A Proper Family Holiday (31 page)

‘I’m a bit surprised,’ Chelsea admitted. ‘It’s not every day you get a new sister. I wouldn’t say I’m angry, though. It’s not my place to be angry. You were the one who was forced to give up a child. I can’t imagine what that did to you. When do we get to meet her?’

‘You might never meet her,’ said Jacqui. ‘That’s the ridiculous thing. I’ve upset your sister by telling her about it and it might not even matter.’

‘Have you been looking for her? For Daisy?’

‘We don’t even know her name. It won’t be Daisy, that’s for sure. Her adoptive parents will have changed it, and what they changed it to is confidential information. She can know our names but not vice versa. Adoption was a one-way street back then. The idea was you would never have contact with your child again.’

‘And there’s nothing you can do?’

‘We’ve been signed up to all the adoption registers for years but we’ll never get to meet her if she doesn’t decide to look for us. And the more time that passes, the more likely that seems. She’ll be forty-two this year. Oh, Chelsea.’ Jacqui started properly sobbing. ‘You girls are the most important thing in the world to me. I can’t lose both of you too.’

‘You won’t lose us.’ Chelsea gave her mum a cuddle.

‘I got so many things wrong,’ Jacqui sniffed.

‘What are you talking about? You’ve been a wonderful mother to us. I’ll go and talk to Ronnie,’ Chelsea offered.

‘Will you? Please, Chelsea, please. Tell her that I love her, won’t you?’

Chapter Forty-Six

Chelsea

Chelsea wasn’t sure how much point there was in talking to her sister right then – when Ronnie got angry, she stayed angry – but she knew she had to give it a go for their mother’s sake. Ronnie was not in her room, and she had not gone back to the pool. In fact, there were no Bensons by the pool at all: Sophie had also disappeared; Bill was in the bar with Gloria; Dave was still on his mosquito-repellent mission and, as was typical, his mobile was switched off. What was the point of having a mobile if you never switched the stupid thing on? Meanwhile, Mark and Jack were playing snooker. They hadn’t seen Ronnie since she went inside to talk to Jacqui.

‘You look upset. What’s the matter?’ Mark asked.

Chelsea wasn’t sure it was the right time to tell him their mother’s news. ‘Nothing. Sisterly falling-out,’ she lied. ‘My fault.’

‘Oh, all right.’

Of course that was feasible to Mark.

Where could Ronnie have gone? Chelsea decided to set out along the promenade and see if she could catch up with her sister there. To be honest, she also felt in need of a walk. Though she had reacted less violently to her mother’s news, Chelsea found she was still vibrating with adrenaline. Jacqui’s revelation had been such a surprise. The only thing that would have been more surprising would have been for her mother to announce that she was pregnant again right now.

Intellectually, Chelsea thought she understood why Ronnie felt she had more reason to be angry, but Ronnie’s accusation that Jacqui had forced her into having a baby didn’t ring true. As far as Chelsea could remember it, once she got over the initial panic, Ronnie had been delighted by the prospect of becoming a mother. She had certainly seemed to enjoy playing happy families with Mark and their new baby, while Chelsea was turfed out of their once-shared bedroom to sleep on the sofa downstairs. There were only two bedrooms in the Benson family’s council house. Not having her own room – or even half a shared room – hadn’t made revising for A-levels any easier. No one seemed to have considered how Chelsea might have suffered as a result. In those early days, everything in the Benson household revolved round Ronnie and Sophie. As she searched for her sister, Chelsea recalled the day she got her A-level results and confirmed her place at university.

‘That’s nice, dear,’ their mother had said, not even looking up from the bottle she was filling with formula.

Over dinner that night, Sophie’s first proper words were far bigger news. Dave was the only one to comment on Chelsea’s university triumph at all, and the only thing he said was that it would be great to have the sofa back. Yes, if anyone had a right to be angry with their parents, it was Chelsea. Ronnie got the support. Chelsea got a crick in the neck from spending almost two years sleeping on a sofa that was too short for her.

In a sense, though, Sophie’s arrival had helped Chelsea to make her way in the world. When there was no place for you at home, you simply had to find somewhere else. Having long since learnt to do her own washing and cooking (or rather, making toast), compared to many of her contemporaries at university, Chelsea was well equipped to fend for herself. That was useful at least. She found living away from home blissful compared to being squashed into that tiny house with four other adults and a baby.

However, looking at her situation from a dispassionate point of view, nearly sixteen years on, Chelsea knew she had not been able to shake off her own need for attention altogether when Sophie came along. Was it possible that feeling unloved and ignored had been at the root of the vomiting thing? She still didn’t have the guts to call it what it was: bulimia. It had started around the same time.

No, Chelsea knew she couldn’t blame her family for that. Her parents had always done their best for her. And Ronnie. And Sophie. And Jack. That was why Chelsea had to find her sister now and ask her to find it in her to at least try to understand what their mum had been through. Chelsea knew that neither her mum nor her dad would have taken the decision lightly to let Daisy go. They were good people. Good parents.

Eventually, having walked for half an hour on her own, Chelsea did catch up with Ronnie. She was sitting on the sea wall about a mile away from the hotel. She was looking out to sea, concentrating so hard on the horizon that she didn’t notice her sister until Chelsea touched her gently on the arm. Ronnie jumped.

‘Mind if I join you?’ Chelsea asked.

‘Free country,’ said Ronnie.

Chelsea took up a spot on the wall. Ronnie resumed her sea vigil.

‘You’re really angry with Mum, aren’t you?’ Chelsea said eventually.

‘Aren’t you?’

‘I’m certainly surprised. I can’t say I’m angry.’

‘Well, you don’t have as much to be angry about as I do. You’re not the one who’s ended up stuck in the town she grew up in, living like a slave for two kids and a useless fat-head of a partner.’

‘Wow,’ said Chelsea, ‘you
are
angry.’

‘Mum pushed me into having a baby because she gave her own child away. She wanted to fill some hole in her life by making a mess of mine.’

‘I don’t remember it like that,’ said Chelsea. ‘I don’t remember you being forced to do anything.’

‘Well, how do you remember it?’ Ronnie asked. ‘You were only fifteen and a half.’

‘I certainly remember how it was when you found out you were pregnant.’

It was Chelsea who found Ronnie crying in their bedroom that horrible afternoon after a third pregnancy test had proved positive. Chelsea didn’t have to ask what was wrong. The last pregnancy-test box was sticking out from beneath the valance around Ronnie’s bed, which was where Ronnie had inexpertly hidden it when she heard Chelsea and her parents come in from their shopping trip. Without saying a word, Chelsea sat down beside her sister and wrapped her arms around her. They stayed like that for several minutes.

‘It’s going to be all right, you know,’ Chelsea said eventually.

‘How on earth can it be all right?’ Ronnie asked.

‘I’ll help you,’ Chelsea promised.

It was a good job Chelsea was on the case. Ronnie was so distraught at the results of the test, she didn’t know where to start. Perhaps they should have gone to their parents first, but Chelsea – with a teenager’s logic – booked an appointment with the doctor for Ronnie to discuss a termination. Then she rang Mark and said Ronnie had tonsillitis and was too ill to see him or speak to him on the phone for a couple of days. She told their parents that Ronnie and Mark had fallen out. That was why Ronnie was red-eyed with distress, flopping around the house like a pre-Raphaelite beauty on too much laudanum.

Chelsea even went with her sister to see the doctor. She squeezed Ronnie’s hand in a gesture of solidarity when the receptionist, who had known them since they were tiny children, asked, ‘Exactly what is it you want to discuss with Dr Swallow today?’

‘It’s confidential,’ Chelsea said. ‘We don’t have to tell you anything.’

The receptionist opened her mouth to protest.

‘You know it’s confidential,’ Chelsea repeated.

Once inside the doctor’s office, Ronnie felt as though she was going to faint. Dr Swallow, who had always seemed so kind when they were kids, was curt and disapproving now. So Ronnie thought she was mature enough to be having sex but she hadn’t been mature enough to think about contraception, eh?

‘We’re here for help, not a lecture,’ Chelsea told him.

Dr Swallow raised an eyebrow.

Ronnie was too late for the morning-after pill, of course, he said, but she was just within the nine-week deadline for a medical abortion. Dr Swallow described the procedure with what seemed to Chelsea like unnecessary relish. Two lots of tablets, two days apart. A bit of bleeding.
Dilation and curettage.

‘You’ll definitely know you’re having more than a period. It could take up to two weeks to complete. Now, let’s get on with it. Time is of the essence.’

Dr Swallow looked up the number of the specialist clinic Ronnie would have to be referred to. The wheels were in motion. In a matter of days, Ronnie could be taking the first of the tablets Dr Swallow prescribed. Her pregnancy would be over. Because of course, it was better that the pregnancy was over, wasn’t it?

It was Chelsea, sitting next to her on a plastic-covered chair, who said, ‘Ronnie, you don’t have to make any decisions right now, not while you’re sitting here.’

‘You don’t have for ever,’ said Dr Swallow.

‘But she has at least a few days, doesn’t she?’

‘I thought you wanted a termination?’

Chelsea looked into Ronnie’s face.

‘Shall we go?’ Chelsea asked.

The sisters left the surgery arm in arm.

‘You want this baby, don’t you?’ Chelsea said, once they were outside. ‘I could see you weren’t certain in there.’

‘Yes, I want this baby.’ Ronnie nodded. Her face broke into a smile for the first time in days.

‘I’m going to be an auntie!’ Chelsea shrieked.

Then the sisters went home and told Jacqui she was about to become a gran.

On the sea wall, Chelsea reminded Ronnie of the old story. It was the first time they had talked about that afternoon in Dr Swallow’s surgery in years, certainly since Jack was born.

‘You made up your mind before you even told Mum and Dad. Don’t you remember? Dr Swallow was going to book you in for another appointment. You were completely white. I could tell you didn’t want to go ahead.’

‘You got me out of there,’ Ronnie remembered.

‘And when we got outside, you were so relieved. I asked you if you wanted to have your baby and your face just broke into this smile. You were even holding your stomach, protecting the little creature inside.’

‘Hormones,’ said Ronnie dismissively.

‘Oh, Ronnie, it wasn’t just that.’

‘I’m serious. You shouldn’t have taken any notice of me, not with all those hormones making me crazy. Mum and Dad should have taken me straight back to the doctor.’

‘You wouldn’t have wanted that. You were excited. We talked about every option that was available to you, but in the end, you knew you wanted to go through with the pregnancy. You told me it was going to be the making of your life. You would have your children early and take the world by storm later on. You could even take your baby into the boardroom.’

‘Yeah, but look at me now. No boardroom for me. I’ve completely screwed up. Every single day is the same: I get up; I make breakfast for three other people; I make sure they’ve all got clean clothes; I listen to them complaining because I’ve put the same thing in their lunchbox as yesterday. They leave the house without even stopping to thank me on the way. I’ve got a part-time job at a bloody undertaker’s. When I get home, I don’t think Mark would notice if I did the can-can topless, so long as the telly’s on. I was ready to take on the world when I was seventeen, but I’ve ended up with nothing.’

‘You look like you’ve ended up with a whole lot to me. Ronnie, do you have any idea how much I envy you? I’ve always envied you. I told myself I didn’t. I told myself I was much better off with my London life and my glamorous career than your life back home, but you’ve got so much love around you, Ronnie. You’ve got a partner who adores you—’

Ronnie snorted.

‘—You’re raising two wonderful children. Sophie is a really fine young woman – she’s intelligent and beautiful – and Jack … Jack is something else. He’s so funny and sensitive. Those qualities didn’t just come from nowhere, Ronnie. It’s you who helped nurture them. Your kids are a testament to exactly how much you’ve made of your life. If I could swap places with you and come home to Jack’s smile every day …’

Ronnie nodded. Jack’s smile was something truly special.

‘Even to Sophie’s grunts of hello,’ Chelsea joked.

Ronnie almost managed to laugh at that.

‘I might end up missing out on all that,’ said Chelsea. ‘It’s what Mum missed out on too, when she gave her baby away.’

Ronnie’s face hardened again and she looked back out to sea.

‘Come on,’ Chelsea pressed on. ‘You know she’s right that things were different then. She wouldn’t have had any support if her parents weren’t willing to give it to her. I don’t think single women could even get their own mortgages.’

‘She should have tried harder.’

‘You know our mum, Ronnie. Don’t you think she tried as hard as she could? Can you imagine what it must have been like? It must have broken her heart.’

Though she was watching the waves advancing on the beach, Ronnie was back in Coventry, sixteen years ago. Though now she knew she must have imagined it – the pregnancy being so very new at the time – she had been sure that as she sat in Dr Swallow’s office, she felt the tiny foetus turn a somersault. The connection between Ronnie and Sophie had been strong even then. How much stronger had it been seven months later? How painful would it have been to have that connection broken?