked much closer to her actual age of twenty-five.

‘Thank you for coming,’ she said, throwing her arms around Andee. ‘It’s been awful here with the two of them. I hardly know what to do.’

Certain it couldn’t be easy, Andee said, ‘It’ll mean a lot to them that you’re here.’

Lydia nodded. ‘You’re right, I think it does. You’ve been told, I take it, that my mother is just as much to blame for keeping it to herself?’

Yes, Andee had been told, though apparently Gina hadn’t actually known where Jessica was. She’d also learned that Gina was the mysterious blackmailer who’d sent the money on to Blake and his family. Since she wasn’t sure if that part of it had reached Lydia yet she decided not to mention it.

‘I can’t imagine what they were thinking,’ Lydia ran on emotionally. ‘Clearly not about the poor girl, or her family who they were completely destroying. It goes to show that you never know anyone as well as you think you do, because never in my life would I have imagined my own parents doing something like that.’

‘How are they?’ Andee asked gently.

Lydia’s eyes closed as she took a breath. ‘No better than you’d expect. I’m worried for Dad. He could be heading for another breakdown, and though some might say it’s no less than he deserves he’s still my father and I can’t help caring.’

‘No one would expect you not to.’

Lydia’s eyes remained bleak as they travelled out across the gardens where she’d spent so many happy times as a child. ‘They’re selling up,’ she stated. ‘Four generations this place has been in our family, but no one will want them here now.’

Saddened by the truth of that, Andee said, ‘Where will they go?’

‘To London, tonight. They’ll leave for the States as soon as they can after his court hearing, provided he doesn’t go to prison, but the lawyer doesn’t seem to think that’ll happen. A suspended sentence at worst, is what they’re predicting. Imagine what an uproar the press will get into over that. They’ll probably make it look like he’s managed to get away with murder.’

Suspecting she was right, Andee said, ‘And what about you? What are you going to do now?’

Steadying herself with a breath, Lydia said, ‘I’m staying on here for a while to take care of things. What a
nightmare it’s going to be, working out some kind of marketing strategy to make the place saleable.’

‘And after?’ Andee prompted.

Lydia’s eyes came back to hers. ‘I shall return to the refugees in crisis, if I can. The Stamfield scandal’s made front pages in the States too, it’s gotten more coverage than anything I can drum up for our relief efforts, so I’ve no idea if my job will still be open. As for a future in politics . . .’ She shrugged, as if there were no hope of that at all.

‘I hadn’t realised you had ambitions in that direction.’

Lydia’s smile held no humour. ‘I’m now revising them.’ After a beat she said, ‘Have you seen the drop in Dad’s company’s share price? Fifteen per cent already. They’ve asked for his resignation, naturally, so there goes his job along with his reputation, his health, his home, his heritage even.’

Feeling for her anger and helplessness, Andee said, ‘Things will die down, you know . . .’

‘Until they’re dragged up again to throw in his face, or mine, or Mum’s every time one of us raises our head . . . It’s like a repeat of Chappaquiddick, only worse. My father let two years go by before telling anyone he’d gone off the road with a girl in the car, at least Ted Kennedy fessed up the next day.’

But it had still ended his presidential hopes, and the scandal had dogged him for the rest of his life. There was no denying that, and the similarities of the two cases hadn’t passed Andee by, even if the Stamfield family wasn’t quite as high profile as the Kennedys.

In a softer tone, Lydia said, ‘How was the funeral?’

‘Very moving,’ Andee replied, knowing she would have expected no less.

Lydia swallowed as her eyes filled with tears. ‘I wish I could reach out to the Leonards,’ she said brokenly, ‘but I realise I’m the last person they’d want to hear from.’

Wishing she wasn’t right, Andee said, ‘Everything changes over time.’

Appearing unsure whether to believe that, Lydia seemed to pull herself together as she said, ‘We should go inside. They’re waiting for you.’

Though really not looking forward to this, Andee followed her into the vestibule, taking out her mobile as it rang with the intention of turning it off. However, seeing it was Graeme she excused herself and clicked on.

‘Is everything all right?’ she asked, sensing already that it wasn’t.

‘It’s Rowzee,’ he told her. ‘We’re on our way to A & E.’

A whole week might have gone by since they’d carted her off to hospital in a panic, but Rowzee was still feeling quite impatient with everyone. Fancy creating all that fuss on such an important day for Blake and his family, when everything should have been about them and Jessica and nothing else. She felt dreadful about it now and she hoped Pamela did too. She’d only had a little absence attack, for heaven’s sake, nothing to get so excited about. However, Pamela excelled at turning a drama into a crisis, even though she, Rowzee, had been perfectly all right by the time she’d been stuffed into a wheelchair to get her into A & E. So what if she hadn’t been able to smile when she’d first gone floppy, or properly raise her arm, she’d soon got the hang of it, and at least it had made Graeme laugh when she’d kept grinning at him like a Halloween pumpkin the whole time they were waiting to be seen.

Pamela hadn’t seen the funny side at all, and realising how frightened she was, Rowzee had stopped acting up and held her hand instead, squeezing it regularly to show her own was working.

It turned out she’d probably had an ischaemic transient attack (she wasn’t sure it was that way round, but it probably all amounted to the same thing), which was a kind of mini-stroke, and not very serious. So they’d given her a quick check over, had a good laugh at some trips down memory lane since two of the nurses were ex-students, and then they’d sent her off home with the recommendation that she pop to see her GP in the next couple of days. The only mention made of Mr Mervin was when a very young doctor had said she’d be contacting him about the episode and he would probably be in touch. Fortunately neither Graeme nor Pamela had been in the cubicle at that point – she’d already banished them just in case her history was brought up – so she’d had no awkward questions to answer on that front. She’d also been able to inform the young doctor that she already had an appointment scheduled with Mr Mervin for the following Monday.

That appointment had now happened, and had gone on for much longer than she’d expected, thanks to all her questions and the careful notes she’d made of the surgeon’s answers to make sure she wouldn’t forget what she was being told. He was such a patient man, giving her all the time she’d needed, and the way he explained things made them sound so straightforward – which they probably were for him – that she hadn’t felt worried at all. Well, that wasn’t true, she’d felt worried out of her mind if the truth were told, and still did, but thankfully her acting skills remained well honed so no one would ever know.

Now, with all her ducks in a row, so to speak, she was ready to have a sit-down with Pamela and Graeme to tell them about her cancer. She’d invited Bill to join them, since he had a knack of calming Pamela down when she started going off the deep end – something Graeme was quite gifted at too, but considering the nature of her news Rowzee had decided that Graeme shouldn’t be trying to deal with both sisters at once. She’d also thought of inviting Andee, as a kind of ally, until she’d remembered that no one was her enemy and much as she’d like Andee to feel a part of their family, there were probably better ways of going about it.

‘You’re making me nervous,’ Pamela accused irritably as Bill carried a tray of coffee to the table and set it down.

‘Who, me?’ he retorted, amazed.

‘No, Rowzee. What’s all this about?’ she demanded, glaring at Rowzee’s notebook. ‘Are we here for a reading of your new novel?’

As Rowzee’s eyes met Graeme’s they both smiled, but she could tell he was anxious too, and in response to that she felt a scurry of butterflies in her tummy. ‘How long are the boys staying?’ she asked him. ‘It meant a great deal to Matt, you know, that they came back for the funeral. Are they still spending a lot of time with him?’

‘Quite a bit,’ Graeme replied. ‘There’s been a noticeable bonding between the town’s young people since Jessica was found, which has been a tremendous help to Matt.’

She wanted to ask how Blake and Jenny were too, but she realised she couldn’t keep putting off the inevitable, so she took the coffee Bill was passing and opened her notebook. Blake and Jenny were already back at work, she remembered, Blake restoring the antiques, with Jenny helping out in the shop again and teaching piano three evenings a week. How brave they were, and how marvellous that Jenny was finally getting help for her depressions. There was a lot Rowzee needed to discuss with them, but she’d best not dwell on that now, since Pamela had just reminded her again that they were waiting.

‘OK,’ Rowzee began, putting on a smile, and feeling tempted to say
Once upon a time,
to try and lighten things. Refraining, she said, ‘There’s not really an easy way of telling you this, so I thought I should come to the point right away. I’m afraid I have a tumour in my brain, which they’ve discovered is a secondary cancer, so there isn’t a cure.’ There, as nutshells went, that was a pretty good one, she thought, as Graeme’s face paled and Pamela’s collapsed in shock.