The Godsend

by Bernard Taylor

  I gave her enough cash to cover three days, though I said we probably wouldn’t be staying that long—I fervently hoped so, anyway. We were, I told her, going on to meet my wife—for a holiday.

  When she had gone Lucy said:

  “Whereabouts are we going for our holiday, Daddy?”

  “You wait and see . . .”

  “Is it a surprise?”

  “. . . Yes . . . meant to be . . . Anyway,” I said after a moment, “I’m not absolutely certain myself where we’re going. It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “. . . On Mummy.” And God knew that was true enough.

  She nodded, turned and began to study the pictures on the walls. They seemed mostly to be of angels in varying poses of prayer or flight. I wasn’t at all sure how I’d cope with them, though Lucy appeared to find them fairly amusing. I took another look around the room, and knew I’d never ever be able to work there; I wouldn’t even bother taking my art materials out of the boot of the car. But apart from that I’d manage to put up with it for a few days—as long as it was only a few days. At least the beds seemed comfortable to my touch and everything around looked clean. Lucy’s contentment—as far as it was possible—was the important thing, though.

  “You okay, sweetheart?” I asked her.

  “Yes . . .” She was intent on a picture of two angels—one with an obvious squint—who hovered gazing down over a rather ill-proportioned Christ Child. She looked at it with her head on one side for a moment longer then moved towards the window and surveyed the scene outside.

  “The street is so ugly.”

  “Yes, it is. But, as I told you, we won’t be here long.”

  “Good.”

  “Even so, this is a big city. A famous city. There are all kinds of things for us to see.” I couldn’t think of anything at that particular moment, but there had to be.

  “How soon do you think Mummy will meet us?” She smiled suddenly. “I knew we couldn’t be staying here. There isn’t room for all of us. Not with Bonnie as well.”

  “Yes,” I said. She repeated her question.

  “When will Mummy be able to meet us?”

  “I can’t say yet . . .” I could see there’d be many such questions. “Do you feel tired?” I asked her. “We could go out later—and find a nice restaurant.”

  Her face brightened. “A restaurant! Yes!” Eating out was something of a rare treat for her. “Can I wear one of my new dresses and my new shoes?”

  That night I looked at her as she lay sleeping in the bed furthest from the door. The book she had bought in the town lay on the bed-cover where she had left it. I picked it up and put it on the bedside table.

  So far everything had been slightly less traumatic than I had feared. But it was only the first day, and as yet I had accomplished nothing apart from getting her away. I had a great deal to do yet.

  I got into my pyjamas and climbed into bed. I had a paperback beside me, but I knew it would be useless to attempt to read it—I’d never be able to concentrate on two words together. I reached out and turned off the lamp with its hideous pink shade, shut my eyes and tried to will relaxation to come over me. But I could only think about what I had done—and about Kate and Lucy—and Matthew, Davie and Sam. And Bonnie. I fought against my thoughts for what seemed hours, and then eventually gave in to them. At last I slept.

  Mrs. Hooper woke us at nine with our breakfast, which she brought in and placed on a table near the window. It was boiled eggs, toast and marmalade and tea—and surprisingly good. After we had eaten I went to the bathroom along the landing and ran a bath for Lucy. While she was soaking I stood at the washbasin and shaved. I didn’t know what I was getting ready for, but it was a ritual that killed a few more minutes of the time. I wondered what Kate was doing—how she was doing. She would be almost out of her mind with worry, I knew, and she’d never rest until Lucy was back with her again, safe and sound. Well, that had to be on my terms.

  That afternoon Lucy and I went to the art gallery. Studying the Pre-Raphaelites there I thought of the print I had reframed for Kate’s little study. How long ago and far away it all seemed. Had that really been us?

  When we got outside I found a telephone kiosk with a telephone that worked, asked Lucy to wait outside for me, took a deep breath and dialled Kate’s number.

  SEVENTEEN

  “Bring her back, Alan,—please.”

  I hadn’t bargained for how I’d feel, and I was surprised to find my legs were weak and my palms were wet with perspiration when I heard the anguish in her voice; it came so clearly over the line. I didn’t answer for a second and she said quickly:

  “Are you still there?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Please. Bring her back home. You must.”

  “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t?”

  “Not while Bonnie’s there. Lucy just wouldn’t be safe, and I’m not taking any more chances. I told you what I think—what I know—but you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “How can I believe you? How could anyone believe such a thing?”

  “It’s the truth, no matter how—how fantastic it might sound. It’s the truth.”

  “No, Alan, it’s not. You can’t say that. It’s insane.”

  “You think I’m insane.”

  “Of course I don’t. But I do think you should . . .” Her words tailed off. I prompted her:

  “What? You think I should what—?”

  “I think you should get some help. You need some help. Talk to somebody . . .”

  “I’m talking to you!” I said bitterly. “As I’ve tried to talk to you. You wouldn’t listen.”

  “Not me. Somebody who knows. A doctor or somebody . . .”

  “I’m going to hang up if that’s all you can say.” I meant it.

  “No! Don’t! Please! Have you no idea of what you’re putting me through? Don’t you care?”

  “I know,” I said. “Of course I know. But it’s a matter of Lucy’s life.”

  “Alan, I just don’t know anything any more. I only know I want Lucy back. I want her back. You’ve got to bring her back!” Her voice became shrill. “You’ve got to!” She began to cry. For a few moments there was only the muffled sound of her sobbing.

  “Yes, I’ll bring her back,” I said, “—when you agree that Bonnie must go.”

  “How can— We’ve been through this before—”

  “I’m not interested—” I could hear my voice rising and I forced myself to sound more controlled. “I’m not interested in whether we’ve been through it all before. I’m telling you now that I’m not bringing Lucy back until Bonnie goes. Then I’ll bring her back to you. Only then.”

  “My God!” she shrieked at me, “how can you be so cruel! Never mind me—think what this is doing to Lucy!”

  “She’s okay,” I said. “I’m looking after her. I’m protecting her. And it’s the only way I know how to. You don’t think I’m enjoying this!”

  “Alan, please—!” She was sobbing openly now. “Tell me where you are. Where are you? Tell me!”

  “I can’t. But Lucy’s all right. She’s quite happy and, what’s more, she’s safe. And she will be as long as she’s with me.”

  “She’s my child, too!”

  “Yes, Kate—and so were Davie and Matthew and Sam.” At the memory of my sons I felt anger and bitterness well up in me so that I gripped the phone, shouting through gritted teeth, tears of rage springing to my eyes. “Get rid of her! That—that monster! We’ve got to get rid of her!”

  “Alan—Alan—there are ways . . .”—she was almost incoherent—“There are ways to make you bring her back.”

  I’d been waiting for this. “No,” I said, “—not if you mean going to the police. You wouldn’t get much help there; they don’t like to get dragged in. Why should they be involved?—I’m not breaking any law.”

  There was a little silence. She said:

  “I—I just want L
ucy home again.”

  “Yes, and I’ve told you the conditions. So think over what I’ve said. I’m telling you. I’ll call you later on.”

  “Alan! Wait! You can’t—”

  I watched my hand replace the receiver on its rest, and I stood there, shaking. I’d never get her to understand.

  When I looked round at last I saw Lucy’s face close to the glass. I summoned up a smile and went out to her.

  “Who were you talking to?” she asked.

  “What—? Oh . . . it was just . . . business . . .”

  She grinned, took my hand. “I thought you were phoning Mummy. Don’t forget, when you do, that I want to talk to her.”

  “No, I won’t forget,” I said.

  “I wonder what she’s doing now . . .”

  “I wonder . . .” Kate was suffering, that’s what she was doing. She was going through hell. But I couldn’t think of any way it could be avoided. And whatever the outcome she was going to be unhappy.

  Later, after we had eaten, and when Lucy was settled with a jigsaw-puzzle, I slipped out of the house to the corner phone-box to call Kate again. She answered so quickly and with such anxiety in her voice that I knew she had been waiting for my call. She started at once by begging me to bring Lucy home.

  “I’ve told you my terms.” I spoke as calmly as I could. “You’ve got to choose.”

  “Choose?”

  “Yes, choose. Bonnie or Lucy. Which is it to be?”

  “How can you ask me to make a choice!”

  “I have,” I said. “And it was very easy.”

  “Why have I got to choose?” she burst out. “I don’t want to choose. I want them both. Their place is here, with me—us—in their home. They belong here. Both of them!”

  Christ!—would she never understand! “Not both of them!” I cried out. “If I bring Lucy back to you she’ll—she’ll be dead within a year! Just like the others! The same thing will happen to her!”

  “They were accidents! How can you blame such things on a small, innocent child!”

  I sighed. It was all such old ground now. We were like gramo­phone records repeating the same predictable phrases. I said wearily, “Choose, Kate. I’ve told you. You’ve got to choose which one you love most. Bonnie or Lucy. I shouldn’t have thought it would be so difficult for you.”

  She was crying again now. “Of course,” she sobbed, “if it came down to it then it would have to be Lucy. That’s natural. But I love Bonnie. I love her. And she knows only me. I’m the only mother she’s ever known. How could I do such a thing to her—? What would happen to her?” Her words were punctuated by the sounds of her crying and I pressed the phone closer to my ear in an effort to make out what she was saying. “Why are you doing this to me?” she asked. “Do you hate me so much?”

  “Kate, Kate—I love you. You know that. I love you. I want to make you happy. It’s what I’ve always wanted. But I can’t do it at the expense of Lucy’s life.”

  Her sobbing grew quieter. I said evenly:

  “I want you to call the authorities and—and tell them that we want them to take Bonnie away. Tell them we can’t look after her any more.” I paused. “Do you hear?”

  “She’s not a foster child any longer. She’s our child. She’s legally­ our daughter as much as Lucy is. She’s got your name. She’s our responsibility.”

  “There’s got to be some way,” I retorted grimly, “and I’ll find it. Even if I’ve got to dump her on somebody’s doorstep. After all, that’s what her mother did to us.”

  “Don’t! Don’t talk like that!”

  “I mean it.”

  “You couldn’t do anything so—heartless.”

  “Listen,” I snapped back, “I’ve learned a good bit about heartlessness these past few years. You’ve got to realise that I mean what I say. She’s got to go. You’ve got to agree to it. I’m not bringing Lucy back until you do. Until Bonnie’s gone.”

  “How could I do that to her? How could I even tell her . . . ? She’s so dependent on—” She broke off, very suddenly, and I knew, beyond question, that Bonnie had appeared there in the room with her. “What’s up?” I asked. “Is she there?”

  “. . . Yes. She just came in.” There was a muffled murmur—probably as she spoke to Bonnie—then her voice came clear and breathless into the phone again.

  “I—I can’t talk . . . Not now . . .”

  “No, it’s time for you to do something.”

  “Oh, Alan . . . Alan . . .” She began to cry again, desperately. I hated myself for my hardness, but I couldn’t give in. I daren’t.

  “I must see you,” she said at last. “I must. We’ve got to talk about this—properly.”

  “Talk isn’t getting us very far.”

  “Oh, yes! Yes. You’ve got to give me time. I need time to even get used to the idea. I must see you! Please!”

  “You’ve got to be prepared to listen then,” I said. “And I’m telling you now that you’ll still have to make a choice in the end.”

  “I’ll . . . I’ll listen . . .” she said. “Tell me where you are.”

  “I’ll come and see you.”

  “But—”

  “That’s all I’ll agree to.”

  “All right . . . When . . . ?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “What time?”

  “About lunchtime.”

  “. . . Right. And don’t—don’t . . . do anything in the meantime . . .” She was afraid that I might take Lucy out of the country, I thought.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t do anything in the meantime.”

  It seemed ludicrous to say goodbye. I just said, “I’ll see you tomorrow then—between twelve and one,” and put down the phone.

  When I got back to the house I knocked on Mrs. Hooper’s door and asked her if—with the understanding that I paid her for her trouble—she would look after Lucy the next day while I went out. She beamed and said she’d be glad to. Strange how that smile transformed her.

  Apart from a small sigh and a touching little fleeting sadness that clouded Lucy’s face for an instant, she showed complete acceptance of the necessity of my “business trip” the next morning. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I told her and drove away, leaving her waving to me from the window, Mrs. Hooper standing at her side.

  I got to the flats before half-past eleven and sat in the car, watching the front door and the windows, smoking and thinking.

  What would we say to each other when we were together? I wondered. Did she think she could talk me round? Was she relying on my compassion? my integrity? my good sense? Could I get her to see the truth—and to agree to what had to be . . . ? Somehow I doubted it. And I knew that it might come to my having to take Lucy right away—for good. I dreaded to think what such an action would do to Kate; how she would suffer. So much more than she was suffering now—and she’d already suffered enough for twenty people. She would hate me for ever. But she would surely do that anyway. Yes, that was one thing I was sure of: it was the end for Kate and me.

  Still, perhaps I was thinking too far ahead. I must at least give her the chance. I flicked the end of my cigarette into the road and got out of the car.

  I didn’t go straight in when I got upstairs. I rang the front door-bell and waited. I could hear no sound at all coming from the other side of the door and I rang again. At last, the tension building up inside me all over again, I took my key and let myself in.

  I called out—tentatively—but there was only silence. The rug at the foot of the stairs had been pushed untidily to one side; I straightened it with my shoe and went on into the living-room and the kitchen. I had all the time been trying to steel myself for our meeting, going over the things I would say. I needn’t have bothered. The flat was empty.

  In the large bedroom the sheets and pillows on the bed lay smooth and undisturbed. It all looked very much as usual. In the girls’ room I found Lucy’s bed neat and tidy, and Bonnie’s bed unmade—as if she had
just got out of it. I stood there, quite still, looking around me, and wondering what it was that was so different about the room. It took me a second before I knew, and when I did, the realisation was like a bucket of cold water in my face.

  All Lucy’s pictures were gone. There wasn’t one left.

  Apart from three or four of Bonnie’s rather bleak, monochromatic designs, the walls were blank.

  And all Lucy’s toys and books, too. Everything that was hers I found stuffed away in cupboards and drawers and at the bottom of the big oak chest near the window. The only belongings I could see were Bonnie’s. Even her doll was there in view, at last out of its box. Her things were arranged all around the room, taking up as much space as she needed. Not Kate’s work. Bonnie’s. Just Bonnie’s. Just Bonnie being thorough. Bonnie being careful.

  Going back down the stairs I found, on the wall above the bottom step, a smear of red. From Bonnie’s paintbox, I thought. Bonnie being unusually careless. But this time I was wrong.

  EIGHTEEN

  I waited half-an-hour and then decided it was time to go.

  Before I got back onto the motorway I pulled up near a phone-box to see whether Kate might have returned in the meanwhile. The shop I went into for change displayed a badly written notice saying NO CHANGE GIVEN FOR THE TELEPHONE! SORRY,—and I could see by the pitiless face of the proprietor that it was no joke—except for the sorry part which, judging by the cramped lettering, was obviously an afterthought. It took me a couple of tries before I got any twopence pieces; chocolate alone didn’t do it so I asked for a packet of Rothmans.