The Day She Came Back(34)

Victoria actually threw her head back and let out a snort, shaking her head. ‘No, Gerald. It’s even stranger than that. My actual mum, who it turns out did not die, pitched up after all this time to inform me that she is very much alive.’

‘But I don’t understand!’ He looked a little ashen.

‘That makes two of us.’

‘She’s not dead?’

‘Not even a little bit.’

‘And she came here?’ He was clearly trying to fathom what was going on.

‘She came here and stood by the lake.’

‘Are you sure she is your mother?’ He asked the most obvious question.

Victoria nodded. ‘Absolutely positive.’ She found his expression of complete and utter disbelief comforting. It proved to her that she was right to be outraged, upset and defiant because it was the worst bloody thing imaginable!

‘But, I don’t . . . why did . . . how does . . .?’ he floundered.

‘Trust me, all the questions that are whizzing around your head right now have been whizzing around mine since I found out.’

‘Why would Prim say she had died if she hadn’t, and why would your mother agree to it?’

She shrugged. ‘Who knows, Gerald? That’s the big question.’

‘Well, I never did.’ Gerald shook his head and gave a long sigh. ‘As if you don’t have enough to deal with right now, Miss Victoria.’

‘Tell me about it.’ Victoria stared at the fireplace and thought about Christmas when she was six.

‘I wish I had my mummy here with me . . .’

‘I know, darling, but she’s like that angel on top of the tree, watching over you . . .’

‘I must say, I don’t know what to think,’ Gerald sighed. ‘I don’t know where to start with this. It’s . . . it’s wonderful terrible.’

‘I guess it is.’ Wonderful terrible. ‘My head is swirling constantly.’ She rubbed her temples.

‘I bet. Where does your mother live? Locally?’

‘No. Oslo.’

‘Oslo!’ He gasped loudly, as if this revelation was worse than the first. ‘Goodness me!’

‘Prim used to say that lies rankle, because the person lying to you thinks you are stupid enough to fall for it. I always thought I was smart, turns out I wasn’t.’

He whipped his head towards her. ‘You are smart, Victoria, and you will find a way to figure it out. Life has thrown you a curve ball and it’s knocked you off your feet, but you’ll get back up again. You will.’

She hated that she cried, wanting to rage, wanting to get mad, but tears hauled her back to square one, leaving her lost and bereft and with the weight of loneliness crushing the breath out of her. Gerald patted her arm.

‘Don’t cry, dear. Don’t cry. Prim would not want you to cry.’

‘You don’t know that! You don’t know what Prim would or would not want because you didn’t know her – how could you? I lived with her every day of my life and even I didn’t know her!’

‘I know she loved you. I know she loved you very much.’

‘How?’ she fired. ‘Because she told you that? Because, let’s face it, she told me lots of things that weren’t true – like the fact that my mum had died but she hadn’t!’

‘No, she was living in Oslo,’ he mused, and for some reason this made Victoria laugh while her tears continued to fall.

‘Yes, she was living in Oslo.’

‘I’m going to leave you to it.’ He stood. ‘I think you need to be alone with your thoughts, but you know where I am if you need me. On the end of the phone. Day or night.’

‘Day or night,’ she acknowledged through her tears.



‘I’m not sure we need a fire, Daks. It’s not that cold.’ Victoria watched from the corner of the sofa as her friend took great care in twisting rips of newspaper into spills and placing them under small shards of firewood that Bernard-the-traitor-spy-handyman had some time ago prepared and piled into the log baskets on either side of the fire in the drawing room.

‘It’s not about cold.’ Daksha drew her from her thoughts. ‘It’s about cosy. Plus, I can’t tell you how much I love a real fire. In our house, if we want a fire my dad presses a button on a remote control and a flame whooshes along a glass panel and hey presto! But this’ – she now ran her fingers over the gnarled bunch of dried twigs in her hands – ‘this is old school.’

‘I guess.’ Victoria curled her feet under her legs and pulled her favourite soft, pink blanket from the arm of the chair, placing it over her legs. It seemed she lived in her denim cut-offs right now, as if aware that the warm days would be ending soon. Daksha was right; it was a night for cosy. Mrs Joshi had dropped off a chicken dish that was simmering in the bottom oven. The subtle smell from coconut and spices wafted from the kitchen, enough to make her mouth water – quite a feat, considering her recent lack of appetite. Her ribs, she noted, were a little more pronounced than she was used to, her jaw sharper. Being slim meant there was no spare weight for when illness or the lack of desire to eat struck. She had never been a girl who strived for skinny.

‘You’ve been quiet today. I’m worried about you,’ her friend levelled.