by Emily Barr
‘I hope so. I know there’s a restraining order, but I have no idea how effective it’s actually going to be. She’s sneaky.’
‘Sneaky,’ Ian agrees, ‘but she’s also on bail. And she knows that Tessa really isn’t Darcey, so she probably hasn’t got that impetus any more.’
‘Of course she hasn’t,’ says Kate, firmly. She sits up. ‘Look, Evie,’ she says. ‘There’s something I want to tell you. We haven’t been sure whether to say anything or not, but what the hell.’
‘Mmm?’ I’m not concentrating. I’m watching some distant swimmers in the warm shallow water, and contemplating one more dip before dinner.
‘I always knew you had a baby.’
I smile, not believing her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I lived in Bristol. I knew people at your school. Before I’d even met you I’d been told that a girl was coming to college who’d had a baby the year before. At first I waited for you to tell me, then I realised you weren’t going to, and before long it didn’t matter any more.’
I stare at her. I know that I have to explain. ‘I wanted to tell you,’ I say quietly. ‘But I didn’t tell anyone. I don’t know why it was such a shameful secret, because it seems completely natural to talk about it now. Darcey’s a part of me, and I’m proud of her.’
Ian butts in. ‘I can see you don’t really want to share something like that with people who are going through fertility troubles.’
‘It just got worse and worse. When you had your miscarriage I thought I’d never be able to tell you.’ I look at Ian. ‘So you knew too?’
‘Of course Kate told me. We thought Jack knew. It took a while before I twigged that he didn’t. I could so easily have said something, but luckily I hadn’t.’
I stare at Kate again. ‘You’ve known about Darcey ever since you met me?’
She laughs and drains her drink. ‘’Fraid so. But how could you think I wouldn’t want to be your friend because of that? Even when we were at our lowest, with the miscarriage, I never blamed you. You hardly did it to spite me, did you? I just felt, sometimes, that everywhere we went we were surrounded by the ghosts of absent children. You didn’t have your baby any more than I had mine, and I knew how hard that was. I did wish, sometimes, that you had felt able to talk about it.’
I look at her. She wouldn’t have been able to say any of that a couple of months ago.
‘And now you’ve got one,’ I tell her.
‘I will do. And you will have your daughter.’
Megan looks at her watch. ‘Right,’ she says, putting her glass in the sand with an inch of beer still in the bottom. ‘I’m off. Meeting Jonas at seven. See you later.’
Jonas is Meg’s current backpacker boyfriend. Since she discovered the joys of the younger man, Meg has become more outgoing, far more confident, and happier than I ever imagined her. Guy is still in Bristol, but she hasn’t seen him since we got back from America, despite his weak suggestion that they try to ‘patch things up’. I have avoided him, when I’ve been staying with Mum and Phil, but I’ve been spending most of my time in London, where, suddenly, I feel at home again. Louise is out of my life for ever, and there never was a shadowy man waiting to rape me. I don’t feel threatened any more. I have rented my own flat and I am happy there. It is strange to be living without my barriers, to be presenting my real face to the world, but I am getting used to it.
Although I will earn a lot less now that I’m a string quartet player and occasional solo artist, I have enough in the bank to put a substantial deposit on a flat, and when we get back I’m going to start looking in earnest. Howard and Sonia are coming over to visit at Christmas, and Carla has promised to send Darcey to see me, if she wants to come, as soon as she is eighteen.
I put down my bottle. ‘Right,’ I announce to Kate and Ian. ‘I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t think of a nicer way to celebrate than by getting drunk.’
I see them looking at each other, just a little bit uneasily.