Promised
Page 58

Too many years have been wasted; too much time spent pretending to be content with my closed-off life. Not any more. Miller Hart may have sent me into unfamiliar emotional turmoil, but he’s also made me realise that I have so much more to offer the world. No more closing myself off and hiding away, too afraid to be vulnerable – too afraid of becoming my mother.
I jump off the bed and slip my feet into the black stilettos and start pacing around my room, concentrating on walking with poise and with my head held high, not looking down at the ridiculous angle that my usually flat feet are at. While I’m doing this, I search Google on my phone for local gyms – not Virgin – and I call to arrange an induction for Tuesday evening. Then I try the stairs, taking them carefully and at a slight angle to maintain my ladylike posture and gracefulness. I’m doing well.
Walking down the hall, I smile when I hit the wooden floor of the kitchen, having got here without a stumble, stagger, or slip.
Nan swings around at the sound of heels clicking on the floor, her mouth falling open.
‘What do you think?’ I ask, taking a little turn to demonstrate my stability, to both my nan and myself. ‘Obviously with a dress,’ I add, registering my pyjama shorts.
‘Oh, Livy.’ She clutches the tea towel to her chest on a sigh. ‘I remember the days when I pranced around in high heels like they were flats. I have bunions to prove it.’
‘I doubt I’ll be prancing, Nan.’
‘Do you have another date with the nice young man?’ She looks hopeful as she takes a seat at the kitchen table.
I’m not sure whether she means Miller, who she’s met, or Luke, who she hasn’t. ‘I have a date with two men tonight.’
‘Two?’ Her old, navy eyes widen. ‘Livy, sweetheart, I know I said live a little, but I didn’t—’
‘Relax.’ I roll my eyes, thinking she should know better, but then again, her boring, introvert granddaughter has been out more times this week than in her whole life. ‘It’s Gregory and his new boyfriend.’
‘How lovely!’ she sings, but then her wrinkled brow puckers some more. ‘You’re not going to one of those g*y bars, are you?’
I laugh. ‘No, it’s a new place uptown. Tonight’s the opening, and Gregory’s new fellow has been organising it. He’s invited me.’
I can tell by her face that she’s delighted, but she’s going to make a fuss, anyway. ‘Nails!’ she screeches, knocking me back a step in my heels.
‘What?’
‘You must paint your nails.’
I look down at my short, tidy, bare nails. ‘What colour?’
‘Well, what are you wearing?’ she asks, and I wonder if many twenty-four-year-olds seek this kind of advice from their grandmother.
‘Gregory made me buy a black dress, but it’s a little short and I’m sure I could’ve done with the next size up. It’s tight.’
‘Nonsense!’ She zooms up, all excited and enthusiastic about my night out. ‘I have pillar-box red!’
She disappears from the kitchen and moves up the stairs, faster than I’ve ever known. It’s only moments before she’s back, shaking a bottle of red nail polish in her wrinkled hand.
‘I save it for special occasions,’ she says, pushing me down onto a chair and taking one next to me.
I can do no more than watch as she takes her time, neatly coating each of my nails, blowing little streams of air over my fingers when she’s done. Sitting back in her chair, she tilts her head and I follow her gaze down to my fingers, wriggling them for a few moments before bringing them closer and running my eyes over them. ‘They’re very . . . red.’
‘It’s very classy. You can’t go wrong with red nails and a black dress.’ Her mind seems to wander, and I smile fondly at my grandmother, childhood memories of her and my gramps flooding my mind.
‘Do you remember when Gramps took us to the Dorchester for your birthday, Nan?’ I ask. I was ten years old and in complete awe of the affluence. Gramps wore a suit, Nan a floral two-piece skirt and jacket, and I was treated to a navy-blue dungaree dress, which was covered in large white polka dots. Gramps always loved it when the women in his life wore navy blue. He said it made our already stunning eyes look like bottomless pits of sapphires.
My grandmother takes a long pull of air and forces a smile, when I know that she really would like to shed a tear. ‘That was the first time I painted your nails. Granddad wasn’t happy.’
I return her smile, remembering all too well the stern word he had in her ear. ‘He was even less happy when you tinted my lips with your red lipstick.’
She laughs. ‘He was a man of principles and set firmly in his ways. He didn’t understand a woman’s need to cake her face in make-up, which made it all the more difficult for him to deal with your . . .’ She trails off and quickly starts screwing on the lid of the polish.
‘It’s okay.’ I place my hand over hers and give it a little squeeze. ‘I remember.’ I may have only been a small child, but I remember vivid shouting matches, slamming doors, and Gramps with his head in his hands on many occasions. I didn’t understand it at the time, but maturity has brought it all home, making everything painfully clear. That and the journal I found.
‘She was too beautiful and too easily led.’
‘I know.’ I agree, but I don’t think she was easily led at all. I’ve concluded that that’s what Nan has told herself over the years to deal with her loss. I’m happy to let her have that.
‘Livy.’ She shifts her hand carefully to avoid smudging my polish, so she’s the one gripping mine, and it’s a firm grip – a reassuring grip. ‘Everything about you is your mother, but not this.’ She taps her temple with her index finger. ‘You mustn’t be afraid of becoming her. It’ll just be another life wasted.’
‘I know,’ I admit. My own underlying reasons to avoid a repeat of my mother’s life are good enough, but remembering my grandparents’ devastation has only ever sealed it.
‘You’ve completely shut yourself down, Livy. I know I was, well, a little bit of a handful after your granddad died, but I’m fine now – have been for some time, sweetheart.’ She raises grey eyebrows at me, desperate for me to acknowledge it. ‘I’ll never get over losing them both, but I can still live. You haven’t experienced half of what life has to offer, Olivia. You were such a spirited child and teenager until you found—’ she halts, and I know it’s because she can’t say the words. She’s talking about the journal, the frighteningly vivid accounts of my mother’s life.
‘It was safer that way,’ I murmur.
‘It was unhealthy that way, sweetheart.’ She lifts my hand and kisses it lovingly.
‘I’m beginning to see that.’ I take a deep breath of confidence. ‘That man, the one who came for dinner . . .’ I don’t know why I don’t use his name. ‘He unearthed something in me, Nan. It’ll never go anywhere, but I’m glad I met him because he’s made me realise what life could be if I let it.’
I don’t divulge any more than that, and I also don’t confess that given the chance, I would have whatever that is with him, if only he would let me. It’s not the sex; it’s the connection, the feeling of complete refuge that beats anything I’ve attempted to achieve on my own. It defies sensibility, really. Miller Hart is irrational, arduous and temperamental, but the times between those irritating moments are inconceivably blissful and serene. I want to, but I have no faith in finding those feelings with another man.