Saving Baby Amy

by Annie Claydon

  ‘Me? I’m about as single as it gets. It’s you two I want to know about.’

  Chloe wondered whether Jon had been quick-witted enough to turn the question around and find out whether Hannah was with someone. But he was giving nothing away, smiling into the phone as he replied.

  ‘Nothing going on here either. But Chloe needs to know whether you’re okay.’

  ‘I’m fine. Good, actually. And there’s no point in looking for me because I haven’t gone to stay with any of my friends.’

  Chloe felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes and pressed her lips together. Jon had been keeping the conversation light, and that was the way it should stay.

  ‘Hannah, what do you expect her to do? If Chloe went missing, you’d look for her, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘She wouldn’t...’ Hannah’s voice was tinged with disbelief, but the silence told Chloe that she was thinking about it.

  She plucked up the courage to ask the one question that had been hammering in her brain constantly for the last two days. ‘Why did you go, Hannah?’

  There was a pause at the other end of the line. ‘Look, I’m sorry about that. I heard James and Carol talking. James said some things...’

  Chloe’s mouth went dry. James could be outspoken at times, and Chloe had no doubt that he would have told Carol what was on his mind. ‘James says a lot of things, you know that. But he does love you.’

  ‘I know. And what he said he was right.’

  ‘Right?’ Something cold twisted around Chloe’s heart. This didn’t sound good. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said that if I was going to just leave Amy with you every time things got difficult, she’d be better off without me.’

  ‘Well, that’s wrong and James needs to apologise for saying it. You’ve always taken care of Amy.’

  ‘You don’t know, Chloe. I can barely hang on myself some days, let alone take care of Amy. James is right, she would be better off with someone else. Someone who’d love her the way that you do.’

  ‘Me?’ Chloe’s mouth went dry. How many times over the last two weeks had she wished that Amy was her child, and that she could look after her for ever? This must be some kind of punishment for wanting things that she had no right to.

  ‘You do love her, don’t you?’

  ‘What I want is for Amy to be with you. You’re her mother...’ Chloe looked around wildly, trying to think of something that would persuade Hannah.

  Jon was there. Again. Always. ‘I don’t think this is a conversation that you can have on the phone. You need to talk face to face. What do you say, Hannah?’

  There was a long silence, before Hannah replied quietly, ‘Okay.’

  ‘Good. Chloe, what do you think?’

  In the warmth of his gaze she could suddenly think clearly again. It was time to draw some boundaries. Hannah had to know that she was loved, but she also had to know that her actions had consequences.

  ‘I think... What do you say we make a deal? I know you need some time to think but I need to see you.’ Chloe took a deep breath. ‘Next Saturday.’

  That was five days away and it seemed like an age. But if Hannah would agree to sit down and talk then Chloe could agree to wait.

  ‘It’s a long way...’

  ‘I don’t care if you’re camped out on the moon. Where are you?’

  ‘Remember when I was fifteen. We were going to go on a trip together but we never did get to go.’

  Chloe’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry...’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. I know you meant to take me, but you were ill. But I finally made it back, Chloe...’

  ‘That sounds great, Hannah.’ Chloe almost choked on the words. ‘You can show me around.’

  ‘Yeah, I’d like that. Saturday?’

  ‘I’ll be there. Saturday.’

  ‘I’ll be there too. I’ve got to go now.’

  Hannah sounded as if she was crying, but that was okay, because Chloe was crying too.

  ‘Will you call me? Or when can I call you?’

  ‘I’ll call. Every evening at eight, I promise. I do have to go...’

  ‘I know. That’s okay. I love you, Hannah.’

  ‘Love you too.’

  The line suddenly went dead. Chloe stared at the phone for a moment, trying to take in the enormity of what had just happened.

  ‘Where is she?’ Jon’s quiet voice broke the silence.

  ‘She’s in the village where my father was born and where my parents met. In France.’

  * * *

  Chloe seemed almost in shock. That was understandable after the conversation she’d just had. But she’d stood up for herself, let Hannah know what she needed, and Hannah had responded to that. A trickle of pride ran through his chest, making him shiver.

  He picked up the phone, putting it out of Chloe’s reach on the mantelpiece. The crystals could look after it for a few minutes.

  ‘What did Hannah mean? When she said she’d finally made it?’ He decided to start with the least emotive question he could think of.

  ‘My father never talked much about his family or the place he was brought up. We went back to France every year on holiday, but never there. I suppose that James and I were less curious, because we had more time with our parents, but Hannah was very young when they died. My father’s village took on a special significance for her. I think she thought that somehow she might find them there.’

  ‘And you were going to take her back?’

  ‘Yes, I told her I would. I was saving up so we could go there together, but then I became ill and we never did get around to going.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s herself she’s looking for. As well as your parents.’

  ‘Maybe so.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘I guess...well, perhaps that’s something we can share. And perhaps I’ll find some way of convincing her.’

  ‘I imagine she’s thinking pretty much the same at the moment. That she’s got to find some way of convincing you.’

  She quirked her lips downwards, then stood up and stretched her limbs, as if they ached from being in one position for too long. ‘Whose side are you on?’

  Hers. He was on Chloe’s side, and always would be, irrespective of whether she was right or wrong. ‘I’m...not really on anyone’s side.’

  ‘But?’

  Yes, there was a but. One that had been bothering Jon for a little while now. ‘I think that Hannah’s doing this because she’s trying to force you and James to listen...’

  ‘I know.’ Tears welled in Chloe’s eyes and Jon made himself look away before he gave in to the temptation to hug her and wipe them away. He’d gone too far once today, and a second time wasn’t going to help. ‘I know, I should have listened to her more...’

  ‘That’s not what I’m saying. You’ve got one solution to all this in your head and Hannah has another. You’re trying to persuade her and she’s trying to persuade you, and it’s not going to work. You need to go right back to the beginning, and tell her how you feel about things, get her to tell you what she’s feeling.’

  Chloe was trembling, wiping the tears away. ‘I want to listen to how she’s feeling. I’m trying...’

  ‘Have you told her how you feel? That you feel you’ve let her down?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ She turned suddenly, walking to the mantelpiece and picking up her phone. As if all of her fears, all her worries were centred around it. Then she put it back down again.

  ‘Maybe you’re right.’ She twisted her mouth in an expression of regret and then the determined smile broke through. If he hadn’t been trying so hard not to touch her, Jon would have seriously considered kissing her. ‘So... What do I do next?’

  It wasn’t just a matter of what Chloe did next. In a moment when all
he’d wanted to do was make her know that she was far stronger than she gave herself credit for, he had kissed her. And ever since that moment he’d been afraid to touch her again, knowing for sure now that her intoxicating sweetness had the power to overcome his better judgement.

  What he had to do next was make a decision. Because the only way that they could regain the easy friendship, which had blossomed as they’d looked after Amy together, was to move past the kiss.

  ‘What do you say to getting something to eat and then going for a walk? Somewhere nice. We have the time, and we can forget about all of this for a few hours and take a deep breath.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. I’d like that.’

  * * *

  They’d decided against the local park and had taken a drive instead. Jon parked his car at the foot of the hill at Alexandra Palace, and they’d toiled up the steep incline. The breeze was still warm and the lights of London began to emerge through the gloom as dusk fell.

  They picked out landmarks on the horizon, laughingly correcting each other when they got them wrong. It was nice. Companionable, as if they were learning to be together again, without flinching away each time they almost touched. Chloe took his arm in the darkness, giving silent thanks that she hadn’t lost him.

  As they walked back down to the car, she felt that she could breathe again. Start to plan. And it seemed natural to share those plans with Jon as he drove them home.

  ‘I can sort out my plane tickets tomorrow. Fly down on Friday to meet Hannah on Saturday.’ The little details, the ones that she knew she could accomplish, were the ones that she should tackle first.

  ‘You could. Or we could drive down together. Take two or three days, find somewhere off the beaten track to stay.’

  ‘That’s...’ There was no reason why not. Apart from the feeling that dashing down there somehow fitted the urgency of the situation. ‘I should be...I might be needed. Somewhere.’

  ‘You might. In which case you won’t be around and everyone’s just going to have to cope. I’m sure they’ll manage.’ He shot her a smile, his face angular, a different kind of handsome in the moving shadows.

  ‘It doesn’t seem right. James and Carol are looking after Amy and—’

  ‘They’ll cope. They have three kids of their own, and Amy will be fine. It strikes me that, however things turn out, this is going to be a long haul. You’ve got to pace yourself, give yourself a breather from time to time.’

  That was good advice. Maybe she should use what time she had and take things a little slower. But maybe not with Jon.

  He parked the car in the street outside her house and she got out, stretching her cramped limbs. Home. The last few hours had seemed as if she’d taken a holiday, and it felt as if there should be shoulder-high weeds growing in the front garden, but it was just the way she’d left it.

  ‘I should go on my own. It’s good of you to offer, but you have things to do here.’ She followed him up the path, searching for her keys in her bag.

  ‘Nothing that won’t wait. I’m pretty sure that my house will still be there when I get back.’

  ‘That’s my point. It’ll still be there, and still need to be done when you get back.’ She walked through to the kitchen, putting her keys on the table. ‘You don’t have a magic kitchen that transforms itself when you’re not there, like I do.’

  He chuckled quietly. ‘You still like it?’

  ‘No. I still love it.’ She turned to face him in the shadows. ‘This is the dramatic pause before I put the light on and see it all over again.’

  Actually, the dramatic pause wasn’t so bad in itself. She could get lost in that and forget all about the kitchen, staring up at that easygoing smile, which seemed tempered by steel in the shadows.

  ‘Why don’t you trust me?’ Suddenly he seemed a little more steel than smiles. ‘You trust this.’

  He gently pulled the gold chain around her neck, freeing the citrine from under her sweater. Chloe realised that her hand had automatically gone to her chest to feel its shape.

  ‘This was given to me by a friend when I was first ill. It was on a silver chain and it broke, but I loved the colour of the citrine and I put it on another chain. The chain was my mother’s.’

  ‘So you kept it by you?’

  ‘Yes. When I was alone it...helped me cope.’

  ‘So these crystals do have magical properties.’ The look on Jon’s face said that he didn’t believe that for a second.

  ‘I’m a scientist, like you. I believe in what I can quantify. Would you say that the human mind has no bearing on the body?’

  He chuckled. ‘I’ve worked in A and E for far too long to think that.’

  ‘Or that holding onto good memories can’t get you through the bad times?’ She curled her fingers around the citrine.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t say that either.’ The corners of his mouth turned down. ‘But it’s not easy to take second place to a piece of crystal, hung around your neck.’

  ‘You’re never second best.’ Her answer came a little too quickly, too fluently to be anything other than the absolute truth. ‘I just don’t want to take advantage of you.’

  ‘So you push me away?’ He looped his arms loosely around her. ‘Don’t do it, Chloe. I know you’ve been let down before but I’m not going to repeat history.’

  ‘How would you know that?’ She suddenly wanted so badly for him to be different, but couldn’t dare to believe he was.

  ‘Because I’ve made up my mind.’

  She felt her fingers curl, bunching his shirt in her hand. ‘We all make our minds up about a lot of things.’

  ‘Okay. So someone promised they’d be there and then wasn’t. Your parents?’

  ‘No. I know they would have been there if they could. Hannah was the one who felt deserted when they died, not me and James.’ She moved away from him, and he let her go. Chloe almost wished he’d put up more of a fight and crush her against him, the way he had before. But that had got them nowhere and had only threatened their friendship.

  ‘I had a boyfriend.’

  ‘Ah. A nice boyfriend?’ There was a touch of the competitiveness she’d heard in his voice when he’d been talking about the crystal. Jon really didn’t like to be second best.

  ‘Fair to middling. We’d been going out for a couple of years and I really liked him at the time. When I was sick he held my hand...not that I could feel it, mind you, because my right hand was paralysed, but I suppose the thought was the main thing.’

  ‘I imagine so.’

  ‘Anyway, he promised me that he was going to be there for me, through thick and thin, whatever happened. That we were going to do this together. I was so grateful to him, and I loved him more than anyone at that moment.’ Chloe could feel tears pricking behind her eyelids, and blinked them away.

  ‘Just that moment?’ There was only tenderness in his voice now.

  ‘Well, a bit longer than that. A week or so. When I got to rehab he only visited once a week, and by the time I got home he’d gone.’ Chloe gulped in a breath, trying not to feel the awful loneliness she’d felt, stuck at home, unable to do anything but wait and hope. ‘I heard that he’d been crying on my best friend’s shoulder and telling her he couldn’t cope.’

  ‘He couldn’t cope?’

  ‘Well, apparently she couldn’t either. Neither of them came to tell me, but when I asked around I was told they were going out together. They had me in common, you see. Both of them were pretty upset about what had happened...’ Chloe couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. And that wasn’t fair.

  ‘I don’t blame them. It was a lot to ask, it was obvious that I was going to need a lot of help over a long time. But they might have had the decency to come and tell me, you know?’

  ‘That’s the least they could have done.�
� He caught her hand, clasping it to his chest.

  ‘You feel that?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ His heart was beating under her fingertips, strong and steady. The kind of heart you’d want on your side whenever times were tough.

  ‘I promise that I might be there for you, as a friend. I might not, depending on the circumstances.’

  She couldn’t help laughing. It was honest, at least. ‘That’s good. Thank you.’

  ‘And I promise that if I tell you I’m going to do something, I’ll do it. No excuses, no half-measures.’

  ‘That’s very good.’

  ‘And I’m telling you that I’ll come to France with you and stick around for a while. Not for ever. I have to go back to work in three weeks, and if the builders manage to knock my house down I might have to pop back and survey the wreckage. But I’ll be there for as long as I can, and I’ll do whatever I can to help.’

  ‘That’s perfect. I’d like that very much.’

  ‘So that’s settled, then.’ He smiled down at her. ‘Now, are we going to switch the light on and see whether any of the handles have fallen off the kitchen cabinets while we’ve not been looking?’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  IT WAS A strange feeling, inhabiting the space between what was possible and what he wanted. But they’d drawn the lines carefully, and they both understood the boundaries. Those boundaries allowed them the freedom that the kiss had threatened to take away. That casual give and take, which meant they could just enjoy each other’s company, without having to examine every touch, every word for a meaning that shouldn’t be there.

  And luck seemed to be on their side. Tickets and hotel reservations were obtained without too much trouble, and Hannah kept her promise to call the following evening. On Thursday they were up early and ready to go, in the bright crispness of a late summer’s morning.

  ‘You’re sure about this?’ Jon gave her one last chance to go inside and change her clothes.

  ‘Positive. A hundred miles south of here, it’s going to be much warmer.’ She had a fleece jacket on over a summer dress. He could almost smell the yellow and blue flowers sprinkled across the light fabric.