a hospice at any stage. The last time I’d seen her, five days before she died, she’d been propped up on the sofa, relishing the sun streaming in through the French windows. Her fading strength was a contrast to the vigour of her garden, to the warmth, the dazzle and the promise of these days. Just a few metres away, her garden was vibrant with fat roses, the marigolds spangled their orange bursts in the borders. And the lavender. She loved her lavender; it spilled out of the terracotta pots and flopped over the path. ‘You see, Joanna, got myself a piece of Provence right here in Cardiff.’ I still thought we had more time, that we’d be able to take up the promise of fragrant evenings where we might even be able to sit with a glass of champagne – ‘It’s wasted on me, I’ve got a cheap palate,’ Ginny would say. But it wasn’t wasted on her. She was worth every bubble.
My heart ached for how much more there’d still been to say, to give each other. I’d had confidence, that rare faith, the sort that comes along once or twice in a lifetime, that Ginny always had my back. Not in a ‘when it’s convenient for me’ sort of way, but in the most important way of all – ‘when it’s not convenient for me’. I could tell her my most undignified, humiliating or petty thoughts and know she’d never hold them against me. Gloriously, she would defend me against any detractors when – especially when – I was wrong.
I felt the familiar swill of guilt, that I’d dithered when it was my turn to be a warrior on her behalf. I hadn’t squeezed her hand and said, ‘Of course, Victor can come and live with us. Don’t even think about it.’ When she’d needed me most, I’d allowed Patrick to derail me.
When I’d first broached the subject, he’d thought I was joking. ‘You’re not serious, are you? We can’t even keep Phoebe on the right track, let alone a kid who’s missed a great big chunk of school and recently lost his mum. Not to mention the fact that we’re both flat out at work. It’s just not practical to spread ourselves even more thinly.’
‘But who would be better placed to help Victor? We’ve got a long history with Ginny. We both know her really well, we’ll have some idea what she would think was right for him.’
‘Did she make an attempt to track down his dad?’
I’d blown up at him, something that had taken me years to have the courage to do. ‘You’d rather see him shipped off to a “dad” he knows nothing about in Canada, someone who, as far as I can make out, was the “real thing this time” until he turned out to be married? How is that going to help Victor, bursting in on a family with a wife who probably has no idea he even exists? He’s only going to be living with us for two years, then he’ll be off to university.’
Patrick kept shaking his head, the argument coming as it did on the end of several months of Phoebe’s plummeting grades and far too many humiliating meetings with the headmistress that had not gone unnoticed by the other parents in our little village with kids at the same school. ‘What about her brother? Her dad?’
‘Her brother lives in Australia! Victor’s probably met him twice in his life. Ginny said he’s hardly been in touch at all, so I don’t think he’s rushing to guarantee Victor’s future. And her dad lives in a sitting room converted into a bedroom because he can’t get up the stairs. Victor would end up being his carer – and he’s done enough of that already.’
‘Surely there’s someone better than us. We’re not exactly best placed to make sure he keeps his culture and traditions. We never go to church and I know you’re a good cook but you’re not going to make the same stuff as Ginny.’
He knew as well as I did that was a low blow. Of course there were things we’d do differently but I was pretty sure that would be the same with any family Victor ended up with. Yes, Ginny loved going back to her parents’ on a Sunday for obe ata, Jollof rice and plantain. And we all begged her to make suya chicken skewers with her secret recipe of spices, despite Cory teasing her that