Motherlove

by Thorne Moore

  ‘Whenever you like. I’m going to take some time off work. I’m with Mum. Trying to repair things.’

  ‘That’s good!’ The flutter again. He was still her Ben. ‘I am glad. I’ll come tomorrow if you like.’

  ‘Thank you! Could we meet—?’ He paused.

  ‘In the park?’

  ‘Yes. Would you mind?’

  ‘No. I don’t mind. I’ll see you there.’

  Roz was leaning on the gate, looking at the sheep.

  ‘I’ve got to go back to Lyford,’ said Kelly. ‘I’ve got to see them again.’

  ‘Yes. Of course you do.’ Roz’s fingers closed on the gate, her arms bracing with determination. ‘When are you going?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  Roz nodded. ‘Will you take me with you?’

  ‘To Lyford! Why? You can’t undo any of it, you know.’

  ‘I know. But I keep thinking about her, them, all of them. That family. That girl, the baby I abandoned.’

  ‘You can’t go and see Victoria.’

  ‘I didn’t realise how much I hurt her. She was so angry. The baby I gave up.’

  ‘You gave her up because you thought, in your muddled way, it was for the best. Yes, she is angry, but it’s not for you to try and put things right. It wouldn’t work. You gave her up then, you have to give her up this time too. She knows where you are. If she wants to make contact again, she’ll come to you. You can’t ask anything of her.’

  Roz smiled bleakly. ‘You can’t be my daughter, can you? Far too wise. No, I won’t force myself on her. But I need to go to Lyford. Please take me. I’m going to go to the police.’

  ‘Don’t be crazy. What good would that do after all these years?’

  ‘Everyone thought she’d killed you, didn’t they? Heather Norris.’

  ‘She was never charged.’

  ‘Just suspected. All these years. At least I can set the record straight.’

  ‘And be taken to court?’ Was there a statute of limitations on child abduction? Kelly had no idea. ‘You want to go to prison?’

  ‘I should, shouldn’t I? I did all this. I did so many bad things. I ought to pay in the end.’

  ‘Look. I’m not going to excuse everything you did, but you were a child, trying to survive. Who’s it going to help if you go to prison?’

  ‘It will clear her name.’ Roz smiled. ‘Please Kelly. I’m going to do this. It would be easier if I came with you now.’

  ‘You realise if they see you, they’ll probably lynch you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t blame them.’

  Kelly looked at her. The final step of growing up, for both of them maybe. ‘All right. I’ll speak sweetly to Joe, see if he’ll chicken-sit again.’

  ‘I never intended to hurt anyone, you know. Least of all you, Kelly. And you’ve been hurt so much, haven’t you?’

  ‘I’ll get by. Not sure how, but I will.’

  It was dry at least, sun glinting through occasionally, a bit of a breeze fluttering the leaves. Sunday and the park was busy. Not as busy as it might have been on a Sunday fifty years earlier, but not the ghost park it was on weekdays.

  ‘I remember it,’ said Roz. ‘There was crazy golf over there. And the boat-yard. That’s still there.’ Children were out in paddle boats, and one cocky teenager was trying to look cool in a canoe. Her eyes moved round, across the lake, following the line of the fence.

  Kelly was ahead of her. She had already seen the woman and the young man.

  Roz said, ‘Is that them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Roz squared her shoulders.

  ‘No.’ Kelly put a hand on her arm. ‘Don’t come now. Let me see them first. I don’t know how things are going to work out this time, but let’s take it one step at a time. Me first.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  She left Roz by a willow tree, and walked round the lake. She didn’t have hopes or expectations any more. She just wanted to get it over with.

  Heather watched her approach, scarcely breathing. How had she not realised before? Take away the green streak in Kelly’s shaggy hair, the nose stud, the tattoo, and anyone could see she was Ben’s sister.

  He was standing back, nervous, hurting, saying nothing.

  Heather took a step forward as Kelly came up to them. She forced herself to reach out, touch her cheek. Experimental. The girl might just dissolve, like all the girls in her dreams. ‘Abigail.’

  ‘Yes. I was Abigail.’

  Heather nodded. Closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. ‘Yes, you are.’

  Kelly forced a laugh that was anything but humour. ‘Well. Hello.’

  Heather tried a smile. ‘You look like a gypsy.’

  ‘I am a bit of a gypsy, I suppose.’

  Ben came forward at last. ‘A farmer, aren’t you, Abigail. Sheep and chickens and goats called Eleanor and Rigby.’ Proving he remembered every word.

  ‘It sounds like fun,’ said Heather, her voice half strangled.

  ‘Pretty much fun,’ agreed Kelly. ‘At least when the weather’s good.’ Was this it? No fireworks of denial this time, but then no fireworks of any description. A mother and daughter separated for twenty-two years and they had nothing to say. Impulsively, she took Heather’s hand. She should try to relate to this hurt woman. She couldn’t yet, but perhaps they could make it happen.

  Heather looked at Kelly’s hand in hers, then gripped the girl’s shoulders. Forced back the sobs that were clawing at her.

  Ben put his arm round his mother and smiled at Kelly, a smile of pure relief. ‘Thank you. I wouldn’t have blamed you for refusing ever to speak to us again.’

  ‘I’d never refuse to speak to you, Ben.’

  ‘No.’ He looked down.

  ‘Is this her?’ Another man’s voice, abrupt. Kelly looked round. A middle-aged man, overweight, thinning hair, was striding down on them with a newspaper under his arm. ‘You’re telling me this is Abigail?’ He said it as an accusation.

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  Martin Norris looked Kelly up and down. She guessed she was not quite what he wanted to see. ‘Hello,’ she said.

  ‘What proof do we have?’

  ‘Dad!’

  ‘No, no, some girl appears out of nowhere, and asks us to believe that she’s the daughter we lost as a baby? You expect me to believe that without evidence?’

  Heather turned to her former husband. ‘She is our daughter, Martin.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course you’ll want to claim any girl that throws herself in our way, Heather. Anything to get you off the hook, prove you the martyr, but I’m not falling for every junky con artist that tries it on. A genetic test will prove it. Are you willing to be tested?’

  Kelly looked at him, confronting his anger. Why should she help this man out? ‘No.’

  ‘No? In that case, I would say point proven. Because there’s no earthly reason why I should believe you. If you refuse to take the test—’

  ‘I refuse, because I’m not here to prove anything to you. I am your daughter, and if you don’t like it, or you’re not convinced, then that’s your problem, not mine. I came because Ben asked me to come. If you don’t want to acknowledge me, that’s fine by me.’

  ‘She is our daughter,’ repeated Heather.

  ‘She’s Abigail,’ confirmed Ben. ‘She’s told me exactly what happened.’

  ‘Anyone could make up a story. It doesn’t make it true.’

  ‘It is true,’ said Roz.

  Kelly span round.

  Roz was coming along the path towards them. ‘It is true. I took the baby, from her pram by the bushes. I took her.’

  ‘You!’ Martin’s suspicions of Kelly turned to outright spluttering fury at Roz. His face deepened to dark red. ‘You come here, after twenty-two years, and coolly announce that you stole our child!’

  ‘I took her,’ repeated Roz.

  ‘Right! Hold her! I’m calling the police. I want that woman locked up!’ He was groping for his mobile.

  ‘St
op it,’ said Ben, a hand on his father’s arm. ‘Calm down.’ But the sight of Roz made him too angry to say more. Angry and desperately trying to contain it.

  ‘Damned if I’m going to stop it. I want her prosecuted. I want her punished!’ Martin stepped up to Roz, hand out to stop her escaping. ‘You know what you did? To us? Why? Why did you think you could destroy our lives for your amusement? Eh? Tell me that!’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Roz. ‘I wanted my baby back. I thought she was my baby. Or I wanted to think she was my baby.’

  ‘Tell that to the police, and see how they like it! You’re dying, that right? I hope so, because it means you’ll die in prison, where you belong.’

  ‘Leave her alone!’ Kelly stepped between them. ‘She’s not dying, but she is ill. She’s going to the police anyway.’

  ‘You defend her? She stole you!’

  ‘She loved me.’

  ‘Love!’ Martin, trembling, was guided back by his son. Ben could not look at Roz, but he was trying to keep it together.

  Martin jerked free, raising his finger to jab in Roz’s face. ‘You dare to say you loved her! You’re not fit—!’

  ‘Martin,’ said Heather. A quiet authoritative voice.

  He turned towards her, resentful of being diverted.

  ‘I know what all this fire and fury is about. You feel guilty, don’t you? Guilty that you never believed me. So guilty, you won’t even accept your own daughter now she’s come back.’

  ‘I didn’t say that. But how can she be my daughter if she defends that woman!’

  Heather took a deep breath, then took a step towards Roz, forcing herself to look at her. ‘You looked after her?’

  ‘I tried,’ said Roz.

  ‘You made her happy?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kelly.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Heather.

  ‘Thank you?’ repeated Martin.

  ‘I don’t thank her for taking Abigail, or for putting us through so much misery. No, I’ll never forgive her for that. But I can thank her for keeping my baby alive and well and happy. I thought whoever took her might have killed her. I thought I might have killed her.’ Heather looked at her hands, as she had in secret so many times over the years, expecting spots of blood. ‘Everyone told me I had. I began to believe it myself.’

  Her voice broke. ‘Someone just tell me. Can I stop being mad now?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Ben and Kelly together, seizing her hands.

  Heather looked away, out over the lake. ‘Try to remember, Ben said, when he came back to me. So I kept coming here, hoping that one day it would happen, I would trigger some memory I must have blocked out. Whatever it was I’d done, if I could just remember…’

  ‘Mum.’ Ben was crying, tears on his cheeks. ‘I should have believed you.’

  ‘Someone should have.’ Heather shot a look of accusation at Martin, then a smile of consolation at her son.

  Finally, she turned once more to Kelly, looking deep into her eyes. ‘Yes. You are Abigail. I have missed so much. It should have been mine – your whole life. I’ve missed it.’ At last the sobs broke loose.

  Kelly’s instinct was to hug her. But Roz needed hugging too. Roz had stood by, taking their abuse. She deserved it maybe, but she was trying to do the right thing now. Which mother was Kelly to turn to and comfort? And Ben. It was Ben that Kelly wanted to hug more than anyone. Ben her lover. But never again.

  ‘We’ll have to see if we can fill in the pieces,’ she said.

  First they had to pick them up. No one seemed to be sure how to do it.

  ‘Will you come back to Mum’s place?’ suggested Ben.

  ‘Sure.’ Go back to a house and resolutely play happy families with bright fake smiles. She would have to do it, but not yet. ‘First I’m going with Mum…with Roz. To the police station. That first.’

  iii

  Vicky

  The curling wave of the downs was scarred with white streaks in the dry grass where the chalk etched through, with, here and there, a scattering of stunted thorn bushes. From the foot of the escarpment, a panorama of home counties countryside rolled out to a distant haze. Behind, on the dip slope, the lush green of beech woods. Up in the sky, three hi-tec kites fought for supremacy.

  ‘We used to come here and fly kites, didn’t we,’ said Vicky. ‘I’d forgotten. Dad made me one.’

  ‘And I painted a face on it,’ Gillian reminded her. ‘A cat.’

  ‘It was a tiger, I thought.’

  ‘It was supposed to be a tabby cat.’

  ‘All right. And we’d always have an ice cream from the van by the car park.’

  ‘The van’s still there. Shall we…’ Gillian hesitated. ‘I suppose you shouldn’t really eat ice creams.’

  ‘What the hell,’ said Vicky. ‘I can manage one.’

  It was all slightly artificial still, this fellowship, but they were working at it. Arm in arm, they walked back along the downs to the ice cream van, dodging frisbees and small children rolling down the hill. Then they walked on, licking their cones.

  ‘It’s such a terrible story, baby snatching, the whole thing.’ Gillian shaded her eyes to focus on a distant church tower. ‘So much hurt. And you’ve met all of them.’

  ‘Sort of. I talked to Heather. I tried to help. Think I got through to her.’

  ‘And your real mother too.’

  ‘Rosalind gave birth to me. That’s not what being a mother is. That’s what Joan did, give birth to you.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. That’s not being a mother. Did you sort things out with Rosalind too?’

  ‘Not really. I was too angry, too eager to blame her. I shouted at her. She cried.’

  ‘Did she explain why she’d left you?’

  ‘She was very young. Just a child who couldn’t cope.’

  ‘I thought it would be that. And I was so old. I used to worry that it would matter, me standing with the grannies at the school gates, instead of with the young mums. It was never that I should have been worrying about, was it?’ Gillian stared up at the sky, her fist clenching. ‘Why couldn’t I see?’

  ‘Because you were Joan’s victim too. Another little project.’ Vicky contemplated her ice cream. ‘I can’t believe it never occurred to me. Of course she’d done the same thing to you. You got over it. I’m over it too. Or I will be. I’m going to be a doctor, sort out other people, heal their pain. Got to start with myself, haven’t I?’

  Gillian hugged her, ice cream smearing her cheek. ‘I was so selfish, bringing you into that house.’

  ‘No! No, believe me, you did me a favour. If it hadn’t all happened, I’d be living in a shack down a muddy lane, with a tattoo and a nose stud.’

  ‘And instead you had Joan.’

  ‘We all had Joan. And now we don’t.’

  ‘Is it too vindictive, getting Dad to change the locks?’

  ‘I don’t see there’s anything wrong with a little vindictiveness.’

  Gillian squeezed her daughter. A new relationship, one she still had to learn, but it was wholesome. The poison had been sucked out. ‘And he was delighted to do it, wasn’t he? I can’t remember your father looking that ferocious and determined.’

  ‘Dad the warrior.’ Vicky smiled. ‘Come on, let’s go home and see how he’s getting on. Give him some moral support.’

  They turned back towards the lime green Mini. ‘Are you going to see any of them again, do you think?’ asked Gillian.

  Vicky thought about it. ‘I suppose. Some time.’

  iv

  Early morning in Portland Park, the sun sparkling on the lake, dew on the grass, a few ducks still with their heads tucked under.

  It was the best time of day, Kelly always thought. Everything fresh, nothing smudged yet.

  It would be smudged soon enough.

  She leaned on the railings, watching the breeze whip up a scurry of ripples on the opaque surface of the lake.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hi,’ Kelly responded, without thinking,
before she’d had time to look at the solitary walker. Then she recognised the girl. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Do you mind?’

  Did she mind what? The girl being there in the park with her? In the world with her? Or in her life, shattering it apart. ‘No.’ There were yards of vacant railing, but Kelly shifted along as if to make room for her.

  Vicky came forward, touching the rail, running her fingers along it. ‘I thought you might be here. I almost caught you yesterday, but you were just leaving. I thought you must be an early bird.’

  ‘A bird who’s not sleeping, at any rate.’

  ‘Yes. Of course. It’s all…’ She shrugged. ‘Sorry about the way I behaved at your house.’

  ‘You were upset,’ said Kelly. ‘Of course you were. I didn’t understand then. I didn’t know the full story. It must have hurt so much.’

  Vicky’s eyes were fixed on the surface of the lake. ‘I wanted it to hurt.’

  ‘To hurt Mum, you mean.’

  ‘No, to hurt me.’ Vicky shook her head, clearing it. ‘It’s complicated. Never mind that. Did you honestly know nothing? You didn’t even suspect?’

  ‘No. Why would I?’

  ‘Never thought you didn’t really belong?’

  ‘Is that how it was for you?’

  ‘Yes. Not now.’

  ‘Will you ever be able to forgive her, do you think?’

  ‘I expect so. What’s the point in not? Will you?’

  ‘Oh yes. But it’s not for me to forgive, is it? I didn’t lose anything by it – at least I didn’t know I had.’

  ‘Your parents. Your brother.’

  ‘Yes. My brother.’ Kelly cleared her throat. ‘I didn’t know I had a brother to lose. But it turns out I did, and I lost him then, and now I’ve lost him again in a different way. Not sure about my parents. Heather – she told me you met her, gave her the whole story. Convinced her I wasn’t just an impostor.’

  ‘Yes, well, she’s met plenty who were, I think. Me included. So the whole family is reunited at last.’

  ‘Not really.’ Kelly gave a hollow laugh. ‘We’re jointly occupying Lyford, you might say. Mum and me at a guest-house, Mr. Nor— my father at the Linley, my brother and my – other mother at her house. And you. Do you live here too?’

  ‘Yes. With my mum and dad. Just the three of us. No one else. What’s going to happen, do you know? About your – my – our mother.’