Alyona's Voice

by Joan Shirley-Davies

  It was way past midnight when Fraser arrived at Merevale. He hadn’t planned to drive back tonight and he was tired but presumed that Claudia would be more so. He went straight to Heather Brow. The downstairs lights were on. Claudia was obviously still up and about. He rang the doorbell, then knocked and called out, ‘Claudia, it’s Fraser.’

  Claudia opened the door. Justin was in her arms, whimpering and sniffling, tears rolled down his cheeks. The strange thing was that he didn’t react to Fraser, he clearly only wanted Claudia.

  ‘You’re a welcome sight,’ Claudia said, ‘but this is a grumpy household at the moment. He’s just had the paddy from hell.’ Fraser followed her to the kitchen. She was dressed in short pyjamas and walked about barefoot on the tiled floor. He felt impotent as he watched the way she functioned so efficiently, one arm holding the baby and the other preparing a drink.

  ‘I came to help,’ Fraser said, ‘but you don’t look as though you need it.’

  ‘Don’t be fooled by my ability to function in my sleep.’

  Fraser reached his arms toward Justin. ‘Come on now, it’s Mummy’s turn to sit down.’ He sat at the table and put Justin, who was still gulping and whimpering, on his lap.

  ‘What are you doing here, Fraser, it’s almost one in the morning?’ Claudia seemed to be in a daze.

  ‘Did I scare you?’

  ‘Course not, I’m too tired.’ She looked at her little boy. ‘Poor baby, I just gave him something to help ease the pain. It should kick in soon. Then he’ll feel better.’ She looked at Fraser as if she’d remembered something. ‘I’m sorry I never asked you how you felt about managing baby pain.’

  ‘I trust you completely, Claudia, you don’t have to check that kind of thing with me.’ He looked at her and shook his head. ‘You need some rest.’

  ‘I’ll be fine if I can get five hours.’

  ‘You call that a night’s sleep?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘three hours is a night’s sleep, five hours is hibernating. You’ve caught me at a bad time. I suppose it looks as though I can’t cope.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Fraser looked at her face and at her eyes that fought to stay open, her beautiful hair scrunched and tousled over her shoulders. It was seductive seeing her that way. It gave him ideas and certainly memories, though they were hazy and dream-like. He had once held her in the night, and the treasured proof of that union was now beginning to fall asleep against his chest. ‘Do you want me to take him up now?’

  ‘No, leave him until he’s really sound asleep, otherwise he’ll spring up again when you lie him down.’ She looked at him, and a faint smile twitched on her lips. ‘I’m glad you’re here. I have something for you. I should have given it to you sooner, but it wasn’t unpacked.’

  ‘That sounds intriguing.’

  Claudia went into the hall. Justin’s lungs shuddered. It was the first time he’d seen his son like this, and it wasn’t going to be cured by a shoulder ride or an aeroplane swing. He uttered a few soothing words and then gently kissed the top of Justin’s head.

  Claudia returned, she carried a small attaché case which she placed on the table. ‘Here you go. This is for you.’ She sat down, her whole being seemed to sigh as she did so.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘When you don’t have a family or a very wide support network to help you take care of a baby, it’s perhaps more worrying than normal. If I met with an accident, what would happen to him?’

  The reality of her words struck Fraser sharply, but he said nothing.

  ‘Somebody would meet his needs while he was a child, but then he’d be alone as he approached his late teens. It wouldn’t turn out good for him. I know I should have done more to contact you, but that wasn’t his fault, and I decided that he’d be better off with a financially secure father who would do right by him. I knew that much. I knew you’d set up some kind of safe situation for him. So I always carried instructions to contact you at your London office. I’ll still carry your details, so you’ll be the first point of contact in the event of…’

  Fraser felt chilled at the thought of Claudia not being there. ‘That must have been very hard for you to deal with.’

  ‘It’s hard for anybody.’ She fixed her eyes on his face and added, ‘You’ve made provisions for him, this isn’t so different. His documents, medical history and such are kept here if you want to see them any time. But everything in the case is yours. There’s an album of photographs. He’s well-documented at each stage of his development.’ She pushed the case towards him. ‘It might fill a few gaps. And maybe you’d want to scan some of them to send to your parents.’

  ‘Thank you. I have to go back to London fairly soon. I’ll be alone, so maybe that would be a good time to look through it.’ He hesitated a moment and then said, ‘I saw my lawyers in London. I’ll bring you up-to-date on that when you’re feeling better.’

  ‘You’re a wealthy businessman, but…’ her voice faded, and she paused.

  ‘What’s on your mind?’

  ‘I know your brilliant lawyers could run rings around me, but please don’t ever use that power to fight me for custody.’

  ‘Get that notion out of your head. I won’t do it.’

  ‘But what will happen when the love of your life eventually comes along, and you set up home together, have a family. You’ll want Justin with you?’ A sob snatched at her lungs. ‘You’d have to prove that I’m an unfit mother, but you can dig all you like, you won’t find any mud to rake up from my past, no drugs, no scandal, and I’m not going to go home and leave my child crying in the playground, no matter how tired I get.’

  ‘For God’s sake…’ Fraser whispered, reached his hand across the table and grasped her fingers. ‘I wouldn’t dream of doing that. Why would I fight you? What would be the point in you giving him a chance to be part of my family if I was going to take him from his mother? We might still have issues, Claudia, but we’re moving past them now. This is tired talk. My legal advisers are there for things I’m not qualified to deal with. I made a new will and set up a trust fund for Justin. That’s what it was about… Understand?’

  Claudia nodded.

  Fraser smiled, ‘I should buy two houses, and we can be neighbours. Justin can stomp between us when he can’t get his own way.’

  Claudia smiled. ‘I did that.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘I left home when I was 14, went to live with Granny.’

  ‘Teenage rebellion?’

  ‘I would have done it when I was five if I knew how.’

  ‘You were close to your granny?’

  ‘Yes, I miss her so much. But Justin was very small, so I didn’t have time to dwell on her passing for long.’ She looked at Justin. ‘He’s sound asleep now.’

  ‘I’ll take him up,’ Fraser whispered.

  When he returned Claudia was sitting down, her elbows rested on the table, and her hands covered her face. He sat by her and put his arm around her. ‘He’s fine,’ he said. ‘He’s much cooler. I’m sorry you’ve had such a rough time.’

  ‘It makes you feel so hopeless,’ she said. ‘When I first got him home, I tried so hard not to feel like the worst mother on earth, but sometimes it’s overwhelming, as if you’re drowning.’

  ‘I’ll stay and listen out for him. You go and hibernate.’ He leaned back and looked at her. ‘Are you going to object?’

  ‘No chance,’ she said, wearily. ‘I have a spare room. It doubles as a study. The bed’s already made up, and you’ll find towels in the cupboard on the landing. I’ll show you.’

  The room clearly doubled as a study. There was a desk that was neatly organised, but it was mostly taken up by notebooks, journals and a box of letters. Fraser stared for a while and thought how ordinary they looked for something so important. He wondered if they were worth all Claudia’s efforts to save them. None of it made sense, and he couldn’t believe that a good lawyer wouldn’t sort it out. He looked at Claudia and smiled. ‘Go and get some rest. I
just need to get my bag from the car.’

  Claudia slid her arms around him and leaned her face against his shoulder. ‘I’ll be fine tomorrow, so you must get back.’

  ‘We’ll see. Are you going to bed or are you going to sleep right there against my chest?’

  She looked up at him, ‘Better not, last time I did that, I ended up in big trouble.’

  Fraser smiled. ‘All the same, it’s a pleasant thought.’

  ‘Yes it is,’ she agreed wearily and then left the room. ‘Goodnight!’

  Chapter Fifteen

  After a long day at the office, followed by an evening conference, Fraser arrived at his London apartment, pulled off his tie and unfastened several buttons of his shirt. It was far too quiet, and he wasn’t enjoying the solitude, it made him restless. Claudia had often told him that he was in the wrong game, that he was bound to it because his father had started it years ago. She was right, he was disenchanted with it, but it was successful and afforded him a good life with many advantages. He considered that to be a good balance, and the advantages would always be there for Justin. Yuri and Paige were up to speed now, it was a relief. The Wainford project would take him away from London for the time being, but it didn’t concern him, his life wasn’t here anymore. It seemed he’d left it behind on a heather-coated hillside where his little boy lived. His trip back, to help Claudia, had been brief, both mother and child were very quickly recovered, but the experience of their little family closing ranks had been somehow fulfilling. His thoughts prompted him to take a look at Justin’s papers.

  He moved the occasional table up to the sofa and spread the contents of the small attaché case on it, files, papers, albums, notebooks describing special times or anecdotes about Justin’s everyday life. He poured through the pages, smiled, laughed and even felt his eyes heating up.

  Something fell from between some paperwork. A data stick landed by his foot. It wasn’t marked in any way. He was curious and inserted the stick into his laptop.

  There were four files. The first was simply marked Justin. It contained video recordings, moving images of a baby in all his stages of development, sitting up, crawling, plunging his tiny fingers into his food, all the vital landmarks in a child’s early life.

  He wanted to open the other files, but his eyes refused to focus, even though he blinked and rubbed them with his fingers. It was getting late, he was exhausted. He leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment.

  He awoke with a start, thinking he’d heard his door slam, but nobody had a key, so he assumed he’d dreamt it.

  ‘Fraser, darling!’ A familiar voice called. It wasn’t a dream.

  ‘What the…?’ He quickly got to his feet as Natalie burst in.

  ‘I’ve been to a party. You don’t mind if I crash here for the night, do you, hon? It’s nearer than my place, and I can’t go back, because I’ve had a row with Damien.’ The words tumbled from her lips, and it was clear that she wasn’t expecting her request to be refused.

  ‘Another Damien?’

  ‘No, he’s the same one. I went back to him when we broke up.’

  ‘From what you told me about him, you’ll have an even bigger row if he finds you here. For God’s sake, Natalie, I might have been with somebody. How on earth did you get in?’

  ‘I borrowed a key, weeks ago.’

  Fraser felt invaded by her arrival and her assumption that she could just drop by. ‘Then you should have given it back.’

  ‘Oh Fraser, don’t be so boring.’ She wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘I’m glad you’re here. I’ve missed you so much.’

  ‘And after letting me down at an important time, you expect to kiss and make up?’

  ‘It was mean, I admit it. It must have caused you a lot of hassle, and I’m―’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re sorry because you’re not,’ Fraser bit back. ‘That was the intention, wasn’t it, to tell me when it was far too late to make other arrangements?’ He peeled her arms from around his neck. ‘And you’d do that to a man you wanted to marry? How do you treat your enemies?’

  ‘Come on, Fraser, don’t be like that. You survived didn’t you?’

  ‘I did more than survive.’

  ‘So, there you are, you managed to find somebody. What was she like?’

  ‘Beautiful! She can dance a tango like an Argentinian gypsy, and she even speaks Russian. Not only that, but she got ready and arrived on time…imagine that.’

  ‘If she’s so fabulous, why isn’t she here?’

  ‘You know I don’t date on a work day.’

  ‘Then you’ll be seeing her again?’

  ‘Oh yes, that’s for sure,’ Fraser said casually, deliberately keeping details from her.

  ‘She’s not here now, though, is she?’ Natalie said and wrapped her arms around his neck again, pressed her body against him.

  ‘Natalie, stop playing games.’ He felt the familiar moves of her body, it was what she did if she turned up unexpectedly, and he was distracted by work. There had been times when his body language shouted down his work ethic, but that was before they broke up. He put his hands on Natalie’s shoulders and stepped back. ‘You should go now. I’ll get a chauffeur to take you home.’

  ‘Don’t be so dull, Fraser. Why can’t I stay here?’

  ‘We’re not together anymore. You can’t just let yourself in whenever you’ve had a row with your jealous boyfriend.’

  Natalie snatched up her bag, found the key and slapped it in his hand. ‘Don’t bother about the car, I’ll get a cab. Have a nice life with your quick-change Russian dancer.’ She slammed the front door as she left.

  Fraser, completely surprised by his restraint, returned to the sofa and the laptop, to check out the other files. The first one pre-dated Justin’s life, so he was curious as to what it could be. What he didn’t expect was to see Claudia smiling back at him.

  ‘Hello Fraser!’ Although she smiled, he could see uncertainty in her eyes. Her Peter Pan hair had grown into a wavy bob. She looked cute. ‘I decided to make a video diary to explain a few things. Truth is I’m pregnant.’ She stood up and rested her hand on her rounded abdomen. ‘See?’

  Fraser quickly pressed the pause button, so he could take in the image. He was transfixed. A wave of emotion flowed through every part of him―mind and body alike―to see where his son, yet foetal, was seemingly being comforted by his mother’s hand on his head. When he released the pause button, Claudia’s voice continued.

  ‘This potential little bundle is yours…well ours,’ she said, and she sat down again. ‘I’m not blaming you,’ she hastened to add, ‘it’s my own fault. I should have resisted you that night. I guess we both fell off the platonic waggon, so to speak.’ Her approach was very practical, whereas he was still in the grip of emotion.

  ‘But things go wrong in life,’ Claudia continued, ‘and what would the little thing do if something happened to me? So I keep your details in here.’ She pinched the chain of her ID necklace. ‘It’s what people look for in emergencies, isn’t it? It has your office number and my lawyer’s number. I wouldn’t be able to protect your reputation, but the child’s wellbeing and safety are more important than that, don’t you think? Well that’s all I needed to say so…so…maybe I’ll record an update sometime. At least I’ve taken precautions for the baby’s safety. Bye for now.’

  Fraser quickly opened the next file, anxious to see more. Claudia explained that she was well into her second trimester and held up a small print of her scan that she forgot to show him the first time.

  ‘It seems that this little black and white smudge is probably a boy. I can’t call him little smudge, so he’s got his father’s name already, well, your middle name actually. This is Justin Gallier.’

  Fraser pressed the pause button again, rooted through Justin’s little case and retrieved the scan. He looked at it for several seconds, and then put it at the end of the table, away from the other things, before watching more of Claudia’s message.

/>   She told him about her day job in a textile store, so she didn’t have to travel to commissions, that often involved working quite high off the floor, and she didn’t want to take risks. She went on to explain that she wouldn’t normally have stayed so long because of the heavy rolls of fabric. But everybody was so kind, they were helping her work the extra weeks, so she could have longer maternity leave.

  ‘Of course, Justin isn’t a little smudge anymore,’ Claudia said, ‘he’s lively, kicks about a lot. He gets fidgety at times.’ She laughed. ‘Like his father,’ she added. ‘He’s probably drumming his little fingers too.’

  Fraser laughed at her reference to it.

  ‘Anyway, Fraser, it’s good to talk to you. I’ve got nobody else to nag and shout at, and you can’t answer back, can you? Hope all this wasn’t too mumsy for you. I’m really tired, so I’m off to bed.’ She chuckled. ‘I sound like Samuel Pepys―supper, diary, bed.’ She stopped, looked straight at the camera and seemed to draw a nervous breath. ‘Everything’s so different now. I miss my work, and I miss my life. I miss you too…so much.’ A sob caught in her throat. ‘These wretched hormones,’ she complained, ‘they make you want to blub at the slightest thing.’ She cleared her throat and smiled. ‘Goodnight Fraser.’

  Fraser sat for a moment, still feeling shaken and incredibly guilty to see this beautiful, courageous woman dealing with the changes in her life. There was one more entry. He hesitated, unable to bring himself to look at it, he felt emotions unlike any other he’d known. But curiosity overcame him, and he opened the last file.

  ‘Hi Daddy!’ Claudia called to him from the screen.

  Fraser snatched his breath and stared, his pounding heart resounded through his body, his head, his ears…

  ‘Look what we made,’ Claudia said with a beaming smile and shining eyes, even though her face was pale. Her hair was now, almost to her shoulders. ‘The only thing we ever made together before was dinner. These little beings are a lot more complicated than preparing vegetables. He’s got all the important things, toes, fingers and the little parts that you fathers deem to be important.’ She lifted up the tiny body so he could be seen, the feet of his onesie hung empty beyond his toes.