by Thorne Moore
This is the second illegal nocturnal entry into the Queen Elizabeth Centre in less than a month, although the break-in at Curry’s on the 2nd was…’
Gillian didn’t care about break-ins at Curry’s. From the moment she had seen the headline in the Evening News, her pulse had started racing. It was galloping now.
Don’t think about it, she told herself. Ten to one, they’ll find the mother within a week. No point in raising her hopes. And yet…
Joan snorted over the story, before pushing the paper back across the Formica. ‘Hanging’s too good for them, you ask me.’ She lit another fag. ‘Hope they lock her up and throw away the key.’
‘The mother?’ Gillian snatched up the paper and put it in the bin, to stop herself rereading it obsessively. ‘You want to lock up bad mothers?’ Her sarcasm always sounded so apologetic.
Joan, having stated one emphatic opinion, was able to do a complete volte-face without batting an eyelid. ‘Mind you, don’t blame her. Times I wanted to dump the lot of you. Drain your life’s blood, kids. Don’t know why you’re so set on having them. You’d think different if you were lumbered with one.’ She coughed deeply, took another drag. ‘Thinking they’ll offer you this one, then?’ She cackled. ‘Not a chance. I told you, you’re too old. Haven’t got a hope in hell.’
‘If I had no hope they wouldn’t have approved us,’ said Gillian. She needed to get out. It was one thing to tell herself she should expect nothing, another to have Joan ramming it down her throat.
‘You wouldn’t want that one. Some brat dumped in a box? Don’t know where it’s come from. It will have needs, you wouldn’t want that.’
‘Of course it will have needs!’ Gillian snapped. ‘All children have needs, in case you haven’t noticed.’
Joan chuckled. ‘And I saw to all yours, didn’t I? Don’t you go whining. Worked my knickers off for you, I did.’
Probably literally, Gillian thought. Though not for her children. Everything Joan had been, everything she had done and failed to do, was a model of the mother Gillian was determined not to be. A child with needs was exactly what she wanted. It wasn’t about what she wanted, it was about how much she had to give. It would be so wrong for this little Debbie to be deprived of that.
No! Stop thinking about it. Stop trying to picture the baby. Don’t use a convenient shop’s name, invented by strangers. If the baby were hers, she’d call it—No! Forget it. It was never going to be for her.
The phone rang. It’s the agency, offering me the baby. Why did she let herself think things like that? It was going to be nothing, for Joan probably. ‘Hello, Gillian Wendle.’
‘Oh there you are, Gilly.’ Pam sounded almost excited. ‘Did you see the Evening News? They’ve found a baby. You could have it, couldn’t you? Isn’t that what you wanted?’
‘It doesn’t work like that, Pam.’ But why mock Pam for thinking it? Was it any dafter than her own silly hopes? ‘The real mother’s probably going to come forward in a day or two.’
‘Why don’t you tell them you are the real mother? Then they can just give it to you.’
Dear God, had that one crossed her mind too? ‘No Pam. I think they’d want a bit more proof than that.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Pam, disgruntled. ‘I thought it was good news.’
An abandoned baby was good news. Was that where Gillian’s desperation had brought her?
She saw a leaflet that had arrived with the paper. An invitation to a vigil at St Mark’s, to pray for a nurse imprisoned in Iran. Asking God to intercede. Apparently that was how God worked. He was sitting up there watching a nurse being imprisoned and refusing to lift a finger unless the congregation of St. Mark’s begged Him. Well, maybe it did work that way. She could do that, get on her knees and pray for the nurse – a simple matter of right and wrong. Could she ask for divine intercession in this other matter? No, because there was no right and wrong, only her devouring need. And perhaps that need was more Satanic than divine.
iii
Heather
‘Wa wa wa.’
What time was it? Half two. Surely it had to be later than that? Heather lay still, telling herself it was a dream. Less than an hour since Abigail had last had her up.
‘Wa wa wa.’
It wasn’t going to go away. Heather sat up. Instantly, Martin stirred beside her.
‘Eh?’ He gave a yawn. Lying bugger. He’d been awake, she knew. Just waiting for her to make the first move.
‘I’m going.’ She scrambled out of bed, across to the cot. ‘What is it then, Abigail? Eh?’
Lifted her up. Felt her. Still dry. Hungry then. Surely Bibs had never been this insatiable? She flopped down into the chair to feed her. She hadn’t wanted to get up, but now she had, her attention was all on the child.
So hungry! Greedy little guzzler. Heather looked down on Abigail, urgently working the nipple. This is me pouring into her, she thought. Like a vampire drinking blood. Except, did the victims of vampires find such visceral pleasure in being victims? My little Abigail, my daughter, my baby. She wanted to pour every ounce of herself into the child, to be fused with her, as they had been when Abigail had been in the womb. How had Abigail been within her and she had felt so little attachment? This child was her self, perhaps even more than Bibs had been, because she was a girl.
She crooned gently over the sucking baby. Very softly – she wasn’t going to share this, even with Martin, who was deep asleep again, or pretending to be. Leave him to his theatrical snores. She had her little Abigail.
The baby stopped, already asleep on her breast. She would happily stay there, curled up in the chair, gazing down on her child, but her eyelids were beginning to droop again. And she needed to sleep. She’d be coping on her own from now on because her mother-in-law was going home at last.
Lower Abigail back into her cot. Cover her lightly over. Blue teddy bear where she would reach it. Very, very quietly raise the rail. Tiptoe back to bed, back to the warm quilt and the deep pillow, and sleep…
‘Wa wa wa!’
It couldn’t be happening.
‘Wa wa wa!’
What time was it now? Half three? No! No, she needed to sleep. She loved her baby but she needed to sleep.
‘Wa wa wa!’ More and more strident. Damn it. Don’t play bloody games, Martin, I know you can hear it.
‘Wa wa wa!’
She lay rigid, determined that this time she would not be the one. Even Martin could not pretend unconsciousness through this. No. Here it came. A heavy roll over, arms wild, hoping that his thrashing would rouse her if the baby hadn’t.
A half-asleep grunt came out of the darkness.
Still she lay rigid
‘Wa wa wa wa wa!’
A big show of struggling up into a sitting position. Big yawn. He turned, blinking, and saw her eyes were wide open.
‘Heather?’
‘Yes?’
‘You all right? Baby’s crying.’
‘I know the baby’s crying.’
‘What, do you just let her cry then?’
‘No, we don’t just let her cry. We get up and deal with her, like I’ve done three times already tonight. So maybe, this time, it’s your turn.’
Martin glowered. ‘I do have to work in the morning.’
She said nothing, still locked rigid.
Grumbling, he staggered over to the cot. She could see his silhouette, raising the child in what he hoped would look a cack-handed manner. He knew perfectly well how to hold a baby.
‘She’s wet,’ he said.
She said nothing.
‘She needs changing.’
‘The nappies are by the changing mat.’
He was angry now, trapped into it, shuffling things in the darkness. In his arms, Abigail stopped crying, and Heather could see him hesitate. Yes, he would actually put Abigail back in the cot in a wet nappy if she didn’t cry.
‘Wa wa wa!’
He put her on the mat and peeled off the dirty Huggie. Wh
at was he going to do with it? Leave it there for her to deal with in the morning of course. He wouldn’t think of putting it in the bin that was standing there.
Grunts and mutterings and a lot of rustling and a weary sigh. Was he wiping her down? Too difficult?
‘Look,’ he said at last, dangling a nappy in the darkness. ‘I don’t know what to do with this. You’d better come—’
‘Don’t.’ He’d raised his voice so she would damn well raise hers. ‘Don’t you dare pretend you don’t know how to change your own child!’
‘Right! You want me to make a crap job of it just so you don’t have to get out of bed?’
‘No, I want you to make a good job of it, just for once. Just for once pretend you’re responsible here, as well as me.’
‘I am responsible. I’m out every day earning a living. You think that’s not responsible? You want to swap? You go out to work and I’ll stay home and change a couple of nappies and do my nails all day.’
‘You think that’s what I do? Two children to care for, my father to look after, the housework, the shopping, the washing, cooking your bloody meals, and you think I sit around doing my nails? No, I am a twenty-four hour a day nursemaid with no time off for good behaviour. That baby is our baby, Martin. Ours, not mine. Three times I’ve been up for her tonight, and three last night, so I reckon you can manage it just once!’
The bedroom door creaked open. Bibs toddled in, pyjamas askew, his face screwed up in distress. Crying at the nightmare of his parents arguing in the middle of the night.
Heather forced her rigid limbs to relax. Arms extended, she swung round out of bed, reaching for him, but Martin was there first, leaving Abigail on the changing mat and racing for his little boy.
‘Now see what you’ve done,’ he said, lifting Bibs up. ‘You really want to upset everyone in order to make a point? For God’s sake see to the baby before we have the police round.’
‘Is everything all right?’ Barbara, hair in curlers, quilted dressing gown wrapped round her, poked her head round the door. ‘I thought I could hear a bit of a rumpus. Should I be calling a doctor?’
‘The baby needs changing and Heather’s refusing to deal with her,’ said Martin, all his attention fixed on Bibs, who was hugging him.
‘For God’s sake!’ began Heather, but Barbara, tutting, was already on her way to the changing mat.
‘Can’t have little Gigi going wet, can we? Oh no no no. Leave it to poor old Granny, shall we, pet. Who’s a lovely girl, then? You just want someone to take care of you, don’t you, and it looks as if it’s going to have to be me.’
Martin made a great show of comforting Bibs who, by now, had completely forgotten his distress. He glared at Heather. Barbara glanced at her with silent disapproval.
Heather rolled back into bed and pulled the duvet over her head. To hell with the lot of them!
CHAPTER 7
i
Kelly
‘Miss Sheldon? Kelly Sheldon?’
The voice on her mobile was masculine, pushy, smug, but she said, ‘Yip, that’s me.’
‘Great! This is Jim Matthews, Lyford Herald. How are you?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘I see you put an ad in our paper last week. Looking for your fellow babies?’
‘Yes…’
‘Great! Our girl Emma told us all about it – eventually. Silly girl!’ He chuckled. A clerk keeping a story to herself? Whatever next. ‘Didn’t want to miss you. Just to get this right, you’ve got evidence that babies were mixed up, right?’
‘Yes.’ Kelly didn’t like him.
‘Great! And your mum’s ill. Human interest story and a hospital foul-up. We want to do a follow-up, big spread, get your story in full, front page maybe.’
‘I see.’
‘So, Kel, let’s fix up for a proper interview, a few pictures, yes?’
She hesitated. A couple of days earlier, this would have been fantastic news. But her universe had slipped to one side since then. Everything was wonderful, aggravating, unnerving, but most of all, confusing. She’d accepted that finding her phantom sister was impossible, a daft idea from the start, and with nothing else to keep her in Lyford, she’d been planning to head home this morning.
But an article. A big article with a full explanation, that everyone would read; that might make the impossible slightly more probable? It was worth a try. One last go.
It would mean an interview with this slimeball. But hell… ‘Okay,’ she said.
‘Great!’
‘With Emma.’
‘Er, sorry, what? Emma?’
‘Emma, the lady I spoke to when I placed the ad.’ Kelly smiled at the phone. ‘She can interview me. I’ll tell her all about it.’
So she’d have to stay another day.
Ben had gone back to his apartment near Heathrow and his job in the city. Reluctantly, furiously, but he’d had to go. She had his mobile number, his home number, his work number, his email address, and he’d already phoned her once this morning and sent a dozen texts, but she felt amputated without him near.
If she couldn’t be with him, she certainly didn’t want to be here, in dreary soulless Lyford, nursing this weird fierce emotion.
It wasn’t just sex. Their one night together hadn’t been an explosion of rampant passion. Almost the opposite; it had been tentative, exploratory, nervous, as if it had been the first time for both of them. Two babes in the wood. But it had been matchless. Why?
Because she was in love, and love, it seemed, was strangely like grief. Numbing. She would do her duty for her mother; give her story to the Lyford Herald and hope the publicity would help trace Roz’s birth daughter. But after that, Kelly had had enough. If she couldn’t be with Ben, she just wanted to go home.
The Sat Nav ordered Kelly off the M3. Fortunately. She knew where she was going, but she was finding it difficult to concentrate on the road. It was just as well it was there. Probably take her the wrong way up a one-way street or off a cliff or leave her marooned in a service station in Lincolnshire, but she would take the risk. Better than trying to picture a map in her head when the only image she could conjure up was Ben.
It didn’t hurt anyone, did it, this obsession? And it didn’t really alter anything between her and Roz. Roz was still her mum, would always be her mum, they would still do anything for each other. Kelly would still do everything realistically possible to find the girl with those all-significant genes. Her mobile number and her home address were on record with the Herald, and she had given her story to a desperately nervous probationary Emma, under the guard of the cocky Jim Matthews, nice and plain, all the facts as she knew them, dates and details, without embellishment despite Jim’s fishing. So there it was. Forget it until the paper came out in a couple of days. If there were no useful response, she’d think about a new approach. But just for now, she could concentrate on Ben.
What was he doing? She knew what he was doing; he had told her half an hour ago. He was in a meeting. What was he saying? How was he looking? Was he concentrating on his presentation or thinking about her?
Stop! A car slowed in front of her and she was nearly up its exhaust pipe before she noticed. Leave it. Put Ben on hold, until she was at the Padstows, with her mother, telling Roz all about him.
She turned into their lane at last, crunched to a halt on the gravel outside the house. Roger strolled over to greet her as she opened the door.
‘Hi, Roger.’
‘Hello, Kelly. You’re looking extraordinarily bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.’
‘I’m in love.’
‘Ah. That would explain it.’
‘She’s been good,’ said Roger. They were standing, after dinner, on the banks of the river. Slow drifting water, paling in the evening light. ‘A bit of a crisis the second day, when you’d gone, but other than that, just fine. Eating well, getting plenty of exercise, keeping her spirits up. I think she’ll come through it, don’t you?’
‘She had you takin
g care of her.’
‘And you’ll do just as good a job, I’ve no doubt of that, as always.’
‘I hope so.’ It had been her mission since she was ten, taking care of her mother. Of course a grown woman, not yet forty, should be able to take care of herself, but most grown women were not like Roz. Few had Roz’s ability to block out problems. Left to manage alone, could Roz be trusted to pay the rent, remember her appointments, take her pills? Or would she think that everything could be solved by an hour of yoga and meditation?
For the first time it crossed Kelly’s mind that being a caring daughter might be incompatible with being a lover. She had a foot in two worlds, and suddenly her balance was precarious.
‘Could be a bit of a hindrance with the great love affair?’ suggested Roger.
‘Oh, don’t say that!’
He laughed and put an arm round her. ‘I do understand. It’s never easy. I can see it from both viewpoints. Your mother needs you and you need your life.’
‘Yes but…’ Kelly took a deep breath, furious with the confusion fate had thrown at her. ‘They can go together, can’t they?’
‘Why not?’ he agreed.
‘He has a mother too; he has to sort things out with her.’
‘A caring sort.’
‘Yes. Trying to be.’
Roger hugged her, reassuringly. ‘It will work out all right, don’t worry. You deserve it, you and Roz. It’s an order. Neither of you are to be unhappy.’
‘Yes, Boss.’
‘You’re our mission, you know that. Our daughters almost. We have a vested interest in seeing you both come good.’
She nearly said, ‘Daughter and granddaughter, you mean.’ Then she realised how right he was. It wasn’t a mother and daughter that Roger and Mandy and the others had offered a refuge to, twenty-two years ago, but two children, equally vulnerable, equally in need.
She had a memory, so distant it was almost formless, of the warm oil-lamp glow in the half-ruined farmhouse, of being in a nest of cushions between Roz and Mandy, as they shared a book, Mandy’s finger following the words as she read aloud, hieroglyphs that Kelly could not yet understand. Roz’s head bent over to follow the finger just as Kelly’s was, her hair tickling Kelly’s cheek. Roz learning to read.
