Perhaps it just means we have to move faster; take decisive action. Perhaps it means – like Mr Huang – that we have to be prepared to make sacrifices?
‘Just imagine; this must be what it’s like when people have a toddler in tow,’ Rich says after a bit, bending down to cajole Ruffles who has just caught up with us. Ruffles is standing there panting, as if he’s just run a marathon, though he’s been taking his own sweet time. ‘You have to take things at the pace of the slowest one.’
‘I guess.’
‘Honey, if your sister needs to go back to the Amazon we should let her. You can’t keep her here. You shouldn’t. She’ll be glad to be gone and I think maybe…so might you be.’
‘Why on earth do you say that?’
‘What you were saying recently about us never having any private space to ourselves any more,’ he reminds me. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, that,’ I give a nonchalant laugh. ‘I only said it because the cottage does seem a little overcrowded at the moment.’
‘Just imagine how much more overcrowded it will be with a baby and all the paraphernalia that goes along with it…’
‘That would be entirely different,’ I say fiercely. ‘Look, Scarlett’s here because we asked her to stay, I know. I’m not being ungrateful, I just…’
I just almost wish now she had never come back. I wish I hadn’t asked her to get involved. I wish Mr Huang hadn’t made the suggestion that he did, and make it all seem so perfectly innocuous and innocent and natural. I wish I had not fallen in love with adorable little Daisy-Lou and been so envious of her happy parents before I realised what means they used to come by her.
It’s not as if they would be making love or anything like that. Mrs Huang did it, after all, and she’s a perfectly lovely, ordinary lady.
I don’t want to do this. I bite my lip, turning my face away from Rich even though he can’t read my thoughts. I’ve said in the past that I’d do anything, haven’t I? Why not this? I have to look at it logically, objectively and impartially. It would be…it would be intercourse for the purpose of having a child. A means to an end. That’s all.
It’s not as if they feel anything for one another. She looks on him like an older brother, I know. They would both be doing it as a favour to me and only me. So what am I so worried about? Am I really so petty and unsure of my own marriage that I’d be jealous of my own sister…? I look at Richard helplessly.
‘You just…?’Richard has stopped and pulls me by my arm to one side so we’re leaning up against the stone balustrades opposite the narrow pier. We’ve walked nearly the entire length of the Esplanade now and in a moment we’re going to have to turn round and walk back to Florence Cottage. We should, because my fingers are frozen right through to my bones out here, my teeth are chattering. It’s barely dawn yet. The dog has done what he came out here to do and Rich and I have both got to get on and get ready for work this morning. But I don’t want to go back home.
‘Oh, Rich! I just…’I hang my head and he pulls me to him. His dark coat is wet with melting snowflakes. When he leans his head closer to mine he smells familiar and sweet and warm. Underneath that smart coat I know he is wearing only a pair of scruffy old jeans and a pyjama top that he hastily threw on so he could join me because I’d bolted through the door. Oh Rich, I can’t bear it. I feel his kisses on the top of my head, reassuring and loving.
I know that he loves me. He wants me to be happy. He would do anything I ask of him. But dare I ask him this?
‘Let her go, sweetheart. We’ll find another way.’
My breathing is coming very shallowly now, my eyes closed tight, my nose buried into his coat.
‘We cannot find another way,’ I wail. There is no other way. I have been waiting for so long, too long…I have tried too many ways and now here for the first time, I feel I’ve come the closest that I ever really have. It must be Scarlett. I feel it in my bones. There is no one else that will do. The baby that she’ll have will have our ancestors’ blood in its veins, and so it will be truly mine. He’s got to be made to understand this.
‘There might be another way,’ I start. ‘But it would still involve using Scarlett.’ I rub my face now, lifting myself away from his shoulder to look into his eyes. I suddenly feel so hot and flushed. I lift my face to the sky to feel the ice dropping onto my skin.
‘She’s going to leave us, Hollie. She’s got to go back. She won’t agree to stay on any longer, we’ve already established that.’
‘She might be persuaded,’ I croak. ‘There’s something she wants, and if I…if I agree to give it to her, then I know she’ll agree to stay on. It’s you who won’t agree to it.’ I start to cough as the phlegm builds up in my throat.
‘You look a very strange colour, love.’ He’s frowning at me, concern building in his eyes, and he takes the edge of my scarf and gently wipes at my face now, my eyes streaming. ‘Perhaps it’s the cold that’s getting to you? The upset. Will you let me take you home?’
‘No!’ I look at him desperately. My chance is slipping away, can’t he see it? Receding like a paper boat tossed out on a fast spring tide, faster than I can ever hope to retrieve it. ‘I don’t want to go home before I’ve asked you what I’ve got to. And I know…’ I lower my eyes from the grey snow-laden sky to look at him miserably ‘…I already know that you will never agree.’
‘Why won’t I agree?’
‘You won’t.’
He laughs. It’s a short, puzzled laugh. He takes hold of my hands in my wet gloves and he gives them a little shake, as much to say – this is me here, Hollie. When have you ever asked me for anything and I’ve denied you?
‘OK. Just tell me.’
I wish I could but my voice seems to have abandoned me right now.
‘It’s to do with the mysterious Mr Huang, am I right?’
Hollie
Mr Huang. How does he know? A shock goes right through me when Richard mentions his name. I give a little nod.
‘Something to do with me needing acupuncture?’ he ventures.
‘No.’
‘Ah. You want me to drink some Chinese herbal concoction then? What is it? Powdered scorpion legs in an ampoule of rice wine?’
‘No! Stop making a joke of it, Richard! This isn’t funny. It’s not in the slightest bit funny. It’s how Mr Huang and his wife managed to get their baby and he swears it will work for us…’ I trail off, because I hate, hate, hate the idea and if he catches a whiff of my reluctance that’ll only compound his own. I’ve got to make out like there is nothing I want more in the world than for this to happen.
‘Richard. I really want you to agree.’
‘To what?’
‘To…you making my sister…’ I cannot say her name ‘…pregnant. The natural way.’
Richard takes a step back, frowns. ‘I don’t think I’ve understood you right, Hol.’
‘You have. I want you to sleep with her.’
‘No.’ He shakes his head, decisively, but his eyes are hooded now. ‘I won’t do that. You were right. I find it hard to believe you’re seriously suggesting this, Hollie.’ He sounds hurt, horrified even.
‘It’s the only way.’
‘Then it’s the wrong way.’
‘How can that be true?’ I reason now. ‘If it gets us what we want…’
‘But at what cost? You do realise the implications of doing that would be horrendous. It’s wrong. No.’
‘There needn’t be any implications, Rich. It would just be a one-off act done for the purpose and never mentioned again. We’re all adults, aren’t we?’ I can’t believe I’m saying this. Devil’s advocate, that’s me. Because how will I feel if he turns around at last and agrees with me?
I don’t want to have to ask him to do this. I don’t. But I can’t let go of my dream right now – all the signs are there, that if we just persevere, if we just hang on a little longer, this will all come right.
He winces, turns his face away from me to hid
e his anger and his disappointment. For the first time I feel the discomfort of someone who has crossed an invisible line.
For a moment we both stare out over the freezing river. It is fast-moving and choppy this morning. It is still barely light and the orange glow from the streetlamps skims and jumps off the surface.
‘You don’t need to worry that this might harm us. We’ll last forever, won’t we, Rich? No matter what.’
‘I always thought we would. I loved you the moment I saw you, Hollie. Cheesy though I realise that sounds, it happens to be true. I’ve never wanted any other woman. I’ve never desired anyone else. What you’re asking me to do now goes against every…’
‘Only so we can have a family of our own, Rich! So I can have your baby. It would be a functional thing. A purposeful thing, that’s all.’
‘A purposeful thing.’ Richard turns to take me in now. ‘You think that? You think it would have no knock-on effect between you and your sister, let alone between you and me if I did this? Like some sort of stud, for you?’
I swallow hard.
‘I love you, Hollie. I love you more than anything or anyone else but don’t push it. There is nothing made in this world that can’t be broken, don’t you know that?’
‘That isn’t what you told me before,’ I challenge.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Last month – when you forgot our anniversary – when you came back from Trieste, remember? You told me then that you’d love me forever. And…and you’ve also had to consider taking steps that you never thought you’d take, just to protect the interests of your father’s business, haven’t you?’
‘My business too,’ he says quietly. ‘And that’s different.’
‘I’m just saying, Rich, sometimes when things are precious to us, we consider doing anything we have to, even things outside of our comfort zone – like you taking your father’s business abroad, for instance. You were prepared to go that extra mile to try and salvage what you could.’
‘My father has worked for forty years to build that business up. It’s been his whole life,’ Rich retorts. ‘Any son would have done the same, tried to help out if his parent’s business was going to the wall…’
‘Except I didn’t see Jay going out there with you, did I?’
Rich frowns. ‘He didn’t need to, Hollie. Because I went.’
‘And because Jay has no interest whatsoever in running the company abroad, right? But you’ll do whatever you have to -whatever it takes – to keep that dream alive for your dad.’ I grab hold of his arm now, trying to persuade him. ‘I want you to do this thing for me, Richard. I want to keep my dream alive too and this is the only way I can think how.’ My dream which is rapidly turning into a nightmare. I put my hand up to brush away the strands of hair that keep whipping across my face and I can barely feel my fingers inside my cold wet gloves any more.
‘Why, Hol?’ My husband grabs hold of both my shoulders now. He leans his head in towards mine until our foreheads touch. ‘I know that you’ve dreamed of this baby ever since we were first married. But why do you want it so much? Why so much that…’ his voice breaks ‘…that you’re blinded to anything and everything that may come as a consequence? Why so much?’
I look at him, dumbfounded for a moment, because the answer is, I really do not know. All I know is that it does matter. It’s as if I began digging for treasure once, a very long time ago, and I’ve spent all these years digging the same hole and I’ve not found my treasure yet. But the conviction that there must be treasure at the bottom has never faded. There’s still a part of me that believes that if I keep on going long enough, I will find what I’m looking for.
‘I don’t think this is healthy. I know how much you want this baby but it’s got to the stage where…’
‘Please…’ I pull his face closer to mine for a moment, whispering desperately in his ear. ‘Don’t say no. Just please don’t say no.’
‘We could put in for adoption. We could try for another surrogate – one who lives in this country. BabyInIndia isn’t the only place where surrogates can be found.’
I shake my head.
‘You won’t,’ he says. ‘Because it’s got to be her, hasn’t it? You’ve got it into your head that it’s got to be your sister. And if it fails?’ he says after a while. Have you ever stopped to consider that you will have risked your relationship with your sister – with me – all for nothing. Are you prepared to do that?’
‘You say that we’re strong together,’ I challenge him now. ‘And I think so too. But it’s easy to believe that if there’s never anything testing you, isn’t it? If we really are as strong as you say then surely we have nothing to fear?’
He closes his eyes then. He lowers his head. ‘Why?’ he asks again. ‘Just tell me why it’s so important.’
‘Because I don’t feel complete without a child!’ How can I make him understand? ‘Becoming a mum has always been part of my vision of…who I am. Without that, how can I be who I was meant to be? How can I give you the family I know you want too? I know you always tell me you’re content but I saw your reaction when Jay and Sarah announced they were expecting at Christmas. You want a child too. I want…I want it for us, as well as just for me. And because – after all these years I’ve spent trying – if I give up at the last hurdle I will never forgive myself. I have to know I did everything I could, that’s all. And I still think Scarlett is our best option.’
‘Because…?’
‘Because she is my sister and we share the same genes. And because she has no maternal instinct whatsoever and she will never in a month of Sundays want to keep the baby for herself. And if you sleep with her at the right time – when all the conditions are right – then we don’t run the risks of all the things that could go wrong along the way, just like when we tried IVF and because…’
Rich looks up at me now, looking heartsore and weary. ‘And?’
‘And because she owes me,’ I finish, surprising even myself with that one. ‘No, I don’t mean that. I don’t know why I even said it.’
I rub at my eyes, because it’s as if the world’s all gone dim for a moment and I feel so cold, so very cold. The wide river is rushing noisily past the banks this morning, wild and dark and headstrong, set on its course and there’s nobody, nowhere, who’s ever going to stop it. And if you can’t swim, if you’re a person who can’t swim like me, you’ll go down with it – I feel a dull slow ache in my chest at the thought – and the water will rise in you and all life will be squeezed out.
‘She owes you.’ Richard’s warm voice reaches my ears and I look up, startled. ‘Does she owe you a baby, my love?’ He takes hold of my fingertips gently now.
No, of course she doesn’t. I shake my head.
He shudders, then. He sticks his hands inside his pockets and makes a move with his head to suggest we should start heading back.
‘So, you’re prepared to risk everything. Would it be fair to say, Hollie, that you want this baby even more than you want me?’
‘Damn it, Rich!’ Don’t say that. ‘I need this baby.’ I need it because…it will be like planting sunshine in the coldest, saddest place in my heart; because when I have my baby, that place will have life breathed into it again. And I have waited so patiently and for so long. And it has to be Scarlett. I know it has to be her because that is the only way to make things right again. Richard doesn’t understand that. I look at him tearfully, but when he meets my gaze he is distant, perturbed, preoccupied.
‘If this is what you truly want, and if she agrees, I will do it for you, Hollie. But make no mistake, it will affect us. There is no way that it won’t come between us, or between you and her. It will.’ The words are thrown over his hunched shoulders as we walk back together now. When he says them, I feel triumphant because I know I have achieved the impossible in getting him to agree.
But that feeling does not last very long.
We’ve been out just over half an hour. That’s all
it has taken for us to come to a decision that may change the rest of our lives.
It has already changed something. Walking down a moment ago he’d held carefully onto my arm, kept nudging me out of the way of the puddles I seemed to want to fall straight into. Now he’s walking so fast I have to struggle to keep up with him. Something deep inside of him has shifted away from the centre of that place that is us. I can feel it.
It will pass, I tell myself. He’s upset because he’s going to have to perform an act that goes against his nature. When we have our child, he’ll understand why I asked him. Things will go back to normal. Once she’s pregnant, well – we’ll be moving on into the spring, the weather will be kinder, the days brighter. Things will start looking better again.
But for now, the puddles of slushy water that we passed on our way up have already turned to ice.
Scarlett
I’ve got to get my packing done. I want to sort out my stuff -if there’s nothing left of the original PlanetLove camp I’ll need to take over more than just the one little backpack I brought home with me. I need to concentrate. Why can’t I find anything this morning?
I sit down on the edge of the bed, rubbing my eyes and trying to wake myself up properly. Right. I look at the list I’ve just begun to make myself on the bedside table; cheapest flights out are in a few days’ time which gives me the opportunity to stock up on T-shirts and the like. Man, I wish I hadn’t had so much to drink at Lucy’s place last night. I wish I hadn’t stayed up as late as I did – I’ve barely had two hours’ kip. And I wish I didn’t feel as sick as a dog with this hangover so I could get on and do what I need to. The worst part of that – telling Hollie that the dream is over – is already done. That wasn’t too much fun. She took it just like I expected she would.
‘Are you sure you waited long enough?’ she asked.
‘I waited as long as they say you should.’
A Sister’s Gift Page 17
