‘What do you want from me?’ I ask now. I glance at the document he’s just planted in my hands.
‘Is this the document she asked you post off for her, Hollie? Do you recognise it?’
‘“Medicinal uses of Orchidacea throughout South East Asia”,’ I read out, feeling my face grow hot. ‘Yes.’ I say at last, faintly. ‘This is the one she gave me to post. I recognise the title, yes.’
‘Bingo!’ He punches his fist in the air, making me wince. ‘Then we’ve got her. If you’re prepared to testify to that, and that she spent a load of time redrawing the graphics in her own hand from my originals, I think we’ve got a pretty solid case. She’ll lose her job, which is no less than she deserves, agreed?’
I hand the document back to him, and my hands feel greasy just from having touched it. He wants me to help him cast the net around Scarlett that will bring her to the justice he feels she deserves. He thinks I have every reason to do that; that I’m on his side.
‘I thought you were going to let the universe do the work?’ I remind him. ‘Let karma work its way back to her all by itself? Why have we got to do anything about it?’
He laughs. ‘I talk like that sometimes, Hollie. When I’ve taken a little – you know, something, to help with the pain of life. Forget I said it. Hey, it’s laudable that you hesitate before jumping in to get your own back – especially after what I’ve just told you. But I’m not asking you to do anything that’ll bring bad karma down on yourself, you understand. If that’s what you’re worried about?’ he says solicitously. ‘No – you’ll be exposing a wrongdoing, that’s all…’
‘Why don’t you expose it?’
He pulls a pained expression. ‘Because I – to my eternal shame, and blinded by my love for her – was involved myself, wasn’t I? I can’t afford to be implicated, Hollie. I need you to do it.’
Perhaps if he thinks I’m going to be the one to expose her, then he’ll back off? Leave me to it. Better if he thinks that.
‘You told me last time we spoke, that you’d written my sister a note – five little words – in that envelope you sent out to her in November. The red balloon, remember?’ I look at him curiously now. ‘What were they?’
‘I wrote: “I know what you did”. Hey,’ he shifts gear suddenly, ‘I just said I was probably tripping out when I told you all that, OK? Forget about that. She’s never going to get that message now, anyway, is she?’
‘You’re not stoned now, though, are you? But you came here hoping you’d still get something out of that bargain you two struck up. You knew she’d been seeing Richard, yet you still hoped she’d be true to her word to you…’I remind him.
‘I’m a fool, aren’t I?’ He looks directly into my eyes. ‘And you’ve been a fool too. Perhaps we can both stop being her fools now. Do I have your agreement?’
‘Fine.’ I stand up, affecting an aggrieved air. ‘You want me to contact PlanetLove, saying I’ve been asked to send them evidence, testify that the document she asked me to send them wasn’t one she in fact produced herself? She’ll lose her job, Duncan.’
‘Which is no more than she deserves, I’m sure you’ll agree?’ He follows me to the front door. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then?’ He turns at last and shakes my hand. ‘I’ll await the outcome with interest.’
Yeah. I shut the door on him at last, and my legs are shaking, my palms all sweaty. You await it.
Scarlett
Tried to ring u last nite, I text Gui, but no ansr. He isn’t answering now, either. I click off the phone in disgust. One minute he’s all over me like a rash and the next thing he goes quiet for days. Why? He doesn’t know what I got up to with Rich on Bluebell Hill so there’s no reason for him to go silent on me. I even rang up his PA at Chiquitin-Almeira last night, I was that desperate. She sounded rather surprised. I felt a bit stupid, saying, ‘It’s his girlfriend ringing.’ Is that even what I am any more? Maybe I’ve left it all too late.
I push down the waistband of my jeans, feeling irritable, rubbing at the red weal where they’ve been digging into my flesh. I keep telling myself it’s all Hollie’s home-cooking. I’m not wearing those elasticated-waist ones Hollie wanted to buy me. Not yet. It’s too soon to be getting fat. I don’t even want to be pregnant.
My phone rings now. I look at it and see that Emoto’s sent me a sweet pic of him and José in the forest. They’ve found another orchid-rich zone, apparently. The photo’s pretty dark so I can’t make out what species there are surrounding them but he’s written a message: Me and José in Aladdin’s cave. Wish you were here to see it.
You don’t know how much I wish it, too, Emoto. Only last week he rung me saying he’d heard rumours flying around that PlanetLove were investigating me for something. How in the world that’s got out when they won’t even tell me what I’m supposed to have done…
Anyway, he said he heard someone had put in fraud allegations against me. He sounded worried. He hinted that I really could do with being back there to defend myself, look into it all properly. I feel so…completely helpless here, that’s the problem. I can’t get hold of anyone at PlanetLove head office at Berkeley Square, no matter what I do.
I can’t get hold of anyone that I really want to, can I? Rich has been away for – what, four, five weeks now? They’re still keeping up the pretence that his absence is work-related but if Hollie really believes that then she’s even more naïve than I’ve taken her to be. She surely must see that everything has changed? This place drives me potty. She drives me potty. I tried to do what I could to help others and what have I ended up with? Richard’s ignoring me, Gui’s ignoring me, my whole career is about to go down the pan due to some mysterious allegations that I’m not in Brazil to defend myself against…Oh, it’s enough to make me see why our mum would have wanted to run away from everything. I want to run away.
If Rich doesn’t come back sometime soon, maybe I will, too.
Hollie
I turn back to the house, my arms laden with bathroom towels I’ve just rescued from the sudden April squall. The deep purple tulips Christine brought me back from Holland last year stand in a line like bare green spikes, all their petals blown to the ground too soon. This isn’t the spring I was dreaming of.
Maybe this time next year my washing line will be full of Babygros? It’s what I wanted but everything feels so wrong, so out-of-place. The cottage feels so empty and lonely, even though Scarlett’s here. But Richard still isn’t.
The bottom gate’s been left off the latch. That won’t be my sister’s doing, she’s always particular about closing the gate behind her. Besides, she’s not exactly out and about much at the moment. But that gate has certainly been left open, which means somebody’s come in ahead of me.
Could it be Rich? My heart soars with hope for a moment. He’s been in Lincolnshire for weeks now, and – true to his word – he has not come back down to our cottage. With Scarlett as sick as a dog I’ve not been able to get up to him either and I’ve been desperate to see him. Heaven knows what he’s told his parents, they’ll be wondering why on earth he’s stayed away for so long.
Unless he’s told them the truth.
I run back up the garden path, the cold breeze fluttering a shower of cherry blossom at my back like confetti at a wet wedding. If it is Richard, he never called to say he was coming. Could it be a spur-of-the-moment thing? Perhaps he’s realised how much he’s missed me?
Just inside the hallway I spy Scarlett’s bedroom door ajar at the top of the stairs and I stop. Maybe the visitor is for her, and not for me? Whoever it is, she’s sounding rather pleased with herself, I can hear her throaty chuckle from here.
‘About time you turned up again,’ she’s saying, ‘seeing as I’ve been so sick and all. I was beginning to think you didn’t care. Do you want to see my tummy?’
I freeze. Who the heck has she got in there with her?
‘Your hands are cold!’ she shrieks after a while. ‘You need to warm them up a bit…Hey, that ti
ckles!’
‘Sorry, my love.’
I drop the towels in the hallway and creep up the stairs, trying to spread my weight evenly so as not to make them creak.
‘So, have you been a good girl? Like we discussed on the phone?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Scarlett sounds uninterested suddenly. ‘Vitamins. Water. Fresh vegetables – those I can keep down – and gentle exercise.’ I wanted to do all that, I think, suddenly disconsolate. I wanted to do all those things to grow a healthy baby, I was looking forward to it, but for her it’s just a huge inconvenience…
‘Excellent. Roll up your sleeve for me, there’s a poppet. I want to check your blood pressure.’
Oh. The midwife. I skip the last few steps and pop my head round her door.
‘Hi, Jane.’ I give them both a cheesy smile. ‘Didn’t know we were expecting you today.’
‘Thought I’d pop in, seeing as she wasn’t too bright last week, were you, my love?’ Jane straightens, then pumps up the blood pressure band around Scarlett’s arm. ‘That’s all excellent. Now. D’you want to pop up onto these scales for me, please?’
Scarlett climbs onto them obediently and the midwife gives a small tut-tut sound. ‘Not keeping enough down, are you, really? Still, the baby’ll take what it needs – it’s you that’s going to go downhill if you can’t manage food. I’m going to ask you to wee in a bottle for me in a minute. Do you think you can manage that?’
‘Anything for you.’
‘You’re lucky to have such good support, here.’ Jane cocks her head, indicating me. ‘My next lady has two kids under two, she’s every bit as sick as you but she doesn’t get to lounge around all day.’ She’s teasing gently, making a sweeping gesture that takes in the numerous drinks bottles, banana peels and magazines surrounding the bed. ‘And here’s you, being waited upon hand and foot like a princess. But this is one thing you’re going to have to do for yourself though, lovey.’
Scarlett smiles, takes the little plastic bottle proffered her and stalks off to the bathroom.
‘I hope the dad’s helping out too and not just leaving it all to auntie?’ Jane glances up at me enquiringly once my sister’s gone. I watch her rolling up the blood-pressure machine, winding up the wires and folding them all neatly back into her bag. I want to ask her so many questions but it doesn’t feel like my place to do so.
‘Yes,’ I say faintly. I fold my arms, turning my head at the sound of the back door shutting. Is that the wind? My arms were full of towels, I can’t remember – did I leave it open?
‘She’s quite young, isn’t she? I take it this one was a planned pregnancy?’ Jane turns to me now, curious rather than judgemental.
‘She’s not as young as she looks. She’s twenty-four.’
‘Still….’ she flicks through her notes ‘…twenty-four is still young to be going it alone, isn’t it? At the end of the day, it always helps a first-time mummy if the dad’s on board with it, that’s all.’ She looks up as Scarlett reappears with her sample bottle.
‘Wee’s fine,’ she confirms after a few moments. ‘Now, would you two ladies like to hear the baby’s heartbeat?’ The midwife puts some Vaseline on my sister’s tummy and then suddenly there’s this whoosh-whoosh-whoosh sound, loud as a waterfall beating in my ears. ‘Lovely and strong, isn’t it?’ Jane smiles.
‘That’s…that’s him?’ I can hardly get the words out. I go and sit down on the little chair by Scarlett’s bed, my hand on her arm. Is that my baby? He’s real. He’s here. I stare at my sister’s flat stomach and the whole thing seems unfathomable, would be totally unbelievable if it weren’t for that whoosh-whoosh-whoosh that’s filling up the whole room and filling up my heart. I feel my own stomach contract involuntarily. What wouldn’t I give to be her right now, lying on that couch? I want to be the one waking up every morning complaining of sickness. I wouldn’t mind. I would be happy, if it were me.
‘Him or her,’ Jane reminds me. ‘That’s a good strong heartbeat your infant’s got there. Very strong, in fact.’ She frowns slightly for a moment, as if something’s perplexing her. ‘Have you had your scan yet, lovey?’
Scarlett shakes her head. ‘You booked me in but the letter that came through said it would take a few weeks…’
‘You’ll be looking forward to that, won’t you?’ The midwife’s eyes light on hers softly and for a moment Scarlett looks as pleased and happy as any newly expectant mum. ‘Will the dad be accompanying you?’
‘He…he might. My sister will come, though, won’t you?’ She looks at me for confirmation. ‘In any event, this baby’s going to have the best daddy in the world,’ she puts in unexpectedly now.
‘Sure,’ I say.
He’ll make the best daddy in the world if he ever comes back home again. I shift from one foot to the other uncomfortably. I want to hear my baby’s heartbeat again. What does that feel like? I glance at my sister enviously. What does it feel like to have someone growing inside you?
‘And at least once the scan’s done we’ll be a bit clearer about your dates…’ the midwife’s saying now.
‘My dates?’
‘Date of your last period, darling.’
‘Oh.’ I watch as Scarlett’s tongue goes to the side of her cheek. ‘I told you what the date was.’
‘Indeed you did,’ Jane glances at her notes. ‘Call it intuition – or maybe fifteen years’ experience on this job – but I’ve a feeling you’re a bit further ahead with this pregnancy than you think…’
My sister pulls an uncomfortable face.
‘We’re a hundred per cent certain about the dates, Jane,’ I say as I watch her putting the heartbeat monitor away in her bag. ‘Scarlett’s been trying to get pregnant since January, so it might have been possible, except all the other pregnancy tests were negative, weren’t they, Scarlett?’
My sister nods, inexplicably tongue-tied all of a sudden, and Jane laughs. I look from one to the other, perplexed.
‘These things are often far more hit-and-miss than you think. Your sister might have thought she’d had a period, but not done so in actuality. If there wasn’t enough pregnancy hormones around at the time she used the test kit then it wouldn’t have picked it up. Still…’Jane zips up her bag with a flourish. ‘All’s well that ends well, eh? And I bet you had fun trying.’ She winks at Scarlett.
‘Trying what?’ I snap before I can stop myself.
‘To get pregnant,’ Jane says baldly.
‘She didn’t,’ I assure her, my face growing hot. ‘She’s acting as my surrogate. She’s having the baby for me and my husband so she didn’t…’ I look at Scarlett and my throat just closes up in the strangest way.
‘No, I didn’t,’ Scarlett confirms hurriedly. ‘It wasn’t like that.’ But her face has gone as pink as a stick of seaside rock right now. She can’t imagine I would spill the beans to this lady about how we actually went about it? Her tongue is planted firmly in her cheek and she’s staring at the floor. Her hands have dug deep into her dressing gown pockets as we speak and she reminds me so much of her seven-year-old self for a moment it’s almost comical; she looks exactly like she used to look whenever she’d been caught out at something.
I push away the image that Duncan planted in my head a week ago of Scarlett and Richard kissing at the window. And her topless. I frown, scrutinising her a little closer and my sister offers up a wan smile.
‘I really don’t think there’s any mistake about my due dates either, Jane.’ Her chin juts out and she stares at a spot on the wall in front of her while Jane finishes up her notes.
‘I’ve been wrong before,’ Jane admits, ‘though not often.’ She snaps her file shut but I can’t tear myself away from my sister’s face because I’ve got the strangest sensation that Scarlett’s just lied to us both.
Scarlett
‘Hey, that’s really terrific.’ I put down my magazine as Christine holds up the newly-framed picture of Rochester Bridge.
‘You’ll have to apologise to Beatr
ice Highland for me, Hollie.’ Richard’s mum props the picture up on the table so we can get a better look. ‘I don’t suppose they’ll be using my framing services again in a hurry.’ She laughs disparagingly and we both look towards Hol, who seems to be more preoccupied with her own thoughts this morning. Three guesses why.
I glance up the stairs but there’s no sign of Richard coming down. He and his mum arrived in the early hours of last night; I was in bed by then, it must have been two a.m. when I was woken up by the sound of them all talking on the stairs. I have no idea where he’s got to now.
‘Beatrice knows we’ve all had a lot on recently.’ Hollie barely glances at the drawing. ‘She understands. Still, hopefully things are all returning to normal now. Slowly but surely.’
I watch her curiously as she arranges a vase full of red and yellow tulips on the dining table. Are things really ‘returning to normal’ for her? I wonder how they could be. Richard’s stayed away for weeks now – it’s all to do with work, the official story goes – but we all know it’s much more than that. She won’t be drawn on it. Still, I’ll see him today. He won’t be able to avoid me forever. It’s ridiculous he should try to, anyway.
‘Slowly but surely,’ Chrissie echoes. ‘I can see you’re feeling a lot better too, aren’t you, Lettie?’ She keeps trying to include the two of us in the conversation. The strain between us must be palpable, especially now Rich is back in the house.
‘Not so nauseous.’ I throw Chrissie a small smile, because she is kind and she drove all the way down here this weekend not just to deliver the picture but to see me, too. She wanted to thank me personally for the favour I’m doing for her ‘two favourite people’.
A Sister’s Gift Page 25
