The Lost Child

by Emily Gunnis

  Rebecca looked at her in shock. ‘You saw what happened?’

  ‘Yes, I was at the window, I saw it all. You must never blame yourself.’

  Rebecca shook her head in confusion. ‘You saw me shoot my father?’

  She stood suddenly and walked over to the window.

  ‘Yes, and I was incredibly proud of you. I was there when he was beating Harriet. I was a coward not to try to stop him myself. I hate that I left you alone but I heard the sirens and I panicked. They had broken my spirit at Greenways and I was terrified of what they would do to me.’

  ‘How can you be proud of me for killing someone?’ Rebecca turned back and looked at Cecilia. ‘There’s never a time, even when I’m laughing at a party – or saving my granddaughter’s life – that I’m not thinking about it. I have always thought that something would happen to someone I loved as some kind of payback. That’s why I went into medicine, to make up for what I did. Because I am a bad person, not a good one.’

  ‘No, that’s not true. You were a child. And you had been subjected to years of living in fear and witnessing terrible violence towards Harriet,’ said Cecilia.

  Rebecca looked out onto the night. ‘He was beating her so ferociously that he didn’t even see me walk into the room. His gun was on the desk. He’d showed me how to use it in case we ever had an intruder. I didn’t even hesitate. He was leaning over her, sweat dripping from his forehead from the exertion of what he was doing to her. I walked over to him and held it to his temple and pulled the trigger.’

  Rebecca looked at her reflection in the hospital window. She could still feel the force of it knocking her back. The smell of the gun firing. The blood. So much blood.

  ‘I didn’t mean to make it look like he did it, but the pistol fell out of my hands. All I cared about was getting him away from her. But it was too late.’ Rebecca’s face fell into her hands.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Cecilia whispered.

  ‘I’ve never told anyone that before. I need to tell the police.’ Rebecca looked at her mother anxiously.

  ‘Well, you can. If that’s what you want. But you were trying to save your mother. She should have taken you away from him, and Seaview.’

  ‘I think she stayed because she wanted you to be able to find us.’ Rebecca turned back and sat back down next to Cecilia. ‘There’s something you should know. Harriet didn’t steal me from you, she had no choice. Charles forced her hand. I know now that she loved you very much.’

  Cecilia looked up to the ceiling as a tear ran down the side of her face. ‘And I loved her.’

  Rebecca leaned over Cecilia, their green eyes meeting, and wiped the tear away. ‘I wish I had known you.’

  ‘You did. My heart was always with you at Seaview. And it is where I’m going now,’ she said, struggling to get the words out.

  Rebecca started to cry, unable to slow the emotions that had been held in for as long as she could remember.

  Cecilia managed a small smile. ‘I love you, my darling, I’m so sorry I left you, my baby, my beautiful Rebecca.’

  Rebecca watched her mother taking her final breaths.

  ‘Promise me you’ll forgive yourself and I will do the same. Promise me, Rebecca. It’s time to move on now and allow yourself be happy.’

  ‘I promise.’ Rebecca clutched Cecilia’s hand.

  ‘I love you,’ said Cecilia.

  ‘I love you too,’ said Rebecca quietly, unable to stop the tears now.

  ‘Will you read Harriet’s diary to me?’ said Cecilia. ‘I would love to hear my friend’s voice again.’

  Rebecca opened the door and asked Iris for the red leatherbound book. Opening it at the start, she sat down and, taking her mother’s hand, she began to read.

  Epilogue

  June 2015

  Rebecca Waterhouse wrapped her thick woollen cardigan around herself, took a breath and walked slowly into the cave at Wittering Bay.

  Though it was a warm June day, the sunlight had left its comfort at the opening of the cave, and she found herself alone in the cold, damp space where her mother had left her as a newborn sixty-eight years before.

  As her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, Rebecca scanned the cave which, only an hour before, had been filled with water before the tide started to go out, and ran her hand over the slippery rock. She took a breath and went in deeper, carefully trying to avoid the pits of sea water under her feet, until she reached an algae-covered shelf at the back.

  The sounds of the children playing on the beach and the honking horns of summer traffic faded away, replaced by the faint sound of her own cries as an infant through the thick fog, as she pictured Cecilia laying her down, alone, before turning away towards the grey, freezing sea.

  ‘Mum?’ Iris’s voice echoed through the cave. ‘I’ve been looking for you. Are you okay?’

  Rebecca slowly pulled herself from her trance and turned round to see her youngest daughter at the mouth of the cave, the sunlight causing a perfect silhouette around her pronounced bump.

  ‘I’m fine, darling, thank you,’ said Rebecca after a long pause, glancing back one last time before retracing her mother’s steps out of the darkness into the June sunlight.

  ‘The scan is at midday, so I need to get going,’ Iris said, putting her hand on her mother’s shoulder. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Of course, you must go. I’ll come and see you off. Are you sure you don’t want me to come?’

  ‘No, I just want to go and get it over with. But she’s been kicking me this morning, so perhaps this time . . .’

  Rebecca took her daughter’s face in her hands and kissed it. ‘She’ll be fine.’

  Iris nodded. ‘I just feel a bit sad I’ve been too anxious to enjoy any of it.’

  ‘I know.’ Rebecca linked her arm through her daughter’s and they began walking across the bay towards the bottom of the steps which led to the car park.

  Rebecca was grateful that her daughter didn’t try and fill the silence as they fell into pace with one another and crossed the golden sand. As they passed the cliff face, Rebecca looked up at Seaview Cottage and pictured her younger self and Harvey running down the steps to the beach, with Harriet walking behind them holding a picnic basket.

  Yet, since meeting Cecilia that night and discovering the truth, the bay that had felt so familiar all her life now felt like a stranger; as if it were a friend she were trying to forgive for keeping a deathly secret from her.

  ‘I wanted to tell you something, Mum. I hope you don’t mind.’ Iris kept walking, using their lack of eye contact to give her the strength to continue. ‘Jessie has asked me to move in to her flat for a week when she and baby Elizabeth come home from the unit. Adam has to work for some of it and she’s scared to be on her own.’

  ‘Why would I mind?’ said Rebecca, feeling her heart skip a beat. ‘That’s wonderful. It’s so lovely that you’ve been spending so much time together.’

  Their reflections from the seawater under their feet sent their distorted silhouettes back up to them as Iris tightened her grip on her mother’s arm.

  ‘Well, I know you’d like to see more of Jessie,’ Iris continued. ‘I don’t want you to feel hurt.’

  ‘I don’t feel hurt, these things take time.’ Rebecca took Iris’s hand. ‘Harvey is making a big effort to be friendly so I’m just relieved we’re all talking for the first time.’

  Rebecca smiled at Iris. She was her father’s daughter. She had John’s heart which was why she was always so quick to forgive. Whereas Jessie was like her; they clung to the past, held on to it with every breath, unable to let go.

  ‘She’s very grateful for everything you did to save Elizabeth, she’s just still struggling with her anxiety. She really loves you, Mum.’ Iris’s eyes brimmed with tears.

  ‘I know, and I know Jessie’s doing her best. She’s been through a bad time. We’ll get there. I’m really pleased you’re building some bridges for us both. I really don’t want you to worry about
me. I’m fine, honestly, darling. You need to think about yourself, Iris, and the baby. You will text me after the scan?’

  Iris nodded as they started to climb the steps slowly, leaving the fierce wind from the beach behind them.

  ‘I heard back from DC Galt,’ said Rebecca, eager to change the subject. ‘She’s had confirmation that there isn’t going to be any further investigation into my actions that night.’

  ‘That’s great news, Mum,’ said Iris, pulling her mother into her.

  ‘Yes, I must say I was slightly surprised. I suspected at least some sort of consequence for killing my own father, but apparently too much time has passed for them to do anything about it. There are no witnesses, no evidence. It’s just my word, and it’s not enough. They have kept my statement on file, but I haven’t had so much as a ticking off.’

  ‘Have you been back to Seaview since that night, Mum?’ said Iris as she struggled to catch her breath climbing the last of the steep steps up towards the car park.

  ‘No, I think it would be too much.’ Rebecca shook her head.

  ‘I can come with you, if you want me to,’ said Iris.

  Rebecca squeezed her hand. ‘I know you would. But it doesn’t feel like something I want to hold on to any more.’

  ‘I think houses can hold too many memories sometimes,’ said Iris, waving at Mark who was leaning against the car and pointing at his watch.

  ‘So has your house sale has all gone through okay?’ said Rebecca.

  ‘Yep, it turns out that clinging for dear life to a past that doesn’t want you isn’t the nicest feeling in the world. It’s a bit alien to be with someone who really loves me. And who won’t be disappointed in me if I lose our baby.’

  Iris paused and Rebecca smiled gently at her daughter, as she continued, ‘And I guess I feel relieved that Jessie is in our lives and we can finally talk about what happened to you that night. The secret is out there rather than rotting inside us, taking its toll. But I know it hasn’t been easy for you, Mum.’

  ‘I don’t know really. I’m glad we’re where we are but if I’m honest, I really wish I could understand why Harriet hid so much from me. But maybe she planned to tell me, we just obviously never got to say goodbye.’

  ‘Well, it’s all here. I’ve said before, I really think you should read her last entry.’ Iris reached into her bag and pulled out the red leatherbound diary.

  ‘Thank you for looking after it for me,’ said Rebecca, taking the book carefully. ‘It was a bit too raw for me to cope with before.’

  ‘I really think it will help,’ said Iris, waving up at Mark as he sat in the car. ‘I’m gonna have to go. I’ll call you afterwards.’

  Rebecca nodded and held her daughter tight. ‘I’ll be thinking of you, darling. I’m here for you.’

  ‘I know,’ said Iris, walking slowly away from her mother.

  Rebecca looked out at the children below, running across the sand into the warm, turquoise sea. The same sea which had taken Cecilia away from her that fateful night. She turned and walked along the path towards Seaview Cottage, and pictured her five-year-old feet in her favourite red leather sandals.

  It had been nearly fifty-five years since she had last walked the stony sand-covered link between Seaview Farm and the cottage where she had spent the first thirteen years of her life and yet she knew every kink and bump so well that she could have walked it blindfolded, even now.

  When she reached Seaview Cottage, she sat down on the top step, laid Harriet’s diary on her lap and took a deep breath. Slowly, she turned to the final pages and began to read.

  Today is the day Jacob comes home from Greenways. I can already feel the atmosphere in our little cottage has changed. I am carrying my fear from room to room and filling the house with it.

  How wicked of me, that I am dreading my husband – whom I loved so much, and who has suffered beyond human endurance – coming home. I keep thinking back to that day on the station when Jacob returned from Normandy, as I waited for the troop train on the crowded platform.

  I could feel the electricity from the crowds of people shouting excitedly at the soldiers hanging out of every window, most of them wearing bandages or slings on some part of their poor bodies. I will never forget the silence that fell as the doors opened and they began to unload the stretchers, carrying the badly wounded, men with stumps for legs, who would never walk again, and then the stretcher bearers shouting ‘Clear the way’ at the stampede of families desperate to get to their men.

  A woman with a small child came rushing past me over to a man with terrible scars on his face and only one leg, which he managed to walk on with the help of crutches. The little blue-eyed boy the woman was holding started to scream with fear when he saw his father for the first time. There was such an outpouring of emotion it was hard to stay composed and I just focused on trying to find Jacob in the crowd. But he was nowhere. I searched up and down the platform and eventually he emerged, thin and pale, blinking in the sunshine as if he had risen up from hell, and when he saw me he began to cry – as if the relief of it being over was too much for him to contain.

  I ran to him and held him but I had the overwhelming feeling that this wasn’t the end, quite the opposite in fact. It felt like the start of whatever was coming next. As the train pulled out of the platform, leaving us alone, it felt like it was taking my happiness with it, that we would never be the same again. The war in Europe was over, but ours was just about to begin.

  As I write this I am sitting on the rocking chair on the balcony of my bedroom, watching the sun come up over Wittering Bay. The dawn is spectacular, and as I look at my little girl asleep in my bed, I can only hope that I have given her the strength to survive the changes ahead. This is my cross, which I must bear. I feel nothing for my own suffering because I have the greatest gift I could ever have wished for: my beautiful Rebecca. But I feel terrible guilt that she will now suffer for my sins. I can only hope that in raising her at Seaview, as Cecilia would have wished, she will be strong enough to survive the storm ahead. I will do everything I can to protect, and love her.

  I hope that if one day she discovers the truth, she will forgive me. I loved Cecilia. It was only ever my intention to save Rebecca, as she has saved me. Rebecca may not be my flesh and blood, but I would give my life for her.

  As Rebecca looked through a fog of tears at the sun setting over Wittering Bay and pictured her five-year-old self swimming in the surf towards Harriet, her phone beeped into life. Her heart in her mouth she reached into her bag and opened the text from Iris.

  ‘Baby doing well. He waved hello! I love you, Mum xx’

  Acknowledgements

  The Lost Child involved a lot of frantic notetaking whilst chatting to a great deal of extremely clever, kind people, who then put up with me texting them ‘One last question, sorry,’ so many times.

  In no particular order, thank you to Alexis Strickland, Midwife, who spent hours talking to me about her experiences on postnatal wards and her fascinating insights into postnatal psychosis. Thank you also to the lovely and patient Katie Alexiou, clearly a totally brilliant Divorce Consultant and definitely the first lady you would want on your side if making your husband your ex.

  Thank you to the totally wonderful David Williams, better known as Handsome Legend Dave the Wave Williams, for the hours of phone calls and emails and fact-checking on all things paediatrics – I am forever in your debt. To the very charming Barone Hopper, who kindly invited me to his home to discuss his work as a psychiatric social worker at Greenways Psychiatric Hospital in Chichester in the 1960s. As always, thank you to my wonderful mother-in-law Sue Kerry for sharing her extensive experience as a police detective, for her love of research and also for her patience – of which I am severely lacking – for detail.

  Thank you to the wonderful Dr Jan Kohler, retired paediatric oncologist, who often had me in tears during our phone calls about the stories of her incredible career working tirelessly to save the lives of child
ren with cancer. As with all angels, Jan thought nothing of her heroics (the greatest of which, in my eyes, was that she was the first female consultant in Southampton in paediatrics, whilst still managing to juggle motherhood and breastfeed).

  Huge heartfelt thanks go to Sue Stapely, lawyer/reputation manager, who sent me endless emails in answer to my queries about marriage and women’s rights in the 1950s. It was an eye-opener to discover how hard it was to obtain a divorce between the late 1940s and the 1970s, and the lengths people went to in order to get out of an unhappy marriage. I am also very grateful to Dr Alain Gregoire, Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist, who kindly told me about the harsh treatment a new mother with postnatal psychosis would have received in the 1940s. And to Hannah Perrin at the Royal College of Psychiatrists for putting me in touch with Dr Alain Gregoire and helping me to pin him down! Thank you to the brilliant Dr Claire Emerson, who painstakingly discussed all things Accident and Emergency, pneumonia and hypothermia with me – you definitely get the prize for receiving the most ‘Sorry, just one more question,’ texts. Thank you also to Jessica Webb for educating me about the world of Art Therapy, and also for always being such a lovely and supportive friend. A huge thank you also to Aimee de Marco for patiently reining in my far-fetched ideas of life on a hospital ward and carefully picking apart what bits of them might happen in real life. Many thanks to the wonderful Dr Nadine Keen, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, for educating me as extensively as her hectic schedule would allow in Postpartum Psychosis, and also about the systems in place in the modern day to protect mother and baby. As always, thank you to the wonderful Vicky Seal, Paramedic, for talking me through endless procedures and blue light scenarios and for being basically a fab human and mum to beautiful Olivia. My endless gratitude goes to the gorgeous Michelle Ball for having a seemingly unlimited supply of contacts to put me in touch with and for being so generally large-hearted.

  Thank you to my wonderful agent Kate Barker for all your navigation in helping me to get my dreams off the ground. To all the wonderful team at Headline: Sherise Hobbs, for all your patience, kindness and brilliance, Phoebe Swinburn, Georgina Moore, Olivia Allen, Vivian Basset, Jennifer Doyle, Rebecca Bader and Nathaniel Alcatraz-Stapleton for always giving it your all. To my incredible sisters Polly, Sophie and Claudia for always being there, and to my girls, Sophy Lamond, Claire Quy, Clodagh Hartley, Kate Osbaldeston, Harriet De Bene, Suzanne Lindfors and Rebecca Cootes. To Esra Erdem and Laura Morris for being lifesavers. Last but not least to my (hell’s) angels Grace and Eleanor. I have no clue what it is like to experience the hell that is postnatal psychosis but suffice to say I’m so glad the baby years are over, and I now get the privilege of watching you grow into the brave, kind, funny, stunningly beautiful girls you are becoming.