Amanda pulled herself away.
Do not do this, Amanda,she told herself.Do not embarrass yourself by doing this. He’s not interested and you’re just lonely.
She smiled at him as she stepped back.
‘It’s three days a week, which is great. I can still help in the garden and we can make this spectacular.’ Amanda did a spin. ‘Seriously, life here is so perfect, isn’t it?’
Before Simon could answer, she ran towards Moongate Manor. ‘I have to find something to wear,’ she called.
‘You can borrow my gardening shorts and top hat,’ he called out and Amanda laughed all the way to the house.
25
Diana
Diana returned from Janet’s with an armful of dahlias ready for a vase and the deep satisfaction of a day well spent. Janet had taken her to the cinema to see a lovely French film about a girl who worked in an art gallery who fell in love with a man in a painting. It was charming and the cinematography was beautiful.
Janet had taken out a container of strawberries from her bag and they ate them along with the two chocolate-covered ice creams they’d bought.
It had been so long since Diana had done anything with a friend; she could have watched two flies walking up a wall with Janet and been as happy as she was now.
When Janet dropped her home Trotsky wagged his tail upon her return.
A dog will always be happy to see you come through the door, she thought, as she put down her bag and went into the kitchen to place the dahlias in a beautiful Émile Gallé cameo vase that had been her great-grandmother’s. The pinks and burgundies of the flowers looked spectacular in the vase, she decided, as she carefully carried it into the sitting room to place on the sideboard.
Diana stood back to admire them and then sat in her armchair to see how they looked from that vantage point.
As she looked around the room, she saw the gleam of something unusual on the table. She stood, walked to the table and leaned down.
‘Oh my,’ she said, picking up the pearls and feeling their weight in her hand. She read the note from Amanda then she sat back down and held the necklace, closing her eyes.
It was so long ago, and she was so depressed after returning from the hospital without the baby, she had forgotten where they were. She was so sad for so long that perhaps she had blocked it from her memory.
Whatever the reason, the pain and anguish came rushing back and Diana was suddenly eighteen again, the memories bubbling up and spilling over, demanding she remember them.
*
1960s
Diana and her father had barely spoken for the past six months and when she asked him about the keys he denied it, as did her mother, but then her keys were found on the driveway by Helen’s father, Peter, who swore he hadn’t seen them there the day before when he raked the gravel.
Diana had taken the keys and hid them in her room so this would never happen again, and she had gone downstairs to speak to her mother when she heard her parents talking in her father’s study, the door slightly ajar.
‘I have told the village the Moongate Festival is cancelled this year. I told them there is an illness in the family,’ her father was saying.
‘It’s the first time in one hundred years we aren’t having one, Edward. Are you sure you don’t want it? We can send Diana to London.’
Diana felt tears welling as she heard them speak of her ruining things. Her hand stroked her stomach and her child kicked in response.
‘No, we will just get it over with and then next year we can pretend it never happened and start again.’
‘If you’re sure, Edward,’ her mother was saying but she sounded uncertain.
Diana crept back to her room. They were planning something, she was sure. This was why her father hadn’t helped buy anything for the baby and why he had hidden her car keys.
Diana found a suitcase in the box room and took it to her bedroom. She laid it on the bed. She packed as much as she could and then she went to her mother’s room and opened the jewellery box. The Moongate pearls lay on blue velvet and Diana held them for a moment before slipping them into her pocket along with some smaller dress rings and earrings. They would have to be sold to pay for things for the baby. Diana would head to London and try and find a job and care for her child alone. It wasn’t going to be easy but it could be done. She had read about other women who did it alone.
Diana stepped out of her mother’s room and went to her bedroom where she took her car keys from the hiding place and put them in her handbag. Diana unpicked the lining of the suitcase and put the jewellery into a silk bag and then a sock and laid it flat, and then she sewed the lining up again. It was terrible handiwork but it would do, she thought, as she did up the suitcase and looked around her room.
