by Rebecca Lang
‘And he never showed up?’
‘Right.’
‘That should have been a definite lead, surely? Him being in Boston.’
‘I tried to find his mother, but I didn’t know her name. He had told me that his father had died, that she had married again and then divorced. He didn’t tell me her name,’ she explained. ‘There was nothing to go on, you see.’
‘Why would he not have contacted you?’ He sipped his coffee, looking at her astutely over the rim of his cup. Uppermost in his mind was the thought that she ought to just let all this go, put it in the past and try to go forward. There was something very odd going on if this man had not contacted her in several years. If he were capable of doing so, and wanted to, surely he would have done so by now. Still, Seth refrained from telling her so, although the urge to do so was great. He couldn’t really be critical, though, as he also allowed the past to influence him unduly, to keep him in a sort of emotional straitjacket.
‘Something must have happened to him, something bad,’ she said. ‘That’s been on my mind all this time. It’s sort of driving me mad…’
‘Someone must have reported him missing?’
‘I don’t know. We made a date to meet in our favourite small restaurant, on a specific evening, after he got back from Boston,’ she explained, hearing the desperation in her own voice. That evening was something she would never forget. ‘When he didn’t come, I ordered a meal and a glass of wine…tried to make it last as long as possible.’ While she had eaten that meal she had tried not to look at the door every few minutes, or the empty place-setting on the other side of the small table that was a mockery to her. Already feeling alone and vulnerable because of the pregnancy, his no-show had brought her situation home to her in full measure.
‘That must have been very difficult for you,’ Seth said softly. His empathy was almost palpable to her.
‘When I called him on his cellphone,’ she continued, ‘there was only voice-mail. Then, eventually, even that stopped.’
Their second cups of coffee were finished and the waiter had placed separate bills in front of them. Anna fumbled in her bag for her purse, her hands unsteady. Although it was a relief to articulate all this, it was also upsetting. Carefully, she counted out the money.
‘Do you have a photograph of the missing man? And of your son?’ Seth asked, his expression noncommittal, so that in spite of his obvious empathy and compassion Anna had no definite idea yet of whether he was really willing to help her.
‘Yes, I do, I have them with me, because I had them copied for Mr Smythe, the detective,’ she explained, ‘and I had some extra ones printed.’
He took the two photographs that she handed to him, one of the handsome Dr Simon Ruelle, the other of her sweet, fair-haired son who smiled out of the picture with his innocent baby’s eyes. Although Finn looked more like her than he did Simon, there was a definite resemblance between father and son. Indeed, there was a resemblance between Finn and the man sitting opposite her, which gave her a very odd feeling. Perhaps he, too, felt it.
‘May I keep these for a while?’ he said, looking at them intently.
‘Yes,’ she said, her dejected spirits lifting a little. That must mean he was going to help her in some way. ‘I really appreciate the time you’re giving me, Dr Ruelle.’
‘I must get back. Give me your telephone number,’ he said, passing her a notebook and pen.
They walked together to the exit of the precinct, where he drew her to one side. Resisting the urge to draw her into his arms, he decided to give in to the urge to speak his mind.
‘Look, Ms Grey,’ he said, speaking carefully, ‘I have to tell you that I find your story somewhat…er…unlikely. I mean, what you say about your pregnancy not being known to this man. Please, don’t take that the wrong way, as a criticism. It’s not that I doubt the truth of what you have told me—certainly not that. I believe you. But perhaps he didn’t need to be told that you were pregnant, he could probably see for himself, even if the pregnancy was not obvious to others and you were in the early stages.’
‘It’s possible, but not probable,’ she said. ‘I certainly didn’t look pregnant at the time.’
‘There could be several possible explanations,’ he went on. ‘Maybe he didn’t want a child, didn’t want to be married or living with a woman at that stage in his life, with his career just taking off. Maybe he didn’t want to be tied down, period. It’s possible that he thought you were not right for each other, child or no child. It’s a common scenario. No offence intended.’
Anna caught her breath in distress, confronted by this now unsmiling man who had given the impression, albeit a slight one, that he believed her and felt a fair amount of empathy for her. Now he was telling her that he thought the basic premise of her story to be wishful thinking on her part, that she was wanting to find a man who did not want to be found by her.
‘What you say may be true, but surely he did not have to disappear? I didn’t necessarily want or expect him to marry me,’ she said, flushing deeply, forcing the words out as her throat felt tight. ‘I wanted him to know. You think I’m misconstruing everything?’
‘Not necessarily, not all of it anyway. Perhaps you are deluding yourself to a certain extent. I think that your interpretation of the situation may be wrong.’ He touched her arm. ‘Look, I think he would have been stupid to have left you.’
That backhanded compliment left her more confused, to add to her upset. Perhaps he had just said that to soften the blow of his hard-headed take on the situation. ‘I can understand how it might seem to you,’ she said. ‘But I knew him.’
Other people were coming in and out of the entrance. Through the glass doors they could see that the rain was heavier now. He took her arm and walked with her further out of the main path. ‘Come.’
‘You can’t say,’ he went on, ‘that knowing someone really well…intimately, you might say…for only four months lets you know what they are all about. Perhaps he is, as they used to say in the old days, a bounder and a cad.’
‘We worked together for longer than that. I felt that I knew him as well as anybody,’ she protested.
‘How well do we really know anybody when we are giving them what they want?’ he said.
‘You’re very cynical.’
‘You’re an attractive woman, and I expect he was only too happy to have a relationship with you—at least, in the beginning. Who wouldn’t?’ he went on relentlessly.
‘I—I’m sorry to have taken up your time,’ she stammered, backing away a little from him, wanting to get out. ‘It was good of you to see me. I know that what you say is common sense, but you don’t know me and you don’t know Simon. Perhaps I haven’t explained very well, but everything I have said is true.’
‘Perhaps it is, from your point of view,’ he said. ‘Forgive me if I seem cruel, I can only say how it seems to me. There are too many ifs and buts. The best thing you could do, Ms Grey, is forget about him and get on with your life. Find another man who will be a good father to your son.’
‘I’m not going to do that, not until I know what happened to Simon. That’s not what I’m all about, and I don’t need that sort of advice, Dr Ruelle,’ she said, anger helping her to save face. ‘I feel insulted that you should say that to me.’
‘I’m sorry, Anna. That’s how the picture seems. It’s realistic.’
‘Then you can’t help me to locate Simon?’
‘I didn’t say that. I don’t think he will be too hard to find. Have you considered that he might be married by now, with other children?’
‘No. Because I think something has happened to him.’ She faced him, embarrassed and hurt by what she saw as hostility, and by the fact that her voice wobbled with emotion. ‘Just in case you think I didn’t want the baby, I have to tell you that he is the best thing that ever happened to me. Whether I find Simon or not, I’ll manage somehow, and I’ll always adore my son.’
An odd expression, quic
kly suppressed, had appeared on Seth’s face, something that she couldn’t quite interpret at that moment. It seemed like surprise and a certain vulnerability, as though he was used to hearing the opposite sentiment expressed. Then she chided herself for speculating about him. As far as she was concerned, he was a closed book, and likely to remain that way. Nonetheless, in her desperation she decided to follow up on that moment of veiled interest.
‘I always wanted my child, before and after he was born,’ she said quietly, with dignity. ‘Please, get that much straight, Dr Ruelle. Neither did I become pregnant deliberately. I don’t expect you to help me in any way. Why should you? I met with you to make sure you were not Simon, to find out if you knew him, or of him. I certainly don’t want anything from you. Thank you again, and goodbye.’ She took a step back from him, feeling as though she wanted to cry. He was giving the impression now of being a hard man.
‘Wait!’ He stepped forward and caught her arm. To her surprise, he leaned forward quickly and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’ll do what I can to find this Simon Ruelle,’ he said curtly, ‘but I may not necessarily tell you where he is. I’ll decide that at the time, if it happens. My decision will depend on the circumstances. Your private detective will no doubt find it all out for himself, sooner or later.’
‘You don’t have to do anything,’ she said, trying hard to control the tremble in her voice, nonplussed by his kiss, which probably meant nothing to him, she thought. Perhaps he was one of those men who went around kissing women he knew on the cheek ‘I think I would prefer it if you didn’t. As you say, I have the detective to do that.’
‘We’ll see,’ he said, dropping her arm. ‘I think you need help, in more ways than one. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. Goodbye, Ms Grey.’
‘Goodbye,’ she said stiffly, feeling as though she had come through a strange ordeal, which had left her feeling stunned. Part of the reason was that he was a very attractive man, and she had been increasingly aware of that fact while they had been together.
CHAPTER THREE
SETH went out ahead of her into the rain. When he had disappeared from view she followed slowly, putting up her umbrella, turning in the opposite direction.
She didn’t want him to see her, to see the tears that were mingling with the few raindrops that had settled on her face, to see that the encounter with him had disturbed her much more than she had allowed to show. Not least, she had, in a strange sort of way, enjoyed having a meal with him. It had been a long time since she had eaten with an attractive man. Even though he was somewhat older than Simon, he was still young. That enjoyment showed her how much she really needed to have a man in her life, not to live the life of a cloistered nun, which was what it seemed like sometimes. Being a single parent was not exactly attractive to the opposite sex, she thought for the umpteenth time, unless perhaps some men thought she would be an easy sexual target, if they were of a predatory nature. For her part, she had become very discriminating.
It was not until she had turned a corner that she remembered the two photographs that she had left with him, which she would like to have returned.
That was probably the last she would see of them, because it was doubtful that she would have any further dealings with Dr Seth Ruelle.
* * *
Seth walked unheeding through the rain, his shoulders hunched. He didn’t know what to make of Anna Grey.
Usually he felt more certainty when confronted with the opposite sex. At least, he had felt more confidence in his own judgement—based on mistrust and cynicism, it was true—since the debacle of his marriage and subsequent divorce. Perhaps he had been hard on her, but what he had said to her had been uppermost in his mind then, his take on the probable scenario of the doctor who had disappeared. He liked to tell the truth whenever possible. It was difficult to disappear unless one took on a totally new identity, and why would a doctor do that?
In spite of the sheer awfulness of the situation in his marriage, when he had found out the truth he had been oddly flattered subsequently that Belinda, the sophisticated, beautiful and accomplished Dr Belinda Dane, had been so determined to be his wife that she had woven a tissue of lies around her personal life in order to make sure that happened.
At first the marriage had been good, if perhaps, seen in retrospect, a little too good to be true. Belinda had gone out of her way to be a charming and compliant partner, striving to be good at everything she did where the marriage was concerned. Except, of course, in that one thing. He had been so blind. Sometimes it seemed to him that he had been wilfully blind. Perhaps that was partly why he now saw Ms Grey as deluding herself, and perhaps trying to delude him as well…although he did not think so.
Then later in his marriage when he had wanted to talk seriously about having a family, Belinda’s subterfuge had inevitably come to the surface of their lives. He remembered the hard watchfulness of Belinda’s eyes when she had tried to cover up her untruths, a memory which contrasted forcefully now with what he saw as hesitation and sadness in the shadowed eyes of Anna Grey.
Anna presented an endearing—he had to admit that—vulnerability mixed with a purely female strength, that the majority of women managed to find in themselves when protecting their children. Under his hard core of cynicism he had been touched by the way her face had lit up, her voice softened, when she had spoken of her child.
More disturbing, he had felt an unprofessional urge to cradle her in his arms when she had almost fainted in his office, and he had very much wanted her to accept the invitation to eat with him. She seemed totally unaware that she was attractive, as she was even when looking damp and starving. He could not find it in himself to repudiate her. Yet he would be careful, very, very careful.
He had a strong premonition that the missing Simon was distantly related to him, a descendant from the family that had split up in Zimbabwe in his grandfather’s generation in a dispute over the ownership of land. It had been a bitter family feud, from what he had heard, a rift that had never been mended.
He felt that it had little to do with him—it had not had an impact on his life in any way. Some of the younger generations had gone into law and medicine, away from farming, so the ownership of land had receded into the past eventually. Some of the family, his own branch, had left Zimbabwe to set up in South Africa. Then some of his clan had decamped for North America and England, further disseminating the family ties.
As he walked away from Anna, his mind was engaged with her in a way that it had not been for a long time with a woman, an experience that left him amazed. He had withdrawn successfully from the opposite sex at an emotional level and he preferred it that way—at least, for the foreseeable future. Yet she had done nothing deliberately to make him engage with her in that way.
When she had looked at him he had been able to tell that she thought him an attractive man, yet felt herself removed from him in a personal way, as though she herself would have no impact on him and had no right to be involved with him in any way other than in the purpose for which she had come to see him.
In those few seconds when they had first made eye contact he had seen all this in her. He felt that she had summed him up, accurately and deeply. It had been a humbling experience. Then she had done nothing with it, had made no move towards him.
So often women gushed when they found him attractive, became overly talkative, sparkled in an effort to attract him. Usually he responded out of courtesy, not being a stand-offish person, feeling flattered as often as not, yet often otherwise unmoved. Once too often in his marriage he had been moved by flattery.
Now he wanted to turn round and hurry after her. He wanted to perhaps undo some of the things he had said that seemed harsh in retrospect. By now, she would be out of sight. At the very least he wanted to see her again. The thought occurred to him that perhaps his motives in his admonition to her to forget Simon and make another life for herself were ulterior. That insight also amazed him.
Yes, he told himself
as he entered the medical arts building to go back to his office, as he tried to focus on his first appointment for the afternoon, he would proceed with caution where Anna was concerned. But he would proceed, nonetheless. That thought gave him a peculiar satisfaction.
* * *
‘Mr Smythe? I’m afraid it was no go. Dr Ruelle wasn’t Simon,’ Anna said later on the telephone at home, then proceeded to give a precise explanation.
‘No sweat,’ the detective said cheerfully. ‘It was a long shot, anyway. We’ve only just scratched the surface.’
‘He may, or may not, help me,’ she said. ‘He asked for photographs of Finn and Simon, which I gave him.’
‘Don’t you worry. We’ll track down Simon. Goodnight, Ms Grey. I’ll be in touch.’
* * *
Going through the familiar routine later of preparing a simple evening meal for herself and Finn served to assuage the residual sadness that had been with her since the end of the long conversation with Seth Ruelle. It was as though his words had put a cap on her faltering hopes of finding Simon.
Yet her son, her family and her few close friends anchored her in a reality that allowed her to think that the world could also be a good and happy place. Very soon, when her father was fully healthy again, she would seriously look for part-time work. Already, a good friend of hers, Emma Fielding, who worked in the operating suite of University Hospital, the biggest teaching hospital in Gresham, had told her that some vacancies might be coming up there.
‘Do you want scrambled eggs, sweetheart?’ she said to Finn, who was seated at their dining table, colouring with crayons in a book. In front of him on the table he had a toy farm with numerous animals, which he moved around from time to time.
‘Yes.’ Finn looked up at her and smiled, his love for her clearly on his face. Impulsively she put down what she was doing to go over to him to hug and kiss him.
‘I like your picture,’ she said. They were a mutual admiration society.
