The doorbell chimed into the silence and Livvy jumped to her feet. She didn’t want Leo to wake when he’d only just gone down for his nap.
Opening the door, she experienced a moment’s confusion, like seeing an old school photograph and having only the vaguest recollection of a face.
Standing on the doorstep was an elderly lady with short white hair neatly blow-dried, her black patent shoes polished to the point of reflection. She wore a merlot cardigan over a cream blouse, and navy cotton trousers. It was only when the woman opened her mouth to speak that Livvy remembered where she’d seen her before: it was the woman from the blue Ford Fiesta that had dawdled past their house on Sunday afternoon.
‘I’m sorry to bother you. I’m looking for Dominic.’
The woman was well-spoken, assertive, but there was something beneath the confidence, like a crack in a pane of glass not yet shattering but at risk, any moment, of doing so.
Livvy stepped onto the edge of the doorframe, pulled the door almost closed behind her. ‘He’s not here. Can I help you?’
There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘Are you his wife?’
Caution prickled the back of Livvy’s neck. ‘I’m sorry, who are you?’
The woman clasped one hand inside the other, kneaded her knuckles. ‘My name’s Imogen. I’m Dominic’s mother.’
Livvy felt herself take an instinctive half-step back.
‘You’re Livvy, aren’t you?’
Livvy was aware of a chill inching down her spine. ‘How do you know my name?’
Imogen looked at her, unblinking. ‘One of your neighbours was kind enough to tell me.’ She held up the palms of her hands as if in a gesture of peace. ‘I’m sorry. I know it’s rude, just turning up like this, but I didn’t know what else to do.’
Imogen kept her hands raised, and Livvy tried to steady her racing thoughts.
Dominic’s mother was not what she’d imagined. When Dominic had spoken about her, Livvy had envisaged someone frail, feeble, like a baby bird fallen from its nest. Instead, the woman in front of her was tall – about five foot eight, a good couple of inches taller than Livvy – with broad, capable shoulders: swimmer’s shoulders, Livvy thought. There was a certain vigour to her that belied the crevices lining her face.
‘I don’t want to cause any trouble. It’s just . . . I urgently need to get hold of Dominic and he’s not replying to any of my messages.’
Livvy tried to recalibrate what she knew about Dominic’s mother with the woman standing in front of her. Dominic hadn’t mentioned that she’d been in touch. As far as Livvy knew, the only contact from her came twice a year, with the Christmas and birthday cards that found their way straight to the bin.
‘It’s his father. He’s very ill. He’s in hospital . . . he doesn’t have long left. I think Dominic should come to say goodbye.’
The news landed with a thud. Whenever Livvy thought about Dominic’s parents, she always imagined them in their thirties and forties, the age they’d been when they were making Dominic’s life a misery; not elderly people at the end of their lives. ‘I’m really sorry to hear that. But like I say, Dominic’s not here at the moment.’
Imogen paused, as if weighing something up in her mind. ‘The thing is, I can’t get through to Dominic. I was hoping that you might pass on the message. That perhaps you might be able to persuade him to visit?’
There was an upward inflection at the end of Imogen’s sentence and yet somehow it sounded less like a question and more like a statement. And suddenly Livvy understood the real purpose of Imogen’s visit. ‘Did you know Dominic wasn’t here? You saw him leave on Sunday, didn’t you?’
There was a moment’s fluster, a crimson blush in Imogen’s cheeks. And then the determined composure returned as though she had wiped the embarrassment clean from her face. ‘I just want to be sure that Dominic knows, that he understands this may be his last chance to heal the rift between them.’
His last chance to heal the rift. Livvy felt her hackles rise, assumed this was what Dominic meant by his mother’s capacity for denial. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s not my place to get involved. How Dominic deals with his family is up to him. I have to go.’
Livvy took a step back, began to swing the door closed, felt a hand resisting the pressure.
Imogen was as close to the threshold as it was possible to be without actually stepping inside, the flat of her palm pushing against the door. ‘You must understand. I’ve got a grandchild I’ve never been allowed to meet, who I didn’t even know existed until I saw you standing on the doorstep last week. My only grandchild. Can you imagine how that felt? To discover by accident that I’m a grandmother and that my son didn’t see fit to tell me?’ Imogen’s voice was belligerent and imploring at the same time, her hand still pressed firmly against the wooden door.
Livvy’s fingers gripped tighter around the Yale lock. She thought about the night Dominic had confided in her about the misery of his childhood. She had seen the cost of him disclosing even the barest outline of what had happened, understood that he had spent years working through his trauma in order to form a relationship of his own. And now here was his mother, standing on their doorstep, complaining that she hadn’t been welcomed into her grandson’s life.
Livvy felt her voice harden, consonants solidifying in her mouth. ‘It’s not my place to get involved. It’s up to Dominic whether he replies to you or not.’
‘But you must understand, as a mother, wanting to know what’s happening in your child’s life, whatever’s passed between you?’ Imogen slid the black leather handbag from her arm, pulled out a piece of paper. ‘Please will you speak to him? You might be able to persuade him. It’s important he sees his father before it’s too late.’ She held out the piece of paper and Livvy glanced down, saw a phone number written on it, realised that Dominic’s mother had it all planned: the visit while Dominic was away, the emotional blackmail, the piece of paper prepared with her phone number so that there was no chance of the door being shut in her face as she scribbled it out.
Livvy shook her head. ‘I can’t. This is between you and Dominic. I’m sorry.’ She did not wait for a response as she took a step back and pushed the door closed, hand on the lock until she was sure it had clicked into place.
Running upstairs, she tiptoed into Leo’s bedroom with a sudden yearning to check on him. Finding him sound asleep, she left his room and made her way back down the stairs.
Passing the open door to the hallway, she noticed something on the grey coir mat. Bending down, she picked it up, turned it over, heard herself inhale sharply.
A phone number was written in careful handwriting on a piece of plain white paper. The same piece of paper Imogen had offered her just minutes before and which Livvy had refused.
Crumpling it into a ball to put it into the bin, she headed into the kitchen, trying to work out how on earth she would tell Dominic that his mother had made her first impromptu visit in over thirty years.
ANNA
LONDON
Stephen pauses. There is that hesitancy again in his eyes, as though he does not know what to say. Or perhaps I am misreading his expression. Perhaps it is not hesitancy, perhaps it is disappointment.