You Got It Wrong - Part Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Five days later, Nina pulled the Beetle in to the garage at the back of her house, it was amazing to think that she’d only been absent eight days, it seemed like so much more, but then so much had happened in that time frame. She’d been glad to go to her aunt’s house; they had a bed and breakfast in Cherbourg. Her grandmother had moved to London when her mother Beatrice had married her father. She’d been her only child, and as a widow, Anna had come across the channel. She’d never settled in the City, and when Beatrice had died, she’d moved out to the coast, where she said she could see the hint of her beloved France in the distance, but also had Britain, her daughter’s grave, and the regular visits of Nina, her granddaughter.

On her death a few years earlier, Nina had inherited the house, a three story town house just off the front. It was worth a fortune, and cost a fortune to run, but on days like the day she returned it was worth it. The house was empty, so after a shower and a quick change, she trotted down to the seafront and strolled along the beach.

None of the schools had broken up for the summer yet, so the beach was far quieter than it could have been, perfect for Nina. She waved to a few familiar faces, then stopped at a cafe for coffee, and a sneaky cake.

She was there when her phone rang.  She couldn’t contain her grin when she saw Lilah’s name on the screen.

                “Girlfriend, where are you?”

Nina grinned, “sat at a certain little cafe that does THE best carrot cake.”

                “You’re home!” Lilah squealed. “Perfect. We have SO much business. I’m in London sorting things out, but can you check your email? I’ve sent you a schedule.”

Groaning Nina turned her face up to the sun, “ok. You home later?”

Lilah agreed with a grunt, “got to meet the last prospective customer in an hour, then I’ll be home. Shall we go out for dinner?”

Nina groaned, “I’ll cook us something, I need a night chilling out. I’m all travelled out.”

                “Your cousins?”

Nina chuckled, “you know how wild they are!”

It was true, her aunt had five children, each around her age, and they lived life for today. She had spent many a drunken evening partying with them, and they always viewed her arriving to be reason to party for days solidly, she’d need days to recover, that was without all the torment over Mansell and his family.

                “Ok, I’ll be home by seven.”

                “Spaghetti bolognaise and several bottles of Chianti?”

Lilah gasped, “was it THAT bad a week?”

Nina groaned, “it’s a THREE bottle of wine story darling, I assure you!”

Three hours later they were sat opposite each other with huge bowls of steaming spaghetti. And Nina slowly filled Lilah in on the events of the last few days.

                “He had a child?”

Nina paused from eating and nodded, “yep, Leon. Died when he was twenty one, but his son was brought up by Mansell’s ex lover and had twins. Claudine was there, involved arguing with Theo...who was her cousin of sorts. The brother...Gabriel, he was there by chance apparently. He didn’t get involved, buggered off whilst he had the chance. After that I don’t know. I left Mansell and his grandson there to sort it out.”

                “Hence the wild days in Cherbourg with the cousins.”

Nina nodded, “isn’t it funny though, how those decisions made seventy years ago have such HUGE knock on effects decades later, affecting SO many people. I find it crazy.”

Lilah reached for her glass, “that’s why you have to live life to the fullest, and make every day count.”

Grimacing she looked at her friend, “why does that comment scare me?”

                “Well you know we’ve got the Wootton wedding?”  Nina scowled and gave a confirmatory nod. “Well, just before that, Amelia has asked us to go to a launch night, it’s a new fashion being launched by Madonna of all people, but Amelia has lined up a big red carpet interview thing before it. It’ll be huge.” As Lilah saw her grimace again, she reached out and took her friend’s hand, “you need to do this, you need to make as much id this as you can. I know you don’t want to expand things too quickly, too rapidly, but hey, it’ll mean you can pay off Amelia, be back to being your own boss.”

Nina twirled another fork full of spaghetti and ate it silently. When she’d finished chewing she stared at her friend, “you know I hate PR shit right? That’s why I’ve let you and Amelia, an actress and a model, may I remind you, do all this PR stuff.”

                “But the interviewer wants to know technical stuff, only you can answer the questions. Plus it’s about time you started getting some accolade for all your hard work. You hide your light under a bushel, to quote my old gran.”

Nina laughed, “I hate you, I hate Amelia, can’t you just pull my finger nails out?”

Lilah giggled then shook her head, “did I tell you that Amelia’s lined up clothes for us to wear?”

Nina dropped her head to the table and moaned, “can we pretend this isn’t happening?”

Theo looked at Melody smiling up at him and his heart broke. He’d missed her more than anything in the five days he’d been away. He was still waiting for Sadie to screw up, still wanting his daughter in the safety of his home. She skipped across the wooden lounge and stood in front of him.

                “I LOVE my present Daddy!”

The teddy he’d bought her on the ferry home from Normandy was bigger than her, and it cost a fortune, but she was more than worth it, in fact the gift was an empty gesture compared to him abandoning her.

                “I’m glad! What did you do since I last saw you?”

She stood in front of him her finger on her bottom lip in pondering thought, “Auntie Tara took me swimming, and we saw Frozen three times...”

                “And Mummy?”

Melody shrugged, “she’s been tired.”

He grimaced, that wasn’t the best news. “OK,” he changed the subject, “we have four days. What do you want to do this afternoon?”

He saw her coy face and groaned, “Really?”

Nodding Melody took his hand, “let’s make a den, and then watch Frozen. You can be Olaf!”

Despite the thought of two hours of the sickliest sweet Disney, the thought of being with his daughter with no one interrupting made him smile, he could almost forget the trauma of the last few days.

A week had passed since coming back from Normandy and the meetings lined up by Lilah had been thick and fast, it now meant that Nina had three projects to work on, three vastly different ones, and there was another two couples who were due to contact Lilah if they chose the designs for their wedding.

She threw down her sketch pad and stood up, she hadn’t been to Oakdale since she’d returned, and she wanted to see Mansell, she’d been worried about him. A lot.

The home was quiet, but then it was a Friday afternoon, and there was bingo in the local church hall too, that absorbed most of the residents.  Mansell was sat on the first floor veranda looking out to sea, and his eyes didn’t waiver when she sat on the bench next to him.

                “I saw you on TV.”

He smiled, but still didn’t look her way, “I met the Queen, and William and Kate...she told me I was charming!”

Nina leaned back against the bench, “you are!”

Again he laughed, “really?” Finally he looked up at her, “you sure?”

Nina placed a hand on his arm and smiled, “you are. Was it ok, after I left?”

He sighed, a long exhalation of air, “I feel so hurt, that I knew nothing. Me in London with a wife who knows I love someone else, a son who hates me...and all the time, the woman I love was bringing up our child...it doesn’t make sense. Does it?”

It was Nina’s turn to sigh, “life is never easy, that’s what my grandmother said, from every pain, from every hurt grows something good, though we don’t often know about it.”

                “So she’d think the fact that Hélène brought up my family well was my sacrifice.”

Nina shrugged, “my mother watched my mother, her only daughter kill herself with post natal depression, but she had me, and all my family shit...well it drove me closer to her. So she loved that. She saw that as the positive for losing her, I suppose.”

                “So you grew up without a mother?”

She nodded, “an evil step mother, an uncaring father...I am like Cinderella, hey?”

He chuckled, “waiting for your Prince Charming!”

That caused her to scoff loudly, “yep. But unfortunately the man of my dreams preferred the temporary attention of said evil step mother.”

                “So ex boyfriend is your step father? That’s screwed up!”

She shook her head, “nah, my glamorous step mother enjoys the chase, she rarely wants anything more than the hunt.”

His hand covered hers, “what a cow.”   

                “Completely. And so unlike Hélène...who did what she thought was right...at the time.”

They both sat there in silence, thinking about that for a moment.

                “I was horrible to Hélène. For ages.”

Nina nodded, “she won’t blame you for that.”

                “That’s what she said. But I was wrong. Seventy years ago...things were different. I hate what we lost.”

                “But you may have spent a few years together then ruined it all on a whim. You were brief acquaintances.”

He nodded, “but my son...my grandchild, and then the twins...I missed out on all that. And what I had instead,” he looked at her, “I have an evil useless son, and whilst I can’t deny Daniel is great, despite his father, Theo...He’s screwed up because he didn’t meet any of until he was in his teens, all his life wanting to meet a father...who doesn’t give a shit.”

                “You didn’t know Theo when he was growing up?”

He shook his head, “he had a loving mother, a nice childhood, but I suppose boys always want to know who their Dad is.”

Things made so much more sense, she’d chastised him for his distance and reluctance to help his grandfather, and he’d only known him for less than half his life, that was so different, it made such a difference to the way he’d acted.

                “Must have been strange for him.”

                “Yep, and then he finds out that there are more people to threaten his place, just when he’s starting to get used to it.”

                “Claudine and Gabriel?”

 She didn’t miss the hardness to his stare at the name of the twins, “well Claudine, haven’t met the other reprobate, but by all accounts he caused nothing but hassle to Hélène.”

He’d told her he was the black sheep, it seemed he wasn’t lying. Nina smiled to herself remembering the handsome, angry man she’d met on the doorstep of that cottage in France. “I hope you’ll at least give him a chance.”

He laughed at that, “like you have Theo?”

                “Theo deliberately chose to be horrible to me. He prejudged me the way you are your other grandson.”

                “Gabriel is my GREAT grandson, and let’s not be foolish here; he has made Hélène’s life hell. Trouble apparently.”

                “He seemed ok to me.”

That made Mansell’s head snap up in surprise, “how do you know?”

                “I met him; outside...he didn’t want to come in. But he knew you were there.”

Mansell ran a hand over his face and sighed, “I didn’t know that...”

Nina didn’t want to upset him, so she tried to change the direction of the conversation, “so are you going to see Hélène again?”

He nodded, “it’s like we’ve never been apart...once I got past my anger.”

She smiled, “you deserve happiness Mansell, and I have a feeling this is the first time, really.”

Life went on for Nina, though she ignored he looming threat of the Madonna fashion launch. But the days ticked by steadily. She threw herself back into her designing, and had some amazing ideas, but that didn’t mean that her mind wasn’t still distracted by the past and the future.

Amelia, an actress growing in her fame, was as tall as Lilah, and as beautiful. She dwarfed a room when she came in, Nina had realised a long time ago, associating with two such beauties, that it was confidence that gave them both such a dramatic presence, but that didn’t mean it was any easier to emulate them. The day before a courier had arrived with a huge parcel, which when she’d opened with dread had revealed a dress that she scared her. She’d never worn anything like it, and she had no idea how she’d squeeze her rather thick figure into it. Navy blue, ruched silk, with a single strap over the right shoulder, coming to mid thigh. The label revealed the name of a well known exclusive designer.

It had taken her an hour to lift it from the box, and since then it had stared at her from a hanger in the corner of her bedroom, at some point she had to try it on, as the day of reckoning was approaching. With a grunt of frustration she grabbed the dress, tossing her t-shirt off as she pulled it over her head. It took a few moments to position her breasts in the correct place, and draw the deceptively tight fabric down to her thighs, but she got it on...and then couldn’t reach for the zip at the back to fasten it.

                “LILAH!” She called out at full shout. Her friend had just come home from having a spray tan at a nearby salon, so she knew she was home. When her bedroom door flew open, Nina looked up to see her friend stood open mouthed in the doorway. “What?” She snapped.

                “You look AMAZING!”

Nina rolled her eyes, then turned to offer her the open zip. Lilah closed it then watched as her friend slipped her feet into the spiky heels that had come with it. She was still watching when Nina caught sight of herself in the mirror and stopped dead.

                “I don’t look fat!”

Lilah came to stand behind her, “that’s cos you’re not. I keep telling you that. You’re petite and curvaceous, you should flaunt your beauty more often,” she gestured towards her wardrobe as she added, “instead of draping yourself in bland sacks. I just wish you’d see what I see. I’d love to punch your darling step mother for her role in that. The bitch.”

Nina knew that her life changed when she walked into her home one Friday after school to find her beautiful step mother Imelda in flagrante with Josh, the love of her life. It hurt more than anything else, because she could never compete with the beauty of the elegant Russian. And then no one else believed her, not her friends, not her brother, and definitely not her father.

She’d left home that day for France, and despite being welcomed to the bosom of her mother’s family, the damage had already been done. Nina hardened her heart, and from that moment on had become a different person.