Bay of Secrets (21 page)

‘Where is my baby?’ Lenora looked from left to right, her eyes growing wild with fear. ‘What have you done with him?’

‘I am very sorry.’ The doctor’s voice was heavy with grief. ‘But your child has been taken by God.’

Taken by God? But the child had seemed so healthy. Sister Julia crossed herself.

‘No!’ Lenora’s wail was heart-rending. It was a cry of pure grief.

Sister Julia hurried to her side.

Dr Lopez nodded. ‘There was nothing I could do,’ he said.
‘But rest assured that your son has passed on from this earth to heaven.’

‘It cannot be! It is not true!’ Lenora tried to grasp the doctor’s arm. ‘Give him to me. Give me my boy!’

‘Hush, Lenora.’ But Sister Julia did not know what to say.

‘He has gone to God, I tell you.’ The doctor held the crucifix in front of him. ‘Be happy for him. For he has been saved.’

Lenora burst into a fit of uncontrolled weeping. Sister Julia put an arm around her and tried to offer some words of comfort. But in truth the words stuck in her throat. Lenora was inconsolable.

Dr Lopez was about to leave the room when she shrieked at him. ‘Let me see him. Let me see my baby!’

Of course she must see the child. Sister Julia moved towards the door – about to go and fetch him, for he must surely still be in the examination room downstairs – when she heard the doctor’s reply.

‘I cannot give permission for you to see your child,’ he said. ‘You are in no fit state. It is not healthy. It is not good for you.’

Sister Julia dithered. This was true enough. It had not occurred to her, but she had to admit that hysteria would do no one any good. There were other women to think of and besides, this poor woman could lose her sense of reason, being confronted by such a trauma.

‘I must see him!’ Lenora insisted. But she sounded less forceful now. Grief had overtaken her. She was crumpled, beaten.

And Sister Julia thought for a moment of her mother’s expression when she had left her at Santa Ana Convent that first time. She too had been defeated.

‘What was wrong with him?’ Lenora whispered. ‘How did he die?’

‘An infection in his heart,’ Dr Lopez replied immediately. ‘It was very sudden. A malfunction. No one could have known.’

No one could have known.
Life and death. These things happened. Sister Julia had seen more than her fair share. Mothers were often poor and undernourished; they were unhealthy and had perhaps passed dangerous germs on to their unborn infants.

But poor Lenora was suddenly beside herself. ‘No, no … ’ she cried. She tried to drag herself out of the bed. She was becoming hysterical.

The doctor’s expression changed abruptly from sympathy to irritation. ‘Sister Julia,’ he snapped, ‘a sedative, if you please.’

Sister Julia scurried off for the sedative. She could not believe it. The child had seemed so healthy. And yet … She couldn’t rid herself of that feeling of dread.

*

‘Children are born without the natural defences of you and I, Sister Julia,’ Dr Lopez said sadly as he accompanied her out of the delivery room. ‘Sometimes we cannot protect them and we cannot save them. It is God’s will to take them at once. We must accept this.’

Sister Julia bowed her head. She knew that he would have done everything he could to save the child. He was upset himself – though he hid his emotions well. ‘And she will see her child later when she is calm?’ she asked him.

‘I think not.’ Dr Lopez was brusque. ‘What good will it do to brood on the past? She must look to the future now.’

Sister Julia wrung her hands. Lenora needed to see her son – she knew that. She needed some sense of closure – or she could be traumatised for who knew how long. Sister Julia remembered that look of peace on her face after her child had been born. All those long months of the baby growing in her belly, all that pain experienced in order to deliver him into the world. And now this.

‘I am sure that if I could talk gently to her for a moment, she would be able to cope with the sight of her baby,’ she said. ‘It might help her contemplate her future without him.’

‘Her dead baby, Sister,’ the doctor reminded her.

‘But surely, doctor … ’ Sister Julia knew she was becoming too emotionally involved but how could she help it? Yes, Lenora’s child was dead and it would be upsetting for her to see him. But if she did not see him … ‘I feel that she needs—’

‘Oh you do, do you, Sister?’ Dr Lopez opened the door of his consulting room and brusquely ushered her inside. ‘You think you can vouch for her emotions, eh? You feel that you know exactly what this woman requires?’

Sister Julia summoned all her strength of will – which was hard, because she had been cultivating acceptance and faith
for so many years now through prayer at the convent of Santa Ana. ‘I think I do, doctor,’ she said.

‘So you know better than I what is good for this woman, do you, Sister?’ His voice was dangerously calm. ‘You, a woman who is part cloistered, who knows nothing of the real world outside this clinic and her own convent? You think you know better than I?’

‘Oh, no, doctor, forgive me.’ Sister Julia bowed her head. She had not been saying that at all. How could she possibly know better than he? She had simply wanted to convey her own thoughts, her feelings …

‘Be still.’ He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘And listen to one who knows.’

His hand felt heavy as lead. The weight was one which Sister Julia could hardly bear.

‘It would be too sad for her,’ he said. ‘She is in a dangerously vulnerable state following childbirth. Trust me, Sister Julia, it is better this way.’

*

Later that day, Sister Julia had occasion to go into the doctor’s consulting rooms to collect a report that he had left there. She saw the death certificate for Lenora’s child and had to stifle a sob. The poor woman was still sedated but soon she would be discharged into the outside world. And did she have anyone to support her, to comfort her? Probably not. It was a heartbreaking situation.

There was a birth certificate on his desk too – that of a boy who had been born during the night when Sister Julia had
not been at the clinic. He was to be adopted. She glanced at it with interest. Frederico Carlo Batista – the surname of the couple who were to adopt him; she herself had shown them into the clinic earlier today when they had joyfully collected their swaddled and wrapped baby boy and without further ado disappeared.

No mention of course of the little one’s birth mother’s name. Even Sister Julia did not know it, since apparently the mother had been discharged even before Sister Julia had arrived this morning. And it was not on the birth certificate since General Franco had seen to it that the names of the adoptive parents were the only names ever recorded.

‘It is a new law. A good law,’ Dr Lopez had told her when she questioned it. ‘It ensures that our young people will receive the right ideological upbringing. They will be brought up to love God; they will be brought up in the right way, the only way a Spaniard should be brought up, in His name.’

Sister Julia understood the reasons why. But this new law meant that every adopted child would remain ignorant of their roots. That there would be no record of their biological parents, nor even that they had been adopted at all. She could not argue with the doctor’s logic. But did this not flout another fundamental right? The right to know your own origins? And wasn’t such deceit likely to lay the foundations in their damaged country for more and still more deceit?

Now, Sister Julia memorised the names of the child and of the adopted parents. She checked the discharges book and
found the name of the mother who had left this morning. She memorised all the names.

*

On the way back to Santa Ana late that afternoon, Sister Julia purchased a plain hardback notebook from a stationery shop in Las Ramblas. She took it back to the convent, went to her own simple whitewashed room and she wrote down the date and all the names. And then she added another. Lenora Sanchez. The name of the woman whose son had died.

She could not even say why she had done it. She kept it secret and she locked the book in a drawer. But she would continue to do it, she decided. She would stay at the clinic and try to help these women. And she would write down all the names.

Dorset, April 1978

Vivien drove cautiously back home from Pride Bay, glancing in her mirror regularly to check that the baby, wrapped in her blanket and tucked into the basket, was still secure on the back seat. What else could she do? Laura obviously transported her in much the same way – the poor mite didn’t appear to even have a cot to sleep in. Vivien sighed and gripped the steering wheel of her Morris 1000 a little more tightly. And just for a second she allowed herself to think – didn’t Laura realise how lucky she was? Probably not.

Tom was home – she spotted his bicycle leaned against the side wall as she parked in the driveway of their two-bed semi. Goodness knows what he’d have to say. But she was only babysitting, wasn’t she? People did that all the time to help out. And Laura wasn’t to know what they’d been through, how desperately Vivien longed for a child.

Ruby didn’t stir as Vivien walked up the garden path. She brushed the soft cheek with her little finger, felt an echoing pulse of warmth inside her own body.

No, Vivien.

The house next door looked mournful as ever. It hadn’t
had the windows or doors looked at in years and the cream paint was cracked and flaking, revealing the bare wood underneath. What would Pearl have made of this little one – her granddaughter? Vivien smiled. Wouldn’t she have loved her?

Tom was in the kitchen eating a sandwich – cheese and tomato, Vivien could tell by the debris on the kitchen table. She lifted Ruby gently from the basket.

‘Hello, love,’ he said, glancing up, back to his paper, then back at her as he registered what she was holding. ‘What’s this?’ he said.

‘A baby.’

‘I can see that.’ He stared at her. ‘Whose baby? Where did it come from?’

What did he think? That she’d abducted her from somewhere? For heaven’s sake … Vivien sat down with Ruby snuggled in the crook of her arm. She shouldn’t just be kept in a basket – she needed human warmth and affection. ‘Laura’s baby,’ she said. ‘She asked me to look after her for a bit.’

Tom rustled the folds of his newspaper in a way she recognised. ‘And you thought that was a good idea, did you?’ His voice was gruff.

Vivien looked down at the baby. ‘It was hard to say no to her,’ she said. ‘What with Pearl and everything.’

Tom got to his feet. ‘You take care, love, that’s all,’ he said.

‘Course I will.’ Vivien smiled.

‘I’ll put the kettle on then.’ As he passed, Tom bent down to peer at the little one.

Vivien saw his eyes soften. For a moment she could see how he would be, how they could be. Something tightened in her chest. ‘I’ll put her down and make the tea when the kettle boils,’ she said. But already Tom’s eyes had glazed over. He’d closed down. She saw it.

‘Do you think she’s finding it hard to cope with her?’ he asked.

‘Probably.’ Vivien recalled what Laura had said about the crying. Though Ruby seemed such a good baby. She just wanted feeding and changing regularly, that was all. And she didn’t want to be living in a camper van for ever.

The kettle boiled, Tom gave her a look and Vivien settled the baby – not back in the basket, but in the soft and deep old armchair in the corner. She tucked in the blanket, put a bolster in place to keep her safe and watched her for a moment. It hurt a bit to let go of her. She was so warm and now the place where she had nestled in close to Vivien’s body felt empty and cold. Vivien brushed at the deserted space with her hand, as if she could whisk that elusive baby presence away. The baby half-smiled in her sleep. Dreaming rainbows.

*

Laura didn’t come to collect her until almost midnight. By that time even Vivien was frantic. She’d used the last bit of milk formula too. What was she supposed to do the next time she woke up? She wasn’t equipped for a baby. Laura hadn’t left Ruby’s night things or any more spare nappies or anything. What was she thinking of – leaving her here for so long?

Tom had already gone to bed with a sigh and a ‘I knew no good would come of it’. But Vivien sat up waiting, watching Ruby and worrying. What if something had happened to Laura?

When the knock on the door came it roused Vivien from a half-doze. She was in the rocking chair in the kitchen, Ruby still in the deep lap of the armchair.

She got to her feet and let Laura in. ‘I didn’t know you’d be this long,’ she said.

Laura looked back at her, vague, not quite with it. ‘Was she any hassle?’ she asked.

‘No, she was fine,’ Vivien said. She went over to the armchair and lifted Ruby gently out and into the basket. She felt a dip of desolation in her belly. ‘Bye, Ruby,’ she whispered.

Laura was watching her. ‘You like her.’

‘Of course I do.’ Vivien handed her the basket. ‘Who wouldn’t?’

‘Plenty wouldn’t.’ Laura looked down at her daughter, a mixture of love and resentment on her face.

Vivien reminded herself of the facts. Of Laura’s mother’s death, of the lifestyle she was living, of the fact that Ruby’s father had left Laura. And that Laura was still just a girl herself.

‘She’s lovely,’ Vivien said. Be grateful, she thought. Be very grateful. Because you have no idea.

‘Not when she’s crying all night, she isn’t.’ She sounded so dispassionate. And so casual in the way she turned around and opened the door, swinging the basket as if Ruby were
nothing more than the week’s groceries. Vivien wanted to snatch her back there and then.

‘I’ll look after her again,’ Vivien said as Laura stepped outside. She tried to sound more casual than she felt. ‘Any time you want.’

‘Will you?’ Laura brightened. She eyed her with more interest. ‘That’s great. Tomorrow afternoon, maybe?’

‘Oh.’ Once again, Vivien hadn’t expected it to be quite so soon. Did Laura really know what it meant to be a mother? Did she understand about responsibility of care? ‘Well, yes. That’s fine,’ she heard herself saying. ‘As long as it’s after three.’ Which was when she finished work. Vivien still worked part-time at the post office, though she finished early so that she could keep up with her art – some of which she’d already got into a few of the local galleries.