by Mary Grand
It was a uniformed man, and he had one had lying on the bed, joined to the patient with a handcuff. Juliet’s first reaction was to think how ridiculous and unnecessary the handcuff was, but she had lived on the island with its prison and workers for long enough to know what a prison warder looked like. So, the man was a prisoner… what relation was he to Anwen? What was going on in there?
Her gaze switched back to Anwen.
‘Can I help you?’ a voice said behind her.
Juliet swung around on her heels to face the nurse talking to her.
‘Um, sorry, I think I’ve come to the wrong place.’ Juliet could feel her cheeks redden. She glanced back into the room and for a millisecond she was sure her gaze met Anwen’s.
Juliet was glad to get away but resisted the temptation to run like hell out of the hospital. She had to find out more and so, although she’d left the ward, she waited just inside the short corridor that led to the next ward. She took out her phone and tried to look like she was studying it but kept glancing up at the entrance to the ward she’d just left.
Finally, she saw Anwen, and Jean come out, and walked slowly behind them at a distance. She watched them get in the lift and so ran to the stairs, where she was able to catch sight of them coming out, but what to do next?
She decided to take a gamble and walk in their direction. She tried to casually greet them, saying in as surprised a voice as she could, ‘Oh goodness, hi Anwen.’
Anwen screwed her eyes up with suspicion. ‘What are you doing here, Juliet?’
‘I could say the same to you,’ said Juliet, laughing too loudly, and casting a questioning look at Jean.
‘I’m Jean,’ the woman introduced herself, holding out her hand to shake Juliet’s.
‘I have been visiting an old friend with my aunt,’ said Anwen and then as Jean was clearly expecting it said, ‘Jean, this is Juliet, one of the sisters of my friend Cassie.’
‘How lovely to meet you,’ said Jean in a warm, Welsh, maternal way.
‘Ah, you have Anwen’s lovely accent, you must be from Wales as well?’ said Juliet, trying to keep things light and ignoring the glare from Anwen.
‘I am. I travelled up this morning. The journey’s not as bad as you think is it, although I shall stay here overnight, too far to do both ways in a day.’
‘So, what are you doing here, Juliet?’ asked Anwen.
‘Oh, I’m visiting a girl I was at school with,’ said Juliet, thinking quickly. ‘She’s in for a minor op, just thought I’d pop and say hello.’
‘That’s kind,’ said Jean. ‘I like this hospital, not as big as some of the places back home. The staff are very friendly, they are getting to know me now.’
‘So, you’ve been coming over a lot?’
‘Just a few times, I don’t visit as often as Anwen of course, but I shall come again next week.’ She glanced at Anwen. ‘I’ll make it Friday, all being well.’
‘I think I’m working then.’
‘Never mind, I can visit alone.’
‘I hope you are staying somewhere nice,’ Juliet said, trying to sound normal and chatty, and ignore the continued glare from Anwen.
‘Oh, just a Travelodge, but it’s a good price, very clean. They do a good meal deal in the evenings. Anwen is taking me somewhere fancy tonight, but I am very happy staying there.’
‘Anyway, we ought to get going,’ said Anwen. ‘Good luck with your visit, although the visiting time must be nearly up now. Funny, I thought I saw you up on our ward.’
‘I must have a double,’ said Juliet, but her laugh was forced. ‘Right, lovely to meet you, Jean.’
She left them and headed for the lift, which came annoyingly fast. She had to go up to the next floor, and then walk back down to maintain her cover story.
Once back at the car, she took some deep breaths. She’d managed to follow Anwen, but she wasn’t too sure what she’d learned. Who was Euan? Clearly a prisoner, and Juliet couldn’t help but wonder what he’d done. What was his relationship to Anwen? Husband or partner were her best guesses, but clearly someone she kept very quiet about. Juliet wondered how much she had told Cassie. He must be part of the reason she’d been staying on the island, but he looked very ill.
It was a shame Jean was seeing Anwen that evening, Juliet would like to have talked more to her. Juliet decided to put off returning home and drove over to the other side of the island. It was a place Juliet normally avoided in August, but today it was exactly where she wanted to be.
She was lucky and found a parking space along Sandown seafront. She got out of her car and was immediately hit by that aroma of chips and burgers mingled with the sea and salt, the sound of disgruntled children tired after a long day on the beach, the shouts of teenagers carrying bottles of beer.
She walked along the pier, with its noisy arcade games, the racket of clashing music from slot machines and the speakers. For Juliet, a few minutes was enough. She bought herself an ice cream and went to sit on a bench. In front of her, parents were paying for their children to go on trampolines, an attempt to tire them out before bedtime. It did Juliet good to be over here among a different kind of normal life. Her village was wonderful but could be claustrophobic. It showed that even on this small island she could find somewhere where no one knew her, no one was gossiping about her father’s accident or Rhys’s death.
Her mind went over the past few days. Finding her set of car keys, the trip to London, the push, the night with Gabriel, the earring, Anwen, but what rose to the surface was the revelations about Rosalind. Her sister had a different father to her. It was so hard to take in, and if she was finding it difficult, how must it be for Rosalind? The lengths her mother might have gone to cover this up were almost too frightening to contemplate. Is that what had stopped her father saying anything to Rosalind? If it was, what had happened on the day of his accident to make him realise this?
Juliet closed her eyes, tried to shut out the people around her shouting, the seagulls above her, their beaks wide, screaming for food. She went through what she knew of the day. And then it came to her – that old VW ignition key. Her father had come home from work, given that key to Mira, the key he’d been so keen for her to get rid of. She had to find out more about it.
25
The next morning, Juliet woke with fresh determination. Today she would give a lot more thought to this VW ignition key, ask the family, maybe ask Gabriel, he’d worked in the garage and the key was old, he might know why it was significant.
The more difficult task, however, would be to talk to her mother, but Rosalind and the whole family deserved to know the truth. Juliet found the earring, put it in her pocket; her mother would have to at least explain that.
She left her room and could hear Rosalind talking to Cassie in her room. It seemed odd; Rosalind usually liked to go through her complicated make-up regime before work uninterrupted.
When she reached the kitchen, she found her mother dressed and tidying up.
‘I am going to have a big sort out today,’ said her mother. ‘The house has become such a mess over the past few weeks. It’s time these cards came down,’ she added, taking the birthday and condolence cards off the dresser.
Juliet went to make herself coffee and looked over at her mother.
‘It’s Cassie’s birthday next, she’s nearly the big 4-0,’ said Juliet.
‘That’s no age,’ replied her mother with a smile.
Juliet frowned. ‘Hang on.’ Juliet went over to her mother, lowered her voice, ‘You said you were younger than Cassie when you had your hysterectomy? I think you said you were two years younger, so thirty-seven.’
‘Yes, that’s right, why?’
Her mother froze; Juliet knew she was doing the same maths as her in her head.
‘I might have said the wrong age,’ her mother said quickly.
‘No, I don’t think you did. Mum, you are sixty now, Rosalind is twenty-one, that means you had her when you were thirty-nine. However, if y
ou had your hysterectomy at thirty-seven then you couldn’t have given birth two years later and that means you couldn’t possibly be Rosalind’s birth mother.’
‘Juliet, you’re being ridiculous. Where is this all coming from?’
Juliet took a deep breath. ‘It comes from something Rosalind told me. She found a letter from Dad in her musical box.’
Her mother went white and began swaying, and Juliet grabbed her and helped her to a chair. She quickly got her a glass of water and sat down next to her.
‘The letter Dad left Rosalind told her he wasn’t her father,’ Juliet added.
‘No…’ Her mother covered her face with her hands.
‘Yes, Rosalind showed it to me.’ Juliet kept her voice as calm and measured as she could.
Her mother lowered her hands, tried to lift the glass, but her hand was shaking. She slowly let go of the glass and raised her trembling fingertips to her lips. ‘Oh God, what is going to happen now?’
‘Rosalind thinks you had an affair.’
Her mother stared up at her. ‘She thinks that?’
‘If you won’t explain, Mum, what else is she meant to think?’
Her mother shook her head, tears filled her eyes. ‘I can’t, I don’t know what to do.’
At that moment Cassie and Rosalind came into the kitchen. Rosalind was in old jeans, looked pale and fragile.
‘Where’s Mira?’ Cassie asked.
‘Out with Lola,’ said their mother.
Cassie shot a look at Juliet.
‘You want me to fetch her?’ Juliet asked.
Cassie nodded and Juliet, knowing something significant was about to happen, ran out of the house.
Mira was ambling up the road with Lola, Juliet waved frantically and signed to her to come home quickly.
Mira walked quickly back with her, and they went into the kitchen.
Her mother was sitting, staring at the table, Rosalind and Cassie sat opposite. Mira fed Lola, then they all sat together.
Cassie led the conversation, signing as she spoke. ‘Rosalind and I have been talking. Juliet knows and now Mira you must. The letter from Dad told Rosalind that our dad wasn’t her birth father.’
Mira was the only person now who looked stunned. ‘Dad is not your dad?’ she signed to Rosalind.
Rosalind nodded. ‘No. Dad left a letter in my musical box.’
‘But I don’t understand,’ said Mira. She shot a look at their mother.
Cassie looked over at Mira. ‘This is going to be a lot to take in. Rosalind and I have been talking most of the night.’ She turned to Juliet. ‘I heard her telling you about the letter and knew then it was time.’
‘No, Cassie.’ Their mother’s voice was weak.
‘Yes, Mum. Dad knew there would come a time and he was right. The fact is…’ She swallowed hard. ‘Rosalind’s father is Harry, Maddie’s son.’
Juliet gasped. ‘Harry?’
‘Yes, it was Harry.’
Juliet thought of the photographs, Harry with his father’s good looks, and of course poor Harry who died.
‘When I stood by his grave, I felt something,’ said Rosalind, ‘a kind of shiver, and then the date he died, the day I came home.’ She wiped her eyes.
‘So, if Harry is Rosalind’s father…?’ said Mira, and she looked at their mother in horror now.
‘No, it’s not Mum,’ said Juliet. Her mind was rushing – the trip away, Cassie sleeping in with her mother to look after Rosalind, it all added up. Her eyes met Cassie’s.
‘Yes, Juliet. I am Rosalind’s mother.’
Rosalind spoke slowly. ‘When Dad said in the letter to love and forgive my mother, he was talking about Cassie.’
They all sat stunned. Juliet stared at Cassie. Cassie had given birth to Rosalind, so, Rosalind was… well, Rosalind was her niece!
As if reading her mind, Rosalind spoke directly to Mira and Juliet. ‘I don’t want this to change things with you. I don’t want to be anything other than your sister.’
Mira grasped her hand. ‘Of course not. Nothing will change.’
Juliet understood why Mira said this, she’d had the same instinctive reaction when Rosalind had told her. However, on another level, she knew everything had changed. Cassie was not Rosalind’s sister; she was her mother.
Cassie didn’t move, she sat, as she always did, slightly apart. Her father had said how lonely it was keeping secrets, and that is how Cassie’s last twenty-one years must have been. No wonder she had seemed distant, it must have been the only way to survive. How had it felt, watching her own daughter run to someone else? For her own daughter never to know who she really was?
Tim had been right, something traumatic had happened to Cassie in her teens. She’d been pregnant, given birth secretly, come home and then the father of her daughter had died. She had the early years with Rosalind, but then weeks at a time away from her because of her music. No wonder she kept wanting to come back, no wonder she said her heart was here.
‘So, what happened?’ It was Mira who spoke and signed.
Cassie replied, ‘I slept with Harry on my eighteenth birthday in November 1994, Rosalind was born the following August. Mum and I went away for a month, I really did do a music course, but I was also heavily pregnant. We timed it so Rosalind would be born while we were away.’
‘So, Rosalind didn’t come early?’ Juliet said.
‘No, she was bang on time.’ Cassie smiled over at Rosalind. ‘But it wasn’t an easy delivery, it was touch-and-go.’
‘I thought I would lose both of you,’ said her mother, looking broken. ‘It was only once we came back here to the island, I felt you were both really safe. When we came back, the plan had always been that we would adopt you so that Cassie could carry on with her music. You see, Cassie had completed the course and auditions and at the end had been approached by the virtuoso Matties. She was off to a conservatoire and he was going to give her individual sessions. I was so proud of you.’ Her mother’s face glowed at the memory as she looked over at Cassie.
‘But,’ said Cassie, ‘I had been prepared to give it all up. You see, when I came back, and Harry saw Rosalind at the party that afternoon everything changed. Harry knew he wanted to stay here, marry me; we were going to be a family. I would give up my music and he would turn down the partnership in France. We would live on Harry’s portion of the land up there, and we would build our own house, plant woodland for Rosalind to play in, keep animals, sheep, hens and goats. Everything would have been perfect.’
Juliet watched her sister, her eyes dreamy and far away. She was that eighteen-year-old girl, in love for the first time, a girl who believed in happy endings. And then Juliet saw Cassie’s face slowly crack, the dream crumble, her hands clasped at her chest as she said, ‘I have never felt anything like that love, before or since. The kind of love that drives you insane, that makes you feel that if you can’t have them, then no one else can. The only thing that matters is you being together, you need them to breathe, to live.’ She paused and then added, very quietly, ‘I knew people had said he was going away, but I knew he couldn’t ever leave. He had to stay here with me forever.’ She paused, looked up as if remembering they were all still there. ‘We never got the happy ever after, did we.’
Juliet saw pain suffuse Cassie’s face, as her heart splintered again.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Juliet said the simple words, trying to encompass so much. Sorry that her sister had been through such agony, but also sorry she’d never tried, not even in her adulthood to look behind that self-sufficient mask and find the source of her pain.
They looked at each other, Cassie’s eyes warm, finally a bridge of understanding between them.
‘I didn’t know what to do when they told me about Harry. I was in pieces and when Mum and Dad suggested we go back to the original plan for them to bring up Rosalind, well I was so numb and shocked that I agreed.’
‘So, you regret it?’ asked Rosalind.
‘I really believed
it was the best thing for you. You had a lovely home, Mum and Dad here and sisters. I couldn’t bear you to go away from me but it gave you a very stable life, a happy childhood. Dad went to register your birth – Mum and Dad are the named parents on your birth certificate. Dad only had to take the letters from the hospital, it was easy to lie, but, at the same time it was incredibly hard for Dad. Lying on the form was contrary to everything he stood for, but he did it for Rosalind, he really believed it was best for her. His one consolation was that he would be telling her the truth when she was twenty-one.’ Cassie hesitated, looked over at Rosalind. ‘I admit I was not happy about that. I wondered how you would cope knowing I’d lied to you. I was so scared that I would lose everything, that you might not want any more to do with me. I don’t know how I would have coped with that.’ She paused. ‘But you have taken it so well, I feel so grateful.’ She smiled at Rosalind, who gave a whisper of a smile back. To Juliet’s mind Rosalind looked in complete shock.
‘You sound so calm, Cassie,’ said Mira, ‘but it must have been very hard. To hear Rosalind call someone else Mum, and also leaving her so much.’
The mask slipped again, and Cassie’s eyes screwed up in pain. ‘There were many times I cried on my own, I felt my heart would break; the only way I coped was building a wall around myself. I had to keep telling myself not to be selfish, this was best for Rosalind.’
‘And do you think it was?’ Mira asked Rosalind.
‘I don’t know. I may have been saved a lot of tears and tantrums, but I’m not sure now how I am meant to rebuild my life.’
Juliet’s mother looked over at her. ‘You were always loved, nothing has to change, you can still call me Mum if you want to – you can call me and Cassie whatever you want.’
Rosalind blinked; Juliet guessed she wasn’t ready to even think about that yet. Instead, she said quietly, ‘I wonder how much Dad told Rhys.’