Page 39 of My Lemon Grove Summer
It’s Sherise who breaks the silence.
‘Trouble is . . . it’s true, isn’t it?’
‘What?’ We all turn to look at her.
‘Well it is. We’re all here because we were looking for something – a second, third, fourth . . . final chance to find some sort of happiness in the chaos of our lives, some sort of sense and order.’
We fall silent again, no one able to argue with her. Lennie puts his hand over mine, and I can feel the support there and am so grateful to have him by my side.
Tabitha finally speaks.
‘If it’s any consolation, that’s me too.’
‘Which bit?’ I snap.
‘All of it really.’ She flops into the chair at the end of the table and holds her head in her hands.
‘Oh Tabitha. Why did you do it?’ Lennie asks.
She looks up at him, clearly surprised by his kind tone.
‘I’m in the last-chance saloon too,’ she admits. ‘I was the young, bright, eager journalist, waiting for my big break, watching opportunities come and go, passing me by. Now younger, brighter journalists are coming up, snapping at my heels, getting ideas past the editor, whilst I’m pushed further and further down the ladder. I’m clinging on by my fingertips here. If I don’t come up with something, I’ll be pushed off for good, and I have no idea where I’m going to go.’
‘Doesn’t excuse what you wrote about us,’ Ralph says. ‘If you’d wanted to know the truth about the money I lost, you should’ve asked. I might have given you the interview all the other journalists have been hounding me for. Yes, I lost a fortune. Yes, I lost my family. But it was never pension funds, and I’m certainly not living in any kind of luxury. In fact, I’m living with you, which looks pretty much like hell from where I’m standing right now!’
Tabitha looks as if all the fight has been knocked out of her.
‘Well you’ll be pleased to know I’ve got my comeuppance,’ she says. ‘That was my editor I was talking to. My column has been sidelined, relegated to a tiny slot at the back of the magazine to make space for a new young chef from one of the reality shows.’
‘We have to be thankful for small mercies, I suppose,’ I say coldly.
‘Even so, my kids could read it,’ says Ralph. ‘And my wife will be in no doubt as to why she left such a loser.’ He drops his head. ‘I couldn’t even back the right project out here; I put all my eggs into a basket that’s fallen apart before we’ve even got started. That’s me, just a big failure . . . I think that’s how you were describing me, wasn’t it?’
‘Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt any of you. I saw the advert, and if I’m honest, I could see myself applying if I couldn’t get something off the ground. This was my last chance to bag a headline column.’
‘But you were right about all of us,’ says Sherise. ‘And what have we got to go back to? The same mess we left behind.’
I look around at the defeated faces, and at Lennie, and think about the lifeIleft; and my mouth seems to start working before my brain has a chance to catch up.
‘Then let’s not go back,’ I say quietly.
‘What?’ Lennie looks up.
‘Well, Sherise is right. That column, thatisus! We’re all searching for something, and we’re leaving before we’ve even had a chance to start trying to find it.’
‘But the project’s off. There’s no money,’ says Lennie, looking at me as if I’ve had a bang on the head.
‘There’s no relocation fund at the moment, no. But we’ve done okay this last week, haven’t we? It may not be a fortune, but it’s enough. Enough for us to stay here and try to make a new life for ourselves.
‘Barry, you wanted a fresh start, a life where you were you, not half of a couple. Ralph, you wanted to build a home your kids would be able to come and visit you in. Sherise and Billy, you wanted land where you could keep animals. Lennie and I, we wanted to join the grown-up club, to get married and put down roots.’
‘Yes, but—’ Sherise says.
‘But nothing. We still have those dreams, and if we go back now, they’ll still be exactly that: dreams. At least here, doing what we’re doing, we can try to make them come true. Giuseppe wanted to breathe new life into this town; he wanted a community, a wedding. Isn’t that what we all want?’ I look at Lennie. He smiles at me, so fondly, and I feel warm and happy here with him.
‘Yes,’ he nods.
‘Then why are we leaving?’ I look around at the group. All we have in common is the fact that we have lost our purpose in life. Why else would we be here? ‘We should stay . . . all of us. What have we got to go back for? I was bullied out of my business and my future once; I’m not going to let it happen again. So what if we have to stay at Il Limoneto until we can find a way to finance our own homes. Let’s give it a go!’
