by Susan Lewis
The next half-hour passed in a blur of tears and discomfort as doctors and nurses came and went, carrying out checks and making various pronouncements that she barely took in. Neve was treated too, and found to have nothing more serious than contusions and a lightly sprained ankle. They were both incredibly lucky that nothing had been broken, at least nothing physical.
When Patsy arrived she stayed with Neve while Susannah was taken off for an ultrasound, where her miscarriage was confirmed and she was informed that they were going to perform a D & C right away.
As she waited to go into theatre more tears rolled on to her cheeks. Her heart felt as though it was fracturing in two. She’d failed both her children and had no idea how she was ever going to make anything right.
‘Hey,’ Patsy whispered, coming into the cubicle. ‘You’re going to be OK.’
‘I know,’ Susannah said. ‘It’s just …’ but she didn’t want to put her pain into words. It might seem as though she was trying to lessen it, and that wasn’t something she deserved. ‘How’s Neve?’ she asked.
‘I’ve just taken her upstairs to see Lola. The doctor says she’s fine to go home when she’s ready.’
‘Did you stay with her for the internal?’ Susannah asked.
‘Of course. She was very brave, and everything’s fine, physically. One of the nurses gave me some leaflets about who we can contact for counselling. Neve doesn’t want to talk about that right now, though. Considering Alan’s profession it might be difficult to get her to see anyone.’
‘We’ll have to make sure it’s a woman.’
‘Of course.’ Then, after a pause, ‘What do you think we should do about him? Actually, don’t answer that. Now isn’t the time to discuss it.’
‘It’ll be up to Neve,’ Susannah said. ‘If it weren’t for all the publicity it’s likely to attract, thanks to me, I’d try to persuade her to talk to the police, but she won’t want all that attention. It’d be horrible, and probably end up making things even worse, especially if he starts accusing her of lying.’
Patsy’s expression was sour as she said, ‘If it’s the last thing we do, we’re going to make that man pay for what he’s done. We’ll begin by getting him struck off whatever professional list or charter he’s on, because the way he abused his position will be enough to guarantee he never practises any kind of psychology again.’
Wanting to change the subject, Susannah said, ‘How’s Lola? Has a decision been made about surgery, do you know?’
Pats brightened. ‘Apparently they don’t think it’s necessary.’
Susannah’s eyes closed with relief. At least some news was good. ‘Is Michael still here?’ she asked faintly.
‘I’m not sure. He went outside to make some calls a while ago and I haven’t seen him since. He wanted you to know, though, that he’s already spoken to Marlene and you’re not even to think about going back to work until the weekend at the earliest.’
Susannah nodded. ‘I’ll be fine by tomorrow,’ she said. ‘More than anything right now, I need to sleep.’
Patsy turned as the curtains opened, then stood aside as the orderlies came in to take Susannah to theatre. ‘I’ll be here when you come round,’ she whispered, and blowing a kiss she left them to it.
Wandering back upstairs to check on Neve and Lola and finding them both asleep on Lola’s bed, she stood staring down at them fondly. Neve was such a good and beautiful girl – she really didn’t deserve what had happened to her, especially when her only motive for bringing Alan into their lives was to make her mother happy. It had to be a cruel and perverse god who’d allow a child’s kindness to backfire on her in such a brutal and devastating way. She couldn’t help feeling ashamed and riven with guilt herself, for being so busy with her own life that she hadn’t paid proper attention to what was going on with Neve. She was going to be there for her now though, in any way she could.
When finally she tiptoed away and took the lift down to the lobby she ran into Michael Grafton on his way back in.
‘Susannah’s in surgery,’ she told him. ‘Neve’s out for the count.’
‘Actually, it’s you I was looking for her,’ he informed her. ‘Would you like some coffee?’
‘I’d love some,’ she replied.
A few minutes later they were seated at a window table in Starbucks, Pats with a large china mug of latte, Michael with a small espresso.
‘We’ve let Neve down so badly these past few weeks,’ Pats said with a sigh. ‘I should have realised what was happening. It seems so obvious now …’
‘Things often do, with the benefit of hindsight,’ he reminded her. ‘And blaming yourself won’t help anyone. The important thing is to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else, which is why he has to be reported.’
She nodded soberly. ‘Of course, but I can understand why Susannah’s reluctant to put Neve through it.’
‘So can I, but I’ve just spoken to Carl Pace who thinks there’s a chance his niece might have second thoughts about going to the police, once she finds out she has a rival for Cunningham’s affections.’
Patsy’s lip curled in disgust. ‘Then let’s hope she does,’ she retorted. ‘Do you happen to know where he is now?’
He shook his head. ‘Pace is still at the house, waiting, but there’s been no sign of him yet. Anyway, what we need to focus on is where Susannah and Neve go from here. In the short term they can probably stay at her aunt’s?’
Patsy nodded. ‘Or with me. Susannah’s talking about taking Neve up to Derbyshire for the summer.’
‘I thought she might, and I’ve been doing some thinking that I’d like to run past you.’
‘Shoot,’ Patsy invited.
By the time she’d finished hearing him out she couldn’t say whether she was more impressed or relieved by his suggestions. ‘I think it’s a perfect solution,’ she told him eagerly.
Apparently heartened by her response, he said, ‘The question is, do you think Susannah will?’
Though Pats was fairly confident Susannah would, she decided it might be wiser to let her speak for herself. So with a smile she said, ‘I guess we won’t know that until you ask her.’
That night Patsy took Susannah and Neve back to her rented flat in Knightsbridge. After serving them generous helpings of scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, which neither of them managed much of, she tucked them both up in her bed and left them alone to talk.
As the door closed behind her Neve’s head fell against Susannah’s shoulder and, feeling a harrowing mix of grief and love, Susannah gathered her in tightly and pressed a kiss to her hair. ‘How are you feeling?’ she whispered softly.
‘OK,’ Neve answered. Her voice was thin and shaky. ‘I just feel really bad about you and the baby …’ She faltered on a sob. ‘Are you very upset about, you know, losing it?’
Pulling her in even closer, Susannah swallowed her own tears as she said, ‘Yes, of course, but right now I’m more concerned about you, and how badly I’ve let you down. I’m so sorry, my darling. I should have realised what was happening. I … It just never occurred to me that he’d … Oh Neve,’ she choked as tears spilled on to her cheeks. ‘I wish you’d told me. You should never have had to go through anything like that.’
As more sobs shook Neve’s body Susannah wept with her, wrapping her up so closely it was as though she might merge them into one. ‘I’ll never let anyone hurt you again,’ she whispered fiercely and raggedly. ‘I swear, I’ll always be there for you. You mean everything in the world to me. Oh God, I can’t bear to think of what you’ve been through … My poor, poor darling …’
‘He’s out of our lives now, isn’t he?’ Neve said, lifting her head. ‘Please say we’re never going back to that house again.’
‘Of course we aren’t. Not ever.’ Taking Neve’s face between her hands, she gazed far into her puffy, bloodshot eyes, so full of uncertainty and dread that it was as though the fear stabbed straight to the depths of Susannah’s heart. Merely to
think of what had been done to her daughter was tearing her apart in ways that made her want to scream and lash out violently again and again. It was so much worse than if something terrible had been done to her: she only wished to God it had, so that she could be the one to deal with it now. She didn’t want Neve to have to suffer for another minute, she wanted to take it all on herself so that Neve could be as pure and innocent as she’d been before that monster had laid his hands on her. But it wasn’t possible. She couldn’t turn back the clock, or erase memories, all she could do was try somehow to get Neve through this, and though she really didn’t want to know the details, she wasn’t going to allow her own revulsion and cowardice to back her away from the atrocity now. Neve had to be helped to find the road to recovery.
She started to speak, but the words dissolved before they were formed, as though afraid of what they might provoke. She swallowed and tried again. ‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’ she asked softly.
Neve immediately shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I just … I never want … He …’ She choked and began to break down. ‘It was horrible, Mum,’ she gasped. ‘He kept touching me … I knew it was wrong. I told him he had to stop, but he said it wasn’t real, that I was imagining it, but I’m not stupid. I knew it was happening … He said if I ever told anyone I’d ruin everything for you with my lies and fantasies …’
As Susannah’s heart ached with Neve’s torment and confusion, she felt such a murderous rage that she had to bury Neve’s face back in her shoulder so as not to frighten her. ‘You know what he did is a crime, don’t you?’ she said, trying to keep the savagery from her voice. ‘He could go to prison …’
‘I don’t want to tell the police,’ Neve cut in desperately. ‘I’ll have to talk about what he did, and I don’t want to, Mum. Not to strangers, or to anyone. He’ll only say I was lying. I just want it to go away. Please make it go away.’
‘Sssh, it’s OK,’ Susannah whispered, stroking her hair and feeling the terrible impotence of not being able to put everything right for Neve. ‘Don’t worry, no one’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to,’ she told her, knowing it was still too soon to be having this conversation. They should try again in a few days, when the shock of it all had had some time to wear off, and perhaps they could do so with some professional guidance, if Neve would allow it.
Seeming satisfied with her mother’s reassurance, Neve continued to lie against her, pressing in as close as she could get. After a while her head came up again. ‘What are we going to do if he tries to come after us?’ she asked, starting to sound panicked.
‘He won’t,’ Susannah said firmly.
‘But how do you know that? He could be outside now, waiting for us …’
‘He’ll be too afraid that we’ve spoken to the police,’ Susannah assured her. ‘He’ll keep away from us now, I promise.’
‘So can it be just me and you again, like it always used to be? And Lola when she gets better. She is getting better, isn’t she? Please say she is, Mum, I don’t want her to die …’
‘Sssh, you saw for yourself that she’s doing fine. She’ll be home again any time now.’
‘But what if she can’t manage on her own? We’ll have to live with her, because she needs us, and anyway, we’ve rented our house to someone so we don’t have anywhere else to go.’
‘We’ll work everything out, so stop worrying yourself now …’
‘When are you going back to Derbyshire? Can I come with you? I don’t want to stay in London …’ Her agitation was suddenly arrested by the phone ringing in the next room. ‘What if it’s him?’ she cried, her fingers digging into Susannah’s arm. ‘He might be …’
‘It won’t be,’ Susannah soothed, ‘and even if it were, Pats would never allow him to talk to you.’
‘Or you?’
‘Or me, but I promise you it won’t be him. It’s probably Frank, or someone from Patsy’s office. This is her apartment, remember? He won’t even have the number.’
Seeming to relax again, Neve rested her head back on Susannah’s shoulder and closed her eyes. A moment later she was crying again. ‘Are you really sad about the baby?’ she asked huskily.
Susannah’s heart twisted. The answer was yes, but she was trying not to think about it, because she was feeling much worse about it than she’d ever want to admit to Neve. In the end all she said was, ‘It’s probably for the best that it doesn’t have him as a father.’
Neve nodded. ‘That’s what I think, but we would have loved it, wouldn’t we? It would have been ours and we’d have taken care of it and never let him have anything to do with it.’ She swallowed hard as her voice started to tremble again. ‘I wonder if it was a boy or a girl,’ she said weakly.
Susannah’s eyes closed against the heartache. There was so much to deal with, emotionally and practically, and tonight she simply didn’t have the energy to begin even trying to find answers. ‘You should get some sleep,’ she said softly. ‘The doctor gave us something to take, so I’m going to get it from my bag, OK?’
After a moment Neve rolled on to her back, allowing Susannah to get up from the bed.
‘Would you like anything else to eat or drink?’ Susannah offered, looking down at her tender, blotchy face and tousled hair.
‘No thanks.’
Offering a smile of encouragement, Susannah stooped over her and kissed her gently on the forehead. ‘Won’t be long,’ she promised.
She found Pats in the sitting room with a pile of paperwork on the arm of the sofa next to her, and her laptop open on the coffee table.
‘Hi,’ Pats said, looking up, ‘how are you feeling?’
Susannah’s expression turned faintly ironic. ‘I’m not sure I know how to describe it,’ she answered. Then, after rubbing her hands over her face, and back through her hair, ‘Neve’s got so much going round in her head … She needs to sleep, so I’m going to give her the sedative we brought home with us. Do you know where I left my bag?’
‘It’s in the kitchen,’ Pats answered, getting to her feet. ‘Perhaps you should take something too.’
Susannah didn’t protest, only followed Pats into the kitchen where she dug into her bag for the small envelope containing four Temazepam. ‘I’ll just give her half,’ she said, shaking one into her hand.
‘Here.’ Pats was passing a glass of water. ‘Is there anything else you need?’
Susannah shook her head. ‘No thanks. I’ll come back when she’s asleep.’
To her surprise, and relief, when she returned to the bedroom she found Neve had already drifted off, so after sitting with her for a while in case she woke up again, she took the sedative away and went back to the kitchen where Pats was making tea.
‘Who was that on the phone just now?’ Susannah asked, as she put the glass on the draining board.
Once she’d finished laying out cups and saucers Pats turned to lean against the counter top. ‘It was Michael Grafton,’ she answered, folding her arms. ‘He’s coming here tomorrow to talk to you, if you’re up to it.’
At the mention of his name the awfulness of the day came flooding back to Susannah, making her feel restless and sick, and both relieved and embarrassed that he’d been there.
‘I said I’d call to let him know if you weren’t,’ Pats told her.
‘I’ll be fine,’ Susannah said. ‘I don’t know how we’d have got through today without him.’
Pats nodded agreement. ‘He had a call from Carl Pace about an hour ago,’ she said. ‘He didn’t go into any detail, but apparently Pace was still waiting when Alan got back to the house. To quote Michael, Alan got at least some of what he had coming.’
Susannah looked away.
‘Don’t think about him now,’ Patsy cautioned.
‘I can still hardly believe …’ Susannah began in a whisper. ‘To think of him …’ Her mind reeled away from the images. ‘I’d like to kill him,’ she said through her teeth. ‘I would have if I’d been able to. Look
at my hands.’ She held them out, showing the broken nails, bruises and swellings. ‘I trusted him,’ she went on, her voice rising with incredulity and anger. ‘I believed everything he told me about Neve. When I think of how he used his position, his training, to convince me he was helping her, when all the time …’ Her eyes closed as fury and disgust engulfed her. ‘He’s a monster, Pats. He’s not the person we used to know. He’s someone else now and he has to pay for what he’s done.’
‘He will,’ Pats assured her. ‘Once the police have been informed …’
‘I’m not sure we can do that. Neve doesn’t want to talk to them.’
‘That’s understandable right now. She might change her mind in a few days, but even if she doesn’t apparently Carl Pace is confident his niece will stop protecting him once she knows about Neve.’
The reminder of Carl Pace’s niece made Susannah shake her head in mute dismay as she thought of the lies Alan had told about his wife and why she’d stopped him seeing her daughters. She should have realised straight away that something wasn’t right. How could she have been so blinded by her need for love, and Neve’s for a father?
‘We were all taken in,’ Pats said gently after Susannah had voiced the anger she felt with herself. ‘He was very clever. He knew exactly how to use your past relationship and his professional status, and we had no reason not to trust him.’
Susannah was shaking her head in abject dismay. ‘Even if Neve does end up agreeing to talk to the police,’ she said, ‘we can’t have her name being bandied about in the press.’
‘We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. The authorities know how to handle these things … Are you OK?’ she asked, as Susannah put a hand across her waist.
‘Just a twinge,’ Susannah replied. ‘It’ll be fine.’
