Dream On (51 page)

Ginny sighed and let the single sheet of airmail paper, and the two brightly coloured snapshots showing Dilys and a tall, handsome man holding a baby in his arms, fall into her lap. She would put this latest one with all the rest and maybe, when Susan was older, she would let her see them and try to help her understand.

In the meantime she would write back to Dilys asking her, yet again, please to jot down just a few extra lines for Susan. Anything would do.

Perhaps it was silly bothering, especially as Susan was so happy. She knew she was wanted, treasured and loved. That she was Ginny's very special girl.

But was that enough? Ginny sighed again. Love was powerful all right, but could it ever take away the pain of rejection completely? She could only hope so.

‘Mrs Saunders.'

At the sound of the woman's voice Ginny looked up, squinting into the bright sunlight at the neatly uniformed maid standing a respectful distance to the side of her chair.

‘Have I got to collect Susan already, Janette?' Ginny asked with a concerned frown. She put her watch to her ear to check it was still working.

‘No, ma'am, that's not for over an hour. And Mrs Taylor said she'd be dropping her off, if you remember.'

Ginny relaxed. ‘Of course.'

‘You have a visitor.'

Janette's formality drove Ginny mad. ‘Who is it?'

Instead of acting with her usual efficient primness, the maid pursed her lips and waggled her head with displeasure.

‘Is something wrong?'

‘She wouldn't say who she was, Mrs Saunders. Said it was to be a surprise. I didn't know what to do.'

Ginny smiled thinly. It would be one of the local worthies after a donation for some charity or other, thinking she was being a real wag by aggravating the staff. She still hadn't got used to the way of things in her new neighbourhood; in fact, it was like living in a foreign country at times.

‘It's okay, Janette. Don't worry. Just bring her out, please.'

As the maid returned across the sweeping lawns with the surprise visitor in tow, Ginny leapt to her feet. ‘Leila!' she yelled, running towards her with outstretched arms.

‘Sweetie, you recognised me!'

‘How could I fail to, with that bloody emerald-green frock coming across the grass?'

Ginny saw the shocked expression on Janette's face but she didn't care. ‘It was like you was in flipping camouflage, girl!'

Ginny filled Leila's cup, sat back in her deckchair and took in a deep lungful of flower-scented air. ‘I might not be Grace Kelly, like Flora used to reckon, but sitting here drinking tea in the garden with my old mate, well, this'll do me.'

‘Less of the old thank you, Ginny – but we're still friends, are we?'

Ginny smiled and tutted loudly. ‘Of course we are.'

Leila avoided her gaze, picking at an imaginary thread on her skirt. ‘And you're happy are you?'

‘Yeah, I reckon I am.'

Leila lifted her chin and Ginny winked at her across the rim of her cup. ‘D'you know, Leila, there were plenty of times when I never believed that poor little Ginny Martin would ever make it. But just look at me now, eh?' She cocked her head on one side. ‘And how about you? How are you doing? 'Cos pleased as I am to see you, I'm dying to know why you've turned up out of the blue like this.'

Leila didn't answer her question; she took her time breathing out a long plume of lavender smoke, then said: ‘Strange, isn't it? Who knows what'll become of any of us? What'll happen in our lives. The twists and turns.'

‘Well, you know what they say, Leila.' Ginny held her hands to her heart, stared dramatically towards the horizon and gasped in her best southern belle's drawl, ‘Tomorrow is another day.'

Leila clapped her thigh. ‘God! I remember that. It's from that old film.' She flapped her hand. ‘Don't tell me. You used to drive us all crazy going on about it. And that woman in it. The one with all the dreams . . .'

Slightly shamefaced, Ginny grinned. ‘
Gone With the Wind
. Scarlett O'Hara. And they were
my
dreams too, if you don't mind.'

Leila shook her head and smiled, remembering. ‘That brings back some memories.'

‘I still dream, you know. When I'm sleeping, I mean. All about this place I knew a long, long time ago.'

‘What place was that?'

‘The street where I used to live. I see the rooms in that house as plain as day. It's a strange feeling. And all the neighbours, I see them too. There were some really decent people there once, back in the old days. And some right old cows.'

‘You get those everywhere.' Leila laughed.

‘It's all been knocked down now. Nothing left but a big patch of bare earth. Slum clearance, they reckon.' She paused. ‘You know, it never seemed like a slum. Not back then. Still, things have to change, I suppose. And now they're talking about putting up one of them big blocks of flats. Well, that's what I heard.'

‘And is Billy still in the property business?' Leila asked casually, suddenly fascinated, apparently, by the ash on the end of her cigarette.

‘Yeah. And he's doing very well.'

She nodded. ‘So I can see. This place is fantastic.'

‘Not bad, is it?' Ginny looked about her, taking in the solidly respectable seven-bedroomed red-brick house, set in its four landscaped acres. ‘And very well thought of he is nowadays. Works with this bloke. Peter. And talking about slums, that's what they do. They buy up slum property; terrible old places, all over London. Then, when the tenants move out, Billy's firm does them up.'

Leila's eyebrow rose very slightly. She knew all about the slum landlords and their scams: acquiring occupied properties on the cheap, then terrorising the tenants until they got out. In fact, she'd put on enough private parties for them during the last few years to be able to write a book about them and their influential friends. But she said nothing. She'd never been able to figure out whether Ginny really didn't know what was going on half the time, or whether she just chose not to see what was right in front of her.

Well, it wasn't any of Leila's business. Not any more.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment, then, flashing her lips-only smile she said, ‘This really is a glorious garden, Ginny. And I'd love to see around the house.'

‘You're on, girl, but the guided tour'll cost you half a crown.'

‘I'll pay willingly, darling, and I'll bet it's every bit as wonderful as . . . What was Scarlett's place called again?'

‘Tara,' Ginny replied without a second's hesitation.

‘That's it. Tara. I should have remembered.' She tapped her chin with an exquisitely manicured fingertip. ‘Well, Ginny, my love, it looks as though you've got your Tara at last.'

‘And it's just right for a family.'

Leila stared at Ginny's flat stomach and frowned. ‘You mean you're . . .'

Ginny shook her head – more to dispel the visions of Jeannie Thompson and her best yellow soap than by way of an answer. ‘No, I'm not pregnant,' she said evenly. ‘I'd like to be, but it just hasn't happened. Anyway, I've got my daughter. We adopted Susan.'

‘Susan? Not that lovely little girl you were caring for?'

‘That's my Susan. You'll be able to see her later, when she gets home from her riding lesson.'

‘You're a lucky woman, Ginny.' Leila's voice caught as she spoke.

‘I know. And when you think how things could have turned out. When you think of Shirley and some of the others.' She took a moment to top up their cups. ‘Poor Shirley, eh?'

Leila showed no sign of what her thoughts were about Shirley, she just took a dainty sip of her tea. ‘So, where's Billy?' she asked as matter-of-factly as she could.

‘Out wheeling and dealing as usual. Entertaining some bloke. A politician, if you must know! They'll be in some club somewhere I suppose.'

This time Leila raised both eyebrows and made sure that Ginny saw her questioning expression.

‘Don't look at me like that. It's probably some very respectable gentlemen's club for all I know. But to be honest, I don't have anything to do with the business side of things any more. I've got all I want right here.'

‘I think you have.'

‘Tell me, Leila. It's something I've always wondered. Why did you help me out that time? Looking after Susan when the law took me away.'

Leila hesitated before she spoke, then, staring down into her cup, she said: ‘I had a child myself once. A little girl. She must be, what, twenty-two. Almost twenty-three.' She held up her hand. ‘And before you say anything, I was a child myself when I had her.'

They laughed uneasily, as old wounds opened for both of them.

‘The trouble is, she's ashamed of me. Won't even see me.' Leila raised her head and looked at Ginny. ‘She was adopted. By a very nice couple. Friends of the doctor who delivered her. Actually, he was the same doctor who made me pregnant in the first place.' She pinned her smile back on. ‘Aren't some men absolute shits?'

‘I'm so sorry, Leila. I didn't know.'

‘Don't worry, no one does. I don't even know why I brought it up.' She gave Ginny a cigarette and lit it for her. ‘And anyway,' she went on, screwing up her eyes against the smoke as she lit one for herself, ‘that was then. At the time it was all I could do to get by from day to day. You know, just clinging to the wreckage and hoping for the best. But things got easier. Over the years.' She laughed carelessly. ‘Well, when I saw your face as that little creep said he was taking you down to the police station, I had to stay with her, didn't I? How could I have done otherwise?'

‘But you were so upset with me.' She considered before adding: ‘You know, about Billy. You could have got one of the others to stay over.'

‘Ginny,' Leila said, her chin jutting, ‘there was a child involved. I'm not a monster.'

‘I'm sorry, I never . . .' Ginny looked at her, at her expertly made-up face and her elegantly dressed hair. It was like talking to a lovely mask. ‘There's so much we don't know about one another. I'm really glad you came today and that we're talking like this at last. Tell me, Leila, how are you? How are you really?'

‘Rather well, actually. I've found myself a decent chap at last.'

‘You haven't!'

‘Thank you!'

‘I didn't mean—'

‘How about some more of that lovely tea?' Leila said a little too brightly. ‘Pour me some, will you?' She held out her cup. ‘He's a reporter actually. His name's Simon.'

Ginny nearly dropped the teapot. ‘Not Simon Parker?'

‘The very one.' She allowed a genuine, if self-deprecating, smile to curve her lips. ‘That's one of the reasons I came to see you, I suppose. To brag.'

‘So what were the other reasons?'

‘Only one. To come and see you.' Leila should have said: to come and see if you and Billy really look like staying together before I finally throw in my lot with Simon. But she didn't.

‘Come on, how did you and Simon get together?'

‘When Billy was selling up and he gave me the pick of the clubs—'

‘Did he? I didn't know that,' Ginny broke in, then added hastily: ‘But like I said, I don't have anything to do with the businesses now.'

With a shameful kind of pleasure Leila noted the edge that had crept into Ginny's voice. ‘I suppose he thought he owed me something for all those years. I was very loyal.' She gave a little shrug. ‘Well, I chose Ginny's. But don't even think of asking why, I'd be much too embarrassed to answer.'

‘Leila—'

‘Don't worry, water under the bridge, and before you ask, no it isn't called Ginny's any more. It's called Leila's. Far more classy.' She chuckled lazily. ‘Anyway, Simon turned up one night. He was looking for you, but he found me instead. We got talking and I asked him if he still wanted a story. He did. And did I have a story to tell.'

‘You didn't tell him everything?'

Leila looked horrified. ‘Edited highlights, darling! Edited highlights! But it still took months to get through it all and he was absolutely riveted. He treated events like . . . like . . . let me see . . . I know, like Johnno being killed, as if they were crossword clues.' She stared directly into Ginny's eyes. ‘Do you know he simply refused to believe it was a hit-and-run accident?'

‘I often wondered if that was anything to do with the Maltese gangs,' Ginny said quietly.

Leila leaned back in her deckchair. ‘He never came up with that theory,' she said with a shake of her head. ‘But it's possible, I suppose. Although Simon always thought Johnno was being paid off by someone close to home. For some mistake he'd made. Maybe—'

‘Whatever it was,' Ginny cut in, ‘I know it was really sad, happening just two days after his wife had her baby.'

Leila did her professional smile again. ‘Perhaps he'll get to the bottom of it one day.'

‘Isn't he too busy playing that clarinet of his?'

‘Don't!'

‘Is he just as bad?'

‘Let's just say he'll never be a Benny Goodman.'

They laughed, slightly more easily this time, and sat for a while in almost companionable silence.

‘He decided not to publish my story in the end.'

‘Why not?'

‘He fell in love with me instead. Wanted to keep me all to himself. That's why he proposed.'

‘Leila!'

‘I know.' She took a long draw on her cigarette. ‘I didn't really take him seriously for a while. Plus I suppose there were things I had to be sure about.' She paused as though she were thinking something through. ‘It took me a while, but I eventually said yes to him. Last weekend, actually.' She held out her left hand and flashed a large, square-cut diamond solitaire.