Lost Daughter

by Ali Mercer

  ‘She just doesn’t really talk to me. And I don’t blame her.’ Rachel hesitates, takes a deep breath. ‘When Mitch and I broke up I wasn’t in a very good way. I ended up taking medication for a little while, and having some counselling. Things are a bit better now. More stable. But for a while I wasn’t really myself, and that was so hard on Becca – to see me change like that.’

  ‘Oh, Rachel. I’m so sorry. And you lost your mother not so very long ago, didn’t you? Sometimes I think these things can be cumulative. So, you’re not taking any medication now? I only ask because I was prescribed Valium for a while in the eighties, after Aidan went off to live in a home, and it was hell to stop.’

  ‘No. I was worried about that. But I stopped when I started working at Fun-to-Learn, and it was all right, actually. I didn’t go back under. They don’t know about it, though. The temp agency gave me a health questionnaire to fill in that asked if I’d ever had depression, and I just left that bit blank. Maybe it wouldn’t have been a problem, but I was desperate to get work and I thought it might make it harder. I haven’t actually told Leona that, so maybe keep it to yourself? It might put her in an awkward position if she knew.’

  ‘Rachel, your secret is safe with me. I’m sure you could tell Leona, though. She wouldn’t say anything – she’d be on your side. And I hope your employer would be more sympathetic than you think. After all, it’s something that very many people experience, at one time or another. This isn’t why you think Becca ought to be with her father, is it? Because if every mother who has been through an episode of depression gave up custody, there’d be a heck of lot of women in your situation, and suddenly the playgroup I help with at church would be packed with dads.’

  ‘It wasn’t just that,’ Rachel says. ‘I mean, I was depressed, but it was more than that.’

  She slows down for a turning; they’re nearly there. She’s aware of Viv waiting for her to say more.

  ‘I had to leave, Viv,’ she says. ‘Becca didn’t know everything that had gone on, but she’d seen something she should never have seen. She was scared of me. This is the only way I can regain her trust. From a distance, bit by bit.’

  Viv sighs. ‘I’ve said this before, Rachel, and I’ll say it again; when you’re ready, if you ever really want to talk about what happened, you can tell me. I trust you. And regardless of the person you might have been last summer, or what you might have done, or thought about doing, the person you are now has received the ultimate stamp of approval – to my mind, anyway. And on that note… I don’t know how you’ll feel about this, and you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I think Aidan would like to meet you.’

  ‘Really? Is that what he said?’

  ‘Well, not exactly. I deduced it. He wanted to see your car. That’s his way of showing curiosity about you. If you don’t mind, and if the staff don’t mind, if you just stay put in the car park as usual, I’ll bring him out to have a look?’

  ‘OK,’ Rachel agrees. ‘I’d be delighted. I’m honoured.’ And it is true; she’s profoundly flattered.

  ‘I think of Aidan as a kind of divining-rod,’ Viv says. ‘He can bring out people’s kindness, and also their cruelty. All he has brought out from you is goodness. I suspect, Rachel, whatever you may have done or not done, that you’re not the terrible person you sometimes seem to think you are.’

  Rachel is conscious of the older woman studying her; then they turn onto the approach to Aidan’s care home. Viv turns to face it and lets out a little sigh that could be either apprehension or relief, and says, ‘Nearly there.’

  After Rachel has been alone in the car for a little while, a small expeditionary party emerges from the front of the building: Viv and Aidan, who is slightly taller than her, and a carer in pink overalls just behind them.

  Aidan is holding Viv’s hand. Somehow this looks right, even though he should be much too old for it. He is wearing the usual blue T-shirt with an unzipped hoodie and grey jogging bottoms and Velcro-fastened trainers, and there is something about the way he walks that suggests an uncertainty about the relationship between his body, the ground beneath and the space around him, as if it might all be dramatically reconfigured at any moment. He appears baffled but determined. Viv looks pleased and nervous and – this is unexpected but shouldn’t be – proud. Rachel wonders how long it is since she’s introduced her son to anybody.

  Rachel gets out of the car and says hello. Aidan scowls at her fleetingly and says a loud hello back as he launches himself forward as if to run away, though it turns out he is only setting out to walk around the car, observing it closely and occasionally pausing to tap or sniff it.

  ‘Is it OK?’ Viv asks.

  ‘Sure,’ Rachel says. ‘It’s not very well cared for, I’m afraid. He’s probably going to come to all sorts of dreadful conclusions about me.’

  ‘It doesn’t look that bad to me. You should see mine,’ says the carer, whose name badge reveals that she’s called Coral.

  Aidan says, ‘This is ten years old. The engine is quite powerful, so you could go fast if you needed to.’ He peers inside. ‘You don’t clean it. Do you have a vacuum cleaner?’

  ‘I share one with some other people,’ Rachel says. ‘It doesn’t work very well.’

  ‘Coral says it’s good to share, but I don’t like sharing,’ Aidan observes. ‘Other people don’t look after things the way I do. I like broken things, for example. Other people often just throw them away. But I don’t think being broken makes something bad. Just because you can’t use it in the way you want to, doesn’t mean you should put it in the bin. You can do something different with it.’

  He comes up very close to Rachel, puts his hand on the sleeve of her jacket and looks up into her face. He says, ‘You drive my mum. Nobody drove her before.’

  ‘This is Rachel,’ Viv says. ‘You can say hello to her.’

  ‘I know, and I said hello already,’ Aidan tells her.

  He pushes his face closer to Rachel and for a crazy half moment she thinks he is about to kiss her, but instead he sniffs her hair. Then he withdraws and studies her again. His interest is more forensic than friendly: she feels as if she’s being scanned, as if details to which she’s oblivious are being logged for future reference.

  ‘You’re going to come every week,’ he says.

  ‘Well, maybe not every week,’ Viv says. ‘Rachel’s very kindly helping me out for now, but she does have a life and a child of her own. And a job, too.’

  Aidan ignores her. He says, ‘You should come inside with us. It’s not very interesting, but you can carry on reading your book if you like. You could have a cup of tea. Also, Mum brought cupcakes. I’ll let you have one.’

  ‘Oh no, I’m fine here,’ Rachel says, although actually the prospect of tea and cake is appealing.

  ‘You sure?’ Coral asks. ‘You could have the visitors’ lounge to yourselves.’

  And again Rachel has that feeling of being sucked in deeper than she had planned. But then she thinks, What the hell?

  ‘OK,’ she says with a shrug.

  Viv reaches out glancingly to touch Rachel’s arm, and says, ‘Thank you.’

  Rachel retrieves her handbag and locks the car. Viv takes Aidan by the hand again, and Coral and Rachel follow them as they lead the way back into the home.

  The lounge turns out to be quiet and pleasant: it is more comfortable than the institutional waiting room, and has a well-worn, weary vibe that Rachel supposes must come of long use by many visitors who have given up being angry or sad that their lives have brought them to such a place, and are simply grateful to have somewhere to sit.

  She perches on the overstuffed sofa; Aidan comes over and holds out the Tupperware box of Viv’s cakes, his face as serious as if he were offering her a life-changing bribe, or a proposal of marriage. She takes one and he retreats.

  ‘You can play on the computer if you like, Aidan,’ Viv says. ‘Aidan doesn’t really like to make conversation,’ she adds for Rachel’s be
nefit.

  ‘I don’t understand why people talk when they don’t have anything to say,’ Aidan explains.

  Viv and Aidan go off to Aidan’s room to retrieve his iPad, leaving Rachel alone. She finishes her cupcake, sweeps the crumbs off the sofa into her hand and finds a bin for them, and tries to relax.

  She takes in the faded pastel watercolour of a tree-lined river hanging on the wall, the poster advertising a charity helpline, the small tub of plastic toys. She thinks about Viv coming here by herself all these years. Not giving up.

  And then, as suddenly as if somebody outside had flicked a switch, sunlight pitches in through the window opposite her and bathes the whole room in gold, and she sees it for what it is: a place where two worlds meet, and nothing but love keeps them together.

  Twenty-Two

  Rachel

  Six months before the loss

  As Rachel passed through the revolving door to the office she checked her watch: five to nine, respectably punctual for someone fresh back from compassionate leave.

  She wished the receptionist a more than usually friendly good morning. As she showed her pass to the security guard she noticed a smear of something grey, like dust, on the lapel of her blouse. She brushed it off without thinking. And then she remembered what it was.

  They had been in this office building for a year, since her boss sold his business to a much larger company. Her desk was on the tenth floor, beside a window from which it was just possible, if you stood in the right place and craned your neck, to make out the fairy tale form of Tower Bridge.

  As she logged into her PC there was a discreet sound of throat-clearing just behind her. It was Elizabeth Mannering, who Rachel didn’t usually have much to do with – she was too senior, and ran a different part of the business. She was also a bit intimidating, an impeccably groomed blonde who apparently had a high-flying lawyer husband, plus a live-in nanny to take care of her two small sons.

  ‘Rachel.’ Elizabeth smiled at her sympathetically. ‘I hope everything went all right?’

  ‘Oh, yes, very well, thank you. I mean, as well as these things can.’

  ‘That’s good to hear. And your little girl – how did she cope with it all?’

  Rachel glanced at the framed photograph on her desk: it was of Mitch with Becca by Kettlebridge lock, taken a couple of years ago. Becca had still been in primary school then, and happy to smile unselfconsciously for the camera.

  ‘Not so little any more,’ she said. ‘She’ll be thirteen in September. Anyway, she seemed to cope with it all right.’

  Becca would only ever remember her grandmother as a strange old lady who didn’t like leaving the house and smelt of gin. It was painful to acknowledge it, but there hadn’t been much of a relationship there to mourn. It could have been different… if Rachel’s mum had been able to live a different kind of life.

  If Rachel had been a better daughter, maybe she would have been able to save her.

  A meeting reminder flashed up on her PC screen: Catch up with Frank. She must have accepted the request when she’d logged in remotely at some point over the last week, though she had absolutely no memory of it. She locked the screen and got to her feet.

  ‘I’d better go,’ she said. ‘Frank wants to see me.’

  A strange expression came over Elizabeth’s face – sombre and ever so slightly smug, the face of someone who knew something Rachel didn’t.

  ‘Of course. Well, it’s good to have you back.’

  Rachel hurried off to see Frank, and tried to quell her anxiety at the question it was impossible not to ask: Why was Elizabeth being so nice to her?

  Frank’s office was bigger and less cluttered than the one he’d had in the old building where they’d been based before the buyout, but it still had some of the familiar paraphernalia. The various industry awards for successful public relations campaigns were lined up on a shelf next to the darts board, and in the corner there was a sign saying ‘TIME’ and the bell that he always threatened to ring if meetings went on for too long, though Rachel couldn’t remember a single occasion when he had.

  She rapped at the door and he looked up. He was one of those English gentleman types whose only conspicuous concession to ageing was going grey, which had turned him from a boyish charmer to a silver fox; he was always bright-eyed and fresh-faced, even first thing in the morning, though he did have a weakness for very strong espresso. She could smell coffee, and it looked as if he’d just had a breakfast pastry at his desk.

  ‘Ah, Rachel. Yes, come on in, and shut the door behind you.’

  Was that a bad sign? Any meeting that had to take place behind a closed door was potentially ominous.

  He got up from his desk to greet her. He was only slightly taller than she was with her heels on, and not quite as broad as Mitch; he had the build of a still-lithe tennis player, whereas Mitch was more of a former rugby player.

  But anyway, Mitch would hate it if he thought she was comparing them. There had been a time when he had teased her about fancying her boss, though it seemed like ages since he had teased her about anything.

  And she didn’t fancy Frank, obviously. She admired him, naturally; he’d set up his own business, he’d made a success of it, and he’d achieved an undisclosed, though presumably large, sum of money when he’d sold it to the conglomerate they now both worked for. Still, she had never countenanced the idea of being attracted to him. The only man she had ever had eyes for was Mitch, and anyway, Frank was too old for her, and he was her boss. That said, Frank was possibly the only man other than her husband who she had allowed herself to trust.

  Frank gestured towards the meeting table in the corner; it was small and round and café-sized, with room for no more than four people to sit round it.

  ‘Please, take a seat.’

  She did, and he settled opposite her.

  ‘How are you?’ he said.

  ‘I’m OK, thank you. Ready to crack on with things.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ he said. ‘I suppose what I’m trying to ask is, are you fit?’

  She shifted in her chair. ‘You’re not thinking of making us do some ghastly team-building physical challenge, are you? Because I can tell you right now, I’m not doing anything that involves putting on a wetsuit. Not for any charity under the sun.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it literally,’ he said. ‘I meant, are you sure you’re fit to be here, back at work?’

  ‘Frank, if I felt I needed more time I’d have taken it, as you’ve suggested.’

  He contemplated her for a minute. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘And as for the wetsuit, any decisions about future team-building exercises will be out of my hands.’

  She gaped at him.

  ‘You’re not leaving.’

  ‘I am. I’m taking early retirement. The only crucial task that’s left for me to do is to talk to you about what you want. They’re not planning to replace me, so in terms of organisation, if you stayed in your current role you’d be reporting directly to Elizabeth, with all the same responsibilities that you have at present. However, there is another position that I’d be very happy to recommend you for. Daniel Royce, who runs the regional network, is looking for someone to set up and run a new branch, specialising in exactly the same area that you’ve always worked on with me – supporting clients in the public sector. Does that sound like the kind of thing you might be interested in?’

  ‘A new regional office? Where?’

  He was trying to present it neutrally, but still, he winced as he said it: ‘Cambridge.’

  Too far. Much too far. ‘I don’t think I could, Frank. It would be an awful commute. Impossible.’

  Frank sighed. ‘I thought you might say that. But would you think it over, at least? In lots of ways it’s a great opportunity. You’d have plenty of autonomy, and it should mean a significant pay rise – around a third more than you’re getting now. Plus they’d be willing to pay relocation costs. I know it would be a lot of upheaval, but Cambridge isn’t a ba
d place to live. And I really think you could make a go of it. You deserve this, Rachel. I’m just sorry to spring it on you at such a difficult time, and I do appreciate that it might not fit in with your personal life. But Daniel’s impressed by what he’s heard about you, and if you want it the job’s pretty much yours. I just need to let him know sooner rather than later.’

  ‘I see,’ she said. ‘To be honest, you’ve caught me completely by surprise.’ She realised she was waving her hands helplessly in front of her, and put them firmly down on the table. ‘It’s been an intense couple of weeks, and I thought returning to work would make it feel like I was getting back to normal. But now it’s all changing. I just… I can’t quite believe you’re going.’

  ‘Neither can I,’ he said gently. ‘But the time comes when you have to move on. I realise it’s been a very tough time for you, Rachel. But you shouldn’t miss out on something because of a loss in your private life. You were a huge part of the success of my business, and I don’t have any hesitation about putting you forward for a promotion.’

  She was appalled to realise that she was not all that far off tears.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Think it over,’ Frank told her. ‘Talk about it with Mitch.’ He glanced at the photograph on his desk, a graduation day snap with his ex-wife on one side, his older daughter in a mortar board in the middle and the younger daughter outsmiling everybody else. ‘I know how much your family matters to you. Mine always complained that I worked too much.’

  ‘Mitch won’t like it,’ Rachel said.

  He looked at her directly. He had seen her day in, day out, for years. He would notice the heavier than usual make-up, the signs of fatigue.