Karen Aldous - The Vineyard

‘Oh I’m so sorry. Hi. Sorry didn’t mean to intrude.’ Their eyes remained locked for so long it became uncomfortable and Lizzie felt a blush rise to her cheeks. She prayed he hadn’t noticed.

‘Oh Cal, this is my daughter Lizzie,’ her mother broke in. ‘Rather a surprise visit,’ she added, acknowledging the fact, really only to herself.

‘Pleased to meet you Lizzie’ he said, offering his hand to her.

She struggled to find breath to reply as her hand automatically lifted to his in response.

‘Hello.’

‘Lizzie, this is Cal. He has a project here for a while.’

Lizzie prized her eyes away from him, seeing her mother’s eyes avert swiftly and her mouth twitch. Peering back she forced a fleeting smile as Cal made a polite nod to depart and she watched as his head butted the door whilst his sultry steel grey eyes failed to steal themselves away. She almost laughed but the room was deathly quiet and she daren’t even breathe in the silence for fear her heart would pound its way out of her chest. Tension crowded the room as he peered back at her mother and she quickly concluded they had something to hide. Lovers possibly?

‘I can’t stop now. See you again soon I hope.’ Cal said, cutting the strained atmosphere as he forced his feet back into his boots before trundling off back through the lobby. Lizzie then breathed out, releasing the blood back to her heart. Here, in the home that she grew up, just a few feet away from her was the most gorgeous man she had ever clapped eyes on. His smile, ripe plum lips revealing just enough of the beautiful set of teeth beneath, was tantalising. Who was he, she wondered. Just her luck if this man was her mother’s boyfriend, lover or husband maybe? Definitely a ‘toy boy’ though. He can’t be any more than thirty five! The thought of her puritanical mother breaking one of her own sacred rules, tut, tut! She sniggered to herself.

Caroline ran to the door and called out to Cal before he’d walked very far. He turned back as ordered. She spoke softly and Lizzie couldn’t quite hear; she thought she heard ‘maybe by Friday’. She now felt like an intruder. Caroline’s body language wasn’t subtle as she flicked her head backwards to point to her. Lizzie found herself fidgeting with a coaster on the table trying to appear unconcerned. Was she invading their love nest? As she dared to snatch a peek up at the window, so did the couple outside, both peering at her like she was a new species of animal in a zoo.

A few moments later she heard Caroline ‘Ok, see you later.’

Lizzie searched for a distraction and swung her small handbag, still on her shoulder, round to her front, trying to appear uninterested as her mother marched back through the lobby and back into the kitchen. Caroline rubbed her hands before clasping them in a hold close to her breasts.

‘Sorry, just reminding Cal of something. So, what brings you home?’ she breezed her attention back to her daughter. Lizzie paused, her mind scouring for clarity. Suddenly there was more to feed her imagination than she could handle. Recovering quickly, she blew out a sigh and rubbed her brow to wipe the moisture still beading there from her previous breathlessness. She then finally managed to focus. Those well-rehearsed words gradually began to fall into position much like soldiers reassembling to their ranks. She drew a deep breath.

‘Well, I thought it was time to make amends.’ Her eyes rolled up then down as her mind processed the well-rehearsed lines. It had seemed so easy a few weeks ago when she decided she was at a stage in her life where she was settled and independent enough to consider returning to attempt this.

‘I think, or I like to think, I have grown up a bit now so I have come to let you know how sorry I was.., or am, for disappearing from university just like that, upsetting you and grandad and, possibly more importantly, for not keeping in contact.’

It had taken her years to face up to this moment and there, finally it was. Done! Now what..?

‘So what kept you so busy that you could not contact us?’

Lizzie was now unprepared! She didn’t expect to have to explain herself so quickly. What could she say? She tried to read those searching eyes. Could her mother know? No, surely not. She hadn’t told anyone except Sophie and she would never tell or even know how to contact her mother. She rubbed her palms.

‘Much of my time is spent running my business. I have my own beauty salon,’ she announced proudly, then stopped abruptly. To avoid saying too much ‘Where’s Grandad?’ she asked again.

Caroline poured the fresh, hot coffee into small mugs; the aroma teased the senses. She didn’t answer immediately but continued with the coffee, bringing it over to where Lizzie sat, her eyes focusing on the hot beverage. Lizzie was just about to repeat the question when her mother spoke.

‘Darling, I have some awfully sad news about your grandfather.’ Caroline declared, seating herself opposite and facing her daughter.

‘Oh.’ Immediately Lizzie suspected and felt a lump in her throat; terrified of what she was about to hear, she raised her hand to her mouth in anticipation.

‘Your grandfather, bless him, died last January.’

Unable to speak, Lizzie blew out a winded sigh and tears pricked her eyes. Her mother pulled both her hands into hers and rubbed her thumbs gently. A rare gesture, Lizzie thought, but irrelevant just now. She stared stunned into the moist eyes gazing back.

‘He had a massive heart attack suddenly; January the twelfth to be exact. He didn’t suffer; it happened too quickly. He died before the ambulance arrived but…,’ she squeezed her daughter’s hands, ‘he did manage to say that when I saw you, and he believed I would, to tell you that he loved and missed you dearly.’

Her mother paused. After a pocket of silence, five years of emotion burst out and her mother’s arms swiftly drew her into her shoulder.

Lizzie’s head spun. Why had she neglected her lovely grandfather? He’d done nothing wrong. Her mother had a lot to answer for. She’d never see him now. Several minutes passed as she mopped up her pain, taking tissue after tissue from her mother. She balked inwardly at her own selfishness, her own self-indulgence. It was, after all, she who had made no contact, she who did not care enough to phone, write or just leave an address. It was she who took her family for granted and could really only blame herself. She may have even been partially responsible for his death in creating stress or worry he might otherwise not have had. A vortex of guilt swirled inside her at the thought. She could never forgive herself for this. She would never see her dear, dear grandfather ever again.

Caroline, once again, pulled at the box of tissues placed on the oak table and handed the cluster over to Lizzie. ‘I suppose you’re blaming yourself now for not getting in touch?’

Wiping her face, Lizzie seethed as her mother read her like a book. Her pain now sought blame. Why should she take all the blame? If Caroline had been a real mother to her in the first place, loving like other mothers and her gran, she would never have run away. No, her mother spent most of her time in London shirking her responsibility. Enjoying the highlife with her so-called friends. Never mind that she had a child pining for her at home. And then to have gone home to her mother and admitted to her that Hugo had humiliated , as her mother predicted, dumped her at university would have been unbearable. Caroline would have wallowed in telling her daughter ‘I told you so.’

Her mind switched to the earlier presence of the stranger and she grew suspicious. Was he also under the spell of her mother’s unfaltering and selfish manipulation? Revulsion blazed from her green eyes as she prised herself away from her mother, who she now couldn’t bear the proximity of.