STOLEN BAIRNS: Scottish Fiction

by Anne Bone

  She smiled across the table at her fellow diners, old friends all brought together by Beth and Marty. The three couples had kept in regular contact and Des and Daphne spent many happy holidays staying at the villa with Vicky and Richard. Their children were delighted with the story of staying in the villa where their parents first got together to plight their love for each other.

  As the conversation flowed between the friends, Nuria wondered aloud about what Beth would make of tonight. As they all did, after all it was going to be rather special.

  Chapter 43

  Once Beth and Marty returned to their hotel after the conference she made for the bathroom to fill the bath full of hot water, liberally sprinkling the hotel’s special bubble bath solution. She shed her clothes and slipped down into the water until only her head was peering out of the bubbles. She sighed and began to feel the warm water undo some of the tension she had in her muscles and limbs. It was always the same pattern. She always needed some time on her own after she had recounted the events from a quarter of a century ago. She used this time to let herself reflect of what had taken place today. Doing this allowed her the opportunity to try to bring herself back to reality, and bury the emotions and feelings she could not help being resurrected.

  The conference had been interesting and she had met with a number of people who she hoped would be useful to The Trust. She had delivered her keynote speech in her usual clear and professional way. She could never avoid it, that she had still brought some of the pain and passion into the speech. It may have been twenty-five years ago, but when she began to recount how The Trust came about, time vanished, and she felt that she was back in those early dark days.

  There were some pieces of information she never shared with a public audience. These were the most painful and difficult to remember. The days when little Stevie had kicked and screamed and demanded that she returned him to his real mummy. The days when Lucy would hide her face and flinch if Marty went anywhere near her. Beth had on some of these days felt lost again. She and Marty had held each other together and told each other that it would get better, and the children would eventually understand why they had taken them away from the only mother they had remembered.

  When Beth had discovered that she was pregnant with Joanne, both she and Marty had been ecstatic. She had thought that this child would bind the family together again. It was more like a cheap plaster though, than any kind of secure and deep penetrating bond. The bond between Stevie and Lucy was so deep that Joanne was never part of their world. She was on the outside, and Marty and she recognised this and they had tried to compensate.

  Joanne was not the easiest of children. She was constantly demanding attention and when she did not get it, she developed a tantrum, a failing? she never really grew out of. All the family found that the only way they could deal with her tantrums was to give in to her demands.

  Life had been very difficult in those early years after the children had been found. She had not really known what to do and when the Helpline took off, Beth supposed that she did find that it provided a good distraction from having to deal with the difficulties of coping with the children’s needs. Molly, bless her heart, had been the vital and constant lifeline for all of them.

  When Beth reflected on her children, if she was honest, she had to admit that she found Joanne the most difficult of the three. She wondered why and how she had gone wrong. She had been Joanne’s constant mother throughout her life, yet she was the child with whom she had least bonded. She found her relationship with her youngest daughter the most irritating and often she seemed to be at loggerheads with her. She also was the one child who seemed to have no direction. She was always changing jobs and moving around. Nothing was ever good enough; she was always seeking something else or being critical of and blaming everyone else.

  Stevie on the other hand had grown into a young man who was ambitious and able to make his way in the world without any bitterness about what had taken place. She only felt sad that he had not met someone he could settle down with. It had taken many years before her first-born had understood what had happened to him and it had made some sort of sense for him. It was at this time that he seemed to be able to make peace with her. If she had a favourite child then it would be Stevie.

  Lucy had been a much easier child to love. Once Lucy had settled down, she attached herself very firmly to Marty. She loved her dad with a total passion and though he was not her biological father, this was totally irrelevant. She seemed to even develop his mannerisms, and anyone who didn’t know believed she was a child of Marty’s loins.

  Lucy was the home bird; she would be unlikely ever to leave Aberdeen. Lucy was the peacemaker and often Beth felt sorry that she would be the first to give into her little sister’s demands. Beth could recall a thousand incidents when Lucy would hand over something that her sister demanded. Beth wondered again whether she should have been firmer and insisted that Lucy had not done so.

  Marty’s head appeared around the bathroom door, his eyes twinkling. ‘Well my darling, is there room for me too?’

  Beth laughed and flicked bubbles in his direction. ‘You never miss a chance do you?’

  Marty peeled his clothes off and she laughed as he did so when he strutted around the bathroom revealing more and more of his lithe body. Once naked he stepped into the bath at the opposite end. ‘See, I still end up with the taps.’ He chuckled as he too slipped under the water.

  ‘Now just you be careful, this would not be the first hotel bathroom we have ended up flooding with your antics,’ he was firmly told by his wife who had started flicking bubbles in his direction.

  Marty settled himself and looked closely at the woman opposite him. His eyes scanned her face, checking how much today had taken out of her. ‘So my darling, how are you feeling now?’ He poked his toe above the water and stroked her face with it.

  ‘Better. Much better thanks. I think it went ok don’t you?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Just wish though we didn’t have to go to this thing tonight. I would much rather be on our flight back to Aberdeen heading for a quiet night before the telly than going to a restaurant in a posh hotel.’

  ‘Oh come on you, Tom and Liz have invited us we can’t let them down. It’s their wedding anniversary and they have been very supportive of The Trust.’

  Tom and Liz Parry had become involved with The Trust about ten years ago when their grandchildren had been abducted by their American father and taken to the US. Liz had used the Helpline, and had often described it as her lifeline. She had often claimed that it enabled not only her, but also her distraught daughter to get through the days and weeks until they were eventually reunited with the children.

  Tom was a well-known businessman and owned a number of shops, which had grown over the past few years. He had often used his shops to raise funds for and had welcomed the opportunity to be part of The Trust committee. Therefore, when the invite to share a meal to celebrate their wedding anniversary came they had thought that it had been a lucky coincidence that they would be in London that night anyway. There was no way they could refuse.

  ‘I would have loved to have been able to catch up with Stevie seeing we are in London, except that job of his has claimed him again. Just so unlucky for us that he is out of the country when we get down to London.’

  Marty nodded and buried his head below the bubbles so that she could not see his face. She was always able instantly to know by looking at him if he was not telling the truth.

  ‘I think I’d better get out of this water before I end up looking like a total prune.’

  ‘I don’t think you will ever end up looking like a prune my darling. You will always be my beautiful Beth.’

  She flicked bubbles at him for one last time before wrapping the thick white bathrobe around her. ‘Come on, you also better get out, it always takes you ages to get ready… Worse than any woman you are.’

  With this, Marty leapt out the bath, snatched a towel
up and shouted, ‘Right Mrs Paton! I think I am going to demand my conjugal rights now.’

  Beth screeched with laughter as she ran into the bedroom closely followed by a laughing Marty who, she realised meant, exactly what he had just said by the signs of what was appearing under his towel.

  Chapter 44

  There was a flurry of last minute arrangements across town in the West End hotel, as the time approached for the guests of honour to arrive. Tom and Liz were certainly celebrating their wedding anniversary, but it was not going to be tonight. They had used this event as a cover to get Beth here without her twigging that anything else was going on. They were convinced that if she found out she would not attend. She hated any recognition for herself.

  Tom and the rest of the committee had held a number of secret meetings to organise tonight. That alone would bring the wrath of Beth upon them. But, hopefully, she would overlook the doings of her committee after tonight.

  They were all a bit anxious, as when Beth’s gander was up she could be quite a harridan. They had all at one time experienced the sharpness of her tongue if something they had done had not fitted into her plans. Nevertheless, they all loved admired and respected her so they took whatever she threw at them.

  Tonight’s event was going to recognise all the good that had come out of something which had been so awful. It had taken months to arrange, especially trying to track down a number of people who had been involved in The Trust over the years. Thankfully, many of these people had moved on in their lives, but they had been part of the journey and they needed to be contacted.

  Tom had been assisted in his clandestine doings by Dorothy, who he described as the queen of organisation. Dorothy originally hailed from Glasgow and became involved with The Trust a couple of years after it was formed. Dorothy’s story was tragic. She was one of the unlucky ones, her daughter, when eventually found six months after she disappeared, was returned to her mother… in a coffin. Dorothy had never recovered from her loss. She had turned to The Trust as a means of coping and this had become so much part of her life that, for good or bad, it was still her lifeline. Beth and Marty had become her friends and they and only they knew what she had suffered. It was Beth who had been there in the depths of her darkness no matter what time of day or night.

  She would always remember the young police officer who came knocking at her door that bleak winter’s night. They had found a body… a small female body… looks about six years old… it is possibly Jody. Just before she fainted, she had asked them to call Beth to let her know.

  Three hours later another knock at the door and there was Beth and Marty. They took her into their arms, cried with her. They remained with her over the next few days, feeding her tea often laced with brandy to keep her going. They stood by her side when the detective told her that they had managed to identify the body and they could confirm it was Jody. Beth held her when they listened to the results of the post mortem. That her small delicate body had been crushed, beaten until the little girl gave her last breath. Then they had described how she was taken; taken, to a dark cold forest and hidden. Hidden, in a shallow makeshift grave where six months later she was discovered by a dog searching for the stick its owner had thrown.

  After the funeral, Beth had taken her back to Aberdeen where she had stayed in the small back bedroom of Harbour View. She had walked the cliffs and watched the small pilot boat shepherd the large vessels into Aberdeen harbour, just as Beth had done when she had been grieving the loss of her children. Slowly, very slowly, Dorothy had started to function again and was able to return to her home. She had returned to Harbour View a number of times after this: when the police found the man who had taken her Jody; after the trial when he was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment; Jody’s first anniversary; her birthdays… In fact, any time when life became overwhelming, Harbour View became her safe place and Beth, Marty and the Paton household her saviours.

  Dorothy gave back, she gave time, and she became an excellent listener as she operated the Helpline. Ten years after The Trust was formed the first support centre was opened in Glasgow and Dorothy ran it. Dorothy with her warmth and compassion welcomed the users through the door, and made the support centre such a wonderful place to be for those who were searching or had found and realised the child they had found did not resemble the one they had lost.

  Dorothy had been excited about organising this event, although she had disagreed with Tom on the venue. She had argued, and lost her argument, that it should be held in Scotland not London. Tom had won; he had argued that London was easier for those travelling from overseas, and given he was funding the event from his own personal pocket he would choose the venue. Dorothy liked and respected Tom and given the latter, there was no argument.

  Dorothy was now in her element making sure that all the place cards were in the agreed places. Her second in command was Lesley, another mum whose son was still missing and had been for seven years. Malcolm had been lost during a holiday in Turkey: one minute he was beside her on the crowded beach and the next minute he had vanished. The sea and cliffs were searched, as had the beach and the local town and villages. There was no sign. Lesley and Malcolm’s father were convinced he had been abducted, not taken by the sea as the local police believed. The strain on the couple ended their marriage and Lesley had found The Trust. Lesley returned to the same beach in Turkey every year on the same day that Malcolm had gone missing. She continued the search and occasionally she would get some information about a sighting of a boy like Malcolm and her hopes would soar. Sadly, these sighting never came to anything.

  When she watched Lesley, Dorothy often thought that she was the lucky one. Some would find this unbelievable. How could someone whose only daughter had been brutally murdered, think they were lucky? Dorothy knew where Jody was, she was able to make sure that she was able to care lovingly for the grave where her darling daughter lay. Lesley did not know whether her son was in a grave or growing up believing he was someone else. Dorothy knew… Lesley did not.

  This was the beauty of The Trust, you found others who had lost and that single thread weaved each and everyone together until they felt joined and able to function again.

  Dorothy and Lesley became firm friends and although they lived at different ends of the country, Lesley in Kent and Dorothy in Glasgow, they visited each other frequently. They had enjoyed plotting and planning over this event and could not wait to see Beth’s face when she walked into the room.

  The function room at the hotel was looking wonderful. The ten round tables were set for ten. In the centre of the tables were candelabra, and the candles were now being lit in readiness for the first guests who were soon to arrive.

  Daphne arrived to inspect the room, she being one of the original members of The Trust committee and could be counted on to ensure that nothing would be out of order. She was going to meet the first of the special guests who would be the compere for tonight’s event.

  Dorothy and Lesley were flapping about as usual. Daphne waved to them, ‘Is everything going to plan you two?’ she asked.

  They both nodded, their faces glowing with excitement.

  Daphne wandered around the room peering occasionally at the place cards, nodding as she did, remembering the names and the stories which went with them. On one table, she saw the names of a family who were reunited last year. Their fourteen-year-old daughter had been the victim of a paedophile whom she had met on an internet site. He had groomed her well. When she had met him, she found a middle-aged man rather than the eighteen-year-old boy she had believed she would be meeting. The man had taken her then and she had not gone willingly. It was two weeks before she was able to get away from him, not before he had subjected her to numerous disgusting and degrading acts. Her parents had been using the Helpline and, when she was found, The Trust supported and provided specialist help for her and her parents and siblings who too were traumatised by the events. The family had begun to rebuild their lives and when they we
re asked whether they would like to attend tonight’s events they jumped at it. Beth and The Trust had done so much for them they wanted to come and say thank you personally to her.

  There were many others whose lives had been touched by what Beth and The Trust had achieved, Daphne sighed deeply. She was one of the few people who knew the true story of what The Trust had taken out of Beth. She hoped that tonight Beth would realise just how much her work had been appreciated and by the many people she had helped along the way. That is, if she didn’t decide to just turn and walk the other way once she found out that this had been organised behind her back.

  Daphne shuddered with this thought. Before she could think about it any further she saw Des waving to her from the doorway. He was pointing behind him which she realised was his way of letting her know she was needed in the reception to meet one of the special guests.