you just live with her for a few months? That’ll get her out of your system fast enough.’
‘There’s no need to shout,’ said Guy. Veronique was in the next room.
‘Why not? Why can’t I shout?’ His father’s eyebrows knitted ferociously together. ‘I want her to hear me! She should know that not everyone is as gullible as you obviously are. If you ask me, she’s nothing but a clever, scheming foreigner making the most of the opportunity of a lifetime.’
‘But I’m not asking you,’ Guy replied, his tone icy. ‘And Veronique isn’t someone I want to get out of my system. She’s going to be my wife, whether you like it or not.’
Oliver Cassidy turned purple. ‘You’re making a damn fool of yourself.’
‘I’m not.’ His son, sickened by his inability even to try to understand, turned away. ‘You are.’
They were married at Caxton Hall and Veronique accompanied Guy on a working trip to Switzerland in lieu of a honeymoon. Upon their return, she moved her few possessions into his apartment, gave up her job in a busy north London delicatessen and said, ‘So! What do we do next?’
Joshua was born ten months later, a perfect composite of his parents with Guy’s dark blue eyes and Veronique’s white-blond hair. With no family of her own, Veronique said sadly, ‘It’s such a shame. Your father hates me, I know, but he should at least have the chance to love his grandson.’
Guy, though not naturally vindictive, wasn’t interested in a reconciliation. ‘He knows where we live,’ he replied in dismissive tones. ‘If he wanted to see Josh, he could. But he clearly doesn’t want to, so forget him.’
The arrival of Ella two years later brought further happiness. Contrary to Veronique’s plans that this time the child should have silver-grey eyes and dark curly hair, she was a carbon copy of Josh. Guy, his career skyrocketing, took so many photographs of his family that they had to be stored in suitcases rather than albums. It wasn’t until he received a large Manila envelope through the post, addressed to him in familiar handwriting and containing a selection of the choicest photographs, that he realized Veronique had sent them to his father. ‘Don’t ever do that again,’ he said furiously, hurling the envelope to the ground. ‘He doesn’t deserve anything. I’ve told you before ... just forget him!’
But Veronique could not forget. All children were supposed to have grandparents, and her enduring dream was that her own children should know and love the only living grandparent left to them. As the years passed and the rift remained as deep and unbridgeable as ever, she became quietly determined to do something about it. Both her husband and her father-in-law were clearly too proud to make the first move but for Josh and Ella’s sakes she was prepared to take the risk.
If Oliver Cassidy were to come face to face with his grandchildren, she reasoned, the rift would instantly be healed. It would be a fait accompli, following which human nature would take its course and all would be well.
Knowing that her fiercely protective husband would never allow her to make the initial move towards reconciliation, however, she planned her campaign with secretive, military precision. Oliver Cassidy was at that time living in Bristol, so she waited until Guy was away on a two-week assignment in New York before booking herself and the children into an hotel less than a mile from her father-in-law’s address.
By the time of their arrival at the station, Veronique’s head was pounding and she was feeling sick with apprehension, but there was no backing out now. For the sake of Josh and Ella she struggled to maintain a bright front. At their hotel, overlooking the Clifton Suspension Bridge, she treated them to ice-cream sundaes on the sweeping terrace and said gaily, ‘Eat them all up, and don’t spill any on your clothes. We’re going to see a very nice man and he might not be so impressed with chocolate ice-cream stains.’
Josh, six years old and enjoying the adventure immensely, said, ‘Who is he?’
But Veronique, whose headache was worsening by the minute, simply smiled and shook her head.
‘Just a very nice man, my darling, who lives not far from here. You’ll like him, I’m sure.’
Josh wasn’t so sure he would. The big house to which his mother took them was owned by a man who didn’t look the least bit pleased to see them. In Josh’s experience, very-nice-people smiled a tot, hugged you and, perhaps, gave you sweets. This man, with fierce grey eyebrows like caterpillars, wasn’t even saying hello.
‘Mr Cassidy,’ said Veronique quickly. It was an unpromising start and her palms were sticky with perspiration: ‘I have brought Josh and Ella to see you . I thought you would like to meet them ... your family--’
Oliver Cassidy didn’t like surprises. Neither did he appreciate emotional blackmail. A man who seldom admitted that he might be in the wrong, he saw no reason to revise his opinion of his only son’s French wife. In her flowered dress and with her straight blond hair hanging loose around her shoulders, she still looked like a teenager, which didn’t help. And as far as he was concerned, the fact that she thought she could simply turn up out of the blue and expect some kind of fairytale reunion proved beyond all doubt that she was either stupid or staggeringly naive.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said coldly, eyeing her white face with displeasure and ignoring the two children at her side. His gesture encompassed both the Georgian house and the sloping, sculptured lawns. ‘Afraid they’ll miss out on all this when I’m gone?’
‘No!’ Appalled by her father-in-law’s cruelty, Veronique took a faltering step backwards.
‘No,’ she cried again, pleading with him to understand. ‘They are your grandchildren, your family! This isn’t about any inheritance snapped Oliver Cassidy as Ella, clinging to her mother’s hand, began to cry. ‘Because they won’t be seeing any of it anyway.’
‘I feel sick,’ Ella sobbed. ‘Mummy, I feel—’
‘And now, I have an urgent appointment.’ He glanced at his watch in order to give credence to the lie. Then, with a look of absolute horror, he took an abrupt step sideways.
But it was too late. Ella, who had eaten far too much chocolate ice-cream, had already thrown up all over her grandfather’s highly polished, handmade shoes.
It wasn’t until they were back at the hotel that Veronique realized she was ill. The headache and nausea which she had earlier put down to nervousness had worsened dramatically and she was aching all over.
By early evening a raging fever had taken its grip and she was barely able to haul herself out of bed in order to phone downstairs and ask for a doctor to be called. Summer flu, she thought, fighting tears of exhaustion and the shivers which racked her entire body like jolts of electricity. Just what she needed. A fitting end to a disastrous visit. Had she been superstitious she might almost have believed that Oliver Cassidy had cast a malevolent jinx in order to pay her back for her impudence.
