Facing Up To Fatherhood

by Miranda Lee

  ‘So where did you and Sarah go after the fire?’ came the next question.

  ‘We became wards of the state.’

  ‘What about your grandparents?’

  ‘Never knew them. After our mothers died, the welfare people must have searched. Maybe they found them, but obviously, at the time, they didn’t want anything to do with the offspring of their black sheep daughters. You see, both our birth certificates said ‘fathers unknown’. By the time we were old enough to search, Sarah’s grandparents were dead and she had no aunts and uncles. I discovered a grandfather and three uncles living in England. I wrote several times. One of my uncles eventually wrote back to tell me that my letters had upset my grandfather very much, that my mother had been a bad seed, who’d brought the family nothing but shame and misery, and they would appreciate it if I didn’t write or contact them ever again.’

  ‘That must have been tough.’

  ‘Life isn’t meant to be easy, I’m told,’ she said caustically, happy to be back to her old, cynical, hard-hearted self.

  Thinking about her past was always a sobering experience. It didn’t leave much room for any other feelings besides bitterness. How she could have even momentarily succumbed to such a crazy thing as sexual desire for the man sitting next to her was beyond her! She knew better than anyone what men were like, especially where sex was concerned.

  ‘Anyway, back to Sarah and me,’ she went on, quite coldly. ‘Neither of us could be legally adopted because there were no parents to sign the papers. We were both fostered out once, but that didn’t work too well. The darling man of the house couldn’t keep his hands off Sarah. I complained to the authorities and, after another equally disastrous placement, they just kept us in a home they had for wards of the state. We went to the local school during the day, but neither of us excelled. Not that we were dumb, but Sarah was too busy chatting up the boys and I was off in a world of my own. As soon as we were fifteen, we left school and got jobs serving in shops. Sarah did a secretarial course at night, and worked her way up to better and better positions, while I did any old job and furthered my education. We flatted together till last year, when I went to Melbourne to find work.’

  No way was she going to tell him about their argument and estrangement.

  ‘What kind of work?’

  ‘Didn’t your mother tell you?’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘I’m an aspiring actor.’

  ‘No, she didn’t tell me. So are you a good actor?’

  ‘I graduated from AIDA.’

  ‘Mmm. I hear that’s a very difficult course to get in to.’

  ‘It is. I auditioned every year for three years before I won a place.’

  ‘Driving ambition or just plain stubborn?’

  ‘I would have once said driving ambition. Now I lean towards just plain stubborn.’

  ‘I can believe that,’ he said drily. ‘And did you find yourself a good acting job in Melbourne?’

  ‘That depends on how you look at it. I got regular work on a soap playing a femme fatale who unfortunately was written out at the end of the season. Some people look down on doing soaps, but they’re a good showcase if you have talent. And it’s something to put in my rather thin resumé.’

  ‘So what’s going to happen to your acting career now you have Bonnie to look after?’

  ‘It’ll just have to take a back seat for a while.’

  ‘How old are you, by the way?’

  ‘Twenty-six. Why?’

  ‘What’s your money situation like?’ he asked, ignoring her ‘why’.

  ‘Is this just curiosity or are you planning on making a charitable donation?’ she flung at him caustically.

  ‘Stop being stroppy and just answer the question.’

  Stroppy, was she? She hadn’t begun to be stroppy! ‘My financial status is my own private and personal business. You don’t honestly think I’d give such information to a man I might have to sue, do you?’

  ‘Meaning you’re not exactly flush, otherwise you’d throw it in my face.’

  ‘Meaning you and I are enemies, Mr Hunter. I won’t be supplying you with any knowledge which might give you an advantage over me. Sarah was the sweetest, softest person in the entire world and she’s entrusted me with her daughter. Believe me when I tell you I aim to do anything and everything in my power to force you to accept her as such, and to provide for her, for life, in the manner she deserves.’

  ‘So money’s the bottom line, is that it?’

  ‘God, but I pity you. Love’s the bottom line, you fool. I love Bonnie, but I’m not her blood. You and your mother are. Ida can give Bonnie the kind of love I can’t give her, and which a child always craves. Believe me, I know. I don’t delude myself you’ll ever give your daughter love. From what I’ve heard and seen of you, you’re impervious to the emotion. But money can provide a child with the illusion of love. And who knows? In time, you might grow to care for Bonnie. If she’s anything like her mother in nature—and I suspect she is—it will be hard not to.’

  ‘Don’t you think this lecture would be best left till the DNA test comes back?’

  ‘You wanted me to talk about Sarah,’ she retorted. ‘I can’t talk about Sarah without bringing up Bonnie. Not to mention Bonnie’s defunct father!’

  ‘Since you feel so strongly—and so angrily—about my supposed part in all this, why didn’t you come and see me sooner? When Sarah told you that I denied being Bonnie’s father and gave her money for an abortion, why didn’t you come flying into my office like an avenging angel back then? The woman who barged into my life today would not have shrunk from such an action. Why wait till now?’

  Tina hadn’t been anticipating this question and it flustered her for a moment. ‘Well, I…I…I was in Melbourne, remember?’

  ‘Surely you came back to see Sarah when Bonnie was born?’

  Tina coloured guiltily as she felt him staring at her. ‘Actually, no…I…I didn’t,’ she confessed, a lump forming in her throat.

  There was a short, sharp silence.

  ‘Are you going to tell me why?’ he asked, sounding puzzled and almost angry. ‘Or are you going to leave me to think you’re the strangest kind of best friend God ever put breath into?’

  ‘I…we…we’d argued,’ Tina choked out, and looked away from him and out through the passenger window. They were approaching the Harbour Bridge at the time, but Tina saw nothing of the spectacular view. She was busy battling for control.

  ‘What about?’ he demanded to know.

  She could not speak. She just shook her head at him as tears flooded her eyes.

  He sighed. ‘There are tissues in the glove-box.’

  She’d just retrieved a handful when her long-held grief and guilt broke free and she burst into deep, gut-wrenching sobs.

  Dominic was grateful he was driving across the bridge at the time. For he could not stop, or pull over to the side. Thank the Lord he could not do anything really stupid like take her into his arms.

  He did have to eventually slow down for the toll gates. But his stop was only minimal. Even so, the man collecting the money glowered at him as if he was some heartless bastard for making his woman cry like that.

  The sound of her weeping moved him more than he liked, as had her story of her wretched upbringing. It explained a lot about her, and her determination to give Sarah’s child the best. It also sparked a weird guilt in him which he couldn’t fathom, or reason with. Perhaps it came with her accusation that he was incapable of loving or caring for a person.

  Finally her sobs quietened, and she straightened in the seat, the no doubt sodden tissues still clenched tightly in her lap.

  ‘Better now?’ he asked gently.

  She nodded.

  ‘Would you like to talk about it? Your argument with Sarah?’

  ‘Not really,’ she said tautly.

  ‘Fair enough. I presume you were still in Melbourne when she was killed?’

  Again, she nodded, he
r hands twisting in her lap.

  ‘You hadn’t made up after your argument?’ he probed.

  She looked pained at this question. ‘I…I tried to call her several times. But she’d left her job and moved out of our old flat. Her name wasn’t in the directory. She didn’t have a phone, you see. I knew she knew where I was, so I thought…I thought she didn’t want to have anything further to do with me…’

  ‘Did you think she’d had an abortion?’

  Her eyes flashed round, still luminous from her tears, but filled with outrage. ‘Sarah would never have had an abortion!’

  ‘Fair enough. Don’t overreact, now. I’m just trying to figure this out. I thought you might have argued over her not having an abortion. I mean…I would imagine a girl of your unhappy background might not agree with bringing an unwanted child into the world.’

  ‘Then it just shows you know nothing whatsoever about girls like me. Or girls at all, for that matter. If you must know, we argued about you!’

  ‘Me?’ He could not have been more shocked.

  ‘That’s right. Look, you have to understand Sarah’s life-long behaviour with men to know why I reacted as badly as I did. She was forever falling in love, often with men she worked with, and never with men who loved her back. I’d grown so tired of picking up the pieces after her latest affair had blown up in her face. I was also sick and tired of her having to change jobs because she’d become involved yet again in some sordid affair with a married man.’

  ‘She had affairs with married men?’

  ‘Sometimes. Look, she wasn’t a slut or anything like that. She just couldn’t resist being loved. If a man told her he loved her then she simply could not resist him. It wasn’t sex she wanted, but love. When she went to work for Hunter & Associates she promised me it would be different. But I soon began to see the signs that she was in love again. The hours she took getting ready for work. The new clothes. The sexy perfume. So I tackled her on who the new man was. Initially she denied being involved with anyone at work, but I knew she was. I wouldn’t let it drop. When she finally confessed to me she was in love with you, her new boss, I just saw red.’

  ‘Sarah was in love with me?’ Dominic repeated, stunned.

  ‘Please don’t pretend you didn’t know that,’ came her scathing remark.

  ‘But I didn’t! I swear to you.’

  ‘Maybe she hid the depth of her feelings from you because she knew the sort of man you were,’ she suggested scornfully. ‘Who knows now? Anyway, I tore strips off her, called her a fool and, yes, I called her a slut. All the usual insults between friends. She defended her love for you with such passion, said it was deeper than anything she’d ever felt before. She even called me the fool because I didn’t know what love was.’

  Tina’s sigh sounded so sad, and full of regret. ‘Things were said that shouldn’t have been said, I guess. I was already packed to go to Melbourne for a while. Sarah told me to get out and that she didn’t want to see or hear from me ever again.’

  ‘I see,’ Dominic murmured, while his mind raced, this more in-depth perspective on Sarah disturbing his till now confident stance over his being Bonnie’s father.

  That night he’d slept with her…had she lied about the mystery boyfriend? Had she contrived a situation where he’d feel sorry for her and take her into his arms? Had she skilfully engineered a seduction scene, undermining his will-power with wine before going in for the kill with the oldest trick in the book? Tears!

  If she had, then for what purpose?

  There really was only one possible answer.

  To entrap him with a pregnancy…

  His mind searched that night for exactly what had happened, but in all honesty he was a bit fuzzy about the details. It was so long ago, and he’d had quite a bit to drink that night.

  Still, he was absolutely sure they’d used protection both times.

  Both times?

  His stomach crunched down hard at this sudden added memory. Sarah had snuggled up to him during the night and aroused him again with a very seductive and experienced hand. It had been she who’d put the condom on him that second time, now that he came to think of it. Had she done something to it? Had she hoped in her one-sided and silly love that she might conceive and that he would subsequently marry her?

  From what Tina had told him, the girl had been a hopeless romantic, a needy, neglected soul who’d craved affection and sought it in all the wrong places.

  She certainly didn’t find it in you, then, came the brutal and uncomfortable thought.

  The next morning, he’d made it quite clear that the night before had been a mistake and a oncer. He’d taken her distressed silence for embarrassment and agreement, whereas maybe it had been the futility of her feelings sinking in. Maybe, when she’d found out she was pregnant, she’d been loath to come to him and admit her trickery.

  Which brought him right back to one of Tina’s original accusations: that Sarah had come to him with news of her pregnancy and that he’d denied paternity and given her money for a termination.

  Some more pennies dropped, and he shot Tina a bewildered look. ‘You didn’t even know she was pregnant, did you?’

  ‘No,’ she muttered.

  Dominic’s temper shot up. ‘In that case, how could she have told you she’d come to me after she found out about the baby? Hell on earth, you lied about that, didn’t you?’

  He watched her shoulders straighten, her eyes once again hard and cold. ‘Only in so many words. The fact still remains she did just that. She told her new neighbour all about it, and that woman related the whole sorry episode to me only yesterday. She said Sarah cried and cried for days afterwards.’

  Dominic could not believe what he was hearing. ‘You condemned me on second-hand hearsay?’

  She flashed him a look of utter scorn. ‘No. I have other damning evidence against you.’

  ‘What other evidence?’

  ‘Never you mind.’

  ‘But I do mind,’ he bit out. ‘I mind very much indeed.’

  ‘And I mind your letting Sarah down,’ she lashed out. ‘Whether you loved her or not, you could at least have supported her, both emotionally and financially. It breaks my heart to think of her having that baby all alone, and her dying all alone.’

  ‘What breaks your heart, madam,’ he countered savagely, ‘is that you let her down. You weren’t there when she needed you. You called her a silly slut and left her to fend for herself when you knew she wasn’t nearly as strong as you were.’

  Her face went dead white in the dim light of the car, and Dominic wished with all his heart that he could take the nasty words back again.

  ‘Don’t you dare cry again!’ he ground out when her chin started quivering. They were far too close to the address she’d given him. Far too close to his stopping the car and having no excuse not to extend her some physical sympathy.

  Immediately her chin stopped trembling, and she blazed black fury at him.

  Hell, but she was something to behold when she was in a rage. Her face flushed. Her eyes flashed. And those lovely full lips of hers alternately pressed and pouted.

  ‘I’ll never cry in front of you again, you unconscionable bastard!’ she pronounced.

  Thank heaven for more small mercies, he thought ruefully as he turned off Parramatta Road and headed for the bridge which crossed the railway line and led to their destination.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE house looked just as shabby at night as it did in daylight, Tina thought as she led Dominic down the side path to the door which led into Sarah’s bedsit. Tina still cringed at the sight of it.

  It had probably been a grand old residence once, many years before someone had bought it and divided it into several flats and bedsits. Time and neglect now saw the roof and guttering badly in need of repair. The paint was peeling from the old wooden window-frames. Some of panes were cracked. The garden was overgrown; the paths were full of weeds.

  Tina unlocked the door and snap
ped on the light, once again feeling overwhelmed with sadness at Sarah being forced to live in a place like this with her baby. Maybe it would do Dominic Hunter good to see what the mother of his child had been reduced to.

  He didn’t say a word as he glanced around the wretched room which had been Sarah and Bonnie’s home. Tina glanced around again as well, looking past the surface cleaniless to the harsh reality beyond.

  The paint on the wall was cracked and peeling. The rug on the floor was threadbare. A cheap plastic light fitting covered the bare bulb in the ceiling. All the furniture was shabby and second-hand, except for the quilt on the bed and the things Sarah had bought for the baby. Now they were all brand, spanking new, and quite expensive.

  How like Sarah, Tina had thought when she’d first walked in here just over a week ago. Only the best for her baby.

  At the time, she’d wondered how Sarah had afforded to buy the imported cradle and pram and Bouncinette, not to mention the expensive baby outfits. Sarah had never been one to save. She’d spent everything she’d earned every week on her appearance, spending a fortune on clothes and accessories, not to mention make-up and visits to the hairdresser.

  Tina had discovered the answer to that particular riddle when she’d looked in the battered wardrobe and discovered all Sarah’s own lovely clothes had gone, replaced by a few cheap outfits. The dressing table drawers had revealed a similar dearth of personal possessions. All her jewellery had gone, along with her collection of leather handbags and designer scarves.

  The dressing table top was bare of any feminine frippery, only one small photo of Sarah and Bonnie propped against the mirror.

  The old lady in the adjoining bedsit—the one who’d supplied the information about Sarah’s disastrous visit to Dominic—had confirmed that Sarah had sold everything she could to outfit her precious baby girl. It seemed Sarah had known the sex of the baby from the time of her ultrasound at four months, a couple of months after she’d come here to live. Apparently she’d left Hunter & Associates early in her pregnancy because she’d been too sick to work.