Gina’s eyes remained hard.
“I feel as fit as a flea, honestly. I’ve already promised not to cartwheel for a while.”
“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” Martha pleaded. “I found a dedication in a book but the date was wrong, and I managed to trace it to here. I didn’t expect to find that Zelda is still alive.”
Gina lifted her chin. Her voice softened a little. “I know you have lots of things to discuss, but it is something to arrange for another time. This is a big shock for everyone.”
Even though Martha felt her cheeks burn with frustration, she pursed her lips. “Yes. Yes, it is,” she agreed, finally.
“We can meet properly, soon.” Zelda said. “After I’ve rested.”
“You need to lie down,” Gina said.
“I will do. I promise.” Zelda turned her attention to Martha. “There’s a funfair in town, not far from here.”
“You will not be going there.” Gina folded her arms.
Zelda widened her eyes. “Hold your horses, Gina. I was about to say there’s a small café at the fair. They do milkshakes and you can watch the rides.”
“I am not stopping you from seeing your granddaughter. I am trying to protect you.”
Martha stepped forward, wondering why this white-haired lady had such a big say in her nana’s life. “Surely, it’s up to Zelda.”
Gina cast her a withering stare.
Zelda wheeled forward an inch. “I’m not trying to escape.” She sighed. “I won’t be going on the roller coaster. After the godawful doom and gloom of hospital it will be good to get out. I’d like to be around people enjoying themselves, who don’t have ailments and injuries. What’s wrong with going to the café?”
Gina’s moved her arms out of their fold. “Okay,” she said, eventually. “I will give it some thought.”
“Can I have your phone number, Martha?” Zelda said.
Martha took her Wonder Woman notepad from her pocket. She wrote down her address and phone number. After tearing out the sheet of paper, she handed it to her nana. “Call me anytime,” she said. “I’ll be waiting. I still live in Mum and Dad’s old house.”
Zelda nodded. She tucked the paper into her pocket and raised her hand in a fragile wave. “Thanks for finding me.”
Martha’s feet felt rooted. She didn’t want to leave, but Gina had raised herself to full height. She stood stiffly, her body rigid.
Not knowing whether to kiss her nana on the cheek or not, Martha decided against it. When Gina followed her to the door, it felt like she was being escorted off the premises.
“She is an old lady,” Gina hissed as she took hold of the doorknob. “I do not know why you’ve turned up after all this time, but it is my job to look after Ezmerelda. I will not let anything or anyone get in the way. I want to make sure you are clear about that.”
Martha swallowed, taken aback by her forceful tone. “Yes.”
“Good. Goodbye.”
Martha crooked her head to the side briefly and mouthed, “Goodbye,” to her nana. Then she stepped over the threshold and back onto the path. She didn’t hear if Zelda said goodbye or not, and she was glad that she hadn’t. Saying farewell to her all those years ago had been hard enough, without doing it again.
The door shut and Martha walked toward the gate. Her knees had jelly for joints and her fingers were numb as she opened it. Her hands shook as she pushed them into her pockets, but as she raised her face to the wind, the daylight seemed much brighter.
Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she closed the gate and looked down the country lane one way and then the other, wondering where to go. For someone so focused on planning, she’d overlooked something very big. She’d not given any thought to how she was going to get home.
13
Monkey Puzzle
Martha walked down the country lane for more than a mile before she spotted a wooden sign that told her the town center was a farther mile away. She was aware of putting one foot in front of the other but found herself unable to take in her surroundings. It was as if she was gliding in a dream. Her heart pounded so strongly it felt it might burst out of her chest.
My nana is alive.
As she passed by hedgerows and fences, she half expected a man to leap out holding a microphone and wearing a manic grin, to tell her that she’d been pranked for one of those shouty Saturday night TV shows. “Surprise. You thought you’d found your nana, but it was all a big joke. Bad luck.”
Adrenaline flooded her body and she wanted to break into a run, to feel the wind whooshing through her hair.
She wanted to scribble down all the questions that were piling up in her head, down in her notepad. She’d mark them with an amber star, because they were all in motion but none of them resolved. Her discovery of Blue Skies and Stormy Seas was rewriting her family history as she knew it.
She also knew that among the highs of happiness of discovering Zelda, secrets and lies were lurking.
She passed by a church and her stomach hardened as she remembered her dad telling her she couldn’t go to her nana’s funeral. “It’s not an experience for young people,” he’d said. “You can find your own way to let her go.”
“I want to say goodbye properly,” Martha had insisted.
“Your mother and I will attend. Not you.”
“Your dad has made up his mind,” her mother had repeated, over and over, as Martha pleaded to go.
“I don’t want to go to a funeral, anyway,” Lilian had said when Martha tried to get her on her side. “People crying and sniffling and wearing black. No, thank you.”
Martha had walked around the cemetery for weeks after Zelda died. She’d read every single gravestone but couldn’t find anything with her nana’s name on it. She scoured through the remembrance book in the church, and there was nothing there, either. She wondered if her grandmother had originated from somewhere other than Sandshift, so the funeral might have been held elsewhere. It was a puzzle she couldn’t solve.
However, now she knew the reason she hadn’t been able to find anything to do with Zelda’s death.
Because it hadn’t happened.
The revelation made her feel both ecstatic and sick at the same time.
And with these thoughts tangling in her head, Martha didn’t even notice that she had walked the rest of the distance and arrived in the village.
Benton Bay was the type of place that spelled out its name in flowers on a grass verge, and it still had a red telephone box on a corner.
Still in a daze, Martha meandered past a baker’s shop, newsagent, chemist and butcher’s shop. When she looked in the window, at the strings of sausages, she pictured Zelda chasing her across the lawn, holding on to raw sausages and shouting, “I’ve got giant fingers.”
She half smiled at the memory and continued along the street, not really noticing the shops and people surrounding her. But then something made her halt in her tracks. A wooden sign, hanging on chains above a door, featured a tree and book logo.
Martha stood beneath it and looked up. “Monkey Puzzle Books,” she said aloud. Her senses lit up as she admired the shop’s cream-painted mullions and the colorful array of children’s books and soft toys on display in the window. She reached out to touch the glass.
She paused on the pavement for a while, thinking of how Rita’s words had led her to the vicarage and to Zelda, and about the pristine version of Blue Skies and Stormy Seas. She had to go inside.
Pushing open the door, she saw a woman standing behind the counter, wearing a green-and-blue woolen shawl and a chunky gemstone necklace. Her skin was black and glowing, and her shiny, curly hair sprang down either side of her orange-framed glasses.
Martha instinctively knew this was Rita.