Naomi came downstairs with a bottle of bathroom cleaner in one hand, and a mop and bucket in the other. ‘How’s it going?’ she asked her sister.
Rebecca closed the diary and speaking quietly said, ‘My God, she actually killed somebody! My grandmother. It’s almost impossible to accept that Bubba and Dora are the same person.’ Her voice dropped further. ‘I can’t imagine how lonely and afraid she must have been. I have this constant urge to comfort her.’
Why do I get the impression you are talking about yourself?
‘Look, Rebecca, let’s drop the show, shall we? You’re not fooling me, so you may as well spit it out,’ she said kindly. ‘Tell me what’s up – what’s troubling you.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Oh, come on. This pretence we’ve been putting on for Bubba’s sake. Why were you nearly in tears on the phone?’ Naomi asked.
Rebecca pulled her chin in and blinked at her sister.
‘Lighten the load. Spill the beans. Whatever you want to call it.’ Naomi continued. ‘Then I won’t be guessing, and you don’t have to keep hiding the thing that’s making you miserable.’
‘I’d forgotten how blunt you are.’
‘When you choose camomile tea over a glass of red? What am I, stupid? It has to be serious, so put me out of my misery.’ After a moment’s silence, she carried on. ‘Will I tickle your feet, or give you a Chinese burn?’
Rebecca’s worried face broke into a smile, remembering Naomi’s childhood threats when she was being obstinate.
‘She needs a poke with a sharp stick!’ Bubba’s voice came from her room. ‘I wasn’t fooled either. Wait for me,’ she called out.
Naomi jumped up and pulled the curtain aside.
Bubba had managed to sit on the side of her bed and was trying to pull herself up with her new walking frame.
Naomi rushed to help, but Bubba slapped her hand away.
‘Leave me alone, child!’ She grunted. ‘I need to struggle . . . overcome. If I don’t, I’ll . . . well, I’m not going to fail at this. Not after everything!’
Rebecca saw the anguish on Naomi’s face.
Bubba gripped the Zimmer with her good hand and hauled herself up.
Naomi and Rebecca held their breath and leaned forward, mirroring Bubba’s struggle. She was almost on her feet when her strength failed and she dropped back onto the bed. Rebecca sensed Naomi’s stress as, about to lunge forward and assist her grandmother, she checked herself and simply gripped the top of the walker.
‘Come on, Bubba. Make an effort,’ Naomi said with mock impatience. ‘At this rate we’ll be here all night.’
With a mighty grunt Bubba got to her feet. She crabbed into the kitchen clutching the frame and dragging one leg. Finally, she fell into her armchair and slapped a hand against her chest. ‘Holy Moses, that was a marathon! I’m doing it again tomorrow, and you can get your fancy mobile telephone out and time me, Rebecca. I intend to enter the Rhodes triathlon next year!’
The two sisters laughed, pulling kitchen chairs up to sit in a triangle around the Zimmer.
‘You haven’t lost your sense of humour, then?’ Rebecca said.
The old lady softened her voice. ‘Now, come on, child, tell us what’s going on so I can go back to bed and get my beauty sleep.’
*
Rebecca told them everything, about her endless dream of having children, about the terrible stress it put on her marriage, and about how much she had missed them both when she first arrived in London. Finally, with tears on her face, she disclosed her biggest worry – that Fritz might leave her.
‘So, did he give you an ultimatum?’ Bubba asked.
‘Not exactly. He wants us to abandon the idea of having children. He says he can’t stand watching me go through so much pain for nothing.’ She wiped her eyes. Naomi ripped off a square of kitchen roll and handed it to Rebecca. ‘I thought he’d be thrilled, after all, this is our forth try at IVF, but Fritz is just afraid he’s going to see me hurt again. That’s why we’re having this separation.’
‘Separation?’ Bubba shook her head. ‘Never a good plan. If you have a problem, you should be locked in a room together until you’ve sorted it.’
‘I had started to think he didn’t care, Bubba, but before I came here, I climbed up to the loft to find my suitcase and . . .’ Tears trickled down her face. ‘Damn, I must stop crying!’
‘It’s your hormones,’ Naomi said. ‘Make you extra sensitive.’
Rebecca dried her eyes and blew her nose. ‘I go to pieces when I remember what I saw. Our attic is full of baby things. Surprises, gifts that my husband purchased for our child. Each time I got pregnant Fritz was so thrilled he went out and bought stuff for the nursery: a train set, a rocking horse, huge teddies, mobiles, baby furniture. Lovely presents, all beautifully wrapped and under various thicknesses of dust. They all had gift tags . . .’ She fought more tears and couldn’t speak for a minute. ‘He’d written the most sweet and loving words.’ She sobbed and paused. ‘Every miscarriage must have broken his heart anew, but he put on a brave face . . . for me, and I never once considered his feelings.’
‘Aren’t we forgetting something? You are pregnant.’
Rebecca shook her head. ‘I am, but all the joy has been replaced by the all-consuming worry that tomorrow I’ll lose it. And I have the appalling decision to make . . . what to do with my baby’s siblings: kill them, give them away, let them be experimented on, or pay each year to keep them alive.’
Bubba and Naomi stared at her. ‘What do you mean?’ Naomi uttered.
‘There were ten eggs. Four were successfully fertilised to become embryos, and of these four, two were transferred to my womb in the hope that one will continue to develop normally and go full term. What shall I do with the other fertilised pair? They are potentially my children. What if I miscarry but I’ve had the other embryos destroyed?’
‘If you miscarry, you’ll get over it, child. Life will go on. Painful as it is . . .’ Bubba stared at nothing. ‘You’re young.’ She lifted her lame hand and placed it on the kitchen roll, and then ripped a sheet off with the other.
Rebecca dropped her head into her hands. ‘How can you say such a thing? You’ve no idea!’
‘You think not? Here.’ She held out the paper towel. ‘Let me tell you, I’ve experienced more loss than you’ll ever know, young lady.’ She glanced from Rebecca to Naomi and back again. ‘Even after the Nazis had taken my darling family away, I went on to lose so much more. I lost everything. The woman I loved, the man I loved, my only sister, and my child.’
Rebecca and Naomi exchanged a glance of astonishment.
‘You’re reading the diaries, but there are some events I didn’t explain fully because they were taboo in those days. I loved Irini,’ she said quietly. ‘With all my heart and soul. Such things were not talked about back then so I kept it inside me. I never revealed the true depth of my feelings. Irini did the same. What started as childish curiosity and friendship developed into the sincerest love.’ Bubba smiled softly. ‘Let me tell you what happened. . .
‘We were living in the hut: my beautiful sister, Evangelisa; my best friend, Irini; a member of the Andartes, Xanthi; and me. It was very sparse. I was helping the partisans to end the war so Papa and my family could come home, but you already know that from the diary.’
Bubba’s eyes widened, then glazed over. ‘I was sent to the bamboo swamps to learn to shoot. Kapitanos Nikos, my teacher, was a charismatic Cretan who, for some reason, could not go back to his island. He played the bouzouki, sang rebel songs, and swore like nothing I’d ever heard.’
Bubba shook her head and produced half a crooked smile. ‘He was unique. We lived on fish, sparrows, and bamboo shoots.
‘He taught me to use the gun you both held. A weapon that killed eight people by my hand.’ Frowning, she stopped to think. ‘And one of those was my . . .’ Her chest jerked with a sob, and she was silent for a moment. ‘But we’ll get to that.’
Rebecca realised she and her sister were holding hands, transfixed with a mixture of horror and fascination.
Bubba’s gaze rested on Rebecca who had pulled herself together.
With an unexpected glint in her eye, the old woman continued. ‘I became a . . . what do they call it these days? A crack pot.’
‘A crack shot, Bubba,’ Naomi said before biting her lip and squeezing Rebecca’s hand.
Bubba nodded and raised an eyebrow. Naomi gave her a ‘behave yourself’ look.
Before she spoke again, and with a thin smile resting on her lips, Bubba closed her eyes.
Both Rebecca and Naomi guessed she was invoking the past. As the minutes ticked by, they realised their grandmother had fallen asleep.
‘Oh, bless her. She’s such a darling, isn’t she,’ Rebecca said. ‘I know this seems childish, but I keep wanting to do something monumental for her. I can’t explain exactly, but something that shows her worth, her true value. Stupid, really. It sounds so shallow, but . . . do you understand me?’
‘That you came back is enough. It’s everything she wanted. Come on, help me get her to bed. I suspect we could all do with an early night.’
‘She’s a cunning old girl. I love her to bits. I mean: “crack pot”?! I ask you!’ They both laughed quietly. ‘It’s all quite deliberate, isn’t it? She isn’t going gaga at all.’
Naomi nodded. ‘She knows exactly where she’s at, believe me.’
Once Rebecca had gone up to her room, Naomi glanced around the kitchen. She should wipe the tops, wash the cups, and plan tomorrow’s food. Instead, she opened the cupboard, kissed her fingertip and dabbed Costa’s photo.
‘Good night, my love,’ she whispered before picking up the diary and mounting the stairs.