Page 95 of Fly Me to Moongate Manor
Perhaps you can find her, not for Moongate but for you. I don’t care about Moongate now. I only ever wished you would speak to me again, but I know I am not worthy of that.
With deepest regret,
Your father
Diana put the letter down and sifted through the papers to find the photograph.
She looked at it closely, feeling silent tears fall down her face.
Her little baby was holding her hands in a fist and was squinting at the camera. It was black and white but Diana could make out the white knitted dress with smocking and wool stockings. The couple looked hard, the woman tired and the man thin, reedy and disappointed.
But her daughter was in good condition by the look of the photo and was clean and in nice clothes.
She turned the photo over and read the pencil writing on the back.
Clive, Peggy and Wendy, December 1963.
38
Amanda
Amanda hadn’t been home to Moongate for seven weeks. Janet had gone there for her to get the rest of her clothes while Amanda was at the hospital with Diana, who was slowly improving and had moved to the rehabilitation centre.
Instead Amanda was living at Janet and Carole’s house with Trotsky because it was easier to get to the hospital and because she didn’t want to be in the house without Simon or Diana nearby.
She had told David she couldn’t work at the nursery centre while Diana was in hospital and he was very understanding and told her the exhibition was always on offer when she was ready, but Amanda couldn’t imagine doing that either with the current state of things.
She had one surviving family member left and she was going to do whatever it took to help her recover, but still hadn’t told Diana she knew the truth. The doctors said Diana couldn’t cope with any sudden shocks while her brain was recovering so Amanda had to wait, which was fine, she told them, as the last thing she wanted was to stress her out when she was just coming out of the worst of it.
And every day of those seven weeks she had checked to see if Simon had messaged her.
He hadn’t.
She refused to text him but she had seen that Anika had changed her relationship on Facebook to ‘It’s Complicated’ and she and Charlie had unfollowed each other on Instagram, not that Amanda was stalking or anything, she told herself.
Eventually Amanda stopped checking. She had more important things to think about now.
When she looked back at her life in New York and compared it to the one in England, she could hardly believe she was the same person. The fearful, anxious girl, afraid of herself and the world was no longer. At Moongate she was empowered by the house, Diana, by the friends she had made in the village and by the gentleness of her surroundings.
She wished her mother had seen her in the house, that her mom had even experienced it for a moment, but she couldn’t think about that too much.A life of regrets is one that is wasted,she told herself.
And while living in New York might have seemed glamorous and exciting, the reality was quite different. Life at Moongate Manor was smaller yet gave her a bigger, richer experience and she was a better person for having experienced all of it. But she couldn’t do it alone. She needed Diana and wanted her to stay around for as long as she could.
Amanda arrived at the rehab ward of the hospital as Diana was taking steps down the hallway with a frame.
‘Look at this hideous thing,’ she said. ‘I want my stick, not this contraption.’
The physiotherapist rolled his eyes at Amanda.
‘And don’t roll your eyes, Isaac. I know you are. I can feel it.’
Amanda laughed.
‘Amanda?’ She turned to see the rehabilitation nurse standing outside her office. ‘Can I have a word?’
‘I’ll be right back,’ she said to Diana and followed the nurse into the office and sat down.
‘We had a meeting about Diana today and we think she’s ready to go home.’
