‘I can’t just abandon my daughter, Martin.’ There was more meaning in Rachel’s words than he could possibly imagine.
‘I know how much you love Hope but don’t you deserve a break for once?’ he said, losing patience. ‘Let her be someone else’s problem for a change.’
‘Hope isn’t a problem, she’s my daughter and she’s my responsibility,’ Rachel said, trying to keep her voice level.
Martin took his eyes off the road briefly. ‘I know it can’t be easy but you really are going to have to get used to this when we move.’
Rachel’s mouth was dry and she tasted bile as she tried to swallow her anger. ‘Leaving Hope behind was never a definite plan. We agreed that we would keep our options open until at least this weekend, or have you forgotten?’ Without waiting for an answer, she slipped her hand beneath the seat and found the folder Martin had mentioned. She leafed through property details and when she couldn’t find what she was looking for she checked the folder to see if there was something she had missed. She hadn’t.
‘They’re all apartments,’ she said flatly.
‘Luxury, riverside apartments,’ Martin corrected.
Rachel skimmed through the details of the first in the pile. ‘A well-appointed modern apartment in the city centre which, unless I’m mistaken, is ideally suited for a young, professional couple who are looking for access to a vibrant nightlife. No garden, no schools and, ah yes,’ she added as she checked the second page, ‘a second bedroom that’s already been converted into a home gym.’ She stared at the printouts, her jaw dropping in astonishment. ‘Some of these are three-year leases, Martin. That’s hardly a temporary arrangement.’
‘I don’t want to get landed with a mortgage until I’m sure the business is established … What’s wrong with you today?’ Martin said, shaking his head. ‘OK it’s not a great start now that Mrs Wilson has thrown a spanner in the works, but you’ve been off with me all week.’
‘Did you really think you could railroad me into leaving my daughter behind in Sedgefield and think that I wouldn’t react in some way?’
Martin had to keep his eye on the road but kept snapping his head back to Rachel. ‘I’m not railroading you, Rae. It was your mum who made the offer to keep her, remember? We’ve all been making these plans together.’
‘Really? So where are the printouts of the houses I picked out? Houses, Martin, with gardens and enough space for a family?’
‘We talked about this,’ Martin said, his tone soothing and conciliatory, ‘and I’ve been guided by you as much as anything because you know your daughter better than anyone. You’ve been worried about how much the move to a big city could affect her. You agreed, Rae. It’s better for her if she stays with your mum in Sedgefield.’
‘You haven’t been listening to me at all, have you? I agreed it was an option if we needed it and I don’t think we do. Haven’t you noticed how Hope’s been with you this past week? She’s ready to accept you, Martin, because she wants to be with me and I want to be with her.’
‘That’s all well and good,’ he said angrily, ‘but we need to consider the practicalities. If you’re working and studying, how can you fit in looking after a six-year-old at the same time? This is last-minute jitters. Just think about it sensibly, Rae.’
Rachel cupped her head in her hands to stop it from spinning. She was the one who was supposed to be convincing Martin, not the other way around. ‘I am thinking about it! Leaving Hope with mum never involved cutting her out of our lives completely, not ever. It was a temporary arrangement, Martin. A couple of months of Hope coming to visit at weekends and over the holidays or at least that was how it was supposed to work until you bought a car that’s too small and started looking at apartments we couldn’t squeeze her into with a shoehorn!’
Rachel pursed her lips which trembled with the effort of keeping her frustrations in check. This wasn’t how the discussion was meant to go; she was supposed to be persuading rather than pushing him into accepting Hope. She needed to bide her time before giving him an ultimatum – although she was already starting to wonder why.
‘Look,’ he said, assuming the soft conciliatory tone Rachel sometimes used on Hope to get her to eat something unpalatable. ‘We’ve both spent the last few years sacrificing ourselves for our families in one way or another. Don’t we deserve a bit of time to enjoy ourselves? Is that so wrong? Think of all those things you could have done with your life by now … It’s not too late, you’re still young. You can have it all now as long as you hold your nerve.’
‘You just don’t get it, do you? I haven’t sacrificed the last six years, Martin. Yes, things turned out differently to what I would have liked but being a mum brings rewards of its own. The biggest sacrifice of all would be to give Hope up, and I’m sorry Martin, but I’m not prepared to do that, not even for a short while.’
Rendered speechless, Martin shook his head as if her words were angry wasps buzzing inside his brain.
‘What’s happened to you, Martin? What happened to the man who spent hour after hour at his mother’s bedside, the one who shared my dreams of us becoming a family. Do you remember him? I don’t see him any more.’
Martin’s jaw clenched as he said, ‘He’s gone, Rachel and I’m not sorry to see him go. In the last few months I’ve been reinventing myself. I was fourteen when dad died and from that day on I was expected to be an adult, my mum’s companion and eventually her carer. When she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she told me she didn’t want to be a burden and I should put her in a home sooner rather than later but I wouldn’t listen.’
‘You couldn’t abandon her,’ Rachel reminded him. They could both see the parallels.
‘But I should have done, Rae,’ Martin said, the veins bulging at his temples. ‘I was blinded back then by a sense of duty. It’s only now that I’m beginning to live again that I understand why mum didn’t want me to give up so much. Let’s face it, if she hadn’t deteriorated so quickly, I might have spent decades at home looking after her. I never would have met you or had the opportunities I have now. I miss my mum and I wish she was still here but there’s no denying I was trapped. I escaped and now it’s your turn. We can make a fresh start together.’
Rachel couldn’t bear to look at him and stared down at the papers in her lap. ‘I want the old Martin back.’
‘Well he’s not coming back!’ he spat. ‘And don’t pretend you haven’t changed too. You were like a little mouse scurrying around after people and now you’re a beautiful young woman with a mind of her own.’
‘I haven’t changed so much that I’ve lost sight of what’s important to me,’ she said although her focus was already shifting away from the argument as she stared at the printout in her hand. It listed all the appointments for the weekend including dates and times. One date in particular bored into her skull and Rachel couldn’t help wondering how Bea’s mind would process the black ink against the white paper.
‘This is a new beginning for both of us,’ Martin was saying. ‘I know it’s harsh but I really do believe it’s going to be for the best and I think Hope will understand that one day because she’ll be glad she didn’t tie you down.’
Rachel wasn’t listening. ‘Tomorrow is the eighth of September.’
‘What?’
‘We need to go back,’ she said, her voice as cold as the ice in her veins.
Martin muttered something unintelligible.
Rachel tried again. ‘Martin,’ she said, a little louder this time, ‘I need you to turn the car around now and take me back to Sedgefield.’ The car hadn’t even slowed and was in fact speeding up. ‘Martin!’
His eyes were glued to the road and there wasn’t a hint of a response. A blue motorway sign flashed past and a fraction of a second later, the car entered a roundabout. There was the slow rhythmic click as Martin indicated to take the next exit.
Rachel’s stomach lurched as the car entered the slip road to join the motorway. ‘Bea has been counting
down to tomorrow,’ she said, her voice shaking, ‘almost as if she was counting down to the end of her life. I’ve no idea why this date is so important but it is. She didn’t say why she couldn’t look after Hope tomorrow but I have a really bad feeling about it.’
She was met with stony silence again so carried on talking, if only to make sense of what her instincts were telling her.
‘When she first arrived at Sunny Days she had no interest in getting to know people, no plans or hopes for the future except getting home by the date circled in red on her calendar. After we became friends, I thought she’d had a change of heart. She started to take an interest, if not in her life then in mine and Hope’s, and she left the calendar at Sunny Days.’ Rachel looked down at the piece of paper gripped so tightly in her hand it had begun to tear. ‘She didn’t want to make promises she couldn’t keep,’ she said with sickening clarity. ‘She’s going to do something stupid, Martin.’
Rachel was trying to remain calm but Martin’s stubborn refusal to even acknowledge her presence pushed her patience to breaking point. Anger rose through her body like molten lava and it took all of her self-restraint not to yank the steering wheel from Martin’s grasp.
‘What the hell is wrong with you, Martin? I’ve just told you that the woman in charge of my daughter might be about to kill herself! How can you sit there ignoring me?’
When Martin turned to look at her, his face was the shade of puce. ‘You expect me to take you seriously? You’re just looking for excuses now! I should have known you wouldn’t have the nerve. I thought you were smarter than this, Rae, but you were born to be a drudge. You’ll never break free, will you?’
It was Rachel’s turn to stop listening. She could feel the already tiny cabin space closing in around her. She looked out of the window at the motorway signs. ‘There’s a junction coming up. Take it, Martin or I swear I won’t be responsible for my actions.’
Martin ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I know it’s hard but you have to focus on what we could have together. I love you, Rachel and I want you with me on this adventure. This could be your one and only chance to do something with your life.’
Rachel pushed all the papers she had been holding onto the floor and placed her hand on the door handle. The next junction was drawing nearer and Martin was still in the outside lane. ‘Take the next exit or I swear I’ll open the door and jump out.’
‘For God’s sake,’ he hissed and swerved the car, cutting up another car as he made it onto the slip road just in time. ‘I’ll be late for the first viewing if I take you back now. If you really want to go scuttling back to Sedgefield then you’ll have to find your own way.’
Not wanting to spend another second with Martin, Rachel didn’t object or say another word for that matter. She took out her mobile and by the time they pulled into a lay-by, she had somehow managed to dial despite her shaking hands. The phone was ringing as she opened the car door and stumbled out.
‘I really thought we had a future together,’ Martin called over to her.
Rachel kicked the car door shut.
Only when Martin had sped off did Rachel let the first sob escape and she barely heard the call being answered. ‘I’m sorry … I’m so sorry,’ she said between gulps for air. ‘Please, mum … Can you come and get me?’
‘Are you sure you’ll be all right on your own?’
Rachel was with Mrs Wilson, sitting at the kitchen table. The irony wasn’t lost on her that Bea was the one posing the question. After picking her up from the roadside, Rachel had asked her mum to take Hope with her to Auntie Jane’s so that she could have some time alone with Mrs Wilson and watch over her if needs be.
Of everyone, it had been Hope who had been most reluctant to agree to the plan; she had been upset at her mum’s premature arrival home, especially when she caught sight of the muddy trail of tears and make-up that Rachel hadn’t completely wiped away. It had been Karen who had comforted them both and given Rachel the courage to face a different kind of future to the one that had, perhaps, only ever been a figment of her imagination. Rachel didn’t know what she would have done without her mum and wondered how she had ever thought she could survive without her.
‘I’ll be fine, Bea,’ Rachel said. She forced herself to sip the hot, sugary cup of tea Mrs Wilson was insisting she drink. ‘I’m not quite sure how to feel at the moment. I thought I’d be completely devastated if things didn’t go my way but I’m not, at least not yet.’
‘What did he say when you gave him the ultimatum?’
Rachel’s throaty laugh sent ripples across the surface of the steaming cup she had put to her mouth. ‘Our conversation didn’t get that far. I had my eyes opened today, Bea. I saw Martin for who he really is, not who he was.’
Scowling, Rachel relived her short but life-changing conversation with Martin in the car. When she finished, she shook her head in self-reproach ‘I’ve been so blind. While I thought leaving Hope with mum could be a way to introduce her into our new life gradually, he saw it as a gradual process to separate me from my daughter and my life of drudgery – his words, not mine. I can’t and I won’t mourn the end of a relationship that was just smoke and mirrors.’
‘I suppose it’s better that you found out now rather than later,’ Mrs Wilson said, but she leaned forward to take in every detail of Rachel’s face. ‘But you’re not fooling me, you’ve lost your dream and you’ll mourn that at least.’
Rachel’s lip trembled. ‘I only wanted to be happy.’
‘If I’ve learnt anything, it’s that the search for happiness begins and ends with an appreciation of what you have.’
To Mrs Wilson’s surprise, Rachel smiled. ‘And I have an amazing daughter and an amazing mum too. I’ve taken so much for granted, haven’t I?’
Bea nodded but left it to Rachel to connect the dots.
‘My life has been full of so many ordinary days which I resented for their familiarity rather than seeing them as gifts. They may be wrapped in nothing but brown paper but they’re no less precious and all being well I’ve got plenty more to look forward to.’ Rachel paused and let her thoughts return to the reason she had come home so soon. ‘I’d like to think you have plenty more to look forward to as well. It’s the eighth of September tomorrow but I don’t need to tell you that, do I?’.
‘I’ve had a good innings, Rachel. I made the most of the opportunities I had and tried not to grieve too much for the things that would remain beyond my reach in this world.’ Bea’s smile was weak but still somehow managed to make her eyes sparkle.
‘Why tomorrow?’ Rachel said, putting her cup down on the table so she could give Bea her full attention.
She expected to be asked ‘why what?’ but Mrs Wilson had already decided the time had come to stop evading the truth. ‘Mostly I see colour in individual letters or numbers but sometimes I see it in days of the week or dates. Not all dates, just some. The twenty-eighth of January, for example, has its own unique colouring. An insipid orange, tinged green and brown at the edges.’ Bea’s eyes narrowed as if the image she had created in her mind hurt her eyes. ‘It was the day Tim died.’
‘I’m sorry, Bea,’ Rachel said gently then added, ‘but I still don’t understand what that has to do with tomorrow.’
‘My colour associations don’t really change over time,’ Mrs Wilson said by way of an explanation. ‘Sometimes they become more defined but nothing remarkable. The twenty-eighth of January was different. It changed dramatically after the accident.’
‘And the eighth of September?’
‘I flicked through the calendar this year and noticed it immediately.’ Rather than meet Rachel’s gaze, Bea was busy sweeping her hand across the table, chasing invisible crumbs. ‘It had changed to the same lifeless colour as my son’s anniversary.’
‘That means nothing,’ Rachel said, almost relieved at Mrs Wilson’s flawed logic. ‘Right, that’s it, I’m not going to be polite and skirt around the
subject any more. The colour of a date is no reason for you to take your own life.’
The old lady blinked in surprise at Rachel’s bluntness but she couldn’t and wouldn’t refute what her friend was presuming. ‘You’re too clever by far. But I didn’t choose the date, Rachel. It chose me,’ Bea said softly.
‘You still have a choice. You can choose to ignore it,’ Rachel said, pursing her lips so tightly at Mrs Wilson’s stubbornness that her words came out in harsh, desperate stabs. ‘You don’t have to act on it; you can’t.’
The old lady shifted uncomfortably but refused to answer, so Rachel tried again. ‘If I’m stuck in Sedgefield for the foreseeable future then I want you around to help me. I may have given up on one particular fantasy but I still have dreams. I want to further my education. I want to go back to college, I might even take an Open University degree if my mum can help out a little more with Hope and I don’t doubt that she will. But even with mum’s help, it’s going to be a tall order and I was counting on you, Bea. You’ve influenced so many lives in the past,’ Rachel said, her words tripping over her tongue in her eagerness to convince Mrs Wilson she still had a life worth living. ‘Help one more. Help me.’
Bea took hold of her young friend’s trembling hands. Her grip was firm and resolute. ‘I’m done, Rachel.’
Rachel tried to say no but her breath caught in her throat.
Bea gave Rachel’s hand a quick squeeze. ‘Life is a precious gift not to be wasted and I’d like to think I’ve put mine to good use; anything else would have been an insult to my son’s memory. I’ve enjoyed being a part of so many children’s lives and, yes, I’ll admit that I have played some small part in their lives. I suppose that was why I was quite looking forward to spending the day with Hope, to help her explore all of that untapped potential that is the preserve of the young.’ As she spoke, Bea’s face was alight with more passion than Rachel had ever seen before, in anyone.
If I Should Go (Novella) Page 8
