Ben didn’t see the tears as Emma shut her eyes, hiding the grief she felt for her unborn children. She let him kiss her and she drew from him the strength to build a magical world around her that would give her the baby to fill her empty arms.
When Emma found herself on her own a little later, the world outside looked bright and far too tempting to ignore. She had told Ben she would take it easy but she was getting cabin fever. He had gone back to the bistro and Meg was making an early start at the office, promising to return after lunch for Emma’s trip to the hospital. But that was hours away. The stamina she had started to build before Christmas had been completely depleted by the surgery but she convinced herself that a brisk walk would do her the world of good.
She wasn’t fooled by the clear sky and dazzling sunshine. The gales from the day before hadn’t completely eased and Emma was glad she had wrapped up well when the wind knocked the breath out of her the moment she stepped outside. She had her chin tucked into her chest and didn’t notice Louise until she had practically walked into her.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, her heart sinking at the thought of returning indoors to play hostess to her sister.
‘Nice to see you too! I just thought I’d pay my big sister a visit.’
‘I was about to go for a walk along the prom.’ Emma looked longingly at the path that led towards the river.
‘That’s alright, I’ll come with you.’
Louise was dressed casually in jeans and a padded gillet but her hair was loose and already whipping around her. The heels she was wearing weren’t dangerously high but high enough. ‘Are you sure?’ Emma asked suspiciously.
‘Yeah, I could do with some fresh air,’ insisted Louise, marching ahead while Emma stood frozen in disbelief. ‘Are you coming?’
The sea breeze was practically gale force as they reached the promenade and turned eastward towards Otterspool. She wondered if anyone would be brave enough to be kite flying in this weather but her curiosity would have to remain unsatisfied, she didn’t have the strength for such a mammoth task. The walk to the river’s edge alone had tired her but she pushed herself onwards, concentrating more on putting one foot in front of the other than she was on Louise’s chatter.
The bitter wind seemed determined to take her breath from her and she stopped next to a huge anchor, abandoned by its ship to become a lonely statue that would never touch the sea again. As she leant against it, she had run out of patience as well as energy.
‘So, are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?’
Louise was about to deny any ulterior motive but hesitated. She glanced behind her as if to check her escape route but when she looked back, there was a glint of defiance in her eyes that was so unfamiliar it took Emma by surprise.
‘You need to get in touch with Dad.’
Emma’s heart sank. ‘I’ve already told you, he can wait. In fact, he can wait forever. We don’t need him now.’
‘But this could be your last chance to see him. You might regret it,’ Louise insisted through gritted teeth. Her blonde hair had wrapped around her face and she was spitting hair out of her mouth as well as the words.
‘No, Lou, he might regret it but not me! I won’t be here, remember?’ Emma was shouting her words above the howl of the wind but that wasn’t the only reason as her anger began to grow. ‘I don’t care if he spends the rest of his life regretting it; in fact I hope he does. He really doesn’t deserve my pity.’
‘And what about me? Don’t I deserve your pity?’ Louise yelled back.
Emma didn’t respond, she didn’t know how to. She didn’t see the connection.
‘I’m losing you, Emma, and the world I’m going to have to face without you frightens me … no, it terrifies me!’
Emma shook her head. She wanted to tell Louise to stop. She felt guilty enough. She didn’t need to hear the detail. ‘You’ll cope. You’ve got Mum. You don’t need Dad.’
‘Have I? You really think I’ve got Mum?’ Louise spat out the words. ‘Emma, you come first and I don’t blame her for that, I’m sure I’d do the same. But when you’re … afterwards … how will I ever be able to turn to Mum for support knowing that whatever my problems are, they’re not going to be as big as yours or as bad as this. And even if they were, I’m always going to be compared to you and I’m always going to fall short. I know I wouldn’t be able to face what you’re going through, not the way you do.’
Louise was shaking and Emma softened, if only a little, and put an arm around her. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself, or Mum. You’ll cope, you both will.’
‘See what I mean?’ Louise cried as the anger sunk beneath the waves and anguish broke the surface to take its place. ‘You’re doing it now! You’re being the strong one. How am I ever going to be that strong, Emma? I don’t even know how I’ll keep myself together, let alone help Mum too.’
‘You’ll manage,’ Emma told her but her breaking heart gave no conviction to her words.
Louise shook her head and her falling tears were quickly whipped away by the howling wind. ‘You both keep telling me I have to stand on my own two feet and I’m trying to do that, honestly I am but I don’t know how long I can keep it up.’
Emma wasn’t aware that she was crying but the tears slid down her cheeks nonetheless. ‘You can do it, Lou. You always could and if I hadn’t fussed around you so much, you’d believe that too. You’re my baby sister and after everything we’ve been through, I wanted your life to be perfect. I needed one of our lives to be perfect and it wasn’t going to be mine,’ she said. The confession was burning the back of her throat. ‘But it’s not my life, it’s yours and it’s going to go on long after I’ve gone. You will survive this, you’re stronger than you think.’
Louise had her hand clamped over her mouth and for a moment Emma thought she would crumble under the weight of the burden that had just been placed on her shoulders but her sister surprised her. When Louise found the courage to speak there was steel in her voice. ‘I wasn’t blind. I knew you were trying to live your life vicariously through mine. I knew it and I let you because I felt so guilty. You were the one who got sick and if interfering in my life gave you some purpose then who was I to refuse? I love you, Emma, and I’ll do anything for you but please allow me this one thing,’ she said. ‘I’m going to need a shoulder to cry on and if that can’t be Mum then I want to be able to turn to Dad. But if you don’t resolve things with him now then he’ll never be able to face me. I may not know him as well as I should but I think we both know that’s what will happen.’
‘Of course he’ll face you,’ Emma insisted. ‘You were his favourite. Why wouldn’t he?’
Louise almost laughed. ‘Me? You were Daddy’s girl. You were the one that he took with him on his little adventures. I was the spoiled brat, remember? The demanding one that would get what she wanted just so he could escape from her.’ When Emma shook her head in disagreement, Louise persisted. ‘I was the one who contacted him but who did he respond to? He sent you the money that would keep me quiet but it was still you he replied to.’
Emma moved away from the anchor and away from Louise. She gripped the railings that prevented her from plunging into the angry waters below. She couldn’t think straight, her thoughts were as heavy as the churning waves and they sank without trace beneath the weight of her despair.
Emma already knew that she would give in to her demanding sister, it was a family trait. She turned back to Louise. ‘What if he’s not up to the job? After all, he walked out on us long before I was ill. There’s nothing to say he’ll ever be there when you need him.’
‘But we have to try, Emma, please. Meet him, if only once,’ Louise said. The look of defiance had been washed away by tears but Louise wasn’t giving up.
‘What if he doesn’t want to meet me? If he says no, will you give up on this?’ Emma asked hopefully.
‘We’ve already talked about it,’ Louise said. ‘He wants to meet you.’
> ‘Hold on,’ Emma interrupted. ‘Talked? You’ve actually talked to him?’ Her reaction to the news took her by surprise. They were, after all, referring to their father. The man Emma had lived with her entire childhood. The man she had once called Daddy. The man she had loved with all her heart. Why should the idea of him speaking to one of his daughters seem so alien to her?
‘I’m sorry, Emma. I should have talked to you before now but you haven’t exactly made it easy for me.’
‘So you actually talked to him?’
Louise nodded.
Emma looked back towards the river and back in time, trying to recall the sound of his voice. ‘OK,’ she said. Her heart thudded. ‘Next time you speak to him, tell him that I will meet him. In fact, tell him that I want to meet him this Friday at two o’clock in the Palm House.’
If she was going to see him, it would have to be before her radiotherapy started, while she still had the strength to face him. She wasn’t quite convinced it was the right decision but she was pleased with the challenge she had set her absent father. But her sense of triumph was short-lived.
‘Am I invited?’ Louise asked.
Emma bit her lip as she considered her reply. She didn’t want to cause more damage to Louise’s fragile state. ‘We both want different things from him,’ she started. ‘You want a future with him but that’s not an option for me and I’m not sure I’d take it even if it was. I certainly don’t want some dream reunion, Louise. I want the opportunity to speak my piece and to hear whatever kind of explanation he has to offer for erasing us from his life. So I think it would be better if we met separately. I’ll leave it to you to sort out your own arrangements.’
Louise nodded; at last they were in agreement. ‘And what about Mum?’ she asked. ‘What do we tell her?’
Emma sensed that telling their mother was going to be even harder than meeting the man himself. ‘We tell her that this doesn’t affect our relationship with her, that we’re not abandoning her. And you make it clear that you’re going to be strong for her and that you’ll be there when she needs you. But most of all, we tell her exactly what we’re doing. No more secrets,’ Emma spoke the last words slowly and clearly as if Louise was hard of hearing. ‘But since I’ve only just asked her if Ben can move in with me, I think maybe we’ll leave it until all the arrangements are made.’
‘Ben’s moving in?’ Louise cried, with excitement this time.
‘Yes, and if you’re done interfering in my life, let me do some interfering in yours.’
Emma was completely exhausted both physically and emotionally. She slipped her arm through Louise’s and they began their return journey.
‘Like that’s something new,’ muttered Louise as she huddled close to her sister, who was about to explain their new living arrangements.
Chapter 13
I was working in London and I managed my time as best I could, commuting weekly rather than daily. Given that I could have been sent anywhere in the world, it was an ideal arrangement, but I was under no illusions. Kate had made London my base because that was where I was needed and she would expect me to relocate without question if the need arose, so I wasn’t expecting her to be thrilled with my latest news.
‘I can’t say I’m not disappointed,’ she began.
We were sitting in a riverside café, sharing a plate of sushi and looking out over the Thames. The warm yellow sun and bright blue sky above the river gave the grey waters a hint of colour but it was the bare treetops on the embankment that more accurately reflected the season. It was a few weeks before Christmas and whilst the drop in temperature barely registered in the heart of London, it was another matter at the farm where Ben would have been up early to break up the thick ice that formed on the water troughs.
‘But it can’t come as that much of a surprise,’ I said.
‘You know what? Actually, it has. I thought better of you.’
I couldn’t help it: I laughed. ‘Why do I think you might have taken it better if I’d just confessed to defrauding the company? Kate, I’m pregnant. It’s not a crime and surely you could have seen it was only a matter of time. I’m thirty-five, I’m newly married …’
‘I thought you were following in my footsteps. I didn’t think you’d be happy to give up a highflying career to spend the rest of your life milking goats and changing nappies.’
I wanted to tell her goats didn’t wear nappies but I was still reeling from what else she was suggesting. ‘Who said anything about giving up my career?’
It was Kate’s turn to laugh. ‘Do you really think you can have it all? Emma, you should know better than to believe everything you read in the glossy magazines; after all, we write half of it.’
I abandoned the tuna roll on my plate, suddenly remembering something about not eating sushi when pregnant. I laid a hand protectively on my stomach, which was still flat and taught. ‘I have legal rights,’ I reminded her.
Kate dipped a roll into a bowl of soy sauce as she spoke. ‘Of course you do and Alsop and Clover is a responsible company but as your employer, we have certain expectations. I’m not saying we can’t reorganize your workload so that you can be at home more.’
‘So what are you saying?’
‘I’m saying it’s not going to be the same workload, the same kind of projects. I’m sorry, Emma but you’ve clipped your own wings. You’re not going to be in a position to take on the more demanding, high-profile projects; at least, not for a long time, and that will inevitably affect your status in the company.’
Kate popped the sushi roll in her mouth and swallowed. Then she made a point of having to rush off for a meeting, leaving me to settle the bill. I watched her go, my hand still resting on my stomach. Kate may have been surprised by my news but I was not surprised by her reaction. I was in no rush to leave and pondered my future as I let the river outside carry my thoughts all the way back to my childhood.
It had been a hot and sticky summer’s day and the tall ships were sailing into Liverpool. The docks were heaving with sightseers and I had felt so tall, sitting on my dad’s shoulders. From my lofty perch I was one of the first to spy the bright sails on the horizon heading towards the safety of the harbour. The day was only one of a handful of happy memories with my father that I could actually recall. The rest, if they had ever existed, had long since plunged into the deep waters of disappointment and betrayal.
It was far easier to bring to mind the more painful memories; they were the ones that had denied him a place by my side as I walked down the aisle. I tried to picture the very last time I had seen him. I had come home from London to wish Louise well as she headed off for university, my motives far nobler than those of my father who also showed up at the family home. My parents’ divorce had been settled and the house was being sold. He was there to collect some pieces of furniture, antiques that we had bought together at auctions and flea markets. Soon afterwards, he returned to his roots in Scotland and contact was severed. A couple of years later when I became ill, my mum had sent a message to him via her ex in-laws, which had prompted the arrival of the greetings card, officially my last contact with him.
These were not the best memories to focus on as I took my first tentative steps towards parenthood but they were important. It was my father’s failures that had made me determined to do things differently. Perhaps Kate was right, I couldn’t have it all. I had choices and I was choosing not to follow in her footsteps or those of my father.
It was a bright and blustery day and as the clouds skittered across the sun, shadows played across the park. Emma was sitting next to Ben in the car looking out over Sefton Park. Her eyes were drawn to the Field of Hope, which, in a matter of weeks, would spark into life as one by one bright yellow daffodil heads emerged from the green shoots that peeked bravely through the surface of what was still a frozen landscape. By March, the whole field would be transformed into a seamless sea of gold but for now, Emma could only imagine the scene. Hope, like spring seemed a little beyo
nd her grasp.
‘It’s nearly two,’ Ben said. ‘Are you sure you’re ready for this?’
There had been a great deal of discussion about the logistics for the meeting. Emma would have preferred to make her own way and give herself time to build up to the moment she would come face to face with her dad, but her health would not allow it. Ben was her companion of choice, but only as far as the outskirts to the park. She would be on her own after that.
Emma continued to look out of the window. ‘No, I’m not ready at all,’ she said honestly. ‘How can a man get fatherhood so wrong?’
‘I don’t know, Em,’ Ben said. ‘I promise I’ll do a better job.’
‘You will if I have anything to do with it,’ Emma said but then she winced and was glad that Ben couldn’t see her face. Of course he was going to make an amazing father but Emma wouldn’t be the one to give him children. She still wasn’t sure she had the strength to describe the precious babies that she would never get to hold. Her writing was about to become more challenging and, she feared, more painful.
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to drop you any nearer?’ Ben asked when Emma remained in her seat.
‘Here’s fine,’ Emma replied. From her current vantage point she couldn’t see the Palm House. She had asked Ben to drop her off on the opposite side of the park in case she accidentally caught sight of her dad before she was ready.
‘If he isn’t there then phone me and I’ll come and pick you up.’
‘Don’t worry, I can get a taxi home,’ Emma insisted as she opened the door, having to push against the wind to keep it open. ‘I doubt I’ll be that long anyway, whether he’s there or not.’
Ben gave her a smile of encouragement and Emma kept the image of his face in her mind as she braved the elements. The park was a beautiful mix of naturalized fields and wooded areas, separated by curving footpaths that gave Emma countless choices for her route to the Palm House. Rather than a direct path, she was drawn into the heart of the park, towards the boating lake. A handful of ducks gave her a curious look before continuing to stalk an excited toddler with a bagful of bread. Their antics distracted her briefly but she pushed herself onwards.
Another Way to Fall Page 21