“Isn’t that romantic? He booked it for me as a surprise. Of course I could cancel it but—”
“Clio!” said Jocasta. “Of course you can’t cancel it. Don’t be ridiculous. Enjoy.”
She drove herself back to Kensington Palace Gardens, after her lunch on Saturday, feeling depressed. Even lunch had been not entirely satisfactory; already a gap was opening between herself and her friends. She was not of their world anymore, no longer a career girl about town with a fun boyfriend, but a rich woman with a middle-aged husband.
Jocasta knew whose company she would have preferred herself. She was just parking, when her mobile rang. “Jocasta, hi, it’s Nick. Are you busy?”
“I’m going to go and ask her. Will you come with me?” Nat looked at her; her face was very set. “Yeah, if you want. Course I will. Give her a ring. See if she’s in. You got her number, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
She put out her hand, grabbed his. “Right. Here goes.”
Martha had been about to leave for Suffolk when her mobile rang. She knew she had to do it: tell her parents. She couldn’t risk it any longer. Just because the story hadn’t been in the paper today, or yesterday, it didn’t mean it wouldn’t be tomorrow. Nick was being wonderful, but there were other papers, and Janet wasn’t going to wait forever.
She felt very bad. Ed had not come back. He had called, saying he needed time to think, that he did love her, but he really needed to know more. “It’s not fair, otherwise. You’re asking me to take too much on trust. This is pretty basic stuff, Martha.”
“But Ed—”
“No, it isn’t but. I’ve backed you every inch of the way; I think I’ve a right to know who this bloke was. I’m the person who loved you, but I can’t hack it. Give me a bell if anything changes. I’m not going anywhere. But I do need a bit of help over this one.”
So she had phoned her parents, said she was coming, that she needed to talk to them.
“Well, that’ll be lovely, dear,” Grace had said. “We weren’t expecting you this weekend. When will you be here?”
“Oh quite late, around nine or ten.”
“Lovely.”
No, it won’t be lovely, Martha thought, it will be dreadful. But there seemed absolutely no alternative. It had to be done. Too many people knew already, quite apart from the press. There was no knowing what Kate might do, for instance.
And then she rang.
“This is Kate Tarrant. I’d like to come and see you. In about an hour. I presume you’ll be there?”
“Yes,” said Martha rather weakly, “I’ll be here.” And rang her parents and told them she’d be much later, to go to bed and she’d see them in the morning. It would be far better anyway: better than telling them late at night.
“I’ve just had another call from Frean,” Nick said. “She says she’s going to give the story to the Sun, if I haven’t run it by Monday. Honestly, Jocasta, this is a nightmare.”
“Did you speak to her?”
“No, my phone was on message.”
“God, what a filthy mess. But I’m sure there must be something clever we could do. Look—what are you doing now?”
“Nothing. Fretting.”
“Well, why don’t you come round and we’ll have a brainstorming session. I’ll order a takeaway—”
“What, give staff a night off? Very democratic of you. Where’s Gideon?”
“He’s away,” she said.
“Then I don’t think I should come round.”
She knew he was right, and the thud of disappointment she felt proved it. It was completely impossible to have had the kind of relationship she’d had with Nick—absolutely close, very sexy, and for the most part extremely happy—and suddenly just be friends. And the fact that he was being so good about Martha was testimony to his extraordinary niceness.
But she didn’t actually love him anymore. Did she? No, of course she didn’t. She maybe never had. She’d loved his company and their life together, but was that love? What she felt for Gideon was overwhelming and extraordinarily intense. Yes, he was spoilt, he could be difficult, he could be filthy-tempered, and he liked his own way, but he was, above all things, generous-hearted, thoughtful, and immensely, tenderly loving. And he loved her as she loved him: absolutely.
He was worth being lonely for. And she mustn’t let it happen again; he was right. It really was up to her. Once this wretched business with Martha and Kate was settled, she’d never let him go away without her again.
“Hi,” said Kate. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that showed a great deal of her flat stomach. Her hair was tied back, and she wore no makeup. She was a lot taller than Martha. Martha tried to feel something, but couldn’t: except discomfort.
“This is Nat Tucker,” said Kate. “He’s a friend of mine.”
“Hello, Nat,” said Martha. “Do come in, both of you. What can I offer you, a drink or something?”
“Nothing, thanks,” said Kate. She walked in, looked round. Nat followed her.
There was a long, frozen silence; Nat broke it.
“Very nice,” he said. “Very nice indeed. Good view.”
“Thank you,” said Martha. “Would you—would you like to sit down?”
Nat dropped onto one of the low black leather sofas; Kate stayed on her feet, turned to face Martha.
“I want to know who my father is,” she said. “That’s all. Nothing else.”
Martha had not really been expecting this; not at this stage.
“I’m…sorry?” she said.
“I said I want to know who my father is. Unlike you, he might actually want to meet me.”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”
“No? Why not? Don’t you know?” The dark eyes were very hard. “Was it, like, a one-night stand?”
She’s bound to be angry, Martha thought, bound to be hostile. “I just can’t tell you,” she said.
“Yeah? Are you still in touch with him, then?”
“No. I’m not. But he has no idea. And I don’t think it’s right to…to tell him now. After all these years.”
“Oh, you don’t think it’s right? I see. You think it was right to leave me though, do you? Just left, along with a bit of cleaning fluid.”
“Kate—”
“And you thought it was right not to come and see me, when it was in the paper and everything, and you could have done it so easily. That was fine, was it? Funny idea of right and wrong you’ve got! You left me there, a newborn baby, all alone, I could have died—”
“I waited,” said Martha. “I waited until I knew you’d been found, that you were all right—”
“Oh, you did? Well, that was really good of you. I s’pose you thought that was that, did you? You never thought how I might feel, later on. Knowing my mother, my own mother, just wasn’t interested in me. What do you think that’s like? To be so not wanted. So not important. Don’t you think that must be totally horrible? Anyway, luckily for me, I’ve had a real mother, a proper mother. She cared about me. She still does. I reckon I’d have been better off with her, anyway. I don’t know what kind of mother you think you’d have been, but I can tell you, you’d have been shit!”
“Kate,” said Nat mildly, from the depths of the sofa.
“She’d have been shit,” said Kate looking at him briefly, then turning back to Martha. “So I should be thanking you, really. For getting out of my life. Anyway, I don’t want to carry on with this, it’s totally pointless. But I do want to know who my father was. So if you’ll just give me his name, I’ll leave you in peace. Which is what you’ve wanted all along, obviously. Sorry to have had to disturb it.”
“Kate, I’m really sorry, but I’m not going to do that. I can’t.”
She looked at her steadily, trying to equate this girl, this beautiful grown-up creature, with the tiny baby she had left behind, trying to make sense of it, to believe that she had carried her around inside her all those endless months, actually given b
irth to her, pushed her out of her body. She couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” said Kate, “but you’ve got to. Don’t you think you owe me anything?”
“Of course I do. But not that.”
“You cow.” Kate walked over to her; for a moment, Martha thought she was going to hit her. “You stupid cow.”
Nat stood up.
“Kate, there’s no need for this. It isn’t helping. If she won’t tell you, she won’t tell you. She’s got her reasons, I’m sure.”
“Yeah, like she had them for abandoning me. Well, it won’t do. I want to meet my father. He might be a bit more satisfactory. Stupid cow,” she added.
“Kate!” said Nat again. “I’m sorry,” he said, addressing Martha, “she’s not usually so rude.”
For some reason this amused Martha: so much so that she smiled, almost giggled. She supposed it was a relief from the tension.
Kate walked over to her and slapped her hard across the face. “Don’t you laugh at him,” she said, “he’s worth a million of you.”
“Kate, I wasn’t laughing at him,” said Martha, shocked. She put her hand up and touched her face. “I was laughing at—Well, it doesn’t matter.”
“Like I don’t,” said Kate. “Like I don’t to you. Not at all. Like I never have. Just something to get rid of, I was, wasn’t I? Why didn’t you have an abortion? Tell me that. Why didn’t you just flush me down the toilet, that would’ve been much better, wouldn’t it?”
And she started to cry, great noisy sobs, that got louder and louder, rose to a scream; Nat tried to calm her, but it was hopeless. She went on and on, beating her clenched fists helplessly against her sides; and then collapsed onto the sofa, her head buried in her arms, her hair showering over them.
Martha looked at her, and suddenly felt something: felt something for Kate for the very first time. Felt a stir, a stab of sorrow, to see her like this, in such grief, in such pain. It touched her, that pain, and it was like none that she had ever felt before, it was deeper, sharper, more dreadful. She wondered if it was some sort of maternal feeling for Kate, belatedly felt; it was certainly feeling for her, of a kind, and in some strange way, a relief.
She sat down beside her, put an arm rather tentatively round her shoulders; Kate shook it off viciously.
“Don’t! Get off me.”
But that feeling, that stab of feeling, had given Martha courage. “Could you just listen to me, for a little while?” she said.
“What, and you try to explain? No thanks.”
But she had at least looked at her, while sniffing and wiping her eyes on the back of her hand; it was a contact of sorts. Martha went to fetch her some tissues; she took them without a word.
“I think we’d best go,” Kate said to Nat, “there’s no point staying here.”
“Don’t you think it might be an idea, Kate, to listen to what she’s got to say?”
“No,” said Kate briefly, “I don’t. Only thing I want to hear from her is my dad’s name. Come on, Nat, let’s go.”
She walked over to the door, had trouble with the lock. Martha followed her, undid it for her.
“I’m…so sorry,” she said, meeting her eyes. “I know it doesn’t mean anything to you, but I am, truly sorry. I wish you’d let me talk to you.”
“You could have done that months ago,” said Kate. “It’s too late now.”
And she and Nat were gone.
Janet Frean was getting very impatient. The story was going to lose impetus if it wasn’t run soon. The child would be less famous; Martha’s temporarily high profile would drop. It was ridiculous. Why weren’t they doing it? It was a brilliant story; Nick was a brilliant journalist. The timing—her timing—had been perfect. She had tossed a gift into their laps. She was going to be very angry if it didn’t appear. Had Nick gone soft suddenly? Surely not.
She looked at her watch; she had to leave in an hour. She was speaking at a dinner in Bournemouth, a medical conference, and she couldn’t be late. She called Nick: no reply. She left a message and went to change. Half an hour later he still hadn’t contacted her. She really needed to speak to him, find out what he thought he was doing.
While she was packing her overnight bag, she decided to e-mail him. She could tantalise him with a few more details, make it spicier still. That would at least make him get in touch. There’d be something very wrong if it didn’t.
She went into her study, switched on her laptop. There were several e-mails for her, one from Jack Kirkland, telling her to be sure to spell out their policy on health that evening, that their line on it was their trump card at the moment. As if she needed to be told. It was a medical conference, for Christ’s sake. God almighty, what did he think she was?
She scrolled through her address book, found Nick’s name, and started to write.
“She’s sent me an e-mail,” said Nick to Jocasta. “She really is not going to wait much longer. Hold on, I’ll read it to you. She says she doesn’t want the story wasted, now—oh yes, ‘Please don’t leave it too long. I don’t want to have to give it to someone else. Incidentally, I have a bit more to tell you—details of the family tree—let me know if you want it.’”
“What do you think that means? Who the father is? Shit, I’d so love to know.”
“God knows. And she says not to delay too long, and then, that if I haven’t done it by Monday, she’s going to the Sun.”
“Bloody hell! Bloody, bloody hell, Nick. What are you going to say?”
“God knows. I certainly don’t…”
“Mum! I feel sick.”
Janet looked doubtfully at Arthur. He was her second youngest, and his digestion was delicate. He did look very green. She glanced at the clock: she really should have gone.
“Where’s Dad?”
“In his study. On the phone. He told me to find you.”
“Well, let’s get you downstairs, maybe some TV would help—Oh, Arthur!”
Everything Arthur did, he did thoroughly. Including vomiting. Janet’s trouser suit was clearly no longer fit for public viewing. By the time she had got Bob off the phone, Arthur cleaned up, and changed her suit, she was extremely late.
She was driving herself; she grabbed her briefcase and her overnight bag, ran to the car, and started it. And realised she had forgotten her handheld. A nifty little device, which could send and receive e-mails—and act as a mobile. Pretty crucial this evening.
She ran back into the house; Bob was in the hall.
“Thought you’d gone.”
“I had, but I’d forgotten my BlackBerry.”
“What on earth do you want that for?”
“It’s got some notes for my speech on it.”
He knew that was a lie; he’d already seen the whole speech, neatly printed, lying on her desk. He went back into the house and to Arthur, who was now very cheerfully watching some old Starsky and Hutch videos and demanding ice cream.
Martha hadn’t realised how tired she was until she was on the A12. Driving out through the endless suburbs of East London at least offered some variety, required the occasional gear change. Confronted by the endless sheet of road ahead of her, she felt her brain begin to glaze over.
Maybe she should stop, stay at a motel, and drive on in the morning. She could call her parents and tell them what she was doing, so they wouldn’t worry. She dialled their number. God, what had everyone done before there were car phones? The answerphone cut in. She knew what that meant, that they were watching television. Casualty, probably. They never heard the phone from the sitting room. Damn. And they very seldom checked the answer machine until the morning. Well, she could keep trying, but she left a message anyway, saying she might find a B&B and come on in the morning.
She felt her eyes getting sore: another symptom of tiredness. She rubbed them, started playing the number games she always used at these times to keep her awake. Counting backwards in threes, counting upwards in sevens, doubling numbers—it helped for a bit. Maybe she could get
there.
She felt terrible. Really terrible. The encounter with Kate had shaken her horribly. For some reason, she hadn’t expected quite so much hostility. Naïve really. She probed her feelings for Kate, as if they were an aching tooth. The main thing seemed to be a total lack of them. That was in itself disturbing. Surely she should have felt something, some sort of recognition of their relationship. She was her mother, for God’s sake. Not love, of course, that was the stuff of fairy tales, but concern, sympathy, sadness that she had missed so much of her. It wasn’t there. Only one thing was there and that was guilt. In spades.
She hadn’t even liked her; she had seemed a hard little thing. And distinctly lacking in charm. But then, as situations went, it had hardly been one to bring the best out in her. The boy had been rather sweet, she’d thought; she’d liked him much more.
She was obviously completely lacking in any kind of maternal instinct. Clearly, she was exactly as Kate saw her: tough, uncaring, totally self-centred. It wasn’t a very happy thought. She supposed the guilt was something in her favour; she’d never felt it over Kate before. Mostly because she hadn’t allowed herself to. Guilt would have meant an acknowledgement of what she’d done, there could be no question of it.
She tried the vicarage again: still no reply. Well, maybe she could make it. She’d have a coffee at a Little Chef and carry on. It would be much nicer to get there, get to her own bed.
Nick had finally replied to Janet’s e-mail:
Janet: Doing my best, lot of ends to tie up. Please bear with me. Re family tree, what do you mean exactly? Nick
Janet was not impressed.
Martha was back on the road; she felt quite wide-awake now. She began to try to frame her conversation with her parents, wondering how to lead into it. How could you possibly break such news gently? Maybe she should show them the cuttings about Kate, the story that Carla Giannini had written? And then say, well, what? “I’m actually her mother. It was me that abandoned her in the cleaning cupboard.” That would really be easy for them, wouldn’t it?
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