A Proper Family Holiday (34 page)

Chelsea

Sophie’s disappearance caused quite a stir at the Hotel Volcan. Once news spread that a child was missing, the hotel’s guests could talk of nothing else. Several search parties were organised, though they never got any further than noisy meetings in the bar where the volunteers spent most of their time speculating as to what horrible end might have befallen the poor kid in the few hours she had been gone.

When Sophie, Adam and Lily got back to the hotel safe and well, a cheer went up that was almost as loud as the one heard in the bar when England won the Rugby World Cup in 2004. It was the perfect excuse for a celebration. Joachim, the barman who had tagged Granddad Bill as a lottery winner, was run off his feet providing liquid sustenance for the guests, who were, for the most part, very pleased there was a happy ending to the dramatic story they would have to tell their friends back home. Gloria threw her arms round Granddad Bill and smothered his bald, liver-spotted head with kisses.

Ronnie clasped her daughter to her chest and covered her head with tears.

‘My little girl!’ she murmured over and over. ‘My precious baby.’

Sophie allowed herself to be held. Her legs were still shaking. For the moment, she never wanted to leave her mother’s side again.

Jacqui and Mark both cried with relief. Even Dave wiped away a tear. The hotel manager brought out a bottle of champagne.

‘Have a drink with us,’ Chelsea said to Adam.

‘I should put Lily to bed.’

‘Let her stay up with Jack for a bit,’ said Jacqui. ‘I can keep an eye on them. Why don’t you have a drink? You certainly deserve one.’

Adam hesitated.

‘She can be a bit … Well, difficult with people she doesn’t know well.’

‘She’ll be a good girl for me, won’t you, Lily?’ Jacqui got down to Lily’s height. She opened her arms and, to everyone’s surprise, Lily allowed herself to be picked up.

Jacqui carried Lily across to the table where Jack was setting up for a round of Go Fish. In the excitement of Sophie’s reappearance, he had negotiated himself a later bedtime. He moved across to make space for Lily.

‘Do you like
Doctor Who
?’ he asked, without actually looking at his one-time enemy.

‘I do,’ said Lily. ‘It’s my favourite.’

‘Then you can have a look at my sonic screwdriver,’ said Jack, passing his precious toy across. This time he dared a tiny glance at her out of the corner of his eye.

‘I think that might be the beginning of an entente cordiale,’ said Adam.

Chelsea and Adam didn’t go to the hotel bar. They walked out onto the beach road to look for somewhere quieter. Adam told Chelsea what Sophie had confessed on the walk back to the Hotel Volcan about the alcohol and her local ‘friend’.

Chelsea wasn’t in the least bit surprised when Adam revealed the identity of the man who had given Sophie so much to drink. The creep from the currency exchange! Thank goodness Sophie had cut short anything too awful by vomiting, but there were still questions to be answered and Chelsea would make sure Sophie’s ‘friend’ answered them at the police station.

It had been the most extraordinary time, not least because of what her mother had revealed before Sophie’s disappearance became the bigger issue. You didn’t learn you had a new sister – or an old sister – every day.

So Chelsea was thoughtful as she and Adam searched for somewhere to relax. They chose the bar of a pizza restaurant. Adam ordered a bottle of Chianti. There was actually a choice of wine here.

‘Thank you,’ said Chelsea. ‘You saved the day. I don’t dare think what might have happened if you hadn’t been in that café on the front.’

‘I’m glad I could help. It seems like the least I could do after … well, we’ve butted heads a few times this week, you and me. I’ve said some awful things.’

‘I just thank God you were watching my niece,’ said Chelsea.

‘I hope it makes up for all those times I wasn’t watching Lily earlier in the week.

Chelsea laughed.

‘I guess it started before we even got off the plane. That dress you were wearing … it was expensive, wasn’t it?’ Adam asked.

Chelsea pulled a face that suggested he was on the right lines. In fact, her expression said, ‘You have no idea how expensive a dress can be.’

‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘I can tell when something’s well made.’

‘Really?’ Chelsea had yet to meet a man who could tell the difference between Prada and Primark. At least, not a straight man.

‘Yes. I could see it in the cut and the fabric. I had a great teacher. My wife always dressed very well.’

Wife? Dressed? The past tense? Chelsea let it hang in the air.

‘My wife died,’ Adam explained in short order. ‘Nearly three years ago.’

‘I’m sorry. Was …?’

‘Was she ill for a long time? No. Thank God. She – Claire was her name – had an aneurysm. Apparently, it was waiting to happen – could have gone at any time. It was incredibly sudden and fast. It happened when she was at the office. She’d only been back at work for a week. I kept thinking about that. If it had happened a week earlier, she would have been at home with Lily.’

Chelsea winced at the thought.

‘As it was, Lily was with her grandparents. I don’t know what I would have done without them. I was in pieces for months.’

‘That’s understandable.’

‘But you have to carry on. Claire would have been furious if I hadn’t pulled myself together. Lily was only just three years old and she needed me.’

Adam was visibly distressed by the memory. Chelsea found herself reaching across the table to pat his hand. She halfway withdrew when she decided that was a lame gesture. Then she reached out again and this time she took his hand properly. After rescuing Sophie, the very least he deserved was a good listening-to.

Adam confirmed that he was grateful seconds later. ‘I don’t talk about it much any more. People were very willing to listen at first, but when you’ve told the story a hundred times, you know they’re just being polite when they tell you to call whenever you want.’

‘Well, I’m hearing this for the first time,’ said Chelsea. ‘You can talk for as long as you want.’

‘I don’t know how much Lily remembers. Everyone told me that she was so young she would adjust and it would be as though nothing had happened, but she definitely feels a lack. I know it. I try to be everything to her. Sometimes I think I try a bit too hard. I find it difficult to get tough with her when she’s being so spoilt. It doesn’t help that none of her grandparents or aunts and uncles ever says boo to her. They always see her as the poor motherless child rather than the stroppy little madam she can be from time to time.’

Chelsea was careful not to nod.

‘Sometimes when she’s kicking off about something or the other, I imagine Claire looking down on me and telling me I’m getting it wrong. I’m sure she would know exactly how to handle Lily’s tantrums. I’m sure Lily wouldn’t dare have them if Claire were still around.’

‘Don’t beat yourself up,’ said Chelsea. ‘I used to think that parenting was easy, but I’ve had my eyes well and truly opened this week. I had no idea.’

‘Jack seems like a good kid.’

‘He is – he’s lovely, and he’s incredibly wise. He comes out with things that I can’t imagine having even thought about at his age.’

‘They can be like that, children. Claire used to say that the under-sevens are like dogs – they pick up on everything. It’s like they can read the flicker of an eyebrow you don’t even feel. You can’t hide anything from them. I think that as children get older, they start to close down to what other people are feeling, and by the time they’re adults, they can be totally oblivious. It’s a self-defence mechanism.’

‘It would be good to be oblivious from time to time,’ Chelsea joked.

‘They teach you a lot about yourself, children,’ Adam continued.

‘That’s what my sister was always telling me. She used to say you aren’t really a woman until you’ve had a child.’

‘I don’t think that’s entirely true,’ said Adam. ‘You don’t have to give birth to benefit in some way.’

‘I know that. Jack has certainly made me think about a few things this week. I shall endeavour to have some of his patience, for a start.’

‘He’s a very good loser,’ said Adam. ‘I mean, he’s OK with being disappointed, unlike …’

He nodded towards her. Chelsea raised an eyebrow back at him. ‘Let’s not talk about the parents’ race, please.’

‘I’m sorry about that, but if you had any idea what I was expecting to have to deal with if I hadn’t won … Anyway, you did hold on to your potato.’

‘And you didn’t?’

Adam laughed. ‘Rumbled.’

‘I knew it was impossible!’

‘You’re right.
Potato
and spoon, I ask you. It simply does not work. Look, it’s getting late. Are you sure your parents are OK with having both Jack and Lily?’

Jacqui had texted to say that she was putting both the children to bed in her and Dave’s room so Chelsea and Adam didn’t have to hurry back.

‘I think Mum just wants to feel useful tonight,’ said Chelsea.

‘In which case, I shall make the most of having my bedroom to myself. You have no idea how loudly a six-year-old can snore.’

‘Oh no,’ said Chelsea, ‘I do.’

Adam picked up the bottle of wine they had shared. There was just an inch left in the bottom. He offered it to Chelsea, but she refused. He passed up on it too.

‘Tomorrow’s a big day,’ he reminded her.

Chelsea tilted her head to one side. She wasn’t sure what he was referring to.

‘The fancy-dress competition?’ Adam reminded her. ‘You are entering the fancy-dress competition, aren’t you? Last chance to prove you’re not a—’

Adam made the ‘L’ sign.

Chelsea flicked a finger at him. ‘You’re on.’

Chapter Fifty-Two

Jacqui

Jacqui and Dave didn’t mind having the children sleeping on cushions in their room, because going to bed was the very last thing they felt like doing. Instead, they sat out on the balcony, leaving the door into the room ajar so they could hear the slightest snuffle or movement. They talked to each other in hushed tones. There was a lot to discuss. The truth about their eldest daughter was out at last. It hadn’t happened in the way Jacqui anticipated, but it was out there nonetheless. Ronnie knew. Chelsea knew. Mark knew. Sophie knew. One day soon, Jack would know as well.

‘How do you feel?’ Dave asked his wife again. Though it was very much his story too, he knew she was the one feeling the brunt of the day’s events right then.

Jacqui assured him that she was OK. In truth, she felt exhausted. The row with Ronnie, Sophie’s disappearance, her subsequent return to the family fold: the day had encompassed more highs and lows than the craziest roller-coaster a Disney imagineer could have invented. Facing Ronnie’s anger, Jacqui had thought she might lose everything. Knowing that her granddaughter was safe, Jacqui had been on top of the world. A couple of hours later, she was feeling deflated again. She was thinking about how her life had been, all those years ago, when she discovered that she was carrying her first baby.

Dave knew the story, of course, but he was happy to let her tell it again.

‘Ultimately,’ she said at last, ‘today has changed nothing. The girls know the truth, but I’m still the mother to a child I’ve never known.’

‘And the mother to two girls who adore you,’ Dave pointed out. ‘Two grandchildren who think you’re the best gran in the world. And my wife. You’re the wife of a man who will always love you.’

‘For ever?’ asked Jacqui.

She buried her head in her husband’s shoulder.

‘For ever,’ Dave confirmed.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Sophie

When everyone else had gone to bed, Ronnie and Sophie sat side by side in Sophie’s room and talked through that day’s adventures.

‘You said you didn’t want me,’ Sophie said flatly.

‘Oh, sweetheart! That’s not what I was saying at all.’

‘It is. You said you never wanted to have a baby and I ruined your life. I took away all your chances.’

‘You didn’t,’ said Ronnie. She held Sophie tightly, but Sophie remained stiff within her arms, as though trying to keep herself from her mother.

‘Why didn’t you just get rid of me? You didn’t have to do what Grandma and Granddad said.’

‘Because I didn’t want to.
We
didn’t want to. Your dad and me, we wanted to have you.’

She protested so much that Sophie started to thaw. Then Ronnie told her about the moment in Dr Swallow’s surgery.

‘I felt you there inside me and I knew we could get through it all. When you were born, the feeling only got stronger. I would sit by your crib and watch you for hours. We both did, me and your dad. We’d hold hands and watch you while you slept. When you were awake, we’d fight over which one of us got to cuddle you first.’

‘Did you really?’ Sophie asked her.

‘We really did. And as you got older, it just got better and better. I can’t describe how fabulous it was to see you take your first steps. You spoke really early. I was ever so proud of you. You were so sensitive and thoughtful. You made me proud every day.’

‘I don’t make you proud any more?’

Ronnie sensed that Sophie was fishing.

‘You make me proud all the time, you do. When you’re helping your brother tie his shoelaces, when you’re in the netball team, when you bring home your exam results. You’ve got a great future ahead of you. I know you’re going to go to uni—’

‘But you could have gone to uni if you hadn’t had me,’ Sophie reminded her.

‘I’d never have got into university,’ said Ronnie.

‘That’s not true. You would have got your A-levels.’

Ronnie shook her head.

‘And you could still get them, Mum. You know that, don’t you?’

‘What, now? I’m thirty-two years old.’

‘Age doesn’t matter.’

‘Can you imagine how old I’d be when I finished a degree?’

‘The same age you’d be if you didn’t do a degree at all,’ said Sophie.

Ronnie blinked at her daughter’s wisdom.

‘You could totally do it, Mum. You could do it all at the same time as me. When I start my A-levels, Jack will be eight. He won’t need so much looking after. You can go back to study. And then, when you’ve got your A-levels, Jack will be starting senior school. You’d definitely have time to do a degree then.’