Barbara Taylor Bradford – Where You Belong (страница 10)

Once he had finished his long speech, I said, ‘I just can’t get away right now. I have to go to London next week, to a memorial service for a fallen colleague, and I’ve also got loads of assignments stacking up.’

I listened again as patiently as possible, and once more I said, ‘I’m sorry, I cannot make the trip at this time. And listen, I really can’t stay on the phone, I have guests and I’ve got to go. Thanks for calling.’ In his typical selfish fashion, determined to get all of his points across, Donald went on blabbering at me, and short of banging the receiver down rudely, I had no option but to hear him out. When he finally paused for breath, I saw my opportunity and jumped in, repeated that I could not leave Europe under any circumstances for the time being. After saying a quick goodbye, I hung up.

Returning to the sofa, I sat down and said, ‘What a nerve! I can’t believe he called me!’

‘Who? And what did he call you about to get you so het up?’

I turned towards Jake and explained, ‘It was my brother Donald calling from New York. To tell me my mother’s not well, I should say his mother, because she’s never been a mother to me. He wanted me to fly to New York. What cheek!’

‘What’s wrong with her? Is she very sick?’

I saw the frown, the baffled almost confused look in his eyes, and I instantly realized that he’d never truly understood the relationship I’d had with my mother. But then how could he understand, when I couldn’t either. From what Jake had told me about himself during the years we’d known each other, he came from a marvellously warm, loving, close-knit Jewish family, and he had been raised with a lot of love, understanding and tremendous support from his parents, grandparents and sisters. Whereas I’d been an orphan within the bosom of the Denning family. If it hadn’t been for my father’s parents, Grandfather in particular, I would have withered away and died a young death from emotional deprivation. I asked myself then why I even thought in terms of having a relationship with Mother, because there had never been a relationship between us.

Iceberg Aggie, my grandfather had called her, and he had often wondered out loud to me what his son, my father, had ever seen in her. She had been very beautiful, of course. Still was, in all probability, although I hadn’t seen her for years, not since my Beirut days.

Cutting into my thoughts, Jake asked me again, ‘Is your mother very ill, Val?’

‘Donald didn’t really explain. All he said was that she wasn’t well and that she had told him she wanted to see me. He was relaying the message for her. But it can’t be anything serious, or he would have told me. Donald’s her pet, Jake, and very much under her thumb. Still, he never fools around with the truth when it comes to her well being, or anything to do with her. He’d definitely have told me if there were real problems, I’ve no doubts about that.’

‘Maybe she wants to make amends,’ Jake suggested, and raised a brow as he added, ‘A rapprochement perhaps?’

I shook my head vehemently. ‘No way. She hasn’t given a damn about me for thirty-one years. And I’m not going to New York.’

‘You could phone her.’

‘There’s nothing to say, Jake. I told you about her years ago.’ I bit my lip and shook my head slowly. ‘I can’t feel anything for a woman who has never felt anything for me.’

Jake did not respond and a long silence fell between us. But at last he broke it, when he said quietly, and with some compassion, ‘Jesus, Val, I’ve never been able to understand that, come to grips with her attitude towards you. It seems so unnatural for a mother not to love her child. I mean, what could she possibly have had against a new-born baby?’

‘Beats me,’ I answered, and lifted my shoulders in a light shrug. ‘My Denning grandparents could never fathom it out either, and as far as my mother’s mother was concerned, I really didn’t know her very well. My grandmother Violet Scott was an enigma to me, and she avoided me.’ I laughed harshly. ‘I used to think I was illegitimate when I was younger, and that my mother had become pregnant by another man before she married my father. But the dates were all wrong, they didn’t gel, because she’d been married to my father for over a year when I was born.’

‘Maybe she slept with somebody else after she married your father,’ Jake suggested.

‘I’ve thought of that as well, but I look too much like my grandmother Cecelia Denning, when she was my age. Grandfather always remarked about it, until the day he died.’

I jumped up and went to the secretaire, pulled open the bottom drawer and took out a cardboard box. Carrying it over to the sofa, I handed it to Jake. ‘Take a look at these,’ I said as I sat down next to him again.

He did so, staring for a few minutes at the old photographs of my grandmother which he had removed from the box. ‘Yes, you’re a Denning all right, and a dead ringer for Cecelia. If it weren’t for her old-fashioned clothes she could be you as you are today.’ He shuffled through the other photographs in the box and chuckled. ‘I took this one!’ he cried, waving a picture at me.

‘Hey, let me see that!’

Still laughing, he handed it to me. I couldn’t help smiling myself, as I stared back at my own image captured on celluloid. There I was in all my glory, standing outside the Commodore Hotel in Beirut, which is where I’d first set eyes on Jake. I was wearing my safari jacket and pants, and a collection of assorted cameras were slung haphazardly around my neck. It was obvious from my solemn expression that I took myself very seriously indeed. I was looking too self-important for words, and I gave a mock shudder. ‘I must have really fancied myself, but God, how awful I looked in those days.’

‘No, you were the most gorgeous thing on two legs I’d ever seen!’ he exclaimed, and then stopped with suddenness; a startled expression crossed his face, as if he had surprised himself with his words. Clearing his throat, Jake returned to the conversation about my mother, when he said, ‘It is very odd, Val, the way your mother has always treated you. With all of your accomplishments, she should be proud of you.’

I sighed, and made a small moue with my mouth. ‘It’s a mystery. And one I have no intention of solving. I just can’t be bothered. Now, how about taking me to dinner?’

CHAPTER FOUR

I

LONDON, SEPTEMBER

With a great deal of effort, I had managed to put the memorial service out of my mind for the last few days, but now that Jake and I were about to depart for it I was experiencing sudden panic. The service loomed large in my mind, and, very simply, I just didn’t want to go. In fact, my reluctance had become so acute it startled me. Later I was to ask myself if I’d had some sixth sense about it, a foreboding of trouble, but I wasn’t sure; I can never be certain about that.

In any event, there I stood waiting for Jake in the handsome panelled lobby of the Milestone, wondering how to gracefully wriggle out of going. Naturally I couldn’t. It was far too late to pull such a trick as that, and besides, I would never let Jake down.

Turning away from the front door, I spotted Jake coming towards me looking tanned and healthy and very smart in his dark suit, and wearing a shirt and tie for a change. But his expression was as sombre as his dark clothes, and he was limping as badly as he had yesterday when we’d arrived at Heathrow in a thunderstorm.

I didn’t dare mention the limp or ask him how he felt, since he’d practically bitten my head off last night when I’d worried out loud about his wounds. Instead I took hold of his arm, leaned into him and kissed his cheek.

He gave me a faint smile and said, ‘Sorry I kept you waiting. Now we’re running late, so we’d better get going, Val.’

I nodded and walked to the front door with him in silence, thinking how morose he was. He had sounded much more cheerful when we’d spoken earlier on the phone. But then he didn’t relish the next few hours any more than I did, I knew that.

The heavens opened up the moment Jake and I started to walk down the front steps of the hotel. The uniformed doorman hurried after us, wielding a large umbrella, and the two of us huddled under it as he led us to the waiting chauffeur-driven car which Jake had ordered last night.

Once we were seated in the car Jake said quietly, ‘It’ll be all right, Val, try not to worry so much. It’ll soon be over.’ Reaching out, he took hold of my hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

I glanced at him and gave him what must have been a rather sickly smile, and noticed the tight set of his lips, his drawn face. ‘You’re dreading the service just as much as I am. We’ve come to London against our better judgement. It’s a terrible mistake.’

‘We had no choice, we had to be here, so let’s just help each other through this as calmly as possible.’

‘Yes,’ I answered and turned my head, stared out of the car window, thinking what an awful, dreary day it was, especially for a memorial. Somehow the relentless rain, penetrating damp, and dark English skies emphasized the mournfulness of the occasion.