Anne Mather - Snowfire

But now she feigned an interest in the flowers Sally had planted in the borders. The rain-soaked garden showed little of the colour it had flaunted earlier in the summer. The last time Olivia was here they had all had tea on the lawn …

She glanced at the boy beside her, more concerned about him than about his mother’s flowers. What was he really thinking? she wondered. Was he wishing he had gone with his parents on that fated day trip to Paris? He looked so pale and drawn, his sandy hair, which always seemed to need cutting, straggling over the collar of his dark suit.

If only they had made her his guardian, she thought helplessly. At fifteen, a boy needed to know who he was; he needed roots. Everything he knew and loved was here in Paget. He knew no one in the United States. He hadn’t even been to Florida for a holiday.

’Do I have to go?’

The low, impassioned words were uncannily like an echo of her own thoughts, and Olivia wondered if he could read her mind. Certainly her association with the Brennans had always been a close one, and only in the last couple of years, since she had gone to live and work in London, had their friendship suffered because of the separation.

Of course, it was his mother with whom Olivia had had the most in common, she acknowledged. She had been ten when Keith and Sally Brennan had moved into the big old house next to her grandmother’s cottage. And, from the beginning, she had been a welcome visitor there. Naturally the fact that the Brennans had also had a baby son had been a great attraction, but as Olivia grew older it was Sally who had shared all the hopes and fears of her teenage years.

Olivia had hardly known her own parents. They had been involved in a car accident when she was little more than a baby herself, and although her mother had lingered on in the hospital for several weeks after the crash there had never been any real hope of her recovering consciousness. In consequence, Olivia’s paternal grandmother had taken her to live with her and, although Mrs Holland had done her best, she had been too used to living alone to have much patience with a lively toddler.

That was why Olivia felt such an enormous sense of empathy with Conor now. She had known him since he was two years old. She had watched him grow from a mischievous schoolboy into a confident teenager. She had combed his hair and scrubbed his knees, and sometimes told him off. And lately she had teased him about his girlfriends: the procession of budding Madonnas who hung around outside his gate. He was the closest thing to a nephew she was ever likely to have, and she was going to miss him badly.

’I—think so,’ she answered now, finding it difficult to say the words with his anxious eyes upon her. She struggled to sound optimistic. ‘Look at it this way—it’ll be a fresh start. And—where your Uncle Philip lives sounds really beautiful. Imagine being able to swim all the year round!’

’I don’t want to go.’ Conor’s response was desperate. ‘I want to stay here. Why can’t I stay here? This house is mine now, isn’t it?’

’Well, yes, but—–’

’There you are, then.’

’Conor, you can’t stay here alone!’ It wasn’t as if her grandmother still lived next door. Last year Mrs Holland had had a stroke, and she had been moved into a retirement home. The cottage had been sold, and Sally had said they hardly knew the new occupants.

’Why can’t I?’ he demanded now. ‘I’ve stayed here on my own before.’

’Not for weeks you haven’t,’ replied Olivia flatly, finding it impossible to sustain his cornered gaze. ‘Conor, you’re only fifteen—–’

’Sixteen,’ he interrupted her swiftly. ‘I’ll be sixteen in three months.’

’No, Conor.’

’Then why can’t I come and live with you?’ he demanded, seizing on the idea. ‘I wouldn’t get in your way, honestly. I could get a job—–’

’Conor …’ She sighed. ‘Conor, you have to finish your education. It’s what your parents would have wanted.’

’In Florida!’ His lips twisted.

’Yes.’ Olivia knew she had to be firm.

Conor sniffed. ‘I see.’

’Oh, don’t say it like that.’ She couldn’t bear his defeated stare. ‘If there was anything I could do—–’

’—you’d do it. I know.’ But Conor sounded horribly cynical. ‘I’m sorry. I should have realised. You’re going to be a hotshot lady lawyer! The last thing you need is a raw kid hanging around your apartment, cramping your style, when you bring clients home—–’

’Conor, I don’t have an apartment, and you know it,’ she protested weakly. ‘I have a room in a house that I share with three other women. It’s just a bed-sit, really. And there’s no way you could live there.’

’Well, why can’t you get something bigger? Something we could share? I’d help with the rent—–’

’No, Conor.’ Olivia squashed that idea once and for all. ‘I’m not your guardian,’ she explained gently. ‘Your Uncle Philip is. Even … even if it were possible—which it’s not,’ she put in hurriedly, ‘he wouldn’t allow you to stay with me.’

’And aren’t you glad?’ Conor’s expression changed to one of bitterness. He swung away from her, thrusting aggressive hands into his trouser pockets, rounding his shoulders against an unforgiving fate. ‘I bet you can’t wait to get in your car and drive away from all this, can you?’ he exclaimed scornfully. ‘It’s not your problem, so why get involved? I don’t know what you came here for. You can’t help, so why didn’t you stay away?’

’Oh, Conor!’

Olivia’s composure broke at last, and, as if her grief was all that was needed to drive a wedge through his crumbling defiance, he turned back to her. For a few tense moments he just stared at her, and she saw the glitter of tears on lashes several shades darker than his hair. Then, with a muffled groan, he flung himself into her arms.

He was shaking. She could feel it. And his thin, boyish frame seemed even bonier than she remembered. One of the neighbours had told her he hadn’t eaten a thing since he had learned that the plane carrying his mother and father to Paris had exploded over the Channel. He had borne it all bravely, but inside it was eating him up.

’I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he muttered at last, dragging himself away from her. He rubbed the back of his hand across his cheek, looking at her rather shamefacedly. ‘I’ve wet the collar of your blouse.’

’It doesn’t matter.’ Olivia wished the dampness she could feel against her neck was all she had to worry about. ‘I just wish there was something I could do. Your mother was my best friend. I don’t want to let you down.’

Conor’s lashes drooped to veil eyes that were presently a watery shade of green. He had long lashes for a boy, and they did a successful job of hiding his feelings. Dear God, why had this had to happen? The Brennans had been such a close family. They had come to live in Paget when Keith, who was a physiotherapist, got an appointment at the hospital in nearby Dymchurch. Sally, meanwhile, had been content doing social work and looking after her garden, and Conor had been the centre of their universe …

’What time are you leaving?’ he enquired abruptly, and she guessed what it must have cost him to ask that question. But he knew, as well as she did, that it would take her some time to drive back to London. And now that the nights were drawing in again …

’Um—pretty soon,’ Olivia answered now, putting out her hand to brush a thread of lint from his jacket, and then withdrawing it again as he flinched away from her touch. She linked her hands together instead in an effort to control her own anguish, and glanced behind her. ‘I—you will write and let me know your address, won’t you? You know where I live, and I’m looking forward to hearing all about Port Douglas.’