Gina watched her uncertainly. ‘Shall I put them away again?’ she asked, clearly ready to do so.
Vivienne didn’t know what to tell her, so she said, ‘Where’s Gil?’
‘Still at the hotel, I think.’
Gil, her wonderful, loving stepfather who’d left her mother, and Vivienne still didn’t know why. Or did she? For the moment she was struggling to get things straight in her head. She knew she’d asked many times, but had she ever been given an answer? ‘Is it awkward for you?’ she ventured.
Gina seemed puzzled, and Vivienne felt a stir of irritation. She’d apparently asked a question that didn’t chime with reality, or her mother was pretending it didn’t.
‘Why would you say that?’ Gina replied carefully.
‘I don’t know … I was … I’m glad he came.’
‘Of course he came. He loves you very much, you surely can’t doubt that.’
Vivienne loved him too, and had always wished he was her real father. Mark would be her real brother then, and they’d be a proper family with no divisions or secrets …
Gina gently curled her fingers round Vivienne’s. ‘Don’t worry, my darling, your memory will piece everything together again soon,’ she promised.
Vivienne nodded, but wondered how she would know if she was functioning normally when she couldn’t be sure what normal was any more. ‘Do you wish you’d tried harder to hang onto him?’ she asked hoarsely.
Gina looked so vulnerable for a moment that Vivienne almost said sorry, but then Gina was covering her feelings with a smile as she said, ‘It was all a long time ago …’
‘Almost ten years,’ Vivi put in, wanting to prove that she knew.
‘Indeed. We’ve moved on since then …’
‘Why did you let him go?’
Gina’s gaze didn’t waver as she said, ‘Why are we having this conversation? It’s hardly important …’
‘You pushed him away. You always do that.’
Gina didn’t answer and Vivi felt herself falling into a sinking, darkening sense of defeat, or exhaustion, or something she didn’t really understand. She too wondered why they were having this conversation, when she felt sure they’d had it many times. Maybe it was because that bleak and difficult period when Gil left was easier to think about than the one they were entering into now. The one that she might not survive … Why was no one talking about that? Or maybe she’d been told she wasn’t going to make it and had blotted it from her mind.
‘Would you like to sleep?’ Gina asked gently.
Vivi realized her eyes were closed.
‘I can stay, or I can go,’ Gina said. ‘Whichever you prefer.’
Vivi wanted her to stay, wanted her never to leave so she could somehow make this all right, but she said, ‘You can go if you like.’
Gina settled herself into a chair and stayed.
There was a man standing at the gate, tall and fair-haired with his hands on his hips and a big smile on his face.
‘There’s my daddy,’ Michelle whooped, and zooming off across the schoolyard she leapt straight into his arms, yelping and laughing as he spun her round and around.
‘And how was your first day at school?’ he asked, holding her aloft so he could see her sunny, freckly face, a small child’s version of his own.
‘It was really good,’ she told him eagerly. ‘My teacher is really nice, and I’ve got a locker all to myself.’
As he gasped in awe, five-year-old Vivienne watched, her eyes round and puzzled. This big, friendly man who was like a film star was Michelle’s daddy!
‘This is my best friend, Vivi,’ Michelle declared, sliding out of her father’s arms and grabbing Vivi’s hand in a proud, proprietorial fashion. ‘Vivi, this is my daddy.’
‘Well hello, Vivi,’ the tall man said, gazing down at Vivi with blue eyes that seemed to laugh and ask questions all at the same time. ‘That’s a very pretty name you have there.’
‘That’s what I said,’ Michelle told him. ‘It’s Vivienne, really. Our birthdays are nearly on the exact same day.’
Sounding impressed, he said to Vivi, ‘So you were born on February 15th as well?’
Vivi shook her head. She felt shy of him, but she liked him too and wanted to say something to please him. ‘I was born on April 15th,’ she said proudly, hoping it might make him realize she was as special as her grandpa always said she was.
‘See, the exact same day,’ Michelle chipped in, ‘just different months. So I will be six first, but it doesn’t matter, because we don’t care who’s the oldest, do we?’ she asked Vivi.
Vivi shook her head. It had been a whirlwind of a day, starting school, meeting Michelle, finding herself with a best friend for the first time ever, and now she didn’t want it to end.
‘Where’s your mummy?’ Michelle asked, looking around at the parents who were busily claiming their children.
‘I don’t know,’ Vivi replied, looking around too. Part of her wished her mother wouldn’t come so she could go home with Michelle and her daddy. Then her mother was there, pushing through the crowd, looking flustered and worried and then relieved when she spotted Vivi.
‘There you are,’ she gasped, stooping to pull Vivi into her arms. ‘The bus didn’t come so I had to walk. How did you like your first day?’
‘Hello, I’m Michelle,’ Michelle said, tapping Gina’s arm. ‘Me and Vivi are best friends.’
Gina broke into a delighted smile. ‘That’s lovely to hear,’ she replied, seeming to mean it.
‘This is my daddy. His name’s Paul.’
Gina turned to the tall, fair-haired man, and Vivi hoped they would fall in love and get married.
‘Hello, I’m Gina Shager,’ her mother said, holding out a slender hand to shake his big, bony one. ‘It’s very nice to meet you.’
‘We’ve met before,’ he informed her, ‘but I don’t expect you remember me. My wife is one of your clients. I come to pick her up from time to time. Yvonne Markham.’
‘Of course,’ Gina said, her smile taking on more warmth. ‘I do recognize you now.’
‘Daddy, can Vivi and her mummy come for tea?’ Michelle demanded. ‘Please say yes.’
Laughing, he said, ‘Maybe not today, sweetheart. We’re going to see Grandma and Grandpa, remember?’
‘Oh yes. Vivi lives with her grandparents, don’t you, Vivi?’ She said it with such admiration that Vivi immediately felt important and glad to say yes.
‘Can I give you a lift somewhere?’ Paul Markham offered, as they walked away from the school.
‘Oh, that’s very kind of you,’ Gina replied, ‘but there’s a bus …’
‘It wouldn’t be any trouble,’ he insisted. ‘Are you going home, or back into town?’