A Proper Family Christmas (16 page)

On the night after they had the second scan, Richard fell asleep with his hand on Annabel’s baby bump. The weight of his arm kept Annabel awake though she didn’t want to disturb him. The pressures upon them were weighing Richard down too. Sleep had been elusive for both of them. Instead Annabel lay and watched shadows dancing on the ceiling. What horrors were about to come dancing out of the past?

Annabel was not the only one who couldn’t sleep. Now that she had a date for the first meeting with her Daisy, Jacqui constantly felt as though she’d drunk too much coffee. Her stomach fluttered. She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t eat. At work she simply went through the motions. At home she was distracted enough to burn three frozen pizzas in a row. In the end, Dave said, ‘I’m taking you out,’ and they went to Nando’s. There, Jacqui could only pick at her chicken in pitta bread.

‘I bring you out and you don’t even eat anything!’ Dave complained.

‘I’m nervous about Sunday,’ said Jacqui. ‘Aren’t you nervous?’

‘What is there to be nervous about? We’re only meeting our little girl.’

‘But she’s not a little girl any more is she? I’ve looked at her photos on Facebook. They look so posh! She was adopted by an army major, Dave. She’s grown up in a different world.’

‘I’m sure we’ll still have plenty in common,’ said Dave.

‘Oh, I hope so. But I bet she’s really grand. Her husband is related to Lord Somebody or other.’

‘We’re related to a genuine lord too,’ Dave reminded her.

‘Your great-grandmother having got pregnant by the lord of the manor while she was in service does not count,’ said Jacqui.

‘She was acknowledged,’ said Dave. ‘The old bugger left her that cottage in his will.’

‘That was to help her husband keep his mouth shut. The lord never actually admitted paternity.’

‘Whatever. We all know it’s in the Benson blood. You’re not to worry about Sunday. If you talk in your telephone voice, everything will be dandy.’

‘Don’t tease me,’ said Jacqui. ‘I just want to make a good impression.’

‘Of course we will,’ said Dave. ‘Blood is thicker than water.’

Blood thicker than water? Annabel could not have agreed less. As the day of her first meeting with her birth parents approached, Annabel was also nervous. She too wanted to make a good impression but only because she did not want to have to spend time establishing any kind of proper relationship before she revealed the real reason she’d decided to get in touch. She wished she had been upfront from the start. Why had she and Richard decided that it would be a better idea to keep her motives hidden? If she’d asked outright in that first letter, they might have said ‘no’ right away and she wouldn’t have had to meet them at all.

No. Annabel checked herself. That was not the right way to think. She needed them to say ‘yes’. They had to say yes.

‘They will say “yes”,’ Richard reassured her. ‘How could they not want to help our little girl? She’s their granddaughter.’

But human beings were strange creatures. While desperately searching the Internet for good news, Annabel had found plenty of bad news too. There were more than a couple of stories about families that had not pulled together when they needed to, about people who had refused to be tested or worse, tested as a match and then refused to get involved with a transplant. What if that was the kind of people they were dealing with?

Richard stroked Annabel’s hair. ‘If these people produced a baby who grew into a woman as wonderful as you, they really can’t be all bad.’

Annabel thanked him for being so kind and so relentlessly positive, but of course Richard could never understand that in the heart of any adoptee, even as an adult, is the unshakeable conviction that they were given away because they were somehow ‘wrong’ and by extension, at least one of their parents must have been a ‘wrong un’ too. Why else would you end up in such a sordid situation? Giving away a child!

Annabel phoned Sarah, the only woman she would ever think of as ‘Mum’, for reassurance.

‘Tell me what the social worker said again, when you came to fetch me from the adoption agency office.’

‘It was a long time ago, darling,’ Sarah reminded her. ‘But we were definitely told that your mother was a nice young girl. She did well at school. She liked sport. And she came from a very good family.’

Annabel tried to be comforted but any family that allowed one of their kin to be given up to be raised by strangers could not be, by her definition, a ‘good’ family. Where had her maternal grandparents been when Jacqui was making her decision? Why hadn’t they supported her?

No, Annabel was not looking forward to meeting her birth family at all. She was doing this for Izzy and only for Izzy. Unlike the woman who had given her away, Annabel was determined to be a proper mother. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for her child.

On the morning of the meeting with her eldest daughter, Jacqui was surrounded by every other member of her family. Ronnie and Mark brought the children round after breakfast. Chelsea had come up from London again especially. The unspoken plan was that they would all hang around the house until Jacqui and Dave came back home. That way, they would all find out together and at once exactly what had gone on. More importantly, they would all be there for Jacqui if things did not go well.

‘Of course it will go well,’ said Chelsea. ‘You’ve seen all those reunion shows, Mum. Everyone is always delighted.’

Chelsea had her fingers metaphorically crossed behind her back as she said this. Chelsea had always hated those reunion shows. Everyone looked so strained. She was certain that the minute the cameras were switched off the recriminations started. It was such a stressful thing to put oneself through. Why on earth would you think it was a good idea to do it in front of an entire TV-watching nation, while Davina McCall simpered in sympathy?

Ronnie helped Jacqui put the finishing touches to her hair.

‘I swear you didn’t put so much effort in for Jack’s christening,’ said Ronnie, only half joking.

‘Don’t start,’ Chelsea mouthed at her sister across their mother’s head.

‘This is a big day for all of us,’ said Jacqui. ‘I know she said she only wanted to meet your father and me at first, but I’m sure she’ll want to meet you all too, soon enough. She’ll especially want to meet you.’ Jacqui pinched her grandson Jack’s cheeks.

‘I’ve made this picture for my new auntie,’ Jack said.

‘Hmmm.’

The women all made approving noises. None of them could see what it was.

Jack looked at them expectantly.

‘What do you think? Do you like it?’

‘Well …’ said Jacqui. ‘Is it some kind of banana?’

‘It’s a sonic screwdriver, Grandma! A sonic screwdriver from
Doctor Who
made with Minecraft.’

‘Ah yes. Obviously! I’m sure your new auntie will be delighted.’

‘Tell her I’m looking forward to meeting her. And I can’t believe I’m getting a cousin.’

Jack had no cousins. None of Mark’s siblings had children and Chelsea was in no hurry. So the idea of an instant cousin was extremely appealing. Even if she was a girl. There was still a faint chance she would be a
Doctor Who
nut who knew how to bowl a cricket ball.

‘Are you excited about getting a cousin, Sophie?’ Chelsea asked her niece.

Sophie shrugged. After all, she had already met this new cousin and that was an encounter that still made her wince.

Having handed over the picture for Annabel, Jack skipped out to the patio where Granddad Bill was catching the last of the Indian-summer sunshine with his radio beside him. He was in his new wheelchair. Well, it wasn’t exactly new. It was an old electric one that Dave had refurbished. Though Bill could still get around on sticks if he needed to, to go anywhere further than from his chair to the bathroom at any kind of speed he really needed wheels and pushing his old un-motorised wheelchair around had been playing havoc with Jacqui’s shoulder. They hoped the motorised chair would make life easier. Providing Bill didn’t steer himself into a ditch, that is.

‘All right, Granddad Bill?’ Jack squeaked.

‘I’m in the sunshine, I’ve got the first match of the season on the radio and I just know you’re coming to ask me if I want a cup of tea. I’ve won the bloody lottery,’ said Bill.

‘Don’t say “bloody”,’ said Jack, as he moved the bricks that Dave had put in front of the wheelchair’s back wheels to supplement the brakes because the patio was on a slight incline.

Jack was already au fait with the wheelchair’s controls. With the bricks out of the way, he climbed on to Bill’s lap and together they took a tour of the paved parts of the garden, with Jack steering. Bill, who was having one of his good days, told Jack he would have made a good tank commander.

‘You’re just like I was at your age,’ he said. ‘Young man, you could be a great soldier.’

‘Granddad Bill,’ said Jack. ‘I’m going to be Doctor Who.’

Jacqui went upstairs to get changed.

‘It’s half past!’ she yelled down the stairs a couple of minutes later. ‘Why didn’t anybody say? Dave, we need to get going.’

‘It won’t take us that long, Jacqui,’ Dave yelled back at her.

‘I don’t care. I don’t want to be late.’

‘Do I look all right?’ Dave asked Chelsea.

‘You look magnificent,’ said Chelsea, straightening his tie for him. ‘I think you should wear a tie all the time.’

‘No chance,’ said Dave. ‘After today, the only time you’ll ever see me wear a tie again is at Ronnie’s wedding. And yours.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’

‘How about me?’ Jacqui asked.

She came downstairs slowly and carefully on her high heels. Chelsea wished she had made the time to come up to Coventry and help Jacqui find an outfit because the direction Ronnie had steered Jacqui in was all a bit ‘mother of the bride’. In fact, Ronnie had been thinking ‘mother of the bride’ when she chose it, because she knew that Jacqui wouldn’t have the budget for more than one new frock that autumn.

Jacqui was wearing a floral print dress with a peach jacket that picked out the colour of some of the flowers. She had matched it with peach-coloured handbag and shoes. Chelsea thought it was awful but it was undoubtedly expensive. Jacqui had seriously splashed out.

‘You look beautiful, Mum,’ said Chelsea.

‘That means a lot,’ she said. ‘Coming from you. Because you know about fashion, love.’

‘I do. And that outfit is “
le dernier cri
”.’

Jacqui looked nonplussed.

‘It’s French. It means the very latest thing.’

‘OK,’ Jacqui nodded. ‘Shall I put the hat on too?’

‘I don’t think you need the hat, Mum,’ said Chelsea quickly. ‘But you can definitely use it for Ronnie’s wedding. You can wear the hat then.’

Chelsea straightened her mother’s collar.

‘Come on,’ said Dave. ‘You said we had to get going.’

‘It’s happening,’ Jacqui sniffed. ‘It’s happening at last!’

‘Don’t cry,’ Ronnie barked at her. ‘You’ll only make your make-up run.’

Ronnie, Mark, Chelsea and the children massed on the front step of the house to wave Jacqui and Dave off. Even Granddad Bill waved from the front-room window. Afterwards, the family went back inside and sat down round the kitchen table. Mark put the kettle on. Everyone was silent. Even Jack. It was as though they had just waved Dave and Jacqui off to some terrible fate. Finally, Sophie reached across the table and took both Ronnie and Chelsea’s hands.

‘It’ll be all right,’ she said.

While Jacqui had gone to their rendezvous dressed for a Buckingham Palace garden party, Annabel was wearing jeans. Admittedly, they were designer jeans with a two hundred pound price tag, but they were jeans nonetheless. She teamed them with a striped T-shirt, a navy blue linen jacket and a pair of ballet flats. It was the kind of outfit she would have worn to meet her girlfriends for a weekend brunch at a gastropub. Richard was in his usual Sunday attire of a striped pink shirt and a pair of chinos.

Annabel had decided that anything else would be too much. Having seen the photographs of the Bensons on Facebook, she doubted they owned anything too dressy and Richard had suggested it would be a good idea to make them feel comfortable. They were meeting in a country house hotel, for sure, but it was not Relais et Châteaux. It was a three-star place that had been cut off from civilisation by a ring road at some point in the nineteen eighties. It wasn’t a place Annabel would have chosen but that was OK, because neither was it a place that Annabel would ever have any inclination to go back to if she didn’t have to. Annabel was still approaching this meeting like a blind date that was more likely to go wrong than right. In choosing the Ridgeview Hotel, Annabel was ensuring that if everything did go badly, she would not have to relive the moment every time she wanted to meet friends for a Sunday lunch.

Annabel’s mother Sarah would be staying at the Great House with Izzy that day. When she turned up, Annabel hugged Sarah tightly and asked her again if she was sure she should be meeting the Bensons at all.

‘Of course. I am quite clear on the matter. And your father would have been one hundred per cent behind this too,’ Sarah assured her.

‘I wish Dad were here,’ said Annabel.

‘He’s always with us,’ said Sarah, tapping first herself and then Annabel on the heart.

‘What if Jacqui Benson wants me to call her Mum?’ Annabel asked Richard as they turned into the driveway of the Ridgeview Hotel.

‘Tell her you’d rather not. Look. Everything is going to be fine. I promise.’

Annabel’s heart thudded in her chest. She wasn’t ready for this at all and yet she couldn’t put the moment off any longer. It wasn’t about her. It was about Izzy. She needed to put Izzy at the front of her mind.

‘Shall I be Davina?’ joked Richard as he unclipped his seat belt.

Annabel managed a half-snuffle/half-laugh. ‘I can’t stand that woman. Always gurning her way through other people’s lives.’