They left Smart Yak, crossed the busy road and entered the King’s Head. Will ordered a whisky for Matt and an orange juice for himself.
‘There you go.’
Matt knocked it back in one, clearly in shock.
‘So what happened?’ Will asked.
‘I don’t know. Neither of us does.’
Will tried not to think about the two years of test tubes and injections and broken eggs, and wanking in a hospital room, and the thousands of pounds he and Hannah had spent on a pregnancy that never happened.
An accident. You had to laugh.
Matt sighed. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I like Emma – really like her – but she’s nineteen. And I just got this job with you. And, you know, I live in a shared house with a student, a trainee accountant and a lap-dancer.’
Will smiled. ‘Mate, you’ll be fine. At least you are working. When I was your age, I was living in a squat in Camberwell, playing gigs in dodgy pubs for twenty quid a night.’
Matt sighed. ‘Her parents have gone nuts. She was going to New York in the summer, to do a placement with her dad’s law firm, and now … we’ve got to decide what to do.’
What to do. The implication of the words hung in the air.
He glanced at Will anxiously. ‘Sorry, that must sound bad, with you waiting to …’
Will held up a hand. ‘Listen – it sounds like you need time to sort it out. So take a couple of days. I’ll finish up. You saved us time sorting those strings, so we’re good.’
‘No!’ Matt protested.
‘It’s not a decision you want to rush, mate.’
Matt rubbed his cheeks, putting colour back into the pallor. ‘What would you do?’
‘If I was in your situation?’
Will recalled being twenty-two. If he’d known back then it was his only chance to have a biological child, he’d probably have taken it. But then he’d never have met Hannah, or found his career. He’d probably be back home, separated from a girl he didn’t love, doing some shit job, hardly seeing the kid anyway.
A sudden sense of peace descended on Will about the way his life had worked out. His childhood had been shit – any way you looked at it. Now he had a chance to make it right, for a child going through the same thing. And Hannah, with her good heart, would be able to be everything to that child that his mum hadn’t been able to be for him.
For the first time since last summer, Will felt renewed optimism.
He shook his head. ‘I can’t answer that for you, mate. We’ve all got to find our own way.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Hannah spent all day Tuesday painting the sitting room, counting down the hours till she could throw the bloody roller in the bin.
Determined to pace herself this week, she stopped at four-thirty to have a break before she started the evening shift. Upstairs, changing out of her painting clothes, she noticed the three photo albums on the floor, and brought them downstairs while she had a coffee and a sandwich.
The third album was the most interesting, with reference to what Laurie had said about her and Will visiting Tornley Hall as children. She guessed the images were from the 1970s. The photos were in colour. Olive and Peter were older now, perhaps in their fifties. Olive’s hair was dark grey, and Peter’s white. Their clothes had not changed much, as if they’d committed themselves to a particular sartorial style early on and had stuck to it. Olive wore tweed skirts, cardigans and walking shoes; Peter dark suit-trousers and shirts and a jacket or cardigan. He had put on weight as he aged, and his hair was combed over.
Hannah flicked through the album. Would the photos jog Laurie’s memory?
Tornley Hall was definitely less grand in these later photos, as if money had become less plentiful. The Twenties and Forties photos had featured wisteria draped around the front door and pots of well-tended shrubs. In the Seventies the paintwork was shabby, and a few weeds were discernible under the front window.
Hannah sat back, looking around. Where were the photo albums of the Horseborrows’ travels? It would be fascinating to see if they contained images of the exotic locations from Peter and Olive’s travel books, and from Olive’s paintings.
Hannah pulled on her coat to go for a walk. A crunch of gravel outside took her to the upstairs window. Elvie was walking behind the garage to the farm. She wore a man-sized red T-shirt with ‘Mortrens’ Flowers’ on the back.
Grateful though she was to Elvie, Hannah knew she must have entered through the wall-gate into their garden and passed by their kitchen window. As with Dax, she and Will would have to lay down gentle boundaries, without causing offence.
This was their house now.
Hannah recalled the other keys in the scullery. Maybe one fitted the wall-gate. She could start by locking it maybe, to make a polite point.
For her break, Hannah decided to see if she could find Graysea Bay again by foot.
First she fetched a carrot for the donkey, then she set off, trying to remember the route Dax had taken.
The air was even warmer than yesterday, and more infused with the smells of spring. She saw small buds on the cherry tree by the gate.
It was such a nice day as she walked up the lane past their garden that she allowed herself to imagine being here, teaching a child the names of the wild flowers, as Mum had done with her in Kent. She imagined the child on a bike, with Will and her walking behind.
And then, from nowhere, it came: the memory of that terrible moment three years ago.
The doctor’s office. She could still remember the scent of something antiseptic covering the cloying smell of desperation. Sitting there, trying to shut out phrases she couldn’t bear to hear: ‘eggs not fertilizing’, ‘chromosome issues’, ‘less than a five-per-cent chance it will work next time’. Stumbling out into the street afterwards.
Then, to her confusion, the horror of seeing Will check his watch.
‘What are you doing? Why are you doing that?’ she shrieked in a hormone-induced rage.
‘I told you. I’ve got to see a client. At two.’
She knew Will was miserable, too, but right then she didn’t care.
‘Go on then,’ she said bitterly, even though she knew he had to take the job to pay for the IVF. Will stood there, helpless.
‘Han, I’m sorry – but I told you I’d have to go straight after. I’m already late.’ He tried to touch her, but she jerked back crossly. ‘How are you going to get home?’ he tried. ‘Are you going to be all right?’
‘Yeah, I’m going to be great,’ she spat. ‘I mean, I can’t have kids, but you know …’
He reached out again. ‘Han, listen, it’s not just you—’
She hit his hand away. ‘Yes, it is, Will. It is. It is me. You have no bloody idea.’ She flung her hand in the air. ‘Go on. I’ll see you later.’ With that, she marched away, across Euston Road and up to Regent’s Park. Then the tears came. Floods of tears. She saw pedestrians glance at her, but she didn’t care. This was the worst thing that had ever happened to her in her life. It was over. After all these years of trying, she now knew that that child would never exist. Last week there had still been a chance. Now it had gone forever. Result: negative. And a suggestion from the doctor that IVF was very unlikely to ever work for them.
Then she heard a sound behind her. Pounding feet on the pavement. As she entered the rose gardens, she turned. Will grabbed her from behind and put her under his arm, supporting her as she stumbled, sobbing, into the park.
They walked fast, in no particular direction. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she wailed.
He squeezed her tight. ‘It’s OK.’
‘No. It’s not.’
Will guided her to a bench by a rose bush and sat her down. She fell against him, crying, neither of them speaking. They sat there for a while, as the implications started to hit her in waves. Her child would not inherit the strange-coloured hair Hannah shared with her own mum, grandmother and Danish great-grandmother. She would never look at her child’
s face and see Will’s beautiful brown eyes. Everything would be lost – nothing passed on.
Then, from the hill behind a rose bush, there had been a rattle. A skitter of wheels. A girl appeared at great speed on a scooter, racing downhill. She was around nine years old. She wore a black leather jacket, bubblegum-pink leggings, stripy leg-warmers and a bobble hat. She scootered as if she was skiing, with grace and speed and extraordinary balance, bending her hips expertly to the side as she took each bend. As she whizzed towards them at an impossible-looking right-angle, they both put out a hand to catch her, startled. She missed them by inches, came upright effortlessly and chuckled, glancing back with mischievous eyes. She kicked a baseball boot on the ground and shot on by.
A teenage boy followed, a phone to his ear. ‘Leah!’ he yelled at her, then returned to his phone conversation. ‘Nah, my sister. She’s doing my fucking head in!’
Hannah couldn’t help it. She smiled through the tears.
Will pointed after the girl. ‘She’s cool. I want one like that.’
Hannah’s smile slipped and she pulled away from him again, hurt. ‘Will! Why would you say that, when they’ve just told us that—’
He cut across her. ‘We’ll adopt.’
Hannah stared at him.
Adopt.
She’d never allowed herself even to go there. Not while the IVF treatment was happening.
‘Would you even do that?’ she asked, wiping away a tear.
‘I said I would, right at the start.’
She remembered. He had – and she hadn’t listened. Hannah took Will’s hand and pressed it against her cheek. She sighed a long sigh, and sat back against him.
‘You know, it sounds mad, but there’s part of me that’s relieved,’ she said.
‘About what?’
She pointed in the direction of the clinic. ‘Well, that all this is finally over. That we don’t have to do this any more. No more clinics and drugs and waiting for test results and spending huge amounts of money we haven’t got.’
Will punched the air. ‘Yes! We can eat again.’
She smiled. ‘True.’
‘And you’ll stop yelling at me.’
She sniffed. ‘Sorry.’
Will put his arms back around her. ‘I tell you what, if – no, when – we adopt, we’ll come here one day. We’ll bring the kid, and their scooter, and we’ll sit here and watch them.’
Hannah wiped her nose. ‘That’s a nice idea.’
Will held out his hand. ‘Deal?’
She shook it. ‘Deal.’
‘Good.’ He stood up. ‘Right, Han, I’m sorry but I’ve got to go.’
She nodded. ‘I know.’ He leant down and kissed her, then headed off.
She sat back on the bench, and watched the funny little girl with the scooter weaving through the rose bushes into the distance, realizing that for the first time in years of hoping for something that never happened, she might finally be able to see the future again.
And here they were. Three years later, and nearly there. They just had to hold their nerve for a couple more days.
Hannah carried on up the lane, imagining taking photographs of her own family, for their own Tornley albums.
Suddenly, to Hannah’s left, there was a flash of red. On the other side of the hedge. Hannah peered through. It was Elvie again, walking along the field twenty yards ahead of her, carrying a huge sack, her head bent forward. It looked as if it weighed a ton.
Then, from a distance, Hannah saw another figure hurrying towards Elvie, across the field.
Farmer Nasty.
Oh no.
Hannah ducked down. She didn’t want any trouble with her, certainly not this week, with Barbara coming.
Almost immediately shouting filled the air. Madeleine’s arms flew up, aggressively.
Hannah frowned. Not again.
Madeleine flew up to Elvie, shouting. ‘What you doing … stupid … What … I tell you? In the barn, not out there … Lazy … fucking …’
Shocked, Hannah turned her phone to video mode. Personal problems or not, Madeleine couldn’t behave like this. Apart from anything else, Elvie was clearly vulnerable.
She turned and started filming through the bushes. Someone needed to be a witness to this. What she did with the footage she’d have to decide later on, after Barbara had been.
Then, as Hannah watched in the viewfinder, Elvie dropped the sack.
From the momentum, Hannah knew that she’d tried to put it down, but let it go too fast. It slumped forward and down with a thump, and tipped sideways.
Elvie’s eyes stayed on the ground, her shoulders slumped.
To Hannah’s horror, Madeleine rushed at Elvie. Yet this time her leg shot out and she kicked her hard. Then, without a pause, her hand flew up and hit Elvie in the face.
Once, twice, three times.
Before Hannah could process what she was seeing, the farmer grabbed Elvie’s hair and pulled her close, talking intently in her ear.
Hannah sat on the verge, her mouth open, not believing what she was filming. This woman was a maniac.
But before she could even think what to do, Elvie bent down to pick up the sack and its contents and walked back the way she had come.
Madeleine spun off in the other direction.
Hannah played back the footage to check she was not dreaming.
For five more minutes she sat by the side of the road, biting her thumbnail.
Madeleine was clearly abusing Elvie when Tiggy and Frank weren’t around.
Hannah watched the footage again and again, her stomach churning. Her instinct told her to run after the farmer and tell her that she’d been caught. To ring the police and act as a witness. Instead she stood up and forced herself on towards Graysea.
Barbara would be here in just two days.
She would do something, but not now. She couldn’t.
Distracted, Hannah marched on for a mile down to the sea. She found the path Dax had shown her and walked quickly, hardly noticing the scenery. When she reached the shingle beach there was nothing there, apart from a large ship sitting far out on the horizon. She skimmed stones across the flat grey water, working out each permutation of the action that she could take right now.
The image of Elvie’s bent head and shoulders returned to her. The leg shooting out. The hand flying up. The menacing words in Elvie’s ear.
An hour later she arrived back at Tornley Hall, just as the light was dying. There was no sign of Elvie’s red shirt out in the fields now. Hannah started up the driveway towards home – then knew she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t ignore this. At the very least she needed to check Elvie was OK.
Turning back, she stood outside the electronic gate next door and pushed the intercom.
No answer.
Hannah took a closer look. At the bottom was a small glass circle.
A camera.
She pressed again and placed her ear at the speaker.
She heard the tiniest hint of a noise. A rustle.
‘Elvie?’ Hannah said, peering into the camera. ‘Are you there? Can you hear me? Could you just open the gate, or answer me?’
There was another rustle, then silence.
‘Elvie, listen, I just wanted to check you’re OK, with Frank and Tiggy being away?’
Nothing.
‘OK, well, listen – I’m just next door. If you want a chat, come and find me through the gate in the wall. OK? Come for a cup of tea. And a biscuit.’
She walked away, working out dates – it was Tuesday; Frank and Tiggy wouldn’t be back till Friday.
Three days. What if Madeleine assaulted Elvie again, and worse this time? How long had this been going on for?
Hannah thought for a second. Then it came to her. There was one other option.
As she reached her driveway, she walked past the bottom and continued towards Tornley.
For the second time she heard Dax before she saw him.
He was working on the motorb
ike again, in the shed behind his cottage, a giant spotlight on in the dark, a dirty rag in his hand.
He squinted to see who was coming.
‘Aye-aye. Your husband know you’re here?’
She arrived at the door. ‘Why?’
‘Oh – he don’t like me.’ He winked, and to her annoyance she blushed.
‘He was just worried about where I was that night.’
Dax threw the rag down. ‘So, what do you want then – not your bloody boiler again? Jim been up?’
‘Yes, thanks.’ Hannah peered into the shed, to ensure it was empty. Lights were on in all the cottages behind them. A television was on in the window of one. To her surprise she saw the tall, red-faced man called Samuel, from the beach tyre-shed, walking around in the kitchen of the cottage on the left, next door to Dax’s. He must live here, too.
‘What’s up then?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Dax. This is awkward. Do you know that farmer?’ She pointed towards Madeleine’s field.
‘Mad?’ he said. ‘What’s she been up to – spraying too close to your garden?’
‘No.’ Hannah prayed she could trust him. ‘No. Actually, I’m not sure how to say this, but I think I’ve just seen her hit Elvie, the woman who lives next door to us. She has learning difficulties?’
She waited for Dax to make a smart-arse remark, but he didn’t.
‘What do you mean, hit her?’
Hannah swiped with an open palm. ‘Three times.’
For the first time since she’d met him his face became serious. ‘That’s no good. When’s that happened?’
‘A couple of hours ago. And she didn’t just hit her – she kicked her, too. I mean, hard.’
‘Right.’ Dax blew out his cheeks. ‘Well, Mad’s got a temper on her – you don’t want to cross her on money – but I’ve never seen her hit no one. You sure?’
‘Yes,’ Hannah sighed. ‘I wish I wasn’t. The thing is, I just can’t get involved, Dax. We’ve got the social worker I was telling you about coming on Thursday, and I can’t get mixed up in neighbour disputes and police reports. She’s coming to make sure this is a safe environment for a looked-after child, and if I tell her there’s someone violent next door, she might have no choice but to halt everything, just in case. So what I really want to do is have a quiet word with Frank and Tiggy, and let them deal with it, but they’re away till Friday. I’m concerned that Madeleine might be doing this regularly and Elvie’s not telling them.’
The Hidden Girl Page 18