A Sister’s Gift

by Giselle Green

  ‘These people?’ he frowns.

  ‘No. Those are PlanetLove people and – other friends. I’ll show you the Yanomami now.’

  ‘Oh!’ Richard laughs at the next one, leans in closer towards me so he can get a better look at the screen.

  ‘That little guy brandishing the venom-tipped spear is José. He’s my best buddy out there. Either him or his dad, the shaman Tunga, are always my guides when we’re out scouting for plants. His mother Lalu is teaching me their dialect and I’m trying to teach her some English…’I trail off because seeing them makes me feel sad. They need me and I need to get back to them.

  ‘Do you know,’ I put my hand over Richard’s now as the screen blanks out all by itself, ‘what it is Hollie has asked me to do for her?’

  Richard looks down and I see that he does indeed know.

  ‘She wants me to have your child,’ I continue and the robin redbreast who’s been singing his heart out on the gate flutters down onto the lawn.

  I flush. That’s not what I meant. Hollie wants me to carry her child, of course. Well, using my eggs. And Richard’s um…I clear my throat. His child, yes, that’s it then, isn’t it? She wants me to have his child for her.

  ‘What do you think about that?’ I murmur.

  He looks up and his blue eyes hold mine for an instant. ‘It would be the greatest act of charity,’ he admits, and his answer throws me into even further confusion. I never thought of it like that. PlanetLove is charity. I consider the work I do for that organisation to be of a charitable nature because I’m doing it for the greater good. I’m doing it for a very small wage.

  But this thing…he wants me to do it, then?

  I cross my legs in front of me, wrapping my arms around them so as to half-hide my face.

  ‘You want me to do it, Richard?’

  ‘I’d be very happy if you would at least consider it, Scarlett.’

  ‘You would?’

  ‘We both would. It’s not something I’d want you to rush into without considering all the implications first, though.’

  ‘I owe you so much, Richard.’ I jump up off the bench because I can’t stay still any longer. ‘I mean, both of you. You and Hollie. Of course I’d love to give you – both – the chance to have this child. I thought maybe if I donated some eggs that might do it but…’

  ‘I know.’ He picks up my hands for a fleeting instant then drops them. ‘She wants you because she trusts you. We wouldn’t want you to do this thing because you feel that you owe us anything. You don’t owe us a thing.’

  ‘Of course I owe you! Hollie took me under her wing after Flo passed away, didn’t she? I know she’s my sister and all and she sort of had to, but I still owe her – pretty much everything.’

  ‘She did everything she did for you because she loves you, sweetie. Not because she felt she had to. If you decided to go ahead with this for her – and given where you’re at in your life right now, it would be a huge sacrifice, let’s make no bones about that – then you must do it for love, too. Not because you want to please her or,’ he lowers his eyes, ‘me. But because it’s an act of love.’

  I am silent for a while, taking it all in.

  My initial reaction might have been no, but I suppose I could do it. Why not? I glance at Richard and I’m aware that my heart has started hammering very fast again. People have babies all the time and it doesn’t slow them down or get in the way of their life.

  ‘Lettie, don’t give us your answer now. Think long and hard about it before you agree. It won’t be a small commitment. Once you make the decision you won’t be able to back out of it easily.’

  ‘Do you think that I would?’ I lean back against the glass walls of the gazebo, challenging him. ‘Do you think that I lack commitment?’

  ‘Lettie, that isn’t what I’m saying. It’s you who I’m thinking of, right now. Thank you for being so…willing. But the more I think about it…’

  ‘You sound a little bit conflicted over it,’ I prompt. I let my hand come to rest on his knee. ‘Are you?’

  ‘If I’m honest, I have my reservations.’

  ‘Because it’s me?’ I ask softly and he looks away. ‘Because I have changed, Richard, I do think more about other people’s interests now and not only my own. Do you believe me?’

  He doesn’t look convinced, but it’s true. I smile as Richard -always so proper – takes my hand and places it gently back on my own knee. When I set out to make my way home via Venezuela just under a week ago I had the welfare of my second family in the forefront of my mind. I was absolutely clear about what I had come back to do.

  Now everything has changed. I never expected that these two would want anything from me, especially anything so huge and so intimate as this, but…

  Maybe that’s all to the good. I glance at Richard but he’s already taken pity on shivering Ruffles and is leading him back into the house. I have to hurry to catch up with them as he ducks through the low doorframe now and into the house, but my mind is in a spin, open suddenly to new possibilities, new ways forward out of the different dilemmas which we’re all facing.

  Hollie wants something that only I can do for her.

  I want this cottage. I need it.

  Besides, if they start a family, as I said to Hollie, they’ll want something bigger, something more practical. If I have my sister’s baby for her, then she won’t mind moving. She’ll have to move. And when they sell Florence Cottage, I’ll get my share of the money due from the sale.

  Maybe there’s a way we could all win?

  Hollie

  I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to feel like this, but I can’t help it. I’ve been trying for a baby for so long and she only came off the pill two months ago…

  I glance at Sarah’s svelte figure in her dark coat walking up in front beside Jay and the others and a shudder of envy cuts right through me. I hang back, not wanting to join them, they’ll see how I’m feeling…

  ‘Hey, you there.’ The young man in a hoodie looms out at me suddenly from the cathedral arch, startling me.

  ‘I…haven’t got any change,’ I say automatically. ‘I just put everything I had in the collection plate.’ That was my pretext for hanging back and letting everyone else get ahead of me anyway.

  ‘I don’t want any change. I saw you go in. I’ve been waiting till the service finished.’ His face…do I know him? It’s that guy I saw out on Jackson’s field, I’m almost positive, If only he would come out of the shadows…but I can feel a tightening in my chest, a panic rising standing here talking to him, suddenly regretting that I urged the others to go on, that I’m alone…

  ‘I wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘Well…’ I find my voice all of a sudden, ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’ I veer away from him in a panic, my feet skidding on the wide pavement beneath me. We’ve just heard midnight mass and there are little patches of black ice here and there on the pavement.

  ‘Rich.’ I catch up with him and Chrissie who’ve hung back a bit for me. ‘Wait up!’

  ‘Are you all right, darling?’ Chrissie pulls a concerned face at me now and I make an effort to shake myself out of it.

  ‘It’s nothing. That…that young man in the hoodie under the cathedral arch, just now – I thought he knew me. But I was mistaken,’ I say to distract them. Rich and his mum look back, but the guy’s already disappeared.

  ‘Oh. Probably just a drunk. Still – while it’s just the three of us together – I want to thank you both for the wonderful evening. The dinner was scrumptious, Hollie. And I really enjoyed the singing in the cathedral just now. We should make a tradition of this, don’t you think?’ Her glance shoots towards the couple up ahead of us. ‘Do it every year?’

  She’s got Sarah’s baby on her mind, I know. That guy was nobody, I decide. A drunk, like she said.

  ‘We could, I suppose, though Jay and Sarah might be otherwise occupied.’ I make an effort to get back to the here and now.

 
‘Oh, the baby could come too. It’s a family affair, isn’t it? I saw several kiddies in there tonight, they seemed to be loving it.’

  Rich and I saw them too. We couldn’t take our eyes off them, they looked so cute in their Christmas togs…

  But now Richard is very quiet, I notice. He seems thoughtful. At least Scarlett – walking on up ahead of everyone with Bill -is back in her usual high spirits. When she went out with Ruffles earlier she took so long coming back I thought maybe she wasn’t ever going to. I was so relieved when she walked in at last on Richard’s arm. Trust him to go out and find her. He knows how much it means to me to have her here for the festivities. I’ve missed her. Even though I was a bit mean to her this morning. God knows why. She hadn’t done anything wrong. I couldn’t resent her for saying no to my request. I don’t blame her.

  We stop at the top of Boley Hill so Chrissie can get her breath back. We’ve almost reached the entrance to the castle courtyard by the gates. In a moment we’ll cut across the patch of lawn and down the steps back onto the Esplanade again but, for now, the night is so silent and still you can hear the crunch of everyone’s shoes against the icy blades of grass. We pause for a moment, just taking in the sheer beauty of it. Richard nudges me and when I look towards where he’s pointing there’s a sprinkling of hoar frost on the ground, the street lamps picking it out, lighting it up like sugar frosting on a cake.

  ‘Apparently, it’s officially Christmas day already,’ Bill calls out over his shoulder. ‘The kids want to know if it’s OK to go back and open up their presents now?’

  I can see my sister doubled up with laughter at his request. This’ll be her idea, no doubt.

  ‘What – right now?’ I work at keeping the disappointment from my voice. It’s been a good evening; a success, I think. But I really would rather just go to bed when we get back.

  ‘Maybe just a nightcap then?’ Jay puts in, his arm tucked protectively around Sarah’s shoulders. ‘If that’s all right?’

  But it won’t be just a nightcap, I know. They’re all too awake and alert still, too excited. Like kids before Santa comes. They’ll end up wanting to open up all the presents under the tree, too. I was hoping that would wait until tomorrow but it looks as if the evening’s going to be dragged out a little longer now.

  I shouldn’t complain. At least it means they’re all having a good time. I shoot a glance at my husband but his face is impassive. He’ll go along with what everyone wants. With whatever I want, I know.

  ‘Come on! If we do go back now, we could all find out what we’ve got each other, don’t you think?’ My sister’s face is bright with excitement. Her blonde hair escaping from her bobbled hat frames her face just like an angel’s. ‘I already know what you and Rich have got me, Hollie. I had a feel of it earlier.’ She’s walking backwards beside Bill now, so she’s facing us. ‘It’s that multicoloured cashmere jumper I saw yesterday, isn’t it?’

  I shrug my shoulders, not telling. Trust her to have figured it out already!

  ‘And yours.’ She turns to Bill, teasing. ‘I’m pretty sure Hol’s got you some fetching bedsocks from the very same place…’

  Bill laughs, rolling his eyes in mock delight. ‘I’ve already had the very best Christmas present with the news we’ve had tonight.’ He shoots an appreciative glance in Jay and Sarah’s direction. ‘A man of my age, well, I’ve already had pretty much everything a man could want in his life. There isn’t much left that I’m hoping for…’ He’s seventy-eight, ten years older than Christine.

  ‘It is the most wonderful news but that isn’t the kind of present Scarlett was thinking of, I’m sure.’ Christine looks at her husband pointedly. Then we all stand there awkwardly and no one speaks until Christine pipes up again.

  ‘Oh, is that…is that the bridge being closed in both directions?’ She’s trying to divert the conversation, but she doesn’t need to. I know Bill didn’t mean to be tactless. He just expressed what was in his heart, and why shouldn’t he talk about his joy at one of his boys finally presenting him with the news of a grandchild?

  ‘It’s…um, it looks like it,’ Sarah murmurs. We all turn to watch as the cone-dropping lorry borders off all entry and exit points to the new bridge as well as the old one.

  ‘Good grief, so it is.’ Jay leans over the courtyard wall overlooking the bridge. ‘Whatever are they doing that for?’

  I don’t know. I should know, but I’ve been far too preoccupied with domestic matters recently. I shall need to pull my socks up in the New Year.

  ‘I think, I rack my brains, trying to remember seeing any recent memos that could have come in, ‘it might be something to do with the heavier flow of traffic that’s anticipated during the Christmas period.’

  ‘Except there won’t be now, because they’re closing the new bridge? That’s going to be a darn nuisance surely?’

  ‘I suppose it is.’ My mother-in-law settles by the cold stone wall beside him. ‘We’re all just used to the convenience, aren’t we? But you have to admit it’s all rather lovely as it is. Quiet and peaceful. No traffic. Just a few people walking back home in the early hours of Christmas morning. Sometimes we appreciate things all the more if we can’t so easily have them.’

  She squeezes my hand gently behind her back. You and Rich are going to be all right, her eyes seem to say when she turns and smiles at me now. I’ve got a strong feeling about this. Trust me. I manage a small smile in response, but I know it doesn’t quite reach my eyes.

  Trust, I think. Surely to trust you have to have something to trust in? I can’t just put faith in the notion that a magic solution will suddenly come winging its way out of the air. I need to know where the answer is going to come from.

  ‘And expecting at least one of the bridges to be open is not too much to expect, surely? We are used to the convenience. It’s the twenty-first century, Mum.’ Jay’s still chewing over her last comment. ‘There’s been a bridge on this site for nearly two thousand years, isn’t that right, Hollie?’

  I nod.

  ‘There you go then.’ He grins at his mother. ‘That’s a long time to get used to the convenience of the thing.’

  ‘Two thousand years?’ Sarah picks up the diversion. ‘And this bridge is only such a very short distance across.’

  ‘Five hundred metres,’ I murmur. ‘A long way for the medievals. Not much to us, I admit.’

  ‘But if something’s beyond your reach it might as well be a thousand miles, eh?’ Jay shoots a sympathetic glance towards his brother and somehow, despite everyone trying their best to talk about something else, we’re back onto the subject of the baby again. Scarlett sidles up to Rich and takes his arm protectively. She can probably imagine what he’s feeling, and I feel grateful that she’s noticed. I just wish that everybody wouldn’t take every random mention made as a reference to the fact that Richard and I have not been able to produce a child yet…

  ‘Oh, come on! Nothing needs to be beyond anyone’s reach these days.’ Scarlett stamps her feet impatiently and the sound of cracking ice beneath her boots echoes around the still courtyard. ‘It’s cold! I want to be getting back. And I wanted to tell Hollie and Rich what I’m giving them for Christmas but if you’re all going to be party-poopers then I’ll tell you here and now before you all disappear off to bed.’

  Everyone turns to look at my sister expectantly. Rich folds his arms, glances at me.

  Whatever she’s giving us for Christmas, trust her to have to make a song and dance about it. I love my sister to bits but why can’t she just be understated and tactful and quiet and normal for once?

  ‘I’ve thought long and hard about this so I don’t want anyone telling me to think again,’ Scarlett announces grandly. ‘I’ve decided to give Hollie and Rich a baby; I’m going to be their surrogate for them.’

  ‘Good God!’ Bill’s shocked voice is the first response to her revelation.

  ‘Well?’ Scarlett’s face is expectant as she turns to me now. ‘Are you pleased?�
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  I can’t take it in. She’s going to do it? Is she?

  ‘I’m…’ I look at Richard, feeling my heart suddenly going ten to the dozen. She was so adamant that she wouldn’t, and understandably so.

  Rich looks as shocked as I feel. He gives me a little shake of the head, denying any prior knowledge of this, but now Scarlett comes and puts her arms around both of us.

  ‘Group hug, group hug!’ she says. ‘Take a picture, Christine.’ And my mother-in-law, bemused and beaming, takes out her camera and obediently captures the moment.

  ‘Are you really pleased? Neither of you is saying anything.’ Photo-shoot over, our little group is suddenly animated and buzzing again, everyone murmuring appreciatively in Scarlett’s direction, hugging her and each other and commending her on her generosity and her lovely gesture. But I still can’t take it in. She’s got her work in the Amazon to go back to. How is she realistically going to do what she’s promising me she’ll do?

  I push those nagging doubts away because…oh, because I’ve always got nagging doubts about everything.

  ‘I’m only attaching one condition to it,’ Scarlett adds, laughing, and everyone’s eyes are back riveted on hers. I glance at Rich and his eyes seem to narrow a fraction. Does he know something about this after all? But the next instant his shoulders relax as Scarlett announces, ‘I want Hollie to promise me she’ll take some action to get over her morbid fearfulness and do something a little risky and daring.’

  Sarah laughs nervously at this and Jay gives a small cheer, egging Scarlett on.

  ‘It’s something I’ve been nagging Hol to do for ages, but my sister’s as stubborn as hell…’ Gentle laughter again. ‘However, I really think this is something that would help you, sis.’

  ‘O-K.’ I look at her, on tenterhooks while we all wait for her to come out with it. The silence stretches out like a piece of chewing gum, taut and unending, waiting for someone to come along and make it snap.