The Lie of Love Page 3

  ‘If you were hoping for a gourmet meal when you got in you’re going to be sadly disappointed,’ Ged called as Darcy closed the front door behind her and wandered along the hallway to a warm yellow and white furnished kitchen, following the charred smell of burning meat. He stood amongst the debris of a cooking attempt, a striped apron barely covering his broad chest, his cropped dark hair framing a face that was still intelligent and handsome, even in his mid-forties but that today was also distinctly red and flustered. ‘I forgot the chicken was in the oven until Jake told me he thought the fire service needed calling out.’

  Darcy reached up to kiss him. ‘Don’t worry about it. I had meant to be in early enough to start it but I got stuck with Amanda.’

  ‘Oh, yes, the big board meeting. Has she managed to talk you out of this madness?’

  ‘On the contrary, she’s very excited by all this madness and she is dying to get started.’ Darcy picked a stick of raw carrot from a freshly cut pile on the chopping block and bit into it. ‘She thinks it’s a brilliant idea.’

  ‘I might have known she’d be as mental as you. Like peas in a pod, you two.’

  ‘People used to say that about us,’ Darcy said as she took another bite of her carrot stick.

  ‘Yeah, well… one of us had to become the sensible one.’ Ged turned and hauled a blackened looking carcass in a baking dish to the back door. A swift twist of the key unlocked it and he went outside, returning a few seconds later empty handed. ‘It’ll have to sit out there for a bit until it’s cooled enough to throw away. God knows what we’re going to eat now.’

  ‘Where are the kids?’ Darcy asked, too preoccupied to worry about an alternative for their evening meal just yet.

  ‘Upstairs. Jake is skyping or facetiming or whatever it is he does with Brandon for hours on end, and Sophie is in her room watching My Little Pony for the seventieth time this week. They lead thrilling and productive lives, our kids.’

  ‘They’re just kids,’ Darcy said, biting back the irritation from her voice as she left him to go and find them. ‘They’re entitled to be lazy once in a while.’

  ‘Once in a while I wouldn’t mind so much…’ Ged’s voice faded as Darcy climbed the stairs and tuned him out. He was obviously in one of his passive-aggressive moods because he’d been left to start dinner alone and was desperate to engage in an all-out argument without actually appearing as though he was. Half an hour and a bottle of beer would see him calm down enough for her to be able to usher him towards the TV so she could fix some pasta or a salad in relative peace again as he went glassy-eyed in front of the news.

  She’d been a very young twenty-two and he had been a worldly-wise thirty-year-old when they first bumped into each other – literally – on the Cobb, and from the first date she had thought that the proverbial sun shone from his backside and that every word coming from him was a great wisdom. He had travelled the world and she had barely been further than Weymouth. He had studied at university to Masters level and she had flunked out of a catering course at the local college, desperately lost on the vast ocean of life with no idea where she wanted to be. This remarkable man came one day and took her under his wing and she was grateful for it.

  Fifteen years later, she had grown up a lot. More often than not, these days she wished she had pushed him right off the side of the Cobb and into the sea at that fateful meeting. Every passing year that saw Darcy’s yearning to grab life by the scruff of the neck increase saw Ged retreat into the impending twilight of his. It wasn’t a place she was ready to join him at just yet and it was a wedge between them that was becoming too big to ignore. Having children had calmed her for a while, but now they were getting older and would need her less and less – even Sophie’s condition wasn’t preventing her from becoming more independent and, perversely, if this campaign to help her daughter walk was successful Darcy knew she would be signing her own maternal redundancy papers. It wasn’t something she liked to dwell on and she had decided that denying her daughter this chance for such selfish reasons was deeply wrong.

  Popping her head around a door emblazoned with the moniker Sophie’s Room and plastered with curling stickers of brightly coloured and glitter embellished ponies, Darcy found her daughter stretched out on her bed like a piece of limp ribbon, absorbed by the TV screen at the foot of it. Darcy couldn’t help but note the slight but constant griping movement of Sophie’s toes, a sure sign that even at rest and apparently relaxed, Sophie’s muscle spasms were causing her discomfort.

  ‘Sweetie,’ Darcy called softly.

  Sophie turned and gave her a bright smile. ‘I didn’t know you were home.’

  ‘I think a bomb could go off outside and the only thing you’d hear is Pinky Pie planning her next party,’ Darcy smiled as she took a seat at the foot of her bed. ‘I know this is a good bit, but do you mind if we pause it for a moment while I talk to you about something?’

  Sophie pushed herself slowly up to sit. Darcy resisted the urge to assist her, knowing that Sophie wanted to do it herself. Reaching for the remote control at her side, she clicked the programme off and turned expectantly to face Darcy.

  ‘You don’t complain much about your legs, or about the fact that you have to use your wheelchair or sticks whenever you need to get around, but I also know that your legs hurt you more than you tell me they do…’ Darcy began, fighting back tears as the words she spoke made her daughter’s suffering suddenly and painfully real to her. It had become such an everyday trial that she realised most of the time she hardly attached to it the significance it deserved, only planned the practicalities of getting her daughter through life. ‘And your daddy and I want to do something to help you.’

  ‘Is that what you were talking about at dinner last night?’

  ‘Yes. So you know that I think I’ve found a way we can help you?’

  ‘A long way off. Where Disney is.’

  Darcy sniffed and smiled through the blur of her tears. ‘Exactly. Where Disney is. It’s going to be quite hard work to get the money we need to go and even harder work for you when we get there. I want to ask you if that’s ok with you. You’ll be able to walk and run like other children if it all works out.’

  ‘Not exactly like other children.’

  ‘No… but better than you can now. And maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much either.’

  Sophie’s gaze travelled to the window, thoughtful for a moment. ‘Will we be able to go to Disney?’ she asked, turning back.

  Darcy smoothed a hair from her forehead. ‘I’m sure we could manage to squeeze it in before your operation if you really want to go.’

  Sophie nodded eagerly. ‘I want to see all the princesses. And the fireworks. And Mickey Mouse. Taylor went last year with her dad and she said it was amazing.’

  ‘But you want the operation too?’ Darcy asked, worried that the gravity of what she was asking her daughter to do had been lost in the sparkling promise of a magical make-believe kingdom. She desperately needed Sophie to understand, to accept the challenge with her eyes open, because otherwise, Darcy felt it was just another torture that she was imposing on her, and Sophie’s life as it was now seemed to be comprised almost entirely of those. Sophie had not asked to be born as she was, she had not asked to be in constant pain, she had not been given the choice of whether to patiently endure hours of hospital procedures and clinic visits. Just for once, Darcy wanted to be able to offer her a real choice, one that mattered.

  Sophie glanced at a small, compact wheelchair, folded neatly in the corner of the room, and then back at Darcy with her wide blue eyes, full of trust and hope. ‘I’ll be able to walk like Jake?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Darcy grabbed her hand and kissed it. ‘Nobody can promise but we can do our best and so will the doctors. And I would never ask you to try something if there wasn’t a little bit of a good feeling about it, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I’d be able to walk around Disney?’

  ‘One day perhaps. If we went back there aga
in… but not this time.’

  ‘Will Jake come with us? And Daddy?’

  ‘Of course. If we left Daddy at home he’d burn the house down making his supper.’

  Sophie giggled and reached for her remote control. ‘Ok then.’

  ‘That means yes?’

  Sophie clicked a button and tinny music filled the room again. ‘Yes. I want to try to walk.’

  Darcy heaved a sigh of relief. But in many ways, she realised now that the most difficult conversation of that day might just turn out to be the easiest. Now that she had persuaded Amanda, Sophie and half convinced Ged to come on board, she had to speak to her son. Jake had always done his best to be a good boy, but at twelve now, teen hormones beginning to pump around his system and a sister who regularly took every iota of everyone’s attention from him and his own growing pains, Jake was fast becoming a troubled soul. Recently he had been involved in one or two playground incidents and the headmaster of his high school had called Darcy and Ged in to inform them that he was having problems adjusting to school life in what he called ‘the big pond’.

  ‘I’m just going to talk to Jake, and then I’ll make us some dinner that isn’t burnt,’ she said as she rose from the end of Sophie’s bed. ‘So I’ll come and get you when it’s ready.’

  ‘Ok, mummy,’ Sophie replied without looking away from the TV.

  Closing the door softly, Darcy went across the hall to Jake’s room. From behind the closed door she could hear laughter and the tinny voice of his best friend, Brandon, presumably coming from the speakers of his iPad. She knocked gently and pushed open the door.

  ‘Jake… can I have a word?’

  Jake almost rolled his eyes and then seemed to think better of it. He nodded tersely.

  ‘Bran, I’ve got to go for a min,’ he said to the screen of his tablet. Without waiting for a reply, he closed the conversation app.

  ‘I expect you’ve been wondering what your dad and I were discussing yesterday at dinner…’ Darcy began. Jake merely shrugged carelessly.

  ‘Something about going to America for Sophie. I’m cool with that.’

  ‘You don’t know what it is.’

  ‘America will be good though.’

  Darcy pursed her lips. ‘It’s not going to be a holiday, Jake…’

  ‘Yeah, but it’ll be hot and I expect there’ll be a pool coz there are pools everywhere in America and I can tell Brandon that I’ve been to Florida and that’s ok with me.’ As Darcy grappled for an answer, he cut in again. ‘Can we go to Universal Studios?’

  ‘I don’t know… I suppose we might be able to…’

  ‘Cool. No problem then, Mum. Do I have to be with Sophie all the time when she wanders around looking at lame stuff?’

  ‘Jake… it isn’t really the first thing I’ve considered. This trip is about getting Sophie some help first and foremost and if we have time to do other things –’

  ‘That’s alright, I bet Dad will take me if you’re busy with Soph.’ Jake pulled his tablet over and unlocked it with a swipe of his finger, locating the chat app he had been previously using with no effort at all. The next sound was that of the dialling tone, and then Brandon’s voice. ‘Guess what…’ Jake began, ‘we’re going to Florida!’

  ‘Cool…’ Brandon started an enthused reply, but Darcy didn’t get to hear the rest of it. She assumed she had been dismissed from further discussion and left him to it.

  Closing the door behind her, she frowned. She wasn’t sure if Jake had really understood the importance of what they were about to embark on as a family and the pressures it would put them all under. She wasn’t sure either of her children did. Was that a good thing or not? Perhaps, in hindsight, it was. Perhaps she didn’t either, now that she thought about it properly. Perhaps if she really did, she might just run and cover her ears too.

  The next few days saw the weather return to the vaguely disappointing blanket of heavy skies that Britain was more used to seeing in early summer, rather than the forge that had cooked the bay over the previous days. The sea against the Cobb turned from a spangled teal to jagged waves of grey, thundering against the ancient stones as the tide beat its endless cycle of advance and retreat. Darcy, for one, found it a relief. Heat didn’t bring out the best in her, and she had a lot to do so she needed to be at her best. One of those things was a visit to an old friend, or rather, acquaintance, Julia Simmons. True to her word, Amanda had been to see her and had arranged for the three of them to meet over coffee to see what Julia could do for the campaign. Julia had been more than happy to hold the meeting at her house. Darcy had considered more than once the idea that Harry would likely be there, as he was home from university for the summer. She felt strangely disquieted by the idea, though she couldn’t say why.

  ‘Ladies!’ Julia dragged open an oak front door, panelled with ornate panes of stained glass. It looked reclaimed, Darcy thought with the merest hint of envy. This was the sort of front door she’d love to have, rather than the functional plastic that adorned her own frontage, but Ged had always favoured function over what he considered sentimental old-fashioned tat (his exact words). Darcy found it hard to argue; at the end of the day, he paid the bills. ‘How lovely to see you again.’

  Julia pulled the door open further to let them in, unfurling the house’s own peculiar aroma. Darcy had always remarked how every home had its own smell, and in the case of close friends and family, she could almost tell you which home she had arrived at merely by breathing it in, even if she had been taken there blindfolded. From Julia’s dwelling she got beeswax polish, cinnamon, coffee, and the vague mustiness of a very old house.

  Darcy and Amanda followed Julia down the hallway and into a kitchen dominated by a huge red Aga, housed in a nook that must have once been the fireplace. The rest of the room was decorated in muted browns and beiges, rustic looking real wood freestanding units and warm red quarry tiles on the floor. It was a room that looked as though it had not had a facelift for some time, but while it was old and lived in, it also looked scrupulously clean, loved and welcoming. Julia nodded in the direction of an oak dining table and chairs in the centre of the room.

  ‘Take a seat and I’ll get us some coffee… I don’t know about you two, but I simply can’t think straight without caffeine.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ Amanda said as she hung her jacket on the back of her chair and took a seat. After rummaging in her huge handbag for a moment, she produced a pristine blue folder bound with an elastic fasten, the words SOPHIE’S STEPS CAMPAIGN IDEAS emblazoned on the front in precise and stylish handwriting. She placed the folder on the table and clicked on a pen, which she laid across it in readiness. Darcy resisted the impulse to raise her eyebrows. She was more grateful for her friend’s help than she could say, even if it did come with an extra dollop of over-zealous exactness.

  ‘I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you’re getting involved, Julia,’ Darcy said as Julia stood at the sink filling the kettle.

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing. I think it’s a wonderful ambition for little Sophie. There are mothers in this world who don’t give a damn if their children eat or not, so when I run into one who cares enough to make such a grand gesture in a bid to give her child the best future possible, how can I refuse to help?’

  ‘A lot of people would,’ Amanda cut in.

  ‘Well…’ Julia placed the kettle on the base and flicked it on, ‘I’m willing to bet that a lot more people than you imagine will want to help. I don’t think the milk of human kindness has gone off just yet.’

  ‘Just a bit on the turn,’ Amanda grinned.

  ‘You can do wonderful things with milk on the turn,’ Julia laughed. She sat across from them, elbows on the table, chin resting on her fists. For a woman in her fifties, her expression made her look remarkably like a naughty schoolgirl. Darcy could see where her son, Harry, got his smiling blue eyes and dark hair from, although Julia’s was now more steel grey than black. ‘So, where do you see me fitting in with your plans?
’

  ‘We thought you might be able to tell us that,’ Darcy said. ‘Anything you want to do, any time you want to give, any gesture, big or small, is appreciated. Amanda says you’ve done lots of fundraising in the past, so could we perhaps steal an idea or two from other events you’ve done?’

  ‘I’m sure you could. You’d be surprised at how many ways you can dress up a raffle.’ As the kettle clicked off, Julia got up and poured boiling water into a cafetiere already prepped with a healthy dose of rich smelling coffee.

  Just then, the sound of a loud, theatrical yawn came from the kitchen door and Harry appeared, grinning and scratching a hand through his tousled hair. ‘If there’s coffee spare I’ll have some, Mum.’

  Julia looked round and shot a critical look up and down his frame. ‘You can have a cup, but how about you go and get some clothes on when we have visitors.’

  ‘I’ll drink it upstairs if my nakedness bothers you,’ he said lazily, glancing down at his checked boxer shorts, bare feet and naked torso, and then looking back at her with a disinterested raising of his eyebrow. Darcy found herself mesmerised by his lean, bronzed torso, and his next action of running an idle hand down it and scratching in languid circles at his navel had her biting her lip in a bid not to sigh. What was this weird reaction he elicited in her? She had never been the toy boy type before, in fact, she had barely looked at other men whilst she had been married to Ged, but she was suddenly fired by a strange heat when this boy was near.