by Mel Sparke
“And they’re both such a laugh, and exciting, and so different… and such good snoggers, if you know what I mean,” she told Kerry gleefully on the phone the following night.
“Yes. Ollie told me all about the tonsil tennis you were playing with Owen,” Kerry replied. “Anna couldn’t wait to tell him about how she’d walked in on you both at Matt’s. She said she thought she was more embarrassed than the two of you put together.”
“She did look a bit put out.” Sonja’s eyes glittered at the memory. “Owen said she’d probably never seen her big brother snogging anyone before.”
“So when are you seeing him again?”
“Friday night. He’s taking me for a meal. I can’t wait.”
“I think it’s great that you’ve hit it off together.” said Kerry, “but doesn’t it bother you that he’s only likely to be here for a short time?”
“Yes and no,” Sonja reasoned. “Yeah, it’d be lovely to think he lived here, you know, to see what develops. But on the other hand, at least I’m aware that it’s going to end, so there’s no point getting involved in a big way. It’s a bit like a holiday romance, you know? You enjoy it while it lasts but have no illusions that anything’s going to come of it afterwards.”
“And, of course, there’s always Kyle to fall back on once it’s over.” added Kerry wryly.
“I guess so.” Sonja was silent for a moment. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. But, yeah, in a lot of ways that’ll soften the blow. That sounds really calculating, doesn’t it?”
“Well, you weren’t to know it was going to happen like this, were you?”
“No. But you and Ollie haven’t said anything to Anna about Kyle, have you? Only Owen asked me if I had a boyfriend last night and I said no.”
“No, we haven’t said a word. Wouldn’t dream of it. Anyway, it’s not as if you and Kyle are an item yet…”
“No, not after one date. We might break up the next time I see him.”
“Which is when?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“God, I can hardly keep up!” Kerry laughed down the phone. “Don’t forget we’re supposed to be going out one night together, too, will you?”
“No. Shall we do something together on Saturday? Maybe go clubbing?”
“Sure, so long as you haven’t got a string of other guys lined up to take you out somewhere by then. I don’t want to cramp your style, not while you’re on a roll.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t. I might even pass on a few stray crumbs to you, if you’re really lucky.”
“Eurrgh! Spare me, please.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that you’re not here for long? I mean, it’s not as though this is going to be a big romance, is it? If it was me, I’d wonder what the point was.”
Anna lay sprawled on the sofa in her living room and watched Owen cooking chilli for dinner in the kitchen area. After an afternoon spent having a lazy picnic by the river (while Joe had obligingly taken over her shift at the café), she was now quizzing Owen on her favourite subject of the moment: Sonja.
Owen grabbed a tea towel and threw it at her. “I can’t believe you’re such a misery guts!” he laughed. “Haven’t you heard of spontaneity, of living for the moment? We’re just having a bit of fun. Where’s the harm in that?”
“None, so long as you both know where you stand.”
“Which we do. Sonja knows I’m going back to Manchester soon. We’re just having a good time while it lasts.”
“You don’t worry that she might fall for you big time?”
“I think it’s more likely to be the other way round, if anything,” admitted Owen, a touch ruefully. “She’s such a great person and a real laugh.”
“And devastatingly attractive.”
“I know, it does help. And single too-that’s what I can’t understand. I was amazed when I asked her if she had a boyfriend and she said no. Unbelievable!”
“From what I can gather she gets a lot of interest, but she turns most of them down. She must be quite fussy. So quite what she’s doing with you, God only knows.”
“Cheers, sis. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Any time. So when are you seeing her again?”
“We’re going for something to eat on Friday night. Got any ideas where I can take her?”
“Well, there’s this lovely cheap café I know only a stone’s throw from here…”
“yeah, that’d really impress her, wouldn’t it?” he guffawed. “She’d think I was a right old cheapskate. And I’m sure she’d be dead chuffed to share the evening with all her mates, too…”
“Actually, I have heard of somewhere. There’s a little Italian restaurant off the High Street. It’s supposed to be not too expensive, but nice and intimate and romantic. It’s called Luigi’s, I think.”
“Great. I’ll suggest we go there.”
“So if you lived nearer, would you want to see Sonja on a more serious basis?”
“Yeah, definitely, if she’d let me. But there’s no point in going down that road because it’s not likely to happen. Live for today, that’s my motto at the moment.”
“Well, you’re certainly doing that.”
Seeing that dinner was almost ready, Anna got up and began gathering plates and cutlery for their meal. She loved having Owen around. It was nice to have someone to chat to and share a meal with in the evenings.
She was beginning to feel as though she was living again, rather than just existing from one day to the next. The only problem was that she was already beginning to dread the thought of him leaving.
“Have you got anything planned for tomorrow?” she asked as Owen dished up the food. “Because you can always help me out in the kitchen if you’re stuck for something to do.”
“I will if you like,” he said. “But one thing I had thought of doing was phoning Mum to see if she fancied a day out in Winstead in the next week or so.”
“What?!” Anna was so shocked she nearly dropped the plates she was carrying to the table.
“Well, I thought it would be a good opportunity for you two to talk, to maybe resolve your differences.”
Anna looked panic-stricken. “Oh, no! There’s no way!” she wailed, slumping down on to the sofa, her head in her hands. She couldn’t cope with seeing her mum again, not after everything that had happened between them.
Owen just didn’t seem to understand. But then maybe he couldn’t as she hadn’t told him the full story.
Anna’s mind raced. Maybe she owed it to Owen to put him completely in the picture. He was her brother after all, and she’d missed him so much since she’d been away. Perhaps it was time to let him in.
“I… uh, don’t know how…” She stumbled over her words, searching for a way to begin. “Look, I’m not ready to see Mum yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because I haven’t told you everything.”
“What do you mean?” Owen asked.
“I mean, there’s more… stuff, that you don’t know about.”
“Like what?”
“Like how the biggest reason I left home was because I had an abortion, and afterwards I couldn’t bear to stay.”
Anna felt the words tumble out of her mouth all too quickly. Then she looked into her brother’s eyes and waited for his reaction. Complete shock.
“Jesus!” he exclaimed. “You did what?”
“I had an abortion,” Anna repeated quietly. She took a deep breath before speaking again.
“What I’m trying to tell you is that yes, all those reasons I gave you for leaving home the other day are absolutely true. But the biggest thing… the main reason for going was because I got pregnant and then got rid of the baby.”
Owen looked incredulous, as if he couldn’t take in what he was hearing.
“Go on,” he muttered.
“Oh, it was awful, Owen. Mum was so angry about the pregnancy-I was only just seventeen, for God’s sake-but I really thought she’d get over that
and be supportive. Which was what I desperately needed. But she didn’t, she totally lost it. She said getting pregnant would ruin my life, that I’d have no future. She said I was too young to look after a baby and that once I realised what I’d done and that I’d thrown my life away, then I’d dump it on her to look after. And that would ruin her life too.”
Anna gulped a little before continuing. “And deep down I knew part of what she said was right. I would have been throwing away my life or at least a large part of it. And although I fleetingly toyed with the idea of keeping the baby, I knew it wasn’t an option for me. Not really. It was a stupid mistake, one which I’d regret for the rest of my life. But it was a mistake I could rectify, to a certain extent.”
She paused again, then looked her brother straight in the eyes. “So, after I’d agonised for a few days, and talked to our doctor about it, I told Mum I was going to have an abortion. I thought she’d be relieved…”
“Jesus, Anna, she tried to bring us up as Catholics! You know what she thinks about abortion. You must have known how she’d react…?”
“I suppose so. But I wasn’t thinking straight. I was scared. I needed her help-I was crying out for some support. She went totally off the rails and chucked all this stuff about God in to make me feel guilty. About how having an abortion was totally against our religion. About how I was a sinner and how she wouldn’t be able to go back to church if I went through with it and aborted the baby.”
Anna fought back the tears that were pricking at the back of her eyes. “She told me it would ruin her life as well as my own because God would never forgive us. She seemed most concerned for herself-that God would never forgive her if she let me go through with it.”
Reliving the pain she had felt made Anna shoot out of her seat and start pacing the room.
“That made me so angry-how dare she tell me I was ruining her life? That was so selfish of her. She was palming her religious feelings of guilt off on me. I just flipped and said some things that maybe I shouldn’t. That’s when she told me she couldn’t live under the same roof as someone who was ‘blaspheming against God’ as she put it. Oh Owen, I wanted to leave that day, but what could I do?”
Owen shook his head in sympathy. “Co on,” he encouraged.
“I’d got an appointment with the hospital consultant. I needed to keep it. So I went on my own, though I wished I had somebody with me. I was terrified. Anyway, he agreed with my doctor that the termination should go ahead and I went into hospital ten days later…”
Anna’s voice dropped to a whisper so that Owen could barely hear her.
“…That’s it really. I stayed at home for a few days after the operation, but I just couldn’t bear the terrible atmosphere in the house… Mum’s recrimination… So one day. while she was out, I simply packed my bags and left.”
“And you haven’t been in touch with each other since?”
“No.”
Anna glanced at her brother. Seeing the look of pity on his face was enough to make a lakeful of tears well up in her eyes.
Owen came over and gave her a big, comforting hug.
“Oh, Anna, I’m so sorry,” he said, his chin resting on the top of her head, a look of consternation on his face. “I knew there was something you weren’t telling me the other day, I could feel you were holding back, but I hadn’t a clue what. You poor thing, you’ve really been through it. haven’t you?”
Anna found a tissue and tried to wipe away some of the tears.
“It was awful. Making that appointment to see my doctor was one of the loneliest things I’ve ever done,” she whispered. “Fortunately, she was kind and understanding. She arranged the consultation at the hospital for me. Then she offered me counselling when she realised that I was alone, but I refused. I just wanted it to be all over.”
She paused for a moment. “But it’s not over. I felt absolutely terrible afterwards. I still do. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do; probably will be too. I know I’ll never forget it. But I was barely seventeen. I couldn’t bring a child into the world when I still felt like one myself. It wouldn’t have been fair, on either of us.”
“But what about the father…?” Owen sighed. “I suppose you’re going to tell me it was that David.”
“Yep. ‘Fraid so. And that was my other big mistake. Telling him, I mean. Because by this time the cracks were beginning to show in our relationship. Once I found out I was pregnant, I stupidly and naively got it into my head that a baby could make things better between us. That’s how dumb I was.”
Anna sat down again, suddenly feeling exhausted. “But when I told David, he didn’t want to know. That’s when I realised what a complete and utter sod he was. He didn’t want to have a baby with me. What I couldn’t cope with was that he didn’t want me to have an abortion either.”
Looking at her brother’s outraged expression, Anna gave a bitter smile.
“I guess he quite liked the idea of fathering a child, so long as there were no strings attached. And preferably no maintenance charges. David made it obvious that if I had the baby, I was going to be on my own. Then, when I told him I was definitely having an abortion, he threatened to kill me; said he’d come looking for me and make sure I paid for what I’d done. It was another reason for leaving home. I didn’t feel safe any more.”
“I can’t believe it! How could he be like that? You must have been so strong to have coped with it all.”
“Possibly. But my overriding feeling was that there was no one I could trust, no one I could turn to for support. So I just had to go it alone. I felt like the only person left I could rely on was myself. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since, and you know what? For me it works.”
Anna sat back in her chair, the tension ebbing from her body. The relief at telling someone was indescribable. She felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from her.
However, there were still some things she needed to say. By talking to Owen her jumbled thoughts and feelings of the last year were beginning to slot into place.
Maybe I should have gone for counselling, like the doctor suggested all those months ago, Anna thought ruefully.
“You know, at some point in the future I’d love to have a baby, but I want the circumstances to be right. I want to be settled and in a relationship, financially secure so that we could give it anything it wanted…”
Her voice trailed off and she looked up at Owen with the saddest expression in her eyes he had ever seen. He could feel his heart aching for her.
“Go on,” he said gently.
“When I found out I was pregnant I had all these dreadful visions flashing through my mind, you know, of me being a single mum living off the state in a grotty council flat with no money and no future. I didn’t want that sort of life for my child. Not if I could possibly avoid it.
“I realise that some girls my age don’t feel they have the choice; they get stuck in a situation and before they know it, it’s too late to do anything about it. Or they might decide to have the baby, whatever the consequences. But I felt I had the right to choose, and I knew that if I could possibly avoid that kind of life, then I would.”
Anna watched her brother for his reaction. Owen said nothing for a while. He was mulling over Anna’s astounding revelations. Anna valued his viewpoint on life so much and she was curious-even a little frightened-as to what he might say next.
“You know,” he finally sighed. “I’m staggered by what you’ve told me. You’ve been through so much on your own. And I can understand you wanting this David guy out of your life. He was obviously a big mistake from start to finish. But Mum too?”
Owen paused again, searching for the right words.
“Surely, all the years of your life with her have meant something to you? To both of you? Of all the terrible things that have happened to you over the past year or so, surely your relationship with her is the one thing that you might be able to salvage from all this?”
“I know,” replied An
na. “But a big part of me is still angry at her for not seeing it from my point of view and for not finding it in herself to be there for me when I needed her most. That’s what I find hard to forgive.”
“I can understand that. But I bet she regrets what’s happened as much as you do, if not more.”
Anna laughed bitterly. “So why isn’t she here having a conversation with me? Why is it you? Come on, Owen, it’s always been left to you to make amends between Mum and me…”
“And that’s as much down to your stubbornness as hers,” her brother cut in, a little defensively.
“I’m not saying it isn’t. But the fact of the matter is this: if she cared so much, if she’s as remorseful as you think she is, why hasn’t she confided in you? Put you in the picture? Asked for your help sorting this out?”
Owen didn’t answer.
“Well. I’ll tell you why, shall I?” Anna bristled. “It’s because she wants to sweep this whole damn thing under the carpet and get on with her life, pretending it didn’t happen. She’s as bad as David, if not worse. She put me in an impossible situation, telling me I couldn’t keep the baby but I couldn’t have an abortion either. I can’t tell you how bitter I feel towards her for that.”
The chilli that Owen had spent time and effort preparing had gone cold and congealed in the time that they’d been tealking. Neither of them could face it now. Anna took the plates back to the kitchen and threw away the sorry-looking mess of food.
“I’m sorry, Owen,” she said shaking. “Mum hurt me very badly. I’m not ready to face her yet-and I don’t know if I ever will be.”
CHAPTER 15
A HANDFUL OF TROUBLE
Sonja spent most of Wednesday trying to remember everything she had ever said to Kyle. She wasn’t used to this two-timing lark and was a bit unsure as to whether she could keep the two boys’ identities completely separate. She didn’t want to start asking Kyle about how Manchester United were expected to do in the Cup this next season when in fact they were Owen’s favourite team and Kyle supported Newcastle.
Nor did she want to assume that Kyle knew something about her when in fact she had spoken to Owen about it instead. By the time Kyle turned up on her doorstep ten minutes late, Sonja still wasn’t confident she was going to get through the date without making more than one gaffe.
