by Dawn French
Anna was barely able to stand when she was ushered out of the room by the two policemen and Julius.
DI Thripshaw wound it up very quickly. ‘We’ll leave it at that. As you can clearly see, this has been a complete tragedy for this poor family, so if anyone has ANY information, we’d be grateful to hear from you. We’re not operating under any aspersions currently, but I can promise you we will not give up on this. I have given Mr and Mrs Lindon-Clarke my solemn vow that we will continue to hunt for the cruel people who took their daughter, and that search will persist until we’re thick in the head. Thank you. Sorry there isn’t time for questions, my fault, I underestimated the fragility of Mrs Lindon-Clarke. As you witnessed, it’s way too soon. Thank you.’ And with that, he followed the others out of the door.
Once in the anteroom, Julius furiously berated DI Thripshaw. ‘What d’you think you’re doing? How dare you cut me short like that?’
‘It wasn’t helping. Leave it at that,’ replied Thripshaw. ‘Perhaps you could …?’ He nodded towards Anna.
This annoyed Julius even further. Not only had the dolt ruined Julius’s big moment, but he had leapfrogged over the bigger issues to highlight Julius’s lack of empathy. How gauche, on both counts. And how annoyingly perceptive. Julius had to concede, especially with so many people standing around, so he went to his wife, who was doubled over and trembling, and he took her in his arms.
‘C’m’ere, my love, come on now. We’ll sort this out somehow. Someone somewhere knows where she is. We’ve just got to find her, that’s all. Which we will. Come on,’ he reassured her. Anna clung to him. He may have been wreckage, but he seemed to be floating.
Turds do. Don’t they? Turds and sweetcorn.
Surprisingly, Julius found this approach useful. Anna seemed to respond. She had certainly calmed down a bit, and it gave him a status in the hellish scenario. He could possibly even be a bit of a hero if he played his cards right. He decided that he would endeavour to support her as much as he could, yes, but he also pledged to himself that he wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip away. It was bloody awful. Someone had taken his daughter, but at the same time, and for the first time ever, he had the ear of the nation. He would surely be an utter fool if he didn’t maximize the opportunity. It was a win–win. Hopefully, they would get Florence back which would … be great … and make Anna happy, and also, he’d be able to head up the campaign to change the face of security in government-funded buildings. He would start with this, hospitals, because it was pertinent and he had the personal slant going for him now … Imagine, though, if he could extend the scheme to schools and, of course, prisons? Imagine if, oh, perhaps the initiative might in future even be referred to as ‘Clarke’s Law’?
Or something like that …?
Isaac’s Second Decision
It was early evening and the winter sun was leaving at a lick in order to honour her commitments in other warmer parts of the world. Hope was pacing around inside the flat, up and down the corridor from the front of the flat to the back. In the front she checked the street from her living room. Nothing. She rushed down the corridor.
In the back, she checked the yard from her kitchen. Nothing.
Where was Isaac? Minnie would surely be hungry again by now. Was she warm enough? Where were they? She felt a rumbling panic rising in her belly. Surely he wouldn’t run off completely with Florence? Would he? For a brief second she engaged with that thought, but found it too unpalatable to dwell on. She couldn’t cope with two losses; she was barely managing one. No, no, no. She daren’t even consider it for real.
Why didn’t Isaac have a mobile phone? Why did he resist it so strongly? Besides the fact that he couldn’t really afford one, he claimed that he simply wouldn’t use it. His parents called once a week on the landline in reception at his halls. He regularly saw Hope. That was it for him; he could communicate with those he cared most about and didn’t desire anything further. He also had regular conversations with Hope about the fact that, as an engineer, he was pretty sure the technology would change drastically, and he advised her to hang fire until mobiles were cheaper and better. He said it would be soon, and when the phones were more affordable, he would buy her one, maybe for her twenty-first birthday? For Hope, the anticipation and dreaming about it was almost better than any present itself. She was twenty. She’d had to grow up pretty quickly at home when she was younger so when she could choose, Hope fiercely protected her right to be immature and downright gleeful.
That was all right when it came to presents and romance and fashion. It wasn’t all right when it came to parenthood. She and Isaac had crossed the Rubicon into maturity right at the moment they made a baby. It was in this responsible frame of mind that she was fretting about Isaac and Minnie. Not for a moment could Hope stop to consider that the blonde woman asleep in the maternity suite that morning might be experiencing a thousand times the horror of her own worry.
Hope was anxiously peering up and down the street from the bay window in her living room when she heard the kitchen door handle go. She raced down the passage to find Isaac holding Minnie in his arms; she was wrapped up in his coat for extra warmth against the cold evening.
‘Thank God. Here, give her to me.’ Hope took the baby from him, and she was shocked to feel how stone cold Isaac was in only his shirt. With Minnie still in her arms, she rushed to the bedroom and yanked the duvet from the bed and brought it back into the kitchen where she wrapped it around him as well as she could with one hand. She manoeuvred him to sit at the narrow breakfast bar. It wasn’t easy; he was frozen. Hope went straight to the kettle and put it on, while she expertly plopped a teabag into a mug single-handed. She might have been carrying an infant for years; it seemed second nature.
Quiet Isaac was unnervingly quiet. Hope didn’t push it. She made him tea and let him warm up without a word passing between them. She sat opposite him and unravelled the baby from the coat and the batik throw. Minnie was such a little star, she gurgled at Hope and quickly latched on when Hope once again offered her breast, which was swollen and ready. The only sound was that of Isaac slurping his sweet tea and Minnie slurping her mother’s milk. Somehow, in the undoubtedly traumatic atmosphere, these three people were breathing calm oxygen. There was something about the energy of the baby that slowed them both down to her rhythm. Her little heartbeat was their main concern; she mattered the most and they could console themselves with the knowledge that she at least was content. For now.
Halfway through his body-thawing mug of tea, it was Isaac who spoke first. ‘I went back.’
‘Back where?’ she said.
‘To the hospital.’
She gasped, gathering herself, and stayed silent in fear while she waited to hear his story.
‘I knew it was the right thing to do. Perhaps the parents were still there. I thought I could make it all right. All right for everyone. I walked into the front hall bit, where the reception is, where all the seats are? I sat there for a minute. I thought I could leave her there. Someone would see her and take care of her; she wouldn’t be on her own for long. It’s the best place. Then nobody would notice me, no one would blame you and they would have their child back. It would be right again … and I would come back here and we would eat soup and we would be OK …’ He stopped talking. Hope waited. And waited … until she could tell he was ready.
‘So … what happened …?’
‘A lady came and sat down next to me. She had a baby too, in a pram. I think they were Indian, or something … She said hello to the baby first and asked me her name. Minnie, I said. She told me her little girl was called Aisha. She didn’t ask my name. She mainly spoke to Minnie who … was so quiet. The lady said she was such a good girl, so happy and calm … like her daddy. For a moment, I was wondering what he might be like, her daddy, who she was going to be back with soon … and then I thought … she means me. The lady thinks I’m her daddy. Course she does. I’m sitting there, holding her, looking after her. Who else would do that excep
t her father? Who loves her, whatever happens? Her father. Who will always put her first, above all? Her father. That’s me.’
There was a catch in his voice. He was trying hard to keep it together. This was the most difficult challenge he’d faced yet in his young life.
Hope held her breath. He was so very nearly there, where she wanted him to be, where Minnie was their daughter with no further debate, where it was over and they could get on with living. Where it was all normal. He was standing right on the edge of that …
Minnie suckled contentedly.
Suck. Suck. Suck. She moaned quiet little baby moans of gratification. The most calming sound in the world.
Isaac watched Minnie, so at home on her mother’s breast. Belonging there. He longed for this image of the three of them to be how it would always be, how it rightly should be.
He continued, ‘In that moment, sitting there, she assumed I was a father. She knew it as a fact; she didn’t question it for a second. They all did. Anyone who put eyes on me today saw me with my daughter. Saw a good dad. And that’s what I could be. What I am, when she’s here. I can’t be, if she’s gone. She’s … gone. Minnie is gone …’
Hope saw him slipping back into the early-morning chaos of that day. She couldn’t let that happen, or all would be lost.
‘Isaac, look at me. Here we are, look, here she is. She’s safe. It’s gonna be OK, babe … You did the right thing …’
‘No, Hope, I didn’t. I sat there for ages, looking at her, knowing what I had to do. You don’t know how much I wanted this. All of us together. You happy. Her happy. She was looking at me, she’s innocent, only I could make the decision for her. It was all down to me. I even stood up and put her down on the seat behind me, and I moved away, started to go. I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I was responsible for her. I was the only person who knew where she was, how she was …’
‘Who she was. Who she IS,’ Hope chimed in.
‘I know who she is, Bubs, and I know who you want her to be. Right then, at the hospital, I decided that those people upstairs had already had her taken away, they’re dealing with that, I know it must be hard but … you would have to deal with her … with a baby being taken again, twice, if I left her there right then. I know you. I know how … heartbroken you were this morning and how quickly mended she made you. I love you, Hope, I do, I know how beautiful your heart is, how pure. How lucky any child would be to have you as a mummy. I’m in your team. I’m loyal. I’m loyal. I’m a loyal man …’
‘Yes, Isaac, you are, and that’s why I love you.’ Hope affirmed it. She spoke the truth. And there’s nothing like a truth, even a half-truth, to underpin a whole lie, however big. Somehow a lie settles better on a righteous foundation. It’s like the clotted cream on top of the jam on top of the scone.
It sits well.
It’s easier to eat.
With his truth rumbling about as the bedrock for his justification, Isaac had made another big decision.
‘From the minute I went back out of the hospital doors, that was it. I’m in. No one stopped me. I carried her back here, all the way, walking home. To you. This is where she needs to be. You two need to be together. I see that. It didn’t start right, but it’s come right.’ Isaac’s conviction was veneer thin but getting thicker every minute. He told himself that he’d somehow behaved honourably. Both of them were slightly mad that day. Yet they were in tune. Working together, they seemed to have got away with it. ’Til that point, at least.
But Isaac had more to say. ‘I’m glad you’re happy, Hope. You ARE happy, aren’t you?’ he asked, genuinely seeking the answer. He wanted to conquer her suffering, whatever the cost to his own moral record. He was most definitely ‘in’, and in deep. He’d never felt more of a foreigner before. This step away from his well-trodden, principled and honest path was uncomfortable, but he knew this was his decision. She was looking to him. For surety. For reassurety.
‘Isaac, this is everything. EVERYTHING. All I need for my life, OUR lives, to be good and meaningful is in this room. We are going to live right, I promise you. Minnie will know what it is to be safe and to be loved. She’s going to know that her life can be anything she wants it to be. She’s gonna fly, Isaac, really fly high.’
Hope watched as Isaac stood up, shook off the duvet, and moved to the sink where he put his teacup down.
‘Well. Now. That’s good. Very good. Her life will be a good one. Yes. I just want you to know some things, Bubs …’
He turned to her, and for some reason, Hope felt a tug on the plug in the bottom of her heart.
‘You see, from the first minute I met you, Miss Hope, I knew you would change me, and you have. At first I thought, Hey, I’m young, I don’t want to feel this deep, no way. I’m here in England for an adventure. I didn’t know you were my adventure. You are my all. Light, dark, laughs, worry, future, dance, sing, cry, love. All of it. Is you. Like no one else. I have found a home for my heart in you. You get me. You love me.’
‘I do,’ she whispered, suddenly feeling like a very small girl in a vast cathedral. Their air was swirling, changing direction … tug tug on the plug …
‘I know you do, and it’s given me strength to do things, to be less afraid. Truly. I thank you for that, I do. I was afraid today, this morning, when … it all went wrong, but then I looked at you, and I took my strength from you and then I could do anything. So I did. I brought this blessing back to you. It’s all for you, Hope. My Hope. You have been my Hope.’
‘Have been’? Past tense? Hope gulped. No, please.
Tug tug.
‘I want you to have everything you want and deserve, and I pray that now you have?’
She nodded, tentatively.
Tug.
‘Good. Then I’ve done what I needed to, but listen hard to me, my darlin’ one. I cannot be any further part of this. I won’t be able to do it. I can’t see Minnie’s eyes looking at me every day, knowing what I know, and not telling her. I cannot lie to her.’
Tug, the plug was out, and Hope felt her heart’s lifeblood draining away.
‘What are you saying …?’
‘I’m saying I have to go. Don’t worry, I will always keep this hidden. I will never speak about it. I will keep your secret, but I won’t keep hers, that’s between you and her and God. If I don’t see her, I don’t have to tell her. It’s up to you if you do.’
‘No. Please. Is this a choice? You or her?’
‘No. The choice is made. I go back to S’Leone. Tomorrow probably.’
‘What about your studies?’
‘I will say it’s family reasons. It’s the truth. They’ll understand. It’s only one more term; I can do it remotely from home. I’ll still graduate. But not here.’
‘Is there anything I can say to stop you? Tell me what I can say, please, Isaac!’ Hope started to weep quietly.
‘There’s nothing, Bubs. I’ve done a wrong thing and now I’m going to do a right thing. As right as I can. I know I will forever stand in need of mercy and forgiveness. I can live with that, knowing she is safe with you, and you are happy.’
Hope stood up with the baby still attached to her, and she went over to him. She knew he was a man of his word and that he would go, without doubt. He was solemn and firm.
She put her free arm around him, and he put his arms around both of them. The last time they would be together like this, a family. Minnie would miss out on so much, not having this remarkable, fine man in her life, Hope thought, and this was on her.
Isaac pulled away, and Hope saw his wet face and his trembling mouth. He attempted to say something, but it was difficult for him.
‘I will send money for her … whenever I can,’ he burbled as he climbed into his coat, his head hanging down to avoid eye contact. He stopped to touch the baby’s head one last time, and he moved towards the door.
‘Isaac,’ Hope said. He stopped, his back to her. ‘My Quiet Isaac. I don’t know a better person.’
She saw
him take a huge breath in, the last where he would share the same air with them, his beloveds.
He opened the door, slipped through, and was gone.
Hope stared at the door.
It was over.
This day, where she had lost and gained and lost again, so very much.
Eighteen Years Later
Minnie could not get comfortable. Every which way she tried to sit on the sofa, it wasn’t right. She could feel that her heart was beating fast, too fast, but it had done so regularly in these past few weeks as her pregnancy progressed. She was told to expect it, that it would get more difficult. She was told to seriously rest, and that was what she was trying to do.
Lee was trying to do anything he could to help without letting her know that he was nervous. Lee told jokes when he was nervous, so Minnie knew anyway. He brought her milky coffee and kissed her gently. ‘All right, Mrs Mummy?’
‘Lee, put your pants on, for godssake!’
‘Whassya prob, girl?’ He started strutting up and down in front of her, throwing his best Jagger moves to distract her. ‘Look ’pon your hero lover man baby daddy and salivate yourself. How built and fertile am I? Poppin’ off the babies, pam pam!’
‘Stop it! I don’t wanna laugh, it hurts.’
‘Have you ever witnessed such a giant knob?’ he asked, pointing at his distinctly ordinary one.
‘Yeah,’ Minnie said, pointing at the whole of him.
‘Shut it, slag.’ Lee deployed his best cockney gangster voice.
‘Seriously, Twat, put your pants on.’
‘Just trying to give you something else to think about.’
‘I know.’
‘Fancy goin’ to the footie? Or I could take you up Asda’s. Buy some ciders? Have a fight?’
She punched his arm. He laughed, and she saw his face exactly the way it looked when she’d first met him the year before …
He was working on a building site then, near her home, and they both used to have breakfast in the same café.
