Secrets from the Past. Barbara Taylor Bradford

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СКАЧАТЬ had gone on to explain that when I was born, eight years later, Mom’s condition was under control, thanks to medication, although she was not permitted to breastfeed me.

      I was grateful that Cara always enlightened me about tricky or complicated family matters. She usually ploughed ahead, even if she thought it was something I might not want to hear, telling me the truth. She always said it the way it was.

      She was very matter of fact, pragmatic by nature, and slightly more reserved than Jess.

      I loved Cara, just as I did Jess. She made me laugh a lot, and this was because of her pithy observations, often about people we knew, and her frequently caustic comments about life in general.

      As a child, Cara had spent a lot of time with our grandmother, my mother’s mother, Alice Vasson. She was the only grandmother we had. Our father’s parents, David and Greta Stone, had died long before we girls were born.

      Granny Alice had a repertoire of old sayings to suit almost every situation; Cara had picked them up when she was little, had kept using them ever since, and they were now part of her vocabulary. Her three favourites were: That’s going to put the cat among the pigeons; I’ll be there before you can say Jack Robinson; Waste not, want not. That last saying I often threw back at Cara, because she was no more thrifty than Jessica and I were.

      It struck me that perhaps I had failed Cara, in a certain sense. I hadn’t been around enough for her after Dad died; she and Jessica had suffered as I had, had been grief-stricken as well, and I’d been nursing my wounds and my guilt in New York when I should have been with them.

      Cara, in particular, was vulnerable these days because of her fiancé’s death two years ago. Jules Nollet, her French childhood sweetheart, had been killed in a skiing accident when they were on vacation in the French Alps. And that was the reason I believed Cara was frequently depressed. Jessica agreed with me. All Cara did these days was work in her orchid business. I worried about her …

      I must have fallen asleep. Suddenly, I awakened with a start.

      Zac was calling, ‘Serena, Serena!’

      I struggled up, threw the bedclothes back and jumped out of bed, rushing over to him. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

      ‘I’m cold. Freezing,’ he muttered.

      Turning on the bedside lamp, I looked down at him. His face was chalk white, his eyes red-rimmed, and he was shaking uncontrollably, huddled under the duvet.

      Immediately, I pulled the duvet off my bed and laid it on top of him, then ran and closed the window. I pulled open a drawer in the chest, found two hot-water bottles, as I knew I would, and a pair of thick wool bed socks. Our mother believed in them, made all of us wear them when we were growing up, and there was a drawer-full here, bought by her years ago.

      After untucking the sheets at the bottom of Zac’s bed, I managed somehow to pull the socks onto his feet, which were icy. Picking up the hot-water bottles I went to the kitchen, put on a kettle of water to boil, ran back to the bedroom. ‘Are you feeling warmer?’ I asked, bending over him in concern.

      ‘No,’ he mumbled, and I noticed that he was still shaking.

      I was alarmed and a little frightened. Was he coming down with an illness? Or was this a manifestation of his exhaustion and lack of food? He was also stressed out and filled with anxiety, not in good shape at all. I hovered over him, uncertain about what to do to help him, other than get his body temperature back to normal.

      The whistling kettle pulled me into the kitchen, and after filling the hot-water bottles I returned to the bedroom. I placed one close to his chest, the other against his back. ‘These’ll help; you’ll soon be warmer,’ I murmured.

      He grunted something unintelligible.

      I remained at the bedside, wondering what else would help him. Then I remembered there was nothing like another person’s body heat to warm someone who was freezing cold. I went to the other side of the bed, got in, lay close to his back, and put my arms around him. With a little manoeuvring, I managed to put my body partially on top of his, hoping my body heat would do the trick.

      He continued to shiver for a while, but then very gradually the shivering became less and less. I remained on top of him, my arms holding him until he finally dozed off.

      Not much time elapsed before he was breathing deeply and evenly. Finally I got out of his bed, went and turned off the lamp, praying that he would sleep through the night.

      To my relief he did. When I woke up just before seven the next morning, Zac was still sleeping soundly. Slipping into my robe, I let myself out of the bedroom quietly, and went to the kitchen, where I made a pot of coffee, scrambled eggs and toast.

      Carrying the tray back to the living room, I took it over to the table at the far end of the room, and began to eat.

      My mind was focused on Zac and his life. I realized that he had met Harry and my father in 1999 … there was that year again. They had all been in Kosovo in September and naturally he knew who they were; was in awe of them, he told me later. Harry and Tommy took a shine to the young photographer, and he became, over time, Harry’s protégé. He was given a job at Global in 2000 and had become the star photographer over the years.

      He was not a novice when it came to war, I thought now, sipping my coffee. He’d already done a lot, seen a lot of bloodshed and devastation on battle fronts all over the world by the time he’d met Dad and Harry. He was a young veteran meeting old veterans … two men who had had more than their fair share of luck when it came to survival.

      Tommy and Harry had become war photographers in the early 1960s, and neither of them had ever taken a hit, nor been wounded. What luck, I thought, and I was unexpectedly rather pleased that my father had died in his own bed, and not covering a war.

      If he’d had to die, at that moment in time, he had done so in the best place of all, with two of his daughters with him.

      I was finishing my scrambled eggs when Zac suddenly appeared, bundled up in the terrycloth robe, looking rumpled. ‘Hi, Serena,’ he said in a slightly hoarse voice, and paused near the kitchen door. ‘I’ll get a mug of coffee.’

      ‘Hi,’ I answered. ‘Do you want me to make you some eggs?’

      ‘Not sure,’ he mumbled, and disappeared into the kitchen.

      A moment later he sat down at the table opposite me with his coffee. ‘Thank you,’ he said, staring across at me, ‘for last night.’ He cleared his throat several times, then went on, ‘I don’t know what was wrong with me, but I was icy cold. I’ve never experienced anything like it before.’

      ‘You were freezing. I must admit I was worried. But I managed to get you warmed up.’ I studied him for a moment, noting that he did look more rested, and his face was less taut. ‘In my opinion, what you had was some kind of reaction to exhaustion and lack of nourishment. That’s why you should try and eat a little of something, Zac.’

      He nodded. ‘Maybe scrambled eggs then?’ he asked hesitatingly. ‘If it’s not too much trouble.’

      ‘Not at all,’ I answered, rising, taking my plate and heading for the kitchen. ‘Back in a minute,’ I murmured over my shoulder.

      I couldn’t help smiling wryly to myself, as I set about beating four СКАЧАТЬ