There’s a mother sitting on the bench opposite me, a baby next to her in a pram. She rocks her with one hand while scanning through her smartphone with the other. The baby gurgles and I see the pale pink soles of her feet rise up as she grabs her toes with her fingers. Her legs are turning red and I think I should go and offer the mother some of the sun cream I carry in my bag. On the patch of grass in front of the benches there’s a girl twirling a pink dress, her skirts billowing, and her shiny black bob swishes around her face. For a second, she looks so much like Lisa it snatches my breath away. I miss her. Tears haze my vision as I remember a time when we would link hands and spin until we were dizzy. ‘Faster,’ she would cry and just when I felt my feet had left the ground and I was soaring high in the brilliant blue sky, she’d unlink her fingers from mine and we’d stagger across the grass before tumbling onto our backs. I would scrunch my eyes against the bright sunflower sun and wait for the dizziness to pass. Once, an inflatable beach ball had landed on her head. ‘Hey!’ Lisa had sat up and shouted. ‘Go and play somewhere else, Jake.’ She had thrown the striped ball back and sighed theatrically before flopping back down onto the grass. ‘Boys. They are so annoying.’
But even then there was something that transfixed me about Jake. It wasn’t just his bright green eyes, the way his skin was dotted with freckles. It was more than that. ‘Fate,’ he called it when we were older and he tilted my chin to kiss me.
I bring two fingers to my mouth as though I can still taste him – Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum – and I wonder if it ever fades. The sense of loss. Now Lisa’s gone too and my last memory of her springs to mind, as it frequently does. Her black hair fanned out over the chocolate leather sofa, the panic in her eyes, the metallic tang of blood catching in my nose, in the back of my throat.
‘Help me,’ she had croaked, and I had leaned over and whispered in her ear.
‘What have you been hiding for ten years, Lisa?’
‘I don’t know…’
‘I read the texts on your phone. Between you and Aaron. There is something.’
Lisa whimpered.
‘Tell me and I’ll help you.’ I stroked her brow.
She began to whisper. ‘I told Aaron when I slept with him on my thirtieth birthday. It was a relief to tell someone.’
Lisa’s face was as stark white as the wall behind her, and I knew she was slipping away.
‘What, Lisa? What did you tell him?’ Frustration pricked behind my eyes.
Eventually, reluctantly, she spoke. ‘That night at The Three Fishes—’
‘What about it?’
Her head had lolled to the side and I had placed my hands on her shoulders and shook her hard. Her eyes snapped open.
‘I had a tiny bit of mephedrone left.’
I placed my ear to Lisa’s mouth so I could hear her properly. Felt her hot breath.
‘Hardly any. I put it in our drinks. Mine and Jake’s.’
‘How could you?’
A single tear streaked down her cheek. ‘I wanted us to have fun. He wasn’t supposed to drive.’ She drew in a long, juddering breath and closed her eyes as though trying to find the energy to speak again. ‘He’d promised me we’d leave the car and get a taxi home. He’d promised…’
Lisa was the one struggling to breathe but the pain tore at my chest.
‘I’m so ashamed,’ she’d whispered. ‘Keeping it a secret has ruined my relationship with Mum. Please don’t tell her. She’s better off not knowing. Better off without me.’
She had fallen silent but I could still feel warm air against my ear. I remembered Jake feeling dizzy and sick. The way he drove too fast, desperate to get home. I’d thought he was in shock about the baby. But he was drugged. She had drugged him. Would he have been able to avoid the other car if his senses hadn’t been dulled? Would he still be alive? Would our baby?
So many lives ruined. So many lives – what was one more?
I can still feel the coolness of the cotton cushion cover in my hand; I can still taste the bile that stung my throat as I held the cushion over Lisa’s face. I can feel her struggles growing weaker and weaker. I can still hear the monster in my head laughing as tears poured down my cheeks. I will always carry the weight of my shame as Nick burst back into the room and I told him it was too late. She had died a natural death, and often I try to convince myself that this is true. All that blood. I am sure she had a placental abruption – I’d read about them in my baby bible – being so far from the hospital she’d probably have died anyway. Probably. But I couldn’t have taken that risk.
I touch my cheek as though I might still feel the tears that poured from me. My grief was real and raw. The hole inside black and gaping, but it was only right, wasn’t it? Only fair. She was the one responsible for Jake crashing. She took him from me, along with my unborn child and my chance of ever being a mother again. How could she do that? Know that? And to stand tall and proud and offer me a lifeline, pretend to be my surrogate and my friend. It could have broken me, it really could.
Sometimes I wonder if it has.
‘Mummy.’ The word whirlwinds inside me, stirring up loss. Guilt. Hope. But above all love.
‘Jacob.’ I open my arms wide and my darling, darling boy toddles into them. I bury my face in his black, glossy hair and inhale Johnson’s Shampoo before I tickle his ribs, blowing raspberries on his cheek, tasting the strawberry ice cream we’d had earlier.
He giggles but the sound doesn’t drive out the endless screaming that’s in my head every time I look at his face and see Lisa’s face. Jake’s face. All the things I ever did wrong. All the things I ever did right.
‘I’m hungry,’ he says.
‘You’re always hungry.’ I stand and stretch out my hand, and he places his small one in mine. We swing arms as we walk.
We pass the baby sleeping in the pram, her skin as pink as her vest. I glance around for the mother but she is over the other side of the park, deep in conversation. My fingers twitch with the urge to push the pram away. To slather the baby in sun cream and kisses. She shouldn’t have left her here. You can’t be too careful nowadays, can you?
I stop.
The baby is crying in my mind. The lost baby. I gaze in the pram and wonder if this is her. The lost baby. My baby. I reach for the handle. Let my fingers rest lightly on the plastic bar.
‘Mummy!’ Jacob’s tugging at my other hand. Across the park the mother still isn’t paying attention, but even so, I can’t take her daughter. I know what it’s like to lose a child. It shifts your reality. You never really get over it.
I allow myself to be pulled away. Jacob chatters as we walk to the wrought iron gates but it’s hard to decipher his words over the constant wailing in my head.
We’re almost out of the park now. Soon it will be too late to save her.
The lost baby.
I hesitate. Turn. The pram still stands alone.
I’m not a monster.
I’m not.
I just want to silence the crying.
Is that so wrong?
* * *
Want to read more from Louise Jensen? Read The Sister, a psychological thriller with a brilliant twist you won't see coming.
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The Sister
"I did something terrible Grace. I hope you can forgive me ..."
Available Now…
Grace hasn't been the same since the death of her best friend Charlie. She is haunted by Charlie's last words, and in a bid for answers, opens an old memory box of Charlie's. It soon becomes clear there was a lot she didn't know about her best friend.
When Grace starts a campaign to find Charlie's father, Anna, a girl claiming to be Charlie's sister steps forward. For Grace, finding Anna is like finding a new family, and soon Anna has made herself very comfortable in Grace and boyfriend Dan's home.
But something isn't right. Things disappear, Dan's acting strangely and Grace is sure that someone is following her. Is it all in Grace's mind? Or as
she gets closer to discovering the truth about both Charlie and Anna, is Grace in terrible danger?
There was nothing she could have done to save Charlie… or was there?
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A compelling, gripping psychological thriller perfect for fans of The Girl on the Train, I Let You Go, and The Girl With No Past.
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Also by Louise Jensen
The Sister
The Gift
The Surrogate
The Gift
The gripping psychological thriller everyone is talking about
The perfect daughter. The perfect girlfriend. The perfect murder?
Jenna is seriously ill. She’s lost all hope of getting the heart transplant she needs to live. But just as her life is ebbing away, she receives a donor heart from a girl called Callie. Who was Callie and how did she die? Jenna is determined to find out.
The closer Jenna gets to those who loved Callie, the more questions arise about her untimely death. Someone knows what happened to Callie. Why won’t they talk?
Jenna is about to uncover the truth, but it could cost her everything; her loved ones, her sanity, even her life.
A compelling, gripping psychological thriller with a killer twist from the author of the Number One bestseller The Sister.
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A Letter From Louise
Hello,
I want to say a huge thank you for choosing to read The Surrogate. If you enjoyed it, and want to keep up-to-date with all my latest releases, just sign up at the following link. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
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I’m a little stunned to have finished writing my third book and firstly want to thank everyone who has supported me on my journey so far, both online and offline. With The Sister and The Gift reaching No. 1, both in the UK and abroad, there was a moment of panic, wondering what I could come up with for another book, until I took a deep breath and remembered the best advice I had ever been given:
‘Write the story you’d love to read.’
And that’s what I’ve done.
The idea for The Surrogate was born after I read a magazine article on surrogacy. All worked out well for the couple involved, they ended up with a beautiful baby, but my writer mind immediately started whirring, pondering all the things that could have gone wrong. There is a huge amount of trust placed in a surrogate and I wondered what would happen if that trust was misplaced, and worse still, what if the surrogate was a friend harbouring a grudge? I do hope you have enjoyed reading this story as much as I have enjoyed writing it.
Thanks so much for generously spending your time with Kat and Lisa. I hope you loved their story, and if you did I would be very grateful if you could write a review for The Surrogate. I’d love to hear what you think, and it makes such a difference helping new readers to discover one of my books for the first time.
Hearing from readers really brightens my day. You can find me over at Twitter or Facebook or contact me via my website, where I regularly blog flash fiction.
Speak soon.
Louise x
www.louisejensen.co.uk
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Book Club Questions
1) During the first page of the book we learn that a couple have been murdered. As the book progresses did you find yourself forming theories about the murders and if so, did these theories change as the story evolved?
2) Kat has been lonely since falling out with Lisa many years before and is eager to rebuild their friendship. Do you think it is ever possible to go back and repair past hurt?
3) ‘You mustn’t tell, Kat.’ When you find out what Kat is supposed to keep quiet about, how did you feel? ‘I’m a keeper of secrets, a guardian of the truth.’ Did this change the way you felt about her?
4) Do you think Kat’s desperation for a baby has been at the cost of her happiness?
5) Both Nick and Kat are harbouring secrets. Kat says of Nick ‘Over time I have stopped asking questions because it’s never one-sided, is it? Finding out information. If we have that conversation, sooner or later I’ll be the one expected to talk about my parents, my past, and that’s the last thing I want to do. Anyway, ultimately, we are all the same, aren’t we?’ Do you think this is true?
6) Kat and Nick are both damaged, troubled, characters. How did you feel about them?
7) Throughout the novel did your sense of who could be trusted change?
8) What did you think would be the outcome of Lisa’s pregnancy?
9) ‘It’s almost incomprehensible how the actions of a complete stranger have shaped my life. The butterfly effect. A flutter is all it takes.’ Discuss how different things could have been.
10) What do you think happens after the Epilogue? What would you like to happen?
Acknowledgements
It’s often the easy bit, writing the story, but it needs a brilliant team behind a book to bring it to life. A huge thanks to Olly Rhodes and Bookouture, in particular Kim Nash who always seems to be available with marketing wizardry and gin. Lydia Vassar-Smith for being as excited about my initial idea as I was, and Jenny Geras for her editorial insight and enthusiasm. Cath Burke and the fabulous team at Sphere (Little, Brown) for handling my paperbacks, I’m so grateful to have two dynamic publishers on board. Henry Steadman for another stunning cover. My agent, Rory Scarfe, who is forever calm and the source of endless support.
The writing community is amazing and, although I spend far too much time on Twitter, my days are brighter thanks to the wonderful book bloggers, readers and writers I engage with on a daily basis.
Shannon Keating, thanks for sharing your experience of working for a charity. Symon Adamson – your feedback always sounds better coming from the pub. Bekkii Bridges, Karen Appleby, and my mum for always being there. Lucille Grant – it’s lovely to have someone I trust so implicitly. Your support means a great deal to me. Mick Wynn, having a good friend who is also a writer is a relationship to treasure. Emma Mitchell – I bloody love you! Hilary Tiney, my oldest friend, always on hand with a listening ear; and Sarah Wade who makes sure I have regular Nando’s breaks.
Callum, Kai and Finley, a constant source of joy and pride. Tim: life is ridiculously busy and I’m so glad to have you in my corner.
And always, Ian Hawley.
Published by Bookouture
An imprint of StoryFire Ltd.
23 Sussex Road, Ickenham, UB10 8PN
United Kingdom
www.bookouture.com
Copyright © Louise Jensen, 2017
Louise Jensen has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-78681-222-3
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