You Got It Wrong - Part Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Brighton Beach in the sun was fun, especially if you were a four year old little girl. Nina led Melody down on to the sand, and bought them both a huge ice-cream, then they sat beside each other and ate them in silence.

                “You like ice cream?”

Nina’s question was a little sarcastic as she’d never seen such a small person consume a cone of ice-cream so quickly. Melody nodded enthusiastically, “we were going to have some at the cinema, but we came here.”

Nina looked down at her, “you were supposed to be in the cinema?” When Melody nodded, she asked, “couldn’t your mother take you?”

Melody shook her head, “she’s ill.”

Nina had no idea what to make of that, “I’m sure she’ll be better soon.” She grimaced as she said it because she had no clue.

The little girl looked up at her with huge innocent eyes, “no. Daddy said she doesn’t change so I’m moving to live with him.”

So Theo and her mother were separated? She nodded slowly as she digested that, not that she was interested, she convinced herself.

                “And now Granddad is ill too. Will he die?”

Nina grimaced again, she hoped he wouldn’t, but who knew? And why did such a small child know about death and illness? Her heart surged sympathetically, “I’m not sure darling, but he’s got the best doctors looking after him. He’s a strong man, so I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

She nodded, “like Mr Parker?”

                “Mr Parker?”

Nodding again she smiled, “my goldfish. One day he was sick. But when I came home he was well again. Just like Granddad.”

Nina smiled, obviously a rather loving parent had replaced a dead fish with a new one, and an innocent had been protected from the reality of death and loss for a little longer.

                “Shall we go shopping? I mean there are some fun shops up there.” Like most British coastal resorts Brighton had its fair share of games arcades and souvenir shops, all were bright and well lit and a real attraction to a small child.

They laughed as they tried on hats and sunglasses, then bought some sweets, before Nina glanced at her watch and realised almost ninety minutes had passed since they’d left. The hospital was more than two miles away, so Nina immediately flagged down a cab. As the car took them back to the hospital, she called the ward, desperate to get a message to Theo, but there was no answer.

He was stood in the doorway to the hospital almost puce with anger when the cab stopped. Opening the door he retrieved Melody rather abruptly, then with her in his arms walked a few metres away, leaving Nina to pay the taxi. Once she climbed out of the car, watched it drive off into the distance, she turned in his direction.

                “Sorry we’re late, we got carried away shopping.”

Theo couldn’t release his grip on Melody. Every second beyond the hour she said they were going to be had felt like an hour. As if the stress of his very ill grandfather wasn’t enough to contend with.  He heard Nina speak, but the words meant nothing to him.

                “Shopping? That’s it?”

Shaking his head he tried his best to contain his anger, but it was too difficult. Instead, he spun around and walked away from her, back into the bowels of the hospital and the hell that meant.

Daniel was still at their grandfather’s bedside, and when he saw his niece bouncing along the corridor he stooped to scoop her up into a hug. In the time she’d been away Theo had brought him up to speed with all that had happened with Sadie, and despite prompting avoided explaining who Nina was. Though now that she’d almost abducted his daughter he wanted to slate her to anyone who’d listen.

                “You ok brother?”

He glared at his brother, “what you reckon?”

                “He didn’t even thank you?”

Nina reached for her beer and drained half of it, then placed the bottle on the table before she looked up at her friend, “nope. A scowl and a glare. That’s about it.”

                “The bastard.”

Nina nodded. She’d been frugal with the truth about Theo, but tonight was quite happy to sing anything but his praises. “That’s about right...he has judged me since I helped Mansell go to France, and it just keeps going. I could have punched him on a dozen occasions. I can assure you.”

Lilah laughed, “now THAT I’d love to see!”

Nina picked at the remnants of her dinner, “well I hope you never get the chance, because I never want to set eyes on him again.”

Still laughing, Lilah made for the freezer and pulled out a couple of tubs of Ben and Jerry’s, “well I hope for your sanity’s sake you get your wish.”

After a leisurely end to the rest of the weekend, Nina threw herself back into her work. She found she was most creative in bouts of often intense inspiration. And if that hit her almost everything else took a back seat. And late Sunday, that was exactly what happened, and so she once again became absorbed in her workshop creating individual and much sought after tokens of love for people to seal their marriages with.

Which was ironic. Really.

Nina had never been in love. Not really. She’d only ever known Josh McCann, when she’d gone to Sixth form at the age of sixteen, Nina had been nervous, anxious. On the first day, she’d careered headlong in to the tall dark and absurdly handsome Josh. He was a year older than her, obscenely popular, and completely intrigued by her. After three months of hounding she’d dared to date him, and that night the nineteenth of December, at the school Christmas disco, they’d kissed...and her heart had apparently stopped.

They became inseparable, as happy to sit in each other’s company to study as they were to lie on his bed and kiss. After a few months more she’d finally agreed to sleep with him, to lose her virginity. And she’d only been more besotted. If she could capture confidently how happy and content she’d felt in those weeks and months, then she’d be even better in her job.

She was always someone who’d been insecure, she was short...not petite, not slight, but short, and too curvy to get away with it. But Josh couldn’t get enough of her. She had a trip planned to her grandmother’s one weekend. It was almost their year anniversary of getting together. Josh was in his first year of University, but it was close, in London, and as he had his own apartment with his college fund, she saw even more of him. So she was torn between staying in London and spending more time with him, and visiting her Gran. Whilst her conscience won out, it didn’t stop her returning early, late Saturday evening instead of Sunday afternoon.

As she opened the door to her family home she’d expected to find the place empty. Her father was playing golf in the Caribbean, she had no idea if Imelda had gone with him, but there was no way her socialite step mother would be in the house on a Saturday night.

She hadn’t noticed the shoes and coat in the hallway, or the lights that illuminated the hallway to her father’s room. Instead she’d rushed into her room and started to change. She was clad in a mini skirt and her bra when she realised the blouse she’d chosen to wear had a huge make up splodge on the front of it. She had no alternative, so at a run she headed for her father’s room, or more importantly one of Imelda’s ten wardrobes.

Again she didn’t notice the light shining from under the door, or hear the sighs, the deep breaths, the soft moist sounds of kissing and more. It was only when she threw open the door that she stopped dead in her tracks. Spread out on the huge bed in front of her was the unmistakable dark locked head of Josh, the man she purported to love, thought she couldn’t see his face as it was buried between the spread thighs of her symmetrical and perfect step mother.

Imelda turned her head to look at her, a smile of rapture bisecting it in a deliberate controlled gesture. Her step mother looked smug, pleased to be discovered, and that was like a lance through her heart.

Nina had stepped back, unable to believe that she’d been usurped by the only man she knew in such a personal and dramatic fashion. Imelda represented everything she wanted to be, slim, tall with proportional curves, and she oozed self confidence. It was the worst combination of things that could have happened to Nina, betrayal by the most beautiful woman she knew and the man she thought she loved.

It was much later in the week that Nina emerged from the basement, pleased that she’d met so many of her targets, inspired, and industrious, that had been her ethos and she felt relaxed and content as she emerged like a mole, squinting at the sudden light of the day.

Making for the kitchen, she found Lilah there, and one thing was immediately obvious, she was panicking. That worried her, her friend had been happier since their night out, though Nina knew that she wasn’t in the best place emotionally.

                “You ok gorgeous?”

Lilah glanced at her then groaned, “not really.”

She pointed to her cheek and Nina stared, “what?”

                “A spot!”

Nina walked close and studied her for a moment, “it is barely that! What’s the stress?”

Rolling her eyes, Lilah turned back to the mirror, “the Wootton wedding, this weekend. Society’s finest, and I’m going to be there like a pimply teenager. I mean the man of my dreams could be there.”

Nina sighed, “Lilah, there are NEVER single men at weddings, I know that for a fact, and if there were would you really want someone like Colin Wootton? I mean he has no chin and no balls, he’d last less than five minutes with you.” She was hiding the grimace that greeted the thought of the wedding, she’d forgotten they were invited, and envisaged worming her way out of it way before now.

                “We don’t have to go...”

Lilah laughed, “you’d love that wouldn’t you! NO! We are definitely going. There’s no if or but, even if it takes fifty quid’s worth of concealer to hide this monstrosity.”

Nina poured a tall glass of water then sipped at it for a moment, “I haven’t got anything to wear.”

That caused Lilah to laugh, “when do you EVER have anything smart to wear? That’s why we’re going to London on Friday, shop, a little partying, then we can head to the hotel for the wedding on Saturday morning. OK?”

Nina groaned, “you torture me, everyday!”