by Sam Hayes
Robert motioned to the door, his throat knotted around what he wanted to say. ‘Was that . . .?’
‘It was Natasha,’ Lumley said solemnly as if the child had nameable form after all these years. ‘She was deep in the well, suspended in a basket. Forensics suspect strangulation. Initial examination suggests at least three of her cervical vertebrae were crushed.’
Robert bowed his head. He joined hands with Louisa, an attempt not to think about the scene Lumley had just described. For now, he couldn’t speak but Lumley answered what he was thinking anyway.
‘When we searched the house thirteen years ago, after we initially suspected Cheryl, we found nothing except a dead cat buried in the garden. The slab covering the well was completely hidden beneath turf and weeds. As it was, we were there on gut instinct and a lucky warrant.’ Lumley stiffened, arming himself against accusations. The baby would have been dead anyway, even if they had found it back then. ‘Cheryl’s already claiming insanity, that her post-natal depression was never flagged.’
‘Let’s go,’ Robert said. He had to get out. He roused Ruby and got her into the street before she remembered where she was. ‘What did you want to tell me back in there?’ Robert said to Louisa as he steered the Mercedes out of the narrow street.
Louisa glanced back at Ruby, who had balled herself up on the rear seat. She slept with the earphones on. ‘It’s nothing. Really.’ She gripped Robert’s outstretched arm with her fingers. ‘Nothing important at all.’
Soon, the car was cruising south on the M1 and Robert was focused on the ribbon of tarmac ahead. Every so often, he stole a look at Louisa to see if she had succumbed to sleep. Each time he saw her watching the night, unblinking, with nothing to say.
THIRTY-FIVE
Robert knew she was back. There was a lightness to the air, a whisper of things to come as the indigo night sky gave way to a mottled, tangerine-coloured dawn.
He pulled the key from the lock, after ushering Ruby and Louisa inside, and closed the door quietly. He wanted to be sure first.
‘Go through,’ he told Louisa. ‘Let’s get some food.’
‘I want to go to bed,’ Ruby moaned, unable to keep her eyes open.
‘OK, love. You go up. I’ll be there in a minute.’ Robert stroked her head, suddenly familiar again, as she sloped off.
‘What a night,’ Louisa exclaimed, roping her arms round Robert’s neck just as Erin emerged from beneath a throw on the settee.
For a second, both women locked eyes and then Erin’s sleepy state turned into alertness and disbelief.
‘Robert!’ she cried.
‘Erin,’ he replied loudly, unwrapping himself from Louisa. ‘You’ve come home.’
Erin struggled to her feet. Her skin was equal to her mussed hair in colour, pale and fragile, and her eyes were ice drops assessing what they saw.
‘Like a fool, I see,’ she said, softly now. ‘I should have realised that you’d pass up on me as soon as I was gone.’ Each word was cut and pasted perfectly onto her tongue from her overwrought mind.
‘No, Erin, that’s not true.’ Robert spied the empty bottle of wine on the table, the last inch of red in the glass. Erin lost her balance as she untangled herself from the throw. He could see she’d not long stopped drinking.
‘Don’t worry. I’m gone.’ Erin smiled sweetly and shoved her bare feet into her sandals. ‘Where’s my daughter? Where are my car keys?’
‘Our daughter has gone to bed. She’s exhausted. And you’re not going anywhere.’ Robert caught her by the wrist as she skittled past.
‘I’ll get her tomorrow then.’ Erin squirmed and pulled a face although clearly not in any state to put up a fight.
Robert smelled the alcohol on her breath, her hair, her clothing. He pulled her close to make it a private moment. ‘You’re talking nonsense. I’m not letting you go anywhere in this state. I’m not letting you go anywhere ever again.’
He marched her into the kitchen, realising that was what he should have done with Jenna. Instead she had fled the house and driven off in her car after drinking; drinking and driving because he’d left her with no alternative. ‘You’re going to have a gallon of coffee and we’re going to talk.’
Robert paused, drew breath and listened for Jenna. She wasn’t there. He glanced around the room – a final check – but there was nothing. Just the room. He stared into the black depths of their garden and all he saw was Erin, reflected in the glass, and his own image staring back.
Silently, privately, he said goodbye.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Louisa offered, feeling like a spark at a petrol station.
Robert seated Erin at the kitchen table and then leaned over Louisa’s laptop, tapping the mouse to bring it out of sleep mode. ‘Louisa, check your email.’
‘No, Rob. Let’s have a coff—’
‘Now, Louisa, or I’ll do it for you.’ Robert wanted to finally prove that his suspicions about Erin had been ridiculous, that now the police had unearthed the grim truth about Cheryl’s baby, he had nothing to fear about Ruby’s maternity. Of course she belonged to Erin.
‘Rob, why don’t—’
‘There it is, look. An email from James Hammond.’ He pushed Louisa’s finger off the mouse pad and opened the email himself. Louisa slumped into a chair where she couldn’t see the screen. ‘She’s all ours,’ Robert said after a moment, realising that Erin wouldn’t have any idea what they were talking about. She was thankfully unaware that he had even questioned where Ruby came from. ‘Ninety-nine point nine per cent, anyway,’ he finished under his breath before stamping a kiss on Erin’s neck as if she’d just given birth. To Robert, she had.
Erin watched them, alert but silent, sitting straight in the chair.
Louisa reached for the laptop and rotated it so she could read for herself.
‘Mum!’ Ruby exclaimed. ‘You’re back!’ The girl bowled into her mother’s arms. ‘Oh, don’t leave Dad again. I never want you to split up.’ She pulled Robert into the three-way embrace, her tiredness forgotten in the excitement of having her family reunited.
Louisa looked up from the computer. She said nothing. She watched as Ruby’s promises and chatter strung her parents together like a broken necklace.
Erin and Robert’s fingers slowly entwined either side of their daughter, their own promises to each other contained in the unspoken messages they swapped.
Then Louisa caught Erin’s eye – just a brief connection between the two women but enough to convey a silent plea. Louisa held her breath, nodded slowly at Erin. She looked away.
‘Right, coffee then,’ Louisa said when the moment was firmly in the past. Swiftly and without fuss, she deleted James Hammond’s email from her computer. The computer breathed a heavy sigh as she shut it down.
THIRTY-SIX
It’s cold and raining and I wrestle the door as it tries to bang shut in the wind. Inside, I prop my umbrella against the wall and realise that I’ll probably forget it when I go. It makes me smile, the way Robert and I met – a forgotten umbrella. I scan the café to see if she’s here yet.
A hand rises over the heads of the many customers. It belongs to Louisa. She gives me a wide grin.
‘Well done for getting a table.’ I shrug off my coat and drape it on the back of my chair. I glance about. ‘Is it waitress service?’
She nods and raises her hand again. A young girl is suddenly beside me, offering coffee, tea, whatever. ‘How’ve you been?’ Her eyes flash green beneath her grey shaded lids.
‘Whoa,’ I say. ‘Where to begin?’ I drink coffee, let her wait awhile.
She waits.
‘Take a look.’ I unbuckle my bag and fish out a pocket-sized album with a dozen or so photographs inside. Louisa takes her time, poring over each one, noticing every detail. I do it a hundred times a day.
‘She has your eyes,’ Louisa says. ‘Well, and your nose and mouth and—’
‘She’s totally beautiful,’ I say, realising I sound vain.
>
‘Have you told her?’
I drink more coffee, unfurl my leg and cross it the other way. ‘I haven’t spoken to her.’
‘Ah,’ Louisa says. ‘No rush.’
She’s right. There isn’t a rush any more.
It took several months for things to get back to normal. Thing is, if you’ve never been normal, you can never really be certain that things have got back to it.
But Robert took himself off to work and became a vigilante lawyer specialising in children’s rights, appealing tirelessly on behalf of minors who would have otherwise remained unrepresented. It all started, he said, with two kids called Joe and Alice Bowman. He helped them untangle their lives from their warring parents and they are now, I believe, living with a foster family while they decide where they want to live. Rob says they are learning about how happiness is meshed with forgiveness. I think he is learning this himself.
Rob’s new focus at work also came from my story, or so he said as we lay in bed about a week after Ruby and I returned home from Brighton. Things were still brittle; bone china on the edge of a shelf. Robert was coming to terms with Ruby’s paternal heritage and my childhood abuse but better that way, I told him, because there was no other father for Ruby to adore. Aside from me, there was zero competition for her love. I didn’t mention that our daughter was no more the product of Gustaw’s interference than any other child.
‘We can get through this.’ He shimmied his hand over my belly, a craftsman sizing up his materials. ‘I know that because of how I felt when you weren’t here.’
‘And I wasn’t here because of how you felt.’ I rolled onto my side so that his hand rested on the crest of my hip. He frowned at me. ‘Your obsessive lawyer side. Driving the truth from me.’ I had to look away. There is one thing he’ll never know. ‘My whole life I’ve excelled at keeping people the other side of my barrier. It was second nature until you found a way through.’ I hoped he understood what I meant. ‘Imagine a wound. Now rip the plaster off it. Don’t just touch the raw skin and see the person flinch, stick your whole finger in and gouge about with your nail.’
Robert made a noise. ‘That’s what I did to you?’
I nodded. ‘The wound’s always been there. It’s just that no one ever touched it before.’ He was getting it now, I could see it in his eyes as they narrowed and darkened and tiptoed across my body.
‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘how did you get the wound in the first place?’
To avoid answering, I rolled on top of my husband and distracted him the only way I knew. Later, he pushed inside me, searching for the truth, believing he found it before slipping into sleep.
Really, the only truth he found was the answer to his own question.
We order paninis with mozzarella, basil, rocket, and a pesto dressing that runs between my fingers as I bite. Louisa laughs.
‘Here, wipe your chin.’ She smiles as her panini does the same.We don’t bother with cutlery. ‘Did Ruby’s birth certificate come?’
‘Finally,’ I tell her. ‘This is good,’ I lick my lips. ‘It arrived a couple of weeks ago. Rob took care of all the paperwork at the courts.’ I sigh, like I did when I finally held the certificate in my hand. I showed Ruby that she was officially born. She grinned and squeezed my waist, her head on my shoulder. She’s going to be tall.
‘And the adoption?’
‘It’s in hand. Technically, we need the agreement of Ruby’s biological father before Robert can officially adopt Ruby.’ I put down my panini and wonder what right either of us have to really keep Ruby. When I found her in the wardrobe, I truly believed that she was my sick baby. I’ll go mad if I wonder about her real mother scouring the country for her although in my heart I know that Ruby had been abandoned, just like Becco dumped my first baby. ‘Considering that my uncle abused me since I was four and he’s dead now anyway, getting his permission isn’t an issue,’ I continue, coaxing a smile to run parallel to the charade.
I’m used to talking to Louisa about such things and she is the only person who knows the truth. I am getting used to talking to my counsellor, too, but if I tell her the truth, then I risk losing Ruby again. But without the talking, the therapy, these last few weeks, I wouldn’t have survived. Robert and I wouldn’t have survived. ‘But what about you?’ I ask. ‘Are you sticking around for a while?’
‘Ah,’ she says. ‘Me and Willem.’ And she sinks her teeth into the bread.
Lots of things happened that week. Firstly, I won an award for Fresh As A Daisy. Silly really, because I never even entered any competition. It turns out that Baxter put me forward for some national florist’s showdown and my shop won for its innovative window displays. I even got my picture in the paper. I kept a copy this time.
Then, as the last shreds of autumn gave way to the first fingers of winter, Ruby shuddering and waving goodbye one morning as the air frost nipped down her back, as the bell of sky above hardened with a veneer of ice, my medical notes tumbled through the letter box with the gas bill and a couple of bank statements.
Reading through the notes, I learned I had been a surprisingly healthy child. Of course, everything stopped when I reached the age of fifteen. My last recorded visit to the GP was when I told Mother I was getting fat and she took me to see Dr Brigson. Looking back, I think I knew. And as I read on, it seemed that Dr Brigson did, too.
Visible scars consistent with local trauma to the vaginal area . . . child clearly disturbed and unable/unwilling to discuss cause of pregnancy . . . possible rape/abuse? Notify Social Services . . .
It occurred to me, as I read the notes, that I wanted my parents; a childish desire to be owned, protected, cherished. While it’s too late for protection – in fact, soon it will be my turn to protect them – I want them to know what I have become, that I survived. I want to ask them why they tried to have my baby adopted, why they thought I would be a bad mother, why they never noticed what Uncle Gustaw was doing to me.
I want them to see me. To take me back. And, after I admitted this to myself, I resolved that one day very soon I would drive to the dismal house where I gave birth. I promised myself I would go home.
No one ever did report my abuse to social services. But it was the medical proof, detailed accurately within those notes, that was precious now. They stated I was pregnant, estimated delivery date first week of January 1992, with a viable single foetus. What happened to me thereafter didn’t particularly interest the Registrar General. To file the form for a late, a very late, birth certificate required certain details, all of which I was now able to provide. Thanks to Louisa.
I called her two days after I returned home from Brighton. Robert and I were making a go of things and since I’d changed the email from James Hammond on Louisa’s computer, and since I knew that she knew, I wanted to talk to her – despite our brief moment of understanding. To explain. To make sure she was OK with knowing. I couldn’t risk losing Robert again.
‘Hey, I’m an investigator. I know when to stop digging.’ She told me that it was seeing Ruby and me slotted around Robert like three pieces of a unique puzzle that made her understand. ‘I don’t care who Ruby is,’ she said. ‘But I do care about what she can become.’
She didn’t mention her feelings for Robert. She didn’t need to.
So, with my consent and Robert’s backing, we paid for Louisa to pull up my medical records. Robert accepted what had happened, with Uncle Gustaw – God knows he’s seen enough child abuse in his line of work – and an understanding stitched itself between us about my life thereafter. That’s when I began seeing the counsellor. Once a week, on a Wednesday.
Then, without telling Robert, I asked Louisa to find out what had happened to Ruby. My first Ruby.
‘Let me take another look,’ she says. I slide the album across the table, careful not to get dressing on the cover.
‘It felt a bit creepy, taking pictures of a young girl without her knowing.’ I crane sideways so I can see the pictures too. ‘That was wh
en she was coming out of the cinema with her friends. We went to see Oliver Twist—’
‘We?’
‘I sat behind her, eavesdropped on her conversation, watched her eat popcorn.’ Truth is, I tailed her so closely it’s a wonder she didn’t call the police.
From the minute I first laid eyes on my daughter, my biological daughter, I fell in love with her. She is everything I had imagined and more. Think of a lioness surrounded by cats; think of a sleek yacht in a sea of rowing boats; think of an orchid in a field of daisies; think of a ruby in a pot of glass beads.
‘Will you tell Rob?’ she asks.
‘What, that I lost my baby?’
‘You didn’t lose your baby, Erin. You lost your mind.’ Louisa snaps the album shut. ‘Someone took your baby. Someone threw your baby away.’
She called me at the shop, breathless with the news. The phone line was twanging between us. ‘I’ve found her,’ she said and I marvelled at how easy it had been. ‘She lives in London.’ I sat down, as if folding my body behind the counter would aid the absorption of shock. All this time and she’d only been a breath away.
The first time we met at the café, Louisa provided me with newspaper articles. They’d really made a thing out of it, a nationwide feel-good story of the baby who was thrown away. I never read the papers or watched the news. I was too busy earning money to pay for my baby’s treatment.
‘When you told me what happened, Erin, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if your baby had been found, a story of some kind would be in the papers.’ Louisa tucked a strand of fiery hair behind her ear.
‘They told me she was ill,’ I said again, just so Louisa didn’t think I had a hand in disposing of my baby. ‘That I would get her back just as soon as she was better.’ I was past bowing my head. I’d been a child myself. ‘They told me she was in hospital and I believed them.’