Her Sister's Child

by Alison James

  Charlie does as she’s told and shuffles into the day room in her stockinged feet. There’s a low table with out-of-date magazines on it, a water cooler with plastic cups and some rubber plants. Two women sit in the armchairs. One flicks through a magazine, glancing nervously at the clock. The second, who has a cannula in her hand and has clearly been through her procedure, has her knees hunched up under a cotton blanket, her face pale and pinched.

  Charlie stares at her for a few seconds, then turns around abruptly and hurries back to the changing area. She dresses quickly, bundles the gowns and socks into the laundry basket and walks back through reception with her bag over her arm.

  ‘Charlotte?’ the receptionist calls after her, but Charlie does not turn around, ducking her head as she swings through the revolving door and quickly onto the street. She rounds the corner and leans on a brick wall, catching her breath. In a nearby garden, two cats are fighting. A passing police siren drowns out the sound. Life is carrying on all around her. And there is life inside her. Charlie reaches down and touches her slightly rounded abdomen reverently. Her parents keep telling her that it’s just a few cells, but she knows that’s a convenient lie.

  It’s not cells, it’s a baby. Her baby.

  Four hours later and she has twenty-three missed calls from her mother, six from her father and two from her sister. Her sister has also sent a text.

  Mum said you walked out… I understand you’re scared, and you panicked, but I’m here if you want to talk xx

  Charlie does not want to talk. She hadn’t panicked either. Deep down, she knows she never intended to get as far as the operating theatre. She only went along to the clinic to get her parents off her back. With her mobile switched off, she wanders around for a while, buys herself a muffin and a hot chocolate, then when it starts to rain, takes a bus up the Finchley Road and then on to Brent Cross, where she can at least wander around without getting wet. She finds an ATM and withdraws some cash, then roams the shops for another three hours as she waits for the thin, damp-streaked spring daylight to completely fade.

  Once it’s completely dark, she does the only thing that makes any sense to her. She goes to find Jake.

  The Palmer family live in a drab flat in a concrete block in Lower Holloway. He has frequently referred to Charlie as ‘posh’ or ‘snobby’ because her family lives in a pretty detached villa in the much more salubrious Dartmouth Park. She rings the bell at the street entrance to the block. Nothing happens. She tries again, then tries phoning Jake’s mobile. The call is cut after three rings.

  A young man in Lycra cycling gear emerges from the flats, wheeling his bike. He looks up at Charlie, smiles, then props the door open for her to go in.

  At the front door of Jake’s flat, she rings the bell, then raps lightly with her knuckles. After a few seconds there’s a scuffling sound, and voices. The door is yanked open by Jake’s mother, Michelle Palmer. Her highlighted blonde hair is scraped back and she’s wearing a tracksuit with pink slippers so fluffy they completely engulf her feet.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, irritated. Her eyes dart to Charlie’s stomach. ‘It’s you. What do you want?’ She’s holding an e-cigarette, and breathes out a cloud of mint vapour.

  ‘Is Jake in?’

  Without a word, Michelle retreats into the flat. She’s speaking to someone, and Charlie recognises Jake’s voice instantly. That’s what infatuation does to you.

  ‘He’s not in,’ says Michelle, reappearing a few seconds later.

  ‘But I just’

  ‘Like I say, he’s not in.’

  The door is closed in her face.

  Charlie walks slowly down Archway Road, tears rolling down her face. She has a further five missed calls from her mother and three from her sister, along with several voicemails, and as usual there’s a series of WhatsApps from Hannah. Instead of listening to the voicemails she dials Jake’s number, over and over. Every time it rings out.

  She phones Hannah.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Hannah demands. Without waiting for an answer she continues her customary rapid-fire delivery; Hundred-Miles-An-Hour Hannah is not her nickname for nothing. ‘Where are you? Why weren’t you in school today? You haven’t been reading my messages. There’s a ton of rumours going round about you and Jake Palmer.’

  Charlie bursts into tears.

  ‘Christ, Char, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Can I come over?’

  Charlie uses some of her cash to take a black cab to the Watsons’ house in Noel Park. ‘Han, I need to stay the night,’ she says, as soon as the front door is opened to her.

  ‘Mum, okay if Charlie sleeps over?’ Hannah yells over her shoulder, into the house. Hannah’s father, a paramedic, is out on a late shift and her mother, a beautician, is threading eyebrows in the small back room that serves as her treatment room. There’s no reply. ‘It’ll be fine,’ Hannah reassures her. The two girls frequently stay at one another’s houses and Charlie still has her overnight bag with her. She composes a quick text to her mother before switching off her phone.

  Am at Hannah’s but don’t come over here or I’ll just leave. Need time to get my head together.

  Loud sounds of gunshots erupt from the living room, where Hannah’s brother Ethan is playing a computer game. ‘Come upstairs…’ she commands, darting into the kitchen to grab a large packet of tortilla chips, ‘and tell me everything.’

  Charlie waits until they’re positioned side by side on Hannah’s double bed, for all the world like an old married couple. ‘I went to get an abortion,’ she says, bleakly. No point dressing it up for her best friend.

  Hannah’s lower jaw drops. ‘Shut the front door!’ she hisses. ‘So it’s true… you were pregnant? Only there was so much gossip. About you and Jake Palmer… What was it like? Was it horrible?’

  ‘I didn’t have it.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Hannah’s eyes widen and she fans her face with overdramatic hand gestures. ‘So you’re still pregnant?’

  Charlie nods. ‘I just couldn’t do it.’

  ‘Does that mean you’re keeping it?’ Hannah’s eyes widen still further. ‘And… hold on… do your parents know? That you didn’t go through with it?’

  ‘They must do by now. I haven’t spoken to them, though. I don’t want to go home. Not now. I can’t.’

  ‘So, what are you going to do?’ Hannah’s voice is practically a squeak. ‘I mean, it’s cool for you to stay here for now, obviously, but like, not forever.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Charlie leans her head on Hannah’s shoulder. ‘But I’ll have to think of something, won’t I?’

  The next morning, Charlie sits at the Watson family breakfast table and eats a bowl of cereal and three slices of toast, allowing Hannah’s mother to believe that she’s going to go to school.

  ‘You’ve not got your uniform,’ Mrs Watson observes, raising an eyebrow in query.

  ‘I’ll pop home and change on the way,’ Charlie tells her. She wonders if the others can hear, or even see, her heart pounding in her chest. Because she has no intention of going to school. ‘First period is independent study.’

  She says goodbye to Hannah at the bus stop, then catches the 29 bus in the direction of Dartmouth Park. It’s Thursday morning. She knows her father is at a site meeting and it’s her mother’s day to go to her office. Ollie will have been dropped at school and her sister has just returned to uni and won’t be back until the summer holidays start. The cleaner only comes on a Tuesday. So the coast will be clear.

  Before she’s even had a chance to put her key in the front door, her phone rings.

  Mum calling.

  This time she answers it.

  ‘Lottie, thank God! Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah, I told you, I stayed over at Hannah’s.’ This, at least, is true.

  ‘Only the clinic phoned yesterday and said you didn’t go ahead with the… procedure. They wondered if you wanted to book another appointment.’

  ‘No,’ Charlie mutters. ‘I d
on’t. I’m keeping it.’ She unlocks the front door and walks into the kitchen, helping herself to a banana from the fruit bowl. Pregnancy makes her starving all the time.

  ‘But, sweetheart…’

  ‘I’ve got to go. I’m supposed to be at school.’

  This is also true, if misleading. Charlie slings the banana skin into the bin and goes into the small room off the hallway that acts as a home office. She opens the drawers in the filing cabinets that her highly organised mother has labelled with things like ‘Passports’, ‘Birth Certificates’ and ‘Utility Bills’. She pockets her own passport because she has a feeling that what she has planned will require formal ID, then after flicking through two drawers she finds what she’s looking for: a file labelled, ‘Savings – kids’.

  Charlie knows – because her parents have shown her – that it contains a building society passbook in her name. Her maternal grandmother opened savings accounts for her and her siblings with a deposit of £15,000, and every Christmas and birthday sends a very generous cheque to top up the total. She also knows, because her sister talked about it, that after the age of fifteen the account was switched from a Child’s Saver to a Young Adults account, with a debit card. The debit card has not been handed over to Charlie because the account is intended to be for her university expenses. But she knows it exists.

  She opens the file and flicks through the contents. The passbook is identified easily enough, and fastened to it with a paperclip is a manila envelope. Charlie knows from just touching it that it contains a bank card and a paper statement for the new account. She takes it out and strokes the embossed letters of her name reverentially. She has a Monzo account for her pocket money and occasional earnings from babysitting, but this is different. This gives her access to – she checks the balance – just under £30,000, including interest.

  Charlie smiles. This changes everything, she tells herself. For herself and for the baby. And the first thing she’s got to do is tell Jake. He won’t be able to ignore her now.

  5

  Paula

  Johnny Shepherd phones Paula a few days after the pub quiz night and suggests they meet that evening. She agrees.

  ‘Great, it’s a date.’

  ‘Um… is it? Not a proper one, surely? I thought you just wanted to talk.’

  ‘Relax, it’s just a figure of speech.’ He laughs that easy laugh of his. ‘But it can be if you want.’

  ‘It’s a bit soon for that, I’d say.’

  Of course she is attracted to Johnny. How could she not be? She’s had the biggest crush on him since adolescence. But that crush was based on him being a distant, unattainable figure. She doesn’t know how she feels about him suddenly being around, and apparently available. It feels ever so slightly wrong.

  ‘Don’t worry, Paul, this isn’t going to be anything heavy. Call it two old mates meeting up for a bit of a chinwag. Like I said, I’ve been wanting to talk to you. About Lizzie.’

  That clinches it. Over the years, no one – not her husband or her close friends – had been the slightest bit interested in what happened to Lizzie Armitage. Dave had actively avoided any mention of her. And here, out of the blue, is someone who is interested. Someone she already knows and likes. If all they are going to do is talk, where’s the harm?

  ‘Okay then. Where?’

  ‘At Giovanni’s. Where else?’

  Giovanni’s Trattoria in Green Lanes has been around for fifty years and is something of an institution for people like Johnny and Paula, who have grown up in the area. It was the venue for special family occasions, birthdays and anniversaries.

  ‘I can’t believe this place is still going,’ Paula says, sitting in the chair that Johnny has pulled out for her. ‘I remember coming here when my cousin got a place at university.’

  Johnny grins. ‘It was where my dad had his fiftieth. We reckoned it was posh.’ He looks around at the white tablecloths with their red napkins and faux Tiffany lamps, the fixtures in heavy, dark wood. ‘That was nearly twenty years ago, and it looks exactly the same. Even the waiters haven’t changed.’ He glances at a stooped and grey-haired man who is bringing them a bread basket.

  Paula smothers a giggle. ‘Everyone knew Giovanni’s back in the day.’

  ‘Which is why I thought it would be fun to meet here. Hope it wasn’t too far to come from Palmers Green.’

  She shakes her head. ‘I got a minicab. Only took about ten minutes. How about you? Did you have to come far?’

  ‘About the same. I’ve got a place in Hornsey now, since the divorce.’

  Paula gives him a long look, taking him in. He’s wearing a plain, pale grey T-shirt under a blue blazer, with well-cut jeans. His blue eyes are bright in his slightly tanned face, and he’s smiling that ready smile. He still has that swagger, that innate chutzpah.

  ‘You look really nice tonight, Paul,’ he observes.

  She has deliberately not dressed up too much, and kept the make-up subtle so as not to give the impression of trying hard.

  ‘This is not a date, remember,’ she tells him, with mock sternness.

  ‘I know, I know, I’m just saying.’ He pours her some red wine from the carafe the ancient waiter has brought them. ‘I’ll be honest, I’ve not stopped thinking about Lizzie since we were in the Dog and Gun. Her death was alcohol-related, wasn’t it?’

  Paula nods, takes a mouthful of the red wine and pauses with the glass in front of her face, saying nothing.

  ‘So… what happened exactly?’

  ‘Abdominal aortic aneurysm. It’s when a blood vessel ruptures in your stomach. Happens very quickly. She was on her own. A couple of days later a neighbour got worried about the curtains staying drawn and got the caretaker to let her in. The first Mum and I knew about it was a visit from the police. We were away on holiday when it happened.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He touches her hand briefly and she sees that he still has beautiful forearms. He must be nearer forty than thirty now, but he’s in great shape. ‘Is that, like, an inherited thing?’

  Paula shakes her head. ‘If you’re an alcoholic you’re at higher risk of it happening. And her liver was shot to pieces, anyway.’

  ‘Such a waste.’ Johnny looks genuinely sad.

  The waiter brings them a plate of antipasti. Paula spears a piece of prosciutto with her fork. Johnny waits, fork poised, until the waiter is out of earshot. ‘This is going to sound weird,’ he says, ‘but didn’t Lizzie have a baby?’

  The shock is so profound that Paula can only stare.

  Eventually she recovers herself. ‘Who the hell told you that?’ she demands. She’s vaguely aware she sounds rude, but doesn’t care.

  Johnny takes a large gulp of wine and offers the bottle to Paula, but she shakes her head. ‘I used to work for the police part-time as special constable, and I’m sure I remember there being a house-to-house enquiry a few months after her death. It was talked about around the Tottenham station where I was working, and when I saw the name Elizabeth Armitage on the paperwork, of course I recognised it straight away. As I recall, the door-to-door was to ask people about a baby that she’d given birth to. A baby that disappeared.’

  He waits for Paula to speak, his expression kindly, concerned. ‘Hey, are you okay? You’ve gone really pale.’

  She nods, but still feels shaky, blindsided by this unexpected revelation. ‘I went round to her flat a few days before she died. She was passed out, alone, and I just thought… well, I didn’t know what to think. I assumed that if she’d had the baby, it had been taken by someone.’ The words tumble out of Paula’s mouth in a rush. She hesitates. She has never talked to anyone about this, not since it happened. ‘But before I had a chance to check on her again, Mum and I went to visit my great-aunt, like we did every summer. And then she died. But it would make sense that she’d given birth, because another risk factor for aneurysms is pregnancy. So it would add up.’

  ‘So what did happen to her baby? Did you ever find out?’

  ‘
That’s the thing,’ Paula says. ‘The police never said anything about it when they came to tell us Lizzie had died. Afterwards, I even went to the police station and checked. They said she was definitely on her own when she was found dead.’ She pauses, remembering. ‘It’s a weird coincidence, but that was the day you gave me a lift, when I left Wood Green police station. I remember deciding not to say anything to you about it, though. I felt uncomfortable talking about it.’

  ‘Wood Green nick wouldn’t have been much help to you.’ Johnny raises his wine glass to his lips, his expression intently focussed. ‘It was Tottenham that handled the enquiry, so I doubt your statement ever got tied up with Lizzie’s file. That was the early days of computer records, and separate police stations couldn’t automatically cross-reference cases, I’m afraid. And as I remember it, the police never found any evidence of the baby’s existence, despite the investigation.’

  ‘She was pregnant before she died,’ Paula says firmly. ‘I saw it.’

  ‘Did you tell anyone about this? Your parents?’

  Paula nods. ‘I told Mum after Lizzie died, but she just said that heavy drinkers often get very swollen stomachs. That her pains were probably just cold turkey or something. Afterwards I went to see the social worker and she implied the same thing – that the baby never existed – or else that it had died and Lizzie had covered up the evidence. But I didn’t believe it. I never believed that Lizzie was capable of doing something as calculated as that. She said she’d go and check on Lizzie, but it was just to get rid of me, I’m sure. Her visit was supposed to be on the Monday but the very next day Lizzie was dead.’