The Day She Came Back(93)

‘That would be fine.’

‘All right then.’ Sarah sounded positively perky at the thought. ‘Oh, before I forget, Vidar has been asking after you.’

‘Oh yeah?’ She tried to sound casual as her heart boomed in her chest. ‘I like Vidar.’

‘Yes, I told him as much.’

‘You did not!’

‘No, but I thought about it. He asked if I might give him your number. I said I would ask you first, of course.’

‘I guess you could.’ She tried to sound casual about it, hiding the whoop of delight in her gut at the prospect of him getting in touch.

‘Okay, well, night night, Victoria.’

‘Night night, Sarah.’

There was a second of silence after they stopped speaking, but the call was still connected, and it was in that moment of quiet that the most was said. It was no more than a crackle on the line, faint with their breathing, which spoke of hope, and of the future. Victoria ended the call and went inside, closing and locking the French doors behind her, expertly fixed by Bernard-the-handyman. She looked back through the glass up into the night sky.

‘The same moon.’ She spoke aloud and smiled.

Having clicked off the lights, she made her way up to the second-floor bathroom, where she decided to run a deep, hot bath. And as she sank under the bubbles she felt a sense of contentment that was alien to her, and with the contentment came clarity.

Victoria made a decision.

This was her one life, and she was not about to waste a second of it. She looked at the shadow of the vast oak tree outside the window and thought of her daddy’s words, written by Sarah in a letter: ‘. . . hate and recrimination are big things and if you let them fill you up it brings you the opposite of peace because if you hate it takes all of your energy – and that’s such a waste; how can you live life weighed down like that?’

‘You can’t live like that, Dad, can you? You can’t, and I won’t.’ Again, she spoke aloud, hoping her words went all the way up to heaven.



It was mid-morning on October the twelfth as Victoria sat in the back of the taxi and saw the number flash up on her phone for the third time that morning.

It was Sarah. She pressed the little red icon denying the call as she sighed; to speak to her right now would be no good at all. In fact, it would ruin everything.

Messages from Daksha and Mrs Joshi had come in bright and early, along with the obligatory jokes about her age, and with birthday cake emojis tagged on for good measure. Even Gerald had popped a card in the post, which she opened, noting it was a scene of the Lake District, the same he had sent in sympathy when Prim had died. She set it on the kitchen table.

Victoria,

Rave on.

Gerald X

It made her laugh far more than it should have. And Bernard-the-handyman had picked her a bunch of flaming orange dahlias and set them in a vase in the garden room. She liked to hear him pottering, going quietly about the chores that kept Rosebank ticking over, just as he always had.

Nineteen! She missed Prim today with an ache in her heart, knowing she would have come down the stairs to a smartly laid breakfast table and her favourite pancakes with lemon and sugar.

‘I miss you, Prim.’ She closed her eyes and pictured her glamorous gran.

The cab pulled over in the busy street and Victoria climbed out, hitching her carpetbag up on to her shoulder. She paid the driver before pushing on the door of the building and walking inside, where she trod the shiny marble floor and took the lift up to the fourth floor.

The first thing she noticed as she stepped out into the space was that the reception was busy. Two sofas pushed into a corner were crowded with people and a low table in front of them was home to stacks of magazines. Victoria waited for the man behind the front desk to finish his call. And she thought of Jens – the man with a list of wishes for the wife he so loved . . .

‘Sorry to keep you waiting. How can I help you?’

‘I am here to see Sarah Hansen.’

‘Right, do you have an appointment?’

‘I don’t, but if you could tell her that I am here.’

The man picked up the phone, she assumed to make the call.

‘Who shall I say is here?’

She looked up from the front desk and saw a glass-fronted room, and standing in it was Sarah, the shape of her so familiar, one she had known since before she was born. Sarah was busy with papers on a desk, but as if called by a sixth sense she looked up and stared through the glass. Victoria saw her reach for the edge of the desk, as if needing to steady herself.

The two held each other’s gaze, and Victoria could not help the swell of tears that she did nothing to hide. Sarah, too, she noticed, although she was in her place of work, let her distress fall and yet smiled through the sadness, because she recognised what this was. It was the middle of the bridge, the place they met where the past was left behind, and from that point on they knew they would journey forward together.

Victoria’s own words came back to her now, words uttered at a time when her head was spinning with confusion. ‘I always thought that if it was ever possible to meet my mum, in heaven or whatever, I would run to her and fall into her arms and she would hold me tight and we’d never let each other go. And it would feel like coming home . . .’

‘Sorry, could I ask?’ the man pushed. ‘Who shall I say is here?’