Cold Cold Sea

by Linda Huber

  The sound of Colin’s key in the lock roused her from her daydream. He strode through to the kitchen and opened the fridge.

  ‘Hello, love. Want some juice?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Maggie, staring. ‘What are you doing home at this time?’

  ‘I need the car this afternoon, I’m taking a client to see the factory at Corriemer. I’ll drive you to the hospital now, though, and I can collect you again at three.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Maggie. ‘I’ll come home on the bus. Give me an excuse to walk through town, have a look at the shops.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Colin, staring at the photo of Joe and Livvy, attached to the fridge by a cat-shaped magnet.

  Maggie sighed. There had been something on his mind for days now, she could tell. He’d been hovering around her, obviously wanting to say something but never quite managing it. She reached out and put a hand on his arm.

  ‘Colin, for Pete’s sake just spit it out.’

  Colin laid the photo on the table and sat down. ‘I loved Olivia,’ he said, his face pale and serious. ‘I was awake for hours last night, thinking about her. I loved being her dad, watching her grow. She was part of our lives and it was wonderful, a miracle. But she’s gone now, Mags, and I - I don’t want to give up on that miracle.’

  ‘You want us to have another baby,’ said Maggie, hearing the flatness in her voice.

  ‘I know it’s still too soon for another baby. But we always said we wanted more than two kids one day. I know that we could ever replace Livvy, but I think our family would be more complete if we had another child. One day. I just want to plan something good for our future.’

  Maggie took a deep breath.

  ‘I do not - want - another - baby,’ she said, hearing panic rise shrilly in her voice. Slinky leapt up to his window and disappeared into the garden. ‘We’ve lost a child, Colin, I gave birth to her and now she’s gone, and it hasn’t even been three months yet for Christ’s sake, how can you even think of another baby? But you’re right, you’re damned well right we can never replace Olivia, and I am not going to try.’

  She could feel the scream in her voice again. Love and loss, the most unbearable feelings, and they had lost their daughter in the worst possible way. She could never risk loving another child.

  Colin’s face was white. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not talking about now. But I do want us to be a real family, with a couple of kids at least. We’re young, Mags. You might feel different in a year or two.’

  Tears rushed into Maggie’s eyes and she pulled a tissue from the box. ‘So we’ll talk about it then,’ she said tightly. ‘In a year or two when I feel different. And not before. Okay? Right now all I want is Livvy, and she’s not coming back, is she?’

  Colin shook his head and slumped over the table. Trembling, Maggie went upstairs to put on her make-up. She stared at her face in the bathroom mirror. It was thinner, and more lined than three short months ago. And nowadays there was a blank, hopeless expression in her eyes that had never been there before the fifteenth of August. But Colin was right about one thing. They were young enough to have six more babies if they wanted them.

  She blinked back the tears to apply her mascara.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘Well done, you three, that was a good game. Now you can join the others for a little while before it’s time to go home.’

  Katie gathered up the cards spread over the craft table and grinned as Julia, Derek and Hailey ran across the room to the play area. Having an assistant was another advantage of teaching little ones. It meant that she could work more individually with the kids who needed it. Their game of ‘Happy Families’ had helped Derek to speak up clearly, Julia to say the few words necessary and no more, and Hailey to maintain eye contact, something that was often still difficult for the little girl.

  I’ll give them another ten minutes, then we’ll have a song before home-time, she thought, wandering over to the play area and noticing with wry amusement that Julia had completely taken over Martin and Melanie’s game of shops. Oh well, the child had been very self-controlled for twenty whole minutes, they couldn’t expect miracles straightaway. And at least Hailey was improving by leaps and bounds now that her dad was home. She seemed to be sleeping better for one thing; the tiredness that had often plagued her in the mornings had vanished.

  Katie looked round for Hailey and saw that the little girl was standing by herself at the window, looking out with the old blank expression on her face.

  Famous last words, she thought, and joined her smallest pupil.

  ‘Okay, Hailey? Your dad’ll be here in half an hour, don’t worry.’

  Hailey looked up at her, her lips trembling.

  ‘Mummy’s coming home today,’ she whispered.

  Katie smiled encouragingly. ‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Are you worried because the babies will still be in hospital? They’ll be home too before you know it, Hailey. Your dad said yesterday they’re doing really well.’

  Hailey nodded slowly. She didn’t look convinced, and Katie racked her brains. Hailey’d had her dad all to herself ever since his return, maybe she was worried that he wouldn’t have as much time for her now. Which, when you thought about it, was actually spot-on.

  ‘Daddy’ll be very glad of your help, you know, when Mummy and the twins are all home again. You’re big enough to do all sorts of things now. It’s fun, being in a big family and helping each other.’

  Hailey stared at her, and Katie frowned. There was something still not quite right here, the expression on Hailey’s face was actually more like fear than jealousy. Suddenly Katie remembered the photos Hailey had brought in to show the class. Two tiny babies in incubators. Had Hailey been frightened by the sight of her siblings in hospital? All that technology might well look very scary to a child. And the babies were only a few days old, they probably looked very fragile and sick to their sister.

  ‘Sweetheart, you don’t need to worry at all about the babies being in hospital,’ she said gently. ‘It’s only for a little while until they grow. Your daddy told me they really are doing well. And when they’re home, we’ll ask Daddy if they can visit us at school sometime. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?’

  Hailey nodded, heaved the biggest sigh that Katie had seen in a long time, and turned back into the classroom, her face still glum.

  Katie clapped her hands for silence. ‘Right, everyone, let’s start tidying up now. It’s nearly time to go home.’

  The other children buzzed around excitedly, but the expression on Hailey’s face reminded Katie of the first day of school when the little girl had looked so sullen when her mother arrived. Today, like that day, it was obvious that Hailey didn’t want to go home.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Phillip sank into the depths of the sofa and closed his eyes. All this worry and running back and forth between the hospital and the school and home - it was incredibly tiring. He’d just made Hailey’s dinner, and when Jennifer came down from her nap he’d need to cook something for her too. The only thing he could be glad about right this minute was that he didn’t have to rush back to work. He could stay at home with his family, but what a mixed blessing that was turning out to be.

  He still hadn’t found out about Hailey’s real identity. The very fact that nobody seemed to be looking for this child was making it all too easy just to let things slide until he had more energy and more time to plan. That afternoon he had eventually got the computer set up again, but then he’d had to collect first Hailey and then Jennifer, there hadn’t been time for research as well. Or – to be completely honest – there had been time, he just hadn’t done it.

  Right this minute he had time, but he was so exhausted, he really didn’t know how he’d cope with whatever the world wide web would tell him about the child who called him Daddy.

  He opened his eyes as Hailey wandered in, her baby doll held upright against her chest. It was nearly bath time.

  Phillip smiled. ‘Hi, honey. F
inished playing with your doll’s house?’

  Hailey nodded, her expression bleak.

  ‘Mummy’s awake again.’

  She sat down beside him, rocking the doll in her arms. Phillip swallowed hard. It was good to see her playing with her toys, but the guilt he felt each time he looked at her, it crushed him. He would have to do something soon. If he could only work out a foolproof plan, but the way his brain was functioning at the moment that just wasn’t likely.

  ‘Is that baby Lara you’ve got there?’ he said, trying to sound as if no guilt was torturing him.

  Hailey shook her head. ‘No, this is my Maggie. She’s my very best baby.’ She sat there for a moment, stroking the doll’s face, then looked up. ‘When are the babies coming home?’

  Phillip smiled. Baby Maggie would take a back seat when baby Lara was home, he would bet anything at all on that.

  ‘Probably next Monday, like I told you.’

  Hailey nodded, looking thoughtful. ‘Miss McLure says I’m big enough to help with them. I want to give them their bottles and bath them, can I?’

  Phillip’s breath caught. She was looking forward to her future in his family. A future that couldn’t... shouldn’t... be.

  Hailey was still waiting expectantly for the answer to what was obviously a very important question. He forced himself to sound happy and enthusiastic.

  ‘That sounds great. I’ll be really glad of your help.’

  Satisfied, the child turned back to her doll, and Phillip leaned back again, closing his eyes. He could dream a little longer.

  Chapter Twenty

  The letter flap on the front door gave its usual clunk as it snapped shut, and Maggie glanced up from the sofa, where she was catching up with the news on teletext. The postman exited the garden, leaving the gate wide open as usual - this had always infuriated Maggie before, but now it was just so completely unimportant.

  Last night, for the first time since losing Livvy, she and Colin had made love. The inevitable bittersweet milestone, and they had sobbed together afterwards. Maggie needed to feel joy. She needed to feel free from worry for just a moment, and she knew that if this didn’t happen, their marriage was unlikely to survive in the long run. But in the whole series of terrible ‘firsts’ they’d gone through since the fifteenth of August, this one had been the most poignant.

  Maggie’s stomach heaved as she stared at the three envelopes lying in the hallway. The cream-coloured one was a card. Recently they’d had a couple of sympathy cards; couldn’t people have the sensitivity to at least wait until - what? Until they had a funeral? Made some kind of ‘my daughter is definitely dead’ statement? She lifted the envelopes, forgetting about the card when she saw the plain white envelope beneath it.

  It was another of those hideous anonymous letters. They’d had about six now, and actually some were signed with Christian names so they weren’t completely anonymous. They all had one thing in common, though: the writers all thought that she and Colin were the worst parents in the world. And maybe they were right, of course. Howard had told them to discard these letters unread, but Maggie couldn’t do this. She read through every page of insults that came.

  This one was mercifully short and contained nothing but vile abuse. Maggie took it to the kitchen sink to burn. This pain was hers alone. There was no point showing it to Colin; the news that it had come would be enough to ruin his evening. Resentment flared inside her as water speckled with black and grey swirled around the plughole.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Mid November

  Philip drove through Saturday afternoon rain, conscious of the relief he felt at the opportunity to spend a few blessed minutes by himself.

  Life was intense now that the babies were home. Jennifer spent every available minute with the twins, feeding them, rocking them, changing their clothes if they got as much as a speck on their designer outfits. Everything else was up to him, which meant that not only was he doing all the housework, shopping, and looking after Hailey, he was also being denied the pleasure of bonding with his own two children. He was allowed to deal with Daniel now and then, true, but he wanted to do more than change the odd nappy. Yesterday, Jennifer had been so caught up in her own world that she had barely spoken to him all day, and he felt both left out and powerless to change things. And he was afraid to confront her in case he made things worse.

  So the chance to go down to the harbour store and buy a couple of things he’d forgotten yesterday was a welcome one. This was what his life had come to, he was delighted to be going to the village to buy fish fingers and cream.

  Inside the cramped little shop the first person he tangled baskets with was Hailey’s teacher.

  ‘Miss McLure! Sorry. I don’t even need a basket, I’m only here for a couple of things.’

  She smiled at him. ‘No problem. How’s Hailey enjoying her first weekend with the babies? She was so excited about it yesterday.’

  Phillip struggled to smile back, and sound like any other dad having new babies home.

  ‘Oh, it’s exciting alright. And tiring, I’d forgotten how it feels when you’re up half the night. But of course it’s wonderful too, they’re doing so well.’

  ‘That’s great. You must bring them to school for a visit soon. The kids would love it.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Phillip, turning towards the check out. ‘Sorry, I’ll have to go now. Jennifer’s, um, waiting for the cream. See you Monday.’

  She stood to the side to let him pass. ‘Say hello to Hailey from me.’

  He nodded, and marched as quickly as the other shoppers would let him towards the checkout. Standing in the queue, he fumbled for his mobile when it rang.

  It was Jennifer, her voice petulant.

  ‘What on earth are you doing so long, darling? I need you here.’

  Phillip felt his heart rate increase. So yesterday Jennifer had ignored him all day, and today he couldn’t even go down to the shop without her phoning and hurrying him back.

  ‘I’m next in line at the checkout. Is everything okay?’ he said hoarsely, but she had already rung off.

  Back at the car, he tossed his shopping onto the passenger seat before flopping down behind the wheel and jamming the key into the ignition. No chance of a walk round the harbour now. He should have left his phone at home. But he had to know if Jennifer was coping with the babies by herself. And there was Hailey, too. Nothing must happen to Hailey, and Jennifer seemed only bothered about the twins.

  Another car was hovering, waiting for the space. Phillip pushed the car into gear and drove slowly up the hill towards home. He’d told Miss McLure that life was wonderful. It should be wonderful, and in a way it was. His children. Two new lives just beginning, and a cute little five-year-old too.

  In a strange way he had almost forgotten that Hailey wasn’t actually his child. It was wonderful how natural it felt, being Daddy to a five-year-old daughter. Just as he should have been, and the fact that her face in repose really was a mirror image of his own Hailey’s helped him ignore the truth. The new Hailey had slotted exactly into a hole in his life, filling a space that had badly needed filling. Phillip sometimes went for hours now almost forgetting, but then suddenly the guilt would resurface, and it twisted inside him, this guilt; he really couldn’t live with it.

  Fortunately a kind of fog had appeared in his life. Although he was fully aware of his first daughter’s death, and he knew that the new Hailey shouldn’t be there, he kept the actual feelings associated with all this in the foggy part. The guilt was intolerable, and keeping it in the fog meant he wasn’t confronted by it all the time. Only very occasionally did he allow himself to think about Hailey’s real parents and what they must be going through. And that it was all his fault. He wasn’t having a breakdown, he knew that Hailey wasn’t his daughter, but he had chosen to ignore the fact that he was, in effect, hiding an abducted child within his family. It was his fault that the new Hailey’s real parents would be going through the very same hell that he
and Jennifer had suffered. Each day was as haunted as the one before.

  He had never typed ‘missing girl’ into a search engine, he had stopped reading newspapers and watching the news, and all because he was too much of a coward to face the reality of who this child really was. If only he had managed to get her home right at the start. But he hadn’t, and that was something he would have to live with now. This was why he needed the fog; there was enough to worry him without feeling guilty about people he didn’t even know.

  And Hailey wasn’t even his biggest problem at the moment - that was Jennifer. He was so afraid now, in fact he was terrified that Jennifer’s strangeness would lose him his family. She was just so obsessed. Possessed. Frighteningly different. It was as if she was living on another planet, in a place where he simply couldn’t reach her. He had no idea what to do.

  Home again, Phillip deposited his shopping in the fridge before looking into the sitting room. Daniel was asleep in his carrycot, and as usual, Lara was in Jennifer’s arms.

  ‘Hi, love,’ he said, forcing himself to sound pleasant. ‘Where’s Hailey?’

  Jennifer’s eyes glittered in anger as she looked up at him.

  ‘Oh, Phillip, I wish you’d do something about that girl, she is so inconsiderate,’ she muttered savagely, then clutched Lara to her breast. The baby whimpered, and Jennifer rocked her. ‘There, my angel, Mummy’s right here.’ The eyes turned back to Phillip. ‘She was making a dreadful noise playing with that doll. I sent her upstairs with a flea in her ear. It won’t do, I can’t have it.’

  ‘I’ll - see to her now,’ said Phillip, and he escaped upstairs. Surely Jennifer wouldn’t have hurt Hailey. He had a feeling that something had happened before his return from California. The way Hailey sometimes flinched away from Jennifer, and the look on the girl’s face whenever Jennifer came into the room. And yet, Jennifer had adored her daughter, idolised her, even. But that had been before.