“I'm not going anywhere.” Mark wanted to add I love you, I'm not leaving you like this. I would never leave you like this, but he just stayed sitting on the corner of the bed, his hands flat on the polyester bedspread either side of him.
Christine lowered her hands and stared at him through wet eyes. He couldn't be sure, but he thought she was looking at him and seeing the guy she had spent New Year's Eve with, the guy who had held her and kissed her and made love to her, not her cold, distant boss. He hoped that was what she was seeing. He stayed silent and as still as he could. He could feel and hear his own heart thumping in his chest. After a short while, she turned away and stared out the window again. She seemed to be seeing past the city lights, past the dark sky. She stood like that for what felt like a long time. Mark’s gaze never moved from her face.
“I had a baby,” she said at last.
Mark felt his own face flush with heat. He held his breath.
Christine stayed staring out of the window. “When I was studying for my Ph.D. in England, my Mom got very sick, very suddenly. She had an aneurysm. She didn't die, but they couldn't revive her. I went home, because we were told she might only last three or four weeks.”
Her voice was monotone. It felt to Mark like she was almost talking to herself, like she had forgotten that he was in the room. He said nothing.
“She only lasted three,” she went on. “But we were all there. When she died.”
Her voice cracked, and Mark had to fight the impulse to grab her into his arms. Something told him to let her talk, to let her finish.
“I found out the same day. The day we buried her. I was sitting in my father's room when I realised I was late, and I just knew. And I was. Pregnant.” She whispered the word like it was the most horrifying condition to be in. “We had just buried her. My beautiful, perfect mother.” She lowered her face into her hands and her shoulders shook.
Mark sat still on the bed, just watching her.
After a moment, she wiped her hand across her nose and looked up again, out of the window. “I didn't cope very well. I deferred my thesis, and stayed at home in Dublin with my Dad. And I decided… I made the decision… I decided to have the baby adopted as soon as it was born. Just like that. I decided to abandon her before she had even taken her first breath. Her mother. That's what I did.”
Her voice was suddenly so hard and filled with disgust. Mark started to speak. “But -”
But you were grieving, you had just lost your own mother. You can't blame yourself for that.
But he found he couldn't articulate his thoughts. Christine turned to him suddenly, and the look of self-reproach in her eyes shocked him.
“I, who had the most perfect mother.” She stared at him for a moment, and then her shoulders relaxed. “I abandoned her. Before she had a chance.”
Mark closed his open mouth. Christine turned back to the window. She ran her finger and thumb down the edge of the curtain that was pushed to one side. Mark watched her hand move. He remembered that same hand on his chest.
“She was due that February.” She closed her arms around herself and shivered, even in the stifling warmth of the hotel room. “But I got sick one day. In January. I was brought into hospital. My blood pressure -” Her voice was almost a whisper again. “They had to get her out. It was all so fast. I'd been totally fine -” She shook her head. “They took her away, but -” She stopped. Mark's head was spinning.
“They couldn't save her.” The words were barely audible. Then her body lurched in a strange, dance-like movement and to Mark's alarm Christine turned and rushed towards the bathroom with her hand over her mouth. He jumped up and went after her, sliding to his knees on the tiled floor as she retched into the toilet bowl. He put his arm around her shoulders and tried to hold her hair as she retched and retched, each contraction of her body interspersed with loud sobs which seemed to come from her very core. They frightened him.
“Christine, it wasn't your fault. You did nothing wrong. It wasn't your fault.” His voice was breaking.
“I abandoned her. She thought I didn't love her.” She retched. “I was her mother.” She looked up at Mark, her eyes pools of tears. “Her mother.”
Mark pulled her back from the bowl until she was sitting upright on the floor. He grabbed a towel that was hanging near him and wiped her face gently with it. “Christine, it wasn't your fault.” He didn't know what else to say. She stopped sobbing, and sat staring straight ahead as he sat next to her, wiping her cheeks. After a moment, she pushed the towel away.
“Her name was Zoë,” she whispered.
“That's a beautiful name.”
“My Dad named her. I – I wasn't able. I hadn't a name ready. Her new parents were to name her. I didn't want to know.”
“Well, it's a lovely name.” Mark felt anything he said would be inadequate, but Christine hardly seemed to notice anyway.
“He said he tried to think of a name that wasn't already in the family. No associations. My poor Dad.” Christine started to sob again. Mark reached for her hand.
“He made me see her. I didn't want to, but he made me sit there while a nurse brought her in.”
Mark said nothing.
“I couldn't, I couldn't hold her.” Christine dropped her head to her chest. “But I kissed her. And I told her I was sorry.”
Mark squeezed her limp hand.
“She was so, little.” Christine looked up into his face. “And so cold.”
Mark tried to blink away the unfamiliar tears that were forming in his eyes. Without letting go of her hand, he slid across the tiles until he was sitting next to her, leaning against the side of the bath. He put his arm around her shoulder and drew her in to him. She laid her head on his chest, like she had done in the taxi from Shay and Nina's house. But this time, her body felt weak and lifeless against his. They sat there for a while.
“Was Nick Zoë's father?” Mark said without thinking.
Christine just nodded her head against his shirt.
He squeezed her tighter to him. “Did he know about her? About Zoë?”
This time Christine shook her head and sat upright. “No,” she said. “It had just been a fling. I don't know. Maybe that was wrong too. Not to tell him. But I decided not to involve him. And then – well then it didn't matter anyway.”
Mark thought about this. He tried to imagine himself in Nick's place. Would he want to know? Probably not, if he were honest. What good would it do anyone now. Knowing. She was gone now. Unless he would want to -
“She's buried with my mother,” Christine said, as if reading his mind. “At least she has that. She was never left alone. She's with her grandmother.”
Mark tried to get his head around this slightly demented logic. He didn't think any words he could say would comfort Christine so he just remained on the floor beside her, holding her hand. The tears had stopped, and she just sat there, deflated. Then she sighed and tossed her head to one side.
“I'm so tired,” she said softly.
Mark was fairly sure that her exhaustion was more than physical. Christine looked like someone who was carrying an enormous burden around with her, and was about to collapse under the strain of it. He thought for a second before standing up and gently lifting her to her feet. She felt like a ragdoll to him.
“Come on,” he said quietly, and he half carried, half dragged her back into the bedroom and sat her down on the bed. She was about to lie down when he held her upright again.
“Wait a sec,” he said, and he opened a press under the bureau identical to the one in his own room upstairs. He rifled through the small bottles inside, before settling on a miniature of brandy which he brought to her. He sat next to her on the bed, and emptied the bottle into a glass tumbler from the nightstand.
“Here,” he said.
She didn't question it, she just took the glass and drank it back in two mouthfuls, wincing at the burn in her throat after each swallow. Then she lay down on the bed, and turned on her side
without saying a thing. After hesitating a moment, Mark took off her shoes. Then he turned down all the lights, except the one in the bathroom, and stood at the end of the bed, watching her.
Christ. Poor Christine. His emotions were a jumble of sympathy and shock, but also distress. Distress for the knowledge that the person he loved was carrying this weight around with her all these years, clearly trying to lead a normal life, outwardly at least. But who could live a normal life with that level of guilt? And nothing, from what he could tell, was going to improve the situation. If five years hadn’t eased her pain, he wondered what could.
Standing there, looking at Christine lying silently on the bed, Mark saw a future full of reminders, full of setbacks, full of pain and regret and guilt. He wondered how many others knew the truth. Not many, he guessed. Nina certainly didn't. She would have hinted at it.
But she had told him. She had opened up to him. Mark accepted that this had a lot to do with the fact that he just happened to be here, happened to witness her reunion with Nick.
But still. She needn't have opened the door. She needn't have told him a thing. She needn't have let him in.
Mark stood on the heel of his right shoe with his left foot, and did the same with the right, kicking the shoes under a chair. He walked over to the window, and drew the sheer curtain across, dulling the distant fairy-lights of London city. Then he lay down on the bed facing her. His arm was awkwardly around the top of her head, but she opened her eyes and without meeting his, moved very slightly closer to him, her head against his shoulder.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered.
“Don't be,” he whispered back. “I'm here.”
She closed her eyes again. Her breathing was slow and steady, and sometime in the next half hour, Mark fell asleep.
~
At four AM he woke, partly because he was cold, partly because of the unfamiliarity of his sleeping position. She was still lying beside him, but she had turned and was facing the wall. He pulled the polyester eiderdown up over them from the end of the bed. Then he put his arm around her, and fell back asleep.
~
The room was emblazoned with sunlight when Mark woke again. In a second he saw that there was no sign of Christine, and for a moment he thought he must have returned to his own room at some point during the night. But he couldn’t remember doing so, and when he sat upright on the bed, he saw his shoes under the chair where he had discarded them the night before. He scanned the room, but there was no trace of her.
“Christine?” He stood and went over to the bathroom door, but it was ajar, and the light was off. When he turned it on, he could see that the room had been cleared of the bottles and jars he had noticed the previous evening. Mark looked at his watch. Eight forty-five. She would have planned to be packed and finishing breakfast by now. The first talk of the morning was to begin at nine fifteen. She would have brought her luggage down to reception with her, ready to collect it after the conference finished that afternoon. She was probably down there now.
Mark sat on the end of the bed and pulled on his shoes. It was a little strange that she hadn’t woken him. But then, he could imagine how she must be feeling. She was probably mortified that he had seen her in the state she was in. He could understand that. And she was probably still upset about seeing Nick. He wished he had woken, so he could put her mind at rest. He would have told her that her secret was safe with him, that he wouldn’t mention it again if she didn’t want him to. But maybe she might want him to. Maybe she would feel like she could really talk to him now.
Mark looked at his watch again. He had definitely missed breakfast, but if he hurried, he might catch a moment with her before the first talk began. He scanned the room one more time, before heading out and up to his own room on the floor above to change and get his things.
~
“Hello Mr. Harrington. Mark.” Sally wheezed, and stuck her hand out.
Mark shook it awkwardly. “Sally, how are you. You just here?”
“No, I came for the breakfast.”
Mark raised an eyebrow.
“I’m just heading in now, the first talk is getting started. Was yesterday useful?”
“Eh, yeah.” Mark could hardly remember the conference yesterday.
“Do you usually attend these things? The bosses in London rarely do. In fact, never do. I think it’s great that you are still interested in what’s going on at the grassroots level, you know? It’s good when a boss is willing to put himself out there and see what is really going on, and how it can affect the business. Not naming names,” Sally blushed, “but the London bosses are a bit more ivory-tower, you know? Sometimes you’d wonder if they don’t just get to the top and give up, and just sit in their fancy offices and play solitaire while everyone else actually keeps the business going.”
Mark tuned out as it seemed that Sally had plenty more to say on the subject, and had no need to take breaths like a normal person. She kept talking as they walked into the conference hall, Mark’s eyes scanning the room for Christine all the while. He walked towards the area they had sat the previous day, ignoring Sally’s gestures towards empty seats along the way. The seats they had been in were occupied by a group of people who all seemed to know each other, and were chatting loudly even as the chairman requested everyone to quieten down and take their seats. Mark sat down a few rows behind them, and Sally sat next to him. He looked around again, but there was no sign of her.
“I’m just looking for Christine,” Mark said. “I, eh, I haven’t seen her all morning.”
“Oh I saw her earlier,” Sally said, studying a page which contained the day’s agenda. “She was at reception checking out when I arrived.”
“She was?” Mark turned in his seat. “Had she her suitcase? I mean,” he checked himself when he thought he saw a strange look flicker in Sally’s eye. “I mean, was she actually leaving? Or was she just paying for the room? I presume she was just leaving her bag with the porter until after the conference?”
“I presume so,” Sally shrugged her shoulders.
Mark wanted to shake her. “So you didn’t see her actually leave.”
“No. I didn’t even speak to her, there was quite a queue, and she was talking with the receptionist.” Sally looked up at Mark. “Why would she be leaving? I mean, she had planned to be here for both days, hadn’t she? Otherwise we could have split one registration fee, cos I knew I wouldn’t make yesterday’s talk. That’s a shame, if I’d known she wasn’t going to be here today -”
“She is to be here today,” Mark said. “I’m sure she is here. Somewhere.” The room hushed as the first speaker took his place on the podium. “We’ll see her at the coffee break,” he whispered. But Sally’s eyes were fixed on the projected presentation, and she wasn’t listening. Mark took one more fruitless look around the room, and then tried to concentrate on how carbon credits might impact his business in the near future.
~
“You’ll be okay you know. You’re doing the right thing. You need to get away from everything for a while. Stay as long as you need to, Chris. CarltonWachs can survive without you for a few weeks. This will be good for you. Aggie will look after you, and you can be there for her when, when she needs you.”
The phone went silent for a moment.
“Chris? Chris?”
“I’m here.”
“You’ll be okay, Chris.” Emily didn’t sound too convincing to Christine.
“It’s just, it’s just he was so good to me. And now I’m just running away.”
“You’re not running away. You need time. Mark will understand. Christine? Are you still there? Mark will understand.”
Christine wasn’t so sure.
Twenty Six“It’s almost as if it all never happened. They’re saying we can bring her home tomorrow. Possibly even this evening, if the consultant gets to see her today.” Shay sat on the sofa in Mark’s office, cupping the mug of coffee Mark had made for him. All traces of his holiday tan were go
ne, bleached by a week of terror and sheer exhaustion. But his eyes told the story of a father who had just been given everything he had ever wanted.
“You shouldn’t have come in this morning,” Mark said. “Nina needs you. You should go back in to her. Or at least go home and sleep for an hour.”
“Thanks Mark, but I just wanted to check up on things before the weekend. And Nina’s okay now. She slept at home last night. I just saw her at the hospital when she came back in.”
“You were there all night?”
“Yeah, but Lucy slept. Pretty much. So it was okay. Jesus,” Shay suddenly dropped his head to his chest. “I just can’t -” He looked up at Mark, his eyes wet. “I just can’t imagine.”
“I know, mate. I know.” Mark reached over and put his hand on Shay’s arm. He guessed that Shay hadn’t really talked about what had happened yet. He had almost lost a child, his baby girl. For some reason, Shay had been offered a reprieve. Lucy was going to be okay. But her father was most likely still in a state of unexpressed shock. No doubt he had being trying his best to stay strong for Nina and their boys all week. Now he needed a shoulder to sob on. Well, he had come to the right guy. Mark found it amusing how he had suddenly turned into the person everyone opened up to. It was a new departure for him.
Shay pinched the bridge of his nose. “So,” he said after a moment, sitting up straighter on the sofa. “How was Chicago? Did you find out why they felt the need to attend our strategy meeting? And how did the second day go? And the conference in London? Jeez, how long have I been out?” he smiled. “It feels like I’ve missed an awful lot.”
Mark nodded slowly at his coffee. “It’s been a busy couple of weeks, that’s for sure,” he said.
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