The Road Back

by Liz Harris

  Copyright © 2012 Liz Harris

  Published 2012 by Choc Lit Limited

  Penrose House, Crawley Drive, Camberley, Surrey GU15 2AB, UK

  www.choc-lit.com

  The right of Liz Harris to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P 9HE

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is availablefrom the British Library

  ISBN-978-1-906931-55-1

  For my sister, Diana

  My best friend since the day she was born

  With love

  Contents

  Title page

  Copyright information

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  PART TWO

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  About the Author

  More Choc Lit from Liz Harris

  Introducing Choc Lit

  More Choc Lit

  Preview - A Bargain Struck by Liz Harris

  Acknowledgements

  The Road Back is entirely a work of fiction, but it would never have been written had it not been for the album compiled by my late uncle, Kenneth Behrens.

  When stationed with the army in North India in the 1940s, my uncle managed to get one of the few authorised passes to visit Ladakh. Upon his return to England, he assembled his photos and notes into an album, which he then passed on to his daughters. That album is now in the Indian Room of the British Library. When I read it, I fell in love with Ladakh and its people, and I knew that I wanted to set a story there.

  My uncle’s album gave me Ladakh for my location, and the idea of having Patricia’s father, Major George Carstairs, compile a similar album. However, that is the extent of my debt to my uncle. A charming, erudite, forward-thinking man, my uncle was in no way the prototype for Major Carstairs.

  In order to gain a deeper knowledge of the Ladakhi people and their traditions, I drew upon information that I found in a number of books. In particular, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the superb book, Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, by Helena Norberg-Hodge, whose intimate knowledge of the country and its traditions was invaluable. For my knowledge of the nature of the terrain, I’m indebted to the many people who travelled to Ladakh and later recorded their experiences on the internet, and to a variety of travel guides, especially the excellent Trekking in Ladakh, by Charlie Koram.

  There are many people I could thank for their help, encouragement and support on my road to publication – but they are too many to name, alas. However, I must say a special thank you to my friend in the north, Stella, who reads everything I write and who is completely honest about it. Every author should have a friend like Stella. Thank you, too, to Sue, for helping me to ensure the psychological accuracy of my characters. Your advice was, as it always is, much appreciated.

  The day that I discovered the Romantic Novelists’ Association was a very happy day. Through the organisation, I’ve made some wonderful friends – they know who they are – learnt a great deal about writing and publishing, and had a lot of fun on the way to finding a publisher.

  And what a publisher! A huge thank you to Choc Lit for their faith in me and for being such lovely people to work with. I feel extremely lucky to be with them, and I shall be eternally grateful to the Choc Lit Tasting Panel for taking the story of Patricia and Kalden to their heart.

  Finally, I’d like to thank my husband, Richard, for being the great support that he is, and for putting up with me sitting in front of the computer, hour after hour, day after day. I couldn’t have done this without you, Richard.

  Prologue

  London, early August 1995

  Amy stood under a large black umbrella and stared at the tall, Victorian, semi-detached house on the opposite side of the road; the house where she’d begun her life, where she’d been cast off by the woman who’d given birth to her.

  She put her hand into her pocket and pulled out a yellowing piece of paper. Holding the crumpled paper close to her chest to protect it from the rain, she read again the first of the words printed on it: her birth name, Nima Carstairs; the name of her birth mother, Patricia Carstairs.

  She looked back at the tall house. She’d lived in that house for almost six weeks. Six weeks was no time at all compared with her years in Primrose Hill, where she’d lived before and after she’d married Andrew, but it was an important part of her life. She’d been someone else when she’d lived in that house: she’d been a Nima. And she hadn’t been wanted.

  Nima. What sort of name was that? Who would call their daughter Nima?

  Her eyes were the eyes of a Nima; people were always remarking on her eyes. But apart from her eyes, would she have looked different, or liked different things, if she’d stayed a Nima? She’d not been able to stop asking herself those questions since the moment that morning when she’d first opened the letter that her father – her real father, the one who’d brought her up and loved her – had left for her to read after his death.

  In his letter he’d written down the name of the home for unmarried mothers where she’d been handed over to him and his wife. Her eyes had filled with tears as she’d read that that day, thirty-two years ago, had been the happiest day of their lives. He’d gone on to say that he felt she ought to have a way of tracing her birth parents in case she ever wanted to do so, and he’d tucked her Adoption Order into his letter. She’d felt very strange as she’d unfolded the order and seen the name that her birth mother had given her.

  She’d always known she was adopted, but she’d had a happy childhood, loved and protected by her adoptive parents and loving them back in return, and she’d never felt any need, nor any desire, to find out about the people who’d given her away. Instinctively, she’d known that looking for her birth parents would hurt her mum and dad, and she wasn’t going to do anything that would cause them unhappiness. Her birth parents had never been interested in her, and she wasn’t interested in them.

  The thrill she’d felt when she’d first read her name and that of her birth mother had taken her completely by surprise. She’d had to sit down.

  For the first time ever, a powerful wave of curiosity had swept through her. Why had her birth parents given her away like that? Her mother had carried her for nine whole months – how could she have parted with her? She had carried her own baby for fewer than three months before her miscarriage earlier that year, but she’d been overwhelmed by grief, and so had Andrew, and
they were still grieving. What kind of woman could ever give her baby away? What kind of man could let her?

  She’d read her father’s letter again, her vision blurred. He’d known her so much better than she’d known herself, and he’d wanted to help her do something he believed that one day she would want to do. And her mum must have agreed. The letter was dated two years earlier, just before her mother had died. Her father must have asked the solicitor to give it to her after they both had died. It had been their final act of kindness to her.

  She’d read his words again, and had known instantly that she had to go at once to the house where she was born, no matter how bad the weather.

  She folded the Adoption Order, put it back in her pocket and stared again at the house in front of her. The rain was bouncing off the grey tiles of the pitched roof, cascading in sheets over the edge of the eaves and falling on to the sloping roof of the bay window that flanked the heavy, dark blue door.

  Her eyes on the house, she gripped her umbrella tightly, stepped into the road and walked across to the other side. Her boot hit the kerb and she looked down. The broken reflection of the house swirled in an oily puddle that had pooled in the gutter. A black sump reflecting another world. She stared back up at the house.

  Day was fading fast, but there was no electric light in any of the rooms; the place looked deserted. She probably shouldn’t have come on such a dismal day as this, but she had, and she wasn’t going to stop now. She stepped on to the pavement and made her way between the moss-stained brick gateposts, past the squat stump of a tree that lay behind one of the gateposts, to the stone steps that led to the front door.

  A shiver of nervous excitement ran through her as she went up the steps: her pregnant birth mother had walked up those same steps almost thirty-two years earlier. And she’d walked back down them again a few weeks later, leaving her baby behind, leaving Nima.

  Why?

  Reaching the narrow porch, she glanced at the tarnished bronze plaque next to the door. The house was clearly being used for offices. She put her ear against the door and listened hard, but she couldn’t hear anyone moving around. Her heart sank. They must have left for the day.

  She took a step back and looked along the front of the house to the sash bay window surrounded by chipped white masonry, but she couldn’t see into the room. Large droplets of rain hit her forehead and she moved back under the porch.

  A button on an intercom next to the plaque told visitors to press for assistance, so she pressed the button and waited. The buzzer reverberated in the silent interior of the house. Reluctantly, she turned to leave. She’d have to come back another day, and make it earlier in the day.

  A sound came from behind her. She spun round and saw that the front door was open and that a young woman in jeans and a cream polo-necked jumper was standing in the doorway.

  ‘Can I help you?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Gosh, you made me jump!’ Amy exclaimed. ‘I thought that everyone had gone home.’

  ‘There’s only me at the moment, I’m afraid, and I’ll be off shortly. But if I can help you at all, I’d be happy to do so.’

  ‘I don’t know that I need actual help. To be honest, I just wanted to see inside the house. I don’t even really know why. My name’s Amy Stevens and I’ve just found out that my birth mother stayed here when it was a home for unmarried mothers. I badly wanted to see where I started life. I don’t suppose I could have a quick look round?’

  Seeing the woman hesitate, Amy took the Adoption Order from her pocket and handed it to her. The woman ran her eyes over it and returned it.

  ‘Come on in,’ she said, opening the door wider.

  Amy walked into the house.

  A long, dimly lit hallway stretched out in front of her. Octagonal marble tiles, inset with small black squares, covered the length of the floor. At the far end of the hall, a greyish-white staircase led to a shadowy landing. The dark green walls of the hall were broken up by modern, semi-glazed doors, each with a plaque on the front. A large, gilt-edged mirror was fixed on the wall to the right of the front door.

  Damp hung in the air. Amy shivered.

  The woman laughed. ‘I agree. It’s not the most cheerful of buildings. But it’s a job, and the people who work here are a great bunch, and that’s all that matters. I expect you’d like to wander around on your own. You can go anywhere that’s not locked. Let me know when you’re ready to leave, will you? I’ll be in the room over there.’ She pointed to a door on the left.

  ‘Of course, I will. Thank you.’

  She looked around her. A sense of depression crept over her at the thought of having started life in such a cold, bleak place, and a lump came to her throat. She swallowed hard and took a step further into the hall. Her foot slid on the tiled floor. Glancing down, she saw that water was dripping on to the floor from her damp umbrella. There was a metal rack under the mirror, so she went and slotted her umbrella into it.

  Straightening up, she caught sight of her pale reflection in the mirror. Turning back to the hall, her eyes wandered from one door to another. All were closed. Despite the woman’s words, she had an uneasy sense of being an unwanted intruder. Her eyes strayed back to the mirror.

  The person staring back at her was interesting, rather than pretty. To Andrew, she was beautiful, she knew, but really her face was a little too round, a little too wide. Her long, dark brown hair hung straight, and that narrowed her face a little, but she couldn’t disguise her wide mouth. Andrew always said that when she was happy, her smile took over her whole face.

  At the moment, though, she wasn’t smiling; her eyes were glistening with unshed tears. Narrow, almond-shaped and heavy lidded, they were the eyes of a Nima, not of an Amy. Did they come from her natural father, whose name she didn’t know, or could they have come from her birth mother, the woman called Patricia Carstairs?

  She walked slowly to the foot of the staircase and looked up at the dark landing. She had probably been born in one of the rooms up there and then handed over to someone else. Why, oh why, had her mother given her away, and why hadn’t her father stopped her mother? What were they like, her birth parents?

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  London, March 1951: Patricia, aged 7

  The clock on the mantelpiece above the cast-iron fireplace ticked loudly in the silence that filled the back room of the small brick house in Belsize Park Gardens. The fire had been set, but the paper and coal were unlit.

  Patricia sat very still on the wooden chair that had been placed in the centre of the room, her knees together, her fingers intertwined in her lap. His lips pursed in a line of displeasure, Major George Carstairs paced from one side of the sparsely furnished room to the other. Finally stopping squarely in front of his daughter, he stared down at her, his eyes cold.

  ‘And how, exactly, do you account for your failure to prevent your brother from hurting himself?’

  Patricia glanced up at the tall figure in front of her. Her fingers twisted nervously, and she looked back down at the floor.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I did my best, Daddy,’ she said in a whisper. ‘I was reading my new book to James and he just fell over. He was sitting at the table, playing with his soldiers while I was reading to him, and then he fell on the floor and hit his head. I didn’t know he was going to fall over. I’m sorry …’

  ‘Being sorry isn’t good enough, Patricia.’ Her father’s chill tones cut across her words. ‘It’s nowhere near good enough. Your duty is to watch your brother’s every movement, to see that he doesn’t put himself in danger. Yet reading was more important than looking after your brother. Your instructions were quite clear. Was it asking too much to expect you to obey them?’

  Patricia’s eyes travelled over the patterned rug that covered the dark-stained boards on the floor of the front room and came to rest on her father’s black shoes. They were polished to an ebony sheen. The last thing he did every night before he climbed the staircase to t
he bedroom that he shared with her mother was to polish his shoes.

  ‘Look at me! Well, was it?’

  ‘No, Daddy.’ Her voice shook as she met her father’s eyes. ‘But I did do what you said I had to do if James fell over, like I always do. I wasn’t afraid when he made that noise. I undid his shirt collar and looked for his tongue. And I put a penny in both of his hands. It’s not my fault that his head hit the table. I didn’t know he was going to fall down.’

  ‘Not your fault, girl?’ her father spat. ‘You were alone with him! If you’d watched him more carefully, you’d have known what he was going to do. I cannot be here every minute of the day – I have to bring money into this house – and your mother has work to do in the kitchen. It’s your job to watch your brother when you’re not at school, but you didn’t do that. You chose to read.’

  ‘I promise I’ll watch him much better in future.’

  ‘I intend to make sure that you do just that. I’m going to teach you a lesson that will make you take your duty to your brother more seriously.’ He took a step closer and leaned down towards her. ‘I will not tolerate such laxity. Do I make myself quite clear?’

  She nodded, staring up at him, her eyes wide open in anxiety. A movement of air brushed against her cheek and she sensed someone come and stand behind her. A hand rested lightly on her shoulder.

  ‘I’m sure that Patricia did her best, George,’ Enid Carstairs said, her voice shaking. ‘It was obviously an accident, dear. You know how James often falls without any warning. You can see how upset Patricia is about the whole thing. She would never let James hurt himself if she could help it. She’s a good girl, and she does her best to look after him.’

  ‘Her best has been found wanting. Wars are not won where soldiers are found wanting. Patricia must learn that.’

  He ran a slender finger slowly down the thin black line of his moustache.

  Her mother’s hand pressed more heavily on her shoulder.