Bee wasn’t listening. “Rowan, get out of here, okay? I really don’t need to be seen with you.”
Rowan was taken aback. She followed her stepdaughter’s frantic, frightened stare around the piazza for a moment before realising that she was looking for someone.
“Is someone coming to be with you, Bee?” she asked softly. “Are you expecting someone? A friend? One of the girls?” She paused. “Is it Adam?”
Bee sighed with frustration. “What does it matter to you, Rowan? Now just leave me alone – I don’t want you interfering in this too.”
“I came to say I’m sorry, Bee,” Rowan said suddenly.
It was the last thing that Bee had expected to hear. She stopped suddenly in her frenetic search of the square for Adam and focused on Rowan who took advantage of the unexpected attention.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “About this morning – I didn’t want to fight with you, and you’re right – this is absolutely none of my business and it’s completely within your rights to do this – to have a – a termination. It’s just your Dad, Bee. It’s not my place to tell him about this – and I don’t know if you plan to – but I’ve been thinking and if he finds out, and if he thought for a moment that I had just left you alone to do this then he’d never forgive me – can you understand that, at least?”
Bee remained silent, her lips pursing together in that sullen expression that Rowan knew so well.
“Have you got someone coming? To be with you?” Rowan asked.
Bee cast her eyes again around the square, a look of despair growing on her face as she saw still no sign of Adam. The despair turned to panic, however, as she suddenly spotted a small group of people appear around the side of the Mayberry building, walking toward where she and Rowan stood. “Shit,” she muttered.
Rowan swung around to look in their direction: “What is it?” she asked.
“Protesters,” replied Bee, her whole body tensing as she took in the megaphone and the large portfolio which one tall young man, wearing a thick cross around his neck, carried. She knew that they’d have the posters in that. And she couldn’t see them. Couldn’t see those pictures – couldn’t think about what she was going to do. Where the hell was Adam? Why was she still alone? Was she actually going to have to go through with it? What if those protestors sniffed her out – which they were sure to do? They’d target her, condemning her to all of London through their megaphones. They were notorious – they’d photograph her for their infamous Name and Shame website which the government still couldn’t manage to shut down, despite years of legal cases. Bee was filled with even more panic than before and she made to run, although she wasn’t sure where.
Rowan sensed her panic and grabbed her suddenly by both arms. “Calm down, Bee,” she said quietly.
“But they’ll target me!”
“They won’t.” Rowan pulled Bee closer to her and whispered into her ear. “If you don’t panic, if you don’t show fear, then they won’t. They’re like rabid dogs. Look!” She glanced upwards as a familiar sound became audible and a police drone appeared around the same side of the building that the protestors had come.
“There’s one of those infernal drones. The law only allows them to gather for fifteen minutes in total. Any longer than that and the police will be here – the drone will alert them. Here . . . let’s just go inside while they’re distracted, setting themselves up. We can hide out in there – have a cup of coffee or something.”
Rowan didn’t wait for Bee to respond. Instead she just took her firmly by the arm and half-guided, half-pulled her up the steps to the unmarked revolving door which led into the terminations clinic. There was a muffled “Oi you!” as they ducked in. They had been spotted. Too late, thankfully. They were inside.
The nausea hit Bee in a fresh wave as she blinked, her eyes assaulted by the perfectly ordinary scene before her juxtaposed with the thought of what she was actually here for. She was going to have an abortion. To kill her baby. Bee’s knees buckled.
If Rowan noticed, she didn’t say. She just kept a firm grip on Bee’s elbow as they looked around, spotting an open-plan café area directly to the left of the front door. Without a glance at the receptionist behind the plain wooden desk directly in front of them, she steered Bee toward a table where Bee sank into a sitting position, her eyes wide and glazed with fear. Still, Rowan bustled about her, chatting in a low tone all the while.
“Bloody pro-lifers,” she hissed, removing her jacket and the shaggy scarf she wore and draping it on the seat behind her. “Like it isn’t hard enough to come through that door without being driven in by their nonsense. Would you like a cup of coffee, Bee?” She raised her voice for the last sentence, unsure if her stepdaughter could even see her, never mind hear her. Her heart felt a pang of sympathy for the pale young woman across from her, transfixed with fear with the realisation that she was actually inside those doors. Rowan wanted to reach out and hug her again, but she didn’t, for fear of the response. “I can see the front door from here,” she continued as she searched her knapsack for her leather wallet. “And you can be seen too – in case your . . . friend arrives.”
This registered with Bee and she glanced at Rowan with a weak smile. Adam would see her when he arrived then, she thought. Because he would arrive, wouldn’t he? She looked at her watch suddenly. Two twenty-five. He was almost half an hour late for the time he would have thought the appointment was at, Bee realised suddenly. Helplessly, she turned her head and glanced at the reception desk behind her, hopeful suddenly that he would be standing there and that it would all play out the way she had planned. The way it had to.
Rowan watched her sympathetically as she did so, before hesitantly walking over to the coffee machine where she selected two cappuccinos and paid in coin rather than with her Myriad Card. She wanted no receipt of her visit to this place.
Bee barely noticed when Rowan returned with the coffee and placed it down on the table in front of her. She was too busy craning her neck to see over her shoulder back to the clinic entrance. When Adam arrived, she simply couldn’t miss him.
Rowan watched for a few moments before speaking, filled with a sudden clarity, a fear but a deep certainty nonetheless, that what Bee watched for was never going to arrive. She took a sip of her coffee before clearing her throat.
“You were born here, you know,” she began.
Bee didn’t answer. She was too distracted.
“Bee, why don’t you have your drink? Calm down a bit after the protesters. I can see the door here – when your friend arrives, I’ll tell you that he’s here, all right?”
Bee turned and sighed, nodding weakly before taking a noisy sip of her coffee and placing the recyclable cup back on the table before joining her hands together on her lap and jigging her knees anxiously.
Rowan tried again. “You were born here,” she repeated. Bee nodded. “Your dad told me once that he had one of the happiest moments of his life here.” She watched Bee to see if she could win over any more of her attention. “When your mum had her first scan – when she saw you for the first time. She had been nervous about being pregnant, he said. They both were. But one day she thought she was going to lose you and she rushed here and it turned out to be fine. Your dad came to collect her after her scan – he was terrified when he heard what had happened. He said afterwards that was the day that they both realised that they wanted you more than anything in the world. He said that he became a new man after being here on that occasion. Of course, all the other times . . .”
Bee finally took notice.
“What do you mean ‘all the other times’?” she asked. “Did he and my mum try to have more kids?”
Rowan sipped her coffee. “No, your dad and I did,” she replied, unable to conceal the hint of surprise in her tone.
Bee was suddenly still, instantly gobsmacked, which in turn surprised Rowan even further.
“What?” she asked. “Didn’t you notice? All those times I had to go to h
ospital over the years?”
Bee shook her head. “No,” she said. “I guessed you had just gone to Cambridge or something. I always assumed that you didn’t want any.” She resumed the jigging under the table, and glanced at her watch.
Rowan took a deep breath and sighed. “I thought you knew. That your dad might have said something. Or at least that you might have picked up on it.”
“You say my mum nearly lost me?” interrupted Bee.
Typical Bee, bringing it back to herself, thought Rowan. Still. At least she was communicating.
She nodded in response.
“Dad never told me that.”
Rowan shrugged. “He probably didn’t feel that he needed to. Miscarriages are unfortunately still very common things.”
“Seems a funny story to tell your second wife,” said Bee.
Rowan frowned. “Why do you say that?” she asked.
“Well, you said that he didn’t tell you stuff like about that friend of his, and that you don’t talk about Mum much. It just seems odd that he’d tell you something so personal.”
Rowan sighed, trying to suppress the annoyance that flickered through her again. Calm, she thought. Calm.
“Your dad and I have been together for twenty years, Bee,” she pointed out. “It would be odd if he’d never ever spoken about such a huge event in his life, wouldn’t it? Besides – babies. Now that’s a topic that we’ve talked a lot about. And we’ve spent a lot of time in this hospital too – albeit the maternity section. Doesn’t mean we walked out with a baby though.”
Rowan’s face grew serious, the sadness in her eyes clearly visible.
Bee sat up. “How many times have you been pregnant?”
“Six,” answered Rowan quickly, the figure always just on the tip of her tongue. Six babies. And none of them stayed.
Bee gasped. “Jesus Christ, Rowan? More of your bloody secrets. Six? Didn’t anyone think to tell me any of this?”
Rowan sniffed. “It’s not that straightforward, Bee. We desperately wanted a brother or sister for you – more than one if we could. And after the first time we didn’t want to upset you – you were still very young – so we said nothing, thinking that the next time we’d have good news for you. A scan picture to show you, maybe. And we thought that the next time, and the next time – all five times – until we just had to make the decision to stop. We had to draw a line underneath it because it was going to kill us both. We were worn out from tests, from scans, from . . . from just pure grief every single time.” Rowan hung her head for a moment as she tried to gather herself together. She hadn’t spoken about this to anyone other than Claudia in a long time, not even Ed. “Some women have the balls to keep trying year after year,” she said quietly. “I didn’t. I couldn’t face any more and neither could your dad.” She looked back up at Bee. “We decided to count our blessings. We had each other, a beautiful home, a whole new life to live.” She paused: “And you. We had you and you brought us such joy. Such pain too, mind, but mainly joy.”
The two women sat in silence for a few moments, Rowan looking down at her hands, Bee staring at the top of her head, reeling from the past few moments. She felt very tired suddenly. All these revelations – had it only been twenty-four hours since she’d opened that letter? And now this, all on top of what she was doing today anyway.
“Wait,” she said suddenly. “You said you were pregnant six times but just now you said that you and my dad lost . . . five times . . . you just said.”
Rowan didn’t move for a moment. When she did, her face was drawn and tired under her curls. She said nothing in response to Bee. Couldn’t think of how to say it. Instead, she cast a glance at her surroundings, suddenly sick at the memory. So long ago now, but still so fresh in her mind.
Bee gasped, suddenly understanding what Rowan’s silence was telling her. “You said you’d been here before,” she said.
Rowan looked up and then down again, shaking her head as she did. “Not here, exactly. Not the Mayberry. I went . . . to a different clinic.”
Blood rushed to Bee’s head. “Was it Dad’s?” she blurted, reddening at the thought.
Rowan shook her head emphatically. “No, Bee. Absolutely not – oh God, maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned this. Maybe it’s a bad idea after all – you have enough on your plate . . .”
“No, Rowan,” Bee sighed wearily and glanced at her watch. Two forty. She hadn’t much time.
“You can’t just tell me something like what you’ve told me, after the day I’ve had. You told me earlier – no, you yelled at me earlier not to go ahead with the – with this. I need to know why. I’ve only got a few minutes and I’ve never spoken to anyone – never met anyone, that I knew of, who went through this.”
Bee glanced back around at reception suddenly and then back to Rowan who was looking at her in alarm.
“Didn’t they give you counselling . . . when you spoke to them?” Rowan asked, aghast.
Bee looked at her disparagingly. “This isn’t 1990, for God’s sake!” she snapped. “You don’t get counselling any more – you just ring up and book. Like getting your hair done, or your nails. If you need counselling then you sort it out yourself afterwards. Tell me, Rowan . . . before I go upstairs . . .”
Rowan took a deep breath. “Bee – if I tell you, then you’re not going up there with a balanced viewpoint on things. I only have my own experience – I only have what I know and that’s not what everyone knows.”
“Just tell me, for Christ’s sake.” Bee looked again at her watch, her face filled with panic.
Rowan was suddenly lost for words. This – this was what she had wanted to share with Bee all along, but after all she had been through she couldn’t give Bee the impartiality that she needed. It made her no better than the group outside with their banners and the hideous photographs and their megaphone.
“I . . . I was in college too,” she said quietly, searching for the right thing to say. Bee glanced again at her watch and Rowan felt her heart race with panic. “I was like you, Bee. All innocent and unafraid and in love. With one of my lecturers too, as it happens. I studied art and computer design – he zoned in on me like a bee on a flower. I was in second year – had two more years to go but I couldn’t concentrate on studying. He made me totally fall for him so that when I found myself like . . . like this, like you are today, I was also alone. And I went through with it and I’ve regretted it every day since . . .”
Bee’s face reddened again at Rowan’s words. “You hypocrite!” she hissed, glancing at the surrounding tables to see if anyone had heard. “You complete hypocrite to lecture me on responsibility earlier – when you’re just laying the blame on this guy – this – this lecturer. Like it was all his fault and you had nothing to do with it except to be the victim.”
“But I was, Bee,” Rowan said, her tone pleading.
Bee was shocked as sudden, silent tears began to trickle down Rowan’s cheeks. She was momentarily annoyed. She didn’t have time for this. She had to get up for her appointment. She reached down beside her seat for her handbag on the floor. Screw Rowan. And screw Adam for not turning up. She’d bloody show him. Although, there was still time . . .
“I was very young,” Rowan went on. “And naïve – just a country girl. And he knew that I was weak in some ways, but I had very strong morals in others. He invited me to his rooms for a private tutorial and it all happened there. He spiked my drink . . . I barely remember it . . . but I had an abortion . . . because I was raped, Bee.”
Bee froze. What had Rowan just said? Had she heard correctly? She straightened in her seat and looked Rowan full in the face. Her stepmother’s eyes were squeezed shut now, trying to staunch the flow of tears that streamed from them. Her face was etched with pain.
“Sweet Jesus,” whispered Bee, and flinched as a sob escaped Rowan’s lips.
“I didn’t want to,” Rowan sobbed quietly. “But I couldn’t have faced childbirth – couldn’t have looked at that baby
every day of its life without seeing . . . without experiencing what he did to me all over again.”
She paused, tried to control her breathing.
Bee watched her, transfixed, taking it all in, yet feeling like this scene was being experienced by someone else.
“Like I said, I wasn’t one of the strong ones. So I went ahead and did it. I killed that baby and I’ve paid for it every single day since. Every day of my life it haunts me. That’s why I didn’t want – why I don’t want you to go through with today – but it’s none of my business after all.”
Bee blinked. Everything forgotten. The time. Adam. She watched Rowan’s face change with the tears and realised that she had never seen her cry before. Never properly, like this. She’d seen her red-eyed, occasionally, or seen her well up at the end of a sad movie. But she’d never expected this of her. Hadn’t thought her capable.
“That’s why you’re so controlled,” she said suddenly, regretting it instantly.
To her surprise, Rowan nodded as she rooted in her jeans pocket for a tissue.
“Perhaps it did affect certain things. I certainly can’t face alcohol in any quantity,” she said with an unexpected, bitter smile. She blew her nose loudly and wiped it repeatedly with the tissue. “I had to leave college,” she went on. “I lost out on my course – never got my degree which is why I ended up working as a receptionist in a graphics firm. When I left college, I moved back to the Acre. After a while, I couldn’t leave. I was afraid that everyone knew, that they’d talk – that they’d blame me for it all. I was sure it was all my fault – what Rex – that was his name – had done to me was my own fault and that I was stupid and worthless. I lost years of my life because of it all. Eventually, I saw a counsellor and it took a long time but I felt okay again. And then I met your dad. And we planned a family but we couldn’t have one. I was a failure again. I’d had an infection after the abortion, you see – it obviously screwed things up – if I’d only known that baby was to be my only chance at being a mother then I’d have done things differently, Bee. But I don’t have the luxury of time travel. I can’t ever put things right.”
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