And the Bride Wore Red Read Free Page A

Norah, her father’s aunt. When both her parents had been busy, Olivia had gone to Norah for long visits and found that here was someone she could talk to. Norah had encouraged her to say what she was thinking. She would argue, forcing the girl to define her ideas then enlarge on them, until Olivia had begun to realise that her own thoughts were actually worth discussing—something she’d never discovered with her parents, who could talk only about themselves.
    There’d always been a bedroom for her in Norah’s home, and when she’d turned sixteen she’d moved into it full-time.
    â€˜How did that pair of adolescents you call parents react to the idea?’ Norah demanded.
    â€˜I’m not sure they quite realise that I’ve gone,’ Olivia said. ‘He thinks I’m with her, she thinks I’m with him. Oh, what do they matter?’
    It was possible to cope with her parents’ selfish indifference because Norah’s love was there like a rock. Even so, it was painful to discover yet again how little they really cared about her.
    Eventually her mother asked, ‘Will you be all right with Norah? She’s a bit—you know—’she’d lowered her voice as though describing some great crime ‘— fuddy-duddy .’
    It crossed Olivia’s mind that ‘fuddy-duddy’ might be a welcome quality in a parent, but she said nothing. She’d learned discretion at an early age. She assured her mother that she would be fine, and the subject was allowed to die.
    Before leaving, Melisande had one final request.
    â€˜Would you mind not calling me Mum when there are people around? It sounds so middle-aged, and I’m only thirty-one.’
    Olivia frowned. ‘Thirty-three, surely? Because I was born when—’
    â€˜Oh, darling, must you be so literal? I only look thirty-one. In fact, I’ve been told I look twenty-five. Surely you understand about artistic licence?’
    â€˜Of course,’ Olivia agreed with a touch of bitterness that passed her mother by. ‘And if I start claiming you as my mother it spoils the effect.’
    â€˜Exactly!’ Melisande beamed, entirely missing the irony in her daughter’s voice. ‘You can call me Melly if you like.’
    â€˜Gosh, thanks, Mum.’
    Her mother gave her a sharp look but didn’t make the mistake of replying.
    That evening, she told Norah, who was disgusted.
    â€˜Fuddy-duddy! She means I don’t live my life at the mercy of every wind that blows.’
    â€˜She just thinks you know nothing about love,’ Olivia pointed out.
    When Norah didn’t answer, she persisted, ‘But she’s wrong, isn’t she? There’s someone you never talk about.’
    That was how she’d first heard about Edward, who’d died so long ago that nobody else remembered him, or the volcanohe’d caused in the life of the girl who’d loved him. Norah told her only a little that night, but more later on, as Olivia grew old enough to understand.
    Norah had been eighteen when she’d met Edward, a young army-officer, nineteen when they’d celebrated his promotion by becoming engaged, and twenty when he’d died, far away in another country. She had never loved another man.
    The bleak simplicity of the story shocked Olivia. Later she learned to set it beside her own parents’ superficial romances, and was equally appalled by both.
    Had that lesson hovered somewhere in her mind when she too had fallen disastrously in love?
    Looking back, she could see that her life-long cynicism about emotion, far from protecting her, had left her vulnerable. She’d determinedly avoided the youthful experiences on which most girls cut their romantic teeth, proud of the way her heart had never been broken because she’d never become involved. But it meant that she’d had no yardstick by which to judge Andy, no caution to warn her of signs that