Joss Wood - With Love From Cape Town

She handed the phone to Ella. ‘It’s Daddy, he wants to speak to you.’

Robina busied herself setting the table, smiling to herself as she caught Ella’s side of the conversation. ‘I love you too, Daddy, and I’m sending you a big kiss down the phone.’ She puckered her lips and blew down the mouthpiece. She giggled at something Niall said. ‘I got your kiss, Daddy, but what about one for Mummy? She needs one too. Hold on a minute, I’ll get her for you.’ Ella turned to Robina. ‘Here, Mummy, Daddy wants to send you a kiss goodnight.’

Robina stared at the receiver, horrified. What could she do? She couldn’t very well refuse—what would Ella think? With a thudding heart, she held the phone to her ear.

‘Well,’ Niall said dryly, ‘are you going to blow me a kiss?’

‘You first, darling,’ Robina replied, forcing her tone to remain light, painfully aware of Ella watching her with delight.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Niall replied, his voice echoing his embarrassment down the wire. ‘That daughter of mine is too smart for her own good. Okay—here goes.’ He made a smacking noise. ‘Now your turn—and remember you’ve got an audience.’

Robina couldn’t help smiling. Niall was right, it was ridiculous, but there was something bitter-sweet about it too. She pursed her lips, emphasising the required smacking sound, playing up to the watching Ella. ‘Mmmmmwhah!’

They both laughed and for the first time in months Robina felt her sadness ease.

When she put the phone down, Ella asked, ‘When will Daddy be home?’

‘After you’re asleep, darling,’ Robina answered. ‘But he’ll be here when you get up in the morning. We both will, so we can have breakfast together.’

‘Then after that can we go ice-skating? Please, Mummy. Sophie went with her mummy and daddy and they had so much fun.’

Robina kissed the top of her stepdaughter’s curly blonde head. She was so like her father it made her heart ache. But her blonde hair must have come from her mother. The sloe-eyed Mairead. Beautiful, maternal Mairead who had been everything she wasn’t.

‘Sure we can, as long as Daddy doesn’t have to work. I know tomorrow is Saturday, but sometimes his patients need him.’

‘ I need him,’ Ella persisted. ‘He’s my daddy, not theirs.’

Robina hid a smile. ‘But he’s helping lots of people become mummies and daddies—you understand that, don’t you? People who without his help would never know how wonderful it is to have a lovely little girl like you.’

‘I s’pose,’ Ella said, settling herself in the crook of Robina’s arm. ‘But I need some time with my daddy. They can’t have him all the time. Just some of the time.’

Robina’s heart ached for the little girl. Although their work made enormous demands on both of them, they had to find time to spend with Ella. They had promised her and it was about time they made good on their word. Although Mrs Tobin was great and Ella loved her to bits, it wasn’t the same as having her parents around.

Robina made up her mind. The documentary would take three months, including the follow-up of patients in nine months’ time. The new season of her show wasn’t due to start for a couple of months. Her last book was selling well, and she had almost finished the proofs of her latest. She would put off starting a new one until after the summer. That way she’d have more time to spend with Ella. Robina sucked in her breath. She couldn’t blame Niall for everything that had gone wrong with their marriage. She had, as he had pointed out, been so immersed in her new career she hadn’t given her new marriage, or Niall, the time and attention it had needed. When things had started to go wrong, had she been too quick to lay the blame at Niall’s feet? One thing was for sure, she couldn’t keep going the way she was with a show and book tours and still have enough time for Ella, let alone her marriage. The more she thought about it, the more she wondered why she hadn’t seen it before.

‘Why don’t we ask Daddy whether we can do something next weekend? Just the three of us? We can do anything you like,’ she suggested to Ella.

‘Could we really?’ Ella said, looking up at her with achingly familiar blue eyes. ‘Daddy too?’

‘Yes, darling,’ Robina promised. ‘Daddy too.’

But Robina didn’t get the chance to discuss it with Niall that night. She waited up, reading a book on the sofa of her small sitting room. The room was still exactly the way Mairead had left it, all pale walls and deep rugs. Even the overfilled sofas were pale and there was a wood-burning stove for the cool evenings. The only item Robina had brought with her from her old life was an African stool. She stretched out a finger and felt the deep grooves of the intricate carving. Her father had given her the stool when she had graduated. It had belonged to his father, who had been a master wood cutter, and Robina cherished it. Every time she touched it, she thought of the village where her father had been raised in the old African traditions and could almost feel the heat of the sun and hear the undulating voices of the women as they called to each other. How she missed Africa and especially her mother and grandmother.

Sighing, she glanced around the room that had belonged to her predecessor. The walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. It seemed that along with a similar taste in men, she and Mairead shared the same literary taste. All her favourites were on the bookshelf, from the classics to the contemporary romances she liked to read before bed. Unfortunately, reading them only made her acutely aware of the lack of romance in her own life.

Despite her best intentions, she was unable to stop herself falling asleep and woke to find Niall covering her gently with a blanket. Still half dreaming, she smiled up at him and went straight back to sleep but not before she thought she felt his fingertips like a caress against her skin.

‘YOU’RE cutting it a little fine, aren’t you?’ Niall said the next evening, glancing at his watch.

Robina had almost forgotten about the charity dinner she had promised to attend. Although it was the last thing she felt like doing, she knew they were expected. She had been called in to work for an unexpected meeting and still hadn’t managed to speak to Niall about the promise she had made to Ella.

‘I can get ready in half an hour if need be. Ella will be in bed before then. Won’t you, darling?’

Niall scooped his daughter into his arms and tickled her until Ella was shrieking with laughter.

Robina watched them for a few moments with an ache in her heart. ‘I’ll start running the bath, shall I?’

As she switched on the taps in the bathroom that had once been Mairead’s, her thoughts turned, as they inevitably did, to her loveless marriage. At least loveless as far as Niall was concerned, she mused, but how did she feel? She had loved him once, loved him so much that she’d thought she’d burst with it. She’d been so happy, never suspecting for one minute how easily it would all come crashing down about her.

Hearing footsteps behind her and the deep growl of Niall’s voice as he teased his daughter, Robina blinked furiously lest he see the moisture in her eyes. She couldn’t bear him to know that she still cared. All she had left was her pride and she was damned if she would let him take that too.

Niall strode into the bathroom and deposited his giggling daughter gently on the bathroom floor.

‘I’ll leave you to it while I get changed,’ he said. Robina ached, knowing that he couldn’t bear to be in close proximity to her. ‘I suppose I have to come?’ he added. ‘Couldn’t you ask someone else to accompany you? I have something I’d really prefer to be doing this evening.’