Freeing Grace (37 page)

The voice on the other end was subdued and hesitant, as though the young man had been plucking up enough courage to call.

‘Um . . . is Reverend Edmunds there? We’d like to organise our baby being christened.’

Not now. Not now. Leila’s fingers seemed to lose their strength; the receiver slipped a little in her hand.

‘Hello?’ The voice gained confidence. ‘Have I got the right place?’

No. This is definitely the wrong place. With an effort, Leila cleared her throat. ‘Mr Edmunds isn’t in, I’m afraid. Let me take your number . . .’

After the call, she unplugged the telephone from the wall. Then she moved to David’s side, as he stood gazing sightlessly out of the kitchen window. The sun left them, creeping pitilessly away below a pale horizon. Shadows slipped gleefully into the room, and a draught numbed their souls.

David stirred, wrapping an arm around his wife’s shoulders. ‘Can we give up now, please, Leila?’

She looked out at the last of the light, bleeding away. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. We can give up now.’

And, very briefly, she meant it.

Chapter Twenty-eight

I got held up on the M25. Jack-knifed lorry, apparently, and something toxic all over the show. I fumed in the carbon-belching queue, wishing I had a takeaway coffee.

After about a decade without forward movement, I began to twiddle with the radio; hit the news—bad, all of it—and the weather. According to the very jolly weatherman, we were in for severe gales by the middle of the following week, a mother of a storm. And the odds were shortening on a white Christmas.

As the minutes passed I became increasingly aware of a twisting in my guts. I couldn’t say quite why, but I found myself finger drumming and heel tapping like a hyperactive schoolkid. There was something about the tone of Deborah’s last letter that I hadn’t liked, especially when I remembered Lucy’s recent anxiety. I had an uneasy sense that I needed to get to Coptree immediately. I wanted to see Debs—see them all. In the end I fished out a map and planned a cross country route from the next exit.

I opened the door of the truck and leaned out. Hundreds of red taillights, all arranged in neat, obedient rows. The night was settling into stillness and frost under a clear, city-glow sky. Butter wouldn’t melt in its mouth. The jolly weatherman had to be wrong.

As soon as I spotted the next exit I barged my way across the crawling traffic, getting myself hooted at and not caring, keen to turn towards Suffolk. Once I’d left the motorway it was a convoluted route, and a couple of times I had to stop and check the map. But at least I was moving. And the closer I got, the faster I drove. By the time I reached Coptree Woods, I was flying.

Deborah’s figure appeared at the front door as soon as I pulled up, and Matt was right behind her.

‘Thank God,’ said Deborah, as I jumped out and hugged her. She kissed my cheek. ‘Thank God for you, Jake. We’re going mad here.’

‘Matt,’ I said, clapping a hand on the boy’s broad shoulder. ‘How’s it going?’

He grunted and shoved his hands into his pockets as they led me inside.

Perry appeared in the hall and shook my hand. He came with us into the kitchen and did his best to be a good host, but it seemed an immense effort for him. Deborah was doing a Stepford Wife impersonation over the stove. After ten minutes, the phone rang and Matt went to answer it. It was Lucy, checking in.

Without a word, Perry got up from the table and slumped out into the garden.

‘So—what’s wrong with Perry?’ I asked, watching him through the kitchen window. ‘I’ve never seen him so low.’ I began to twist a corkscrew into a bottle. To thank the Harrisons for their hospitality I’d brought a case of pinot noir, imported from a small producer in Hawke’s Bay. ‘You’d think he’d be doing a jig on the kitchen table. He’s won!’

Deborah turned away from the stove, compulsively winding that same strand of hair around her finger, and peered out into the darkness. We could make out Perry’s thin frame as he dug violently in the mud.

‘He won’t talk to me,’ she said helplessly. ‘The better we do with Grace, the more incapacitated he becomes.’

‘But everything’s going to plan—
his
plan.’

She continued to gaze out at her husband. ‘My leaving shocked him. He looked into the abyss.’

‘He wasn’t as bad as this last time I was here,’ I said, trying to be matter-of-fact.

‘No, he wasn’t. Perhaps while he had a goal—finding me, getting me back—he continued to function. But now, even though we’re all busy pretending, he’s having to face the fact that I don’t want to be here. And we’re playing this grotesque game of Happy Families.’

Perry had stopped digging. He was resting his forehead on the handle of the spade. He looked defeated.

‘I know he’s suffering,’ said Deborah. ‘I know depression is torture, and it isn’t something you can snap out of. But I have compassion fatigue, Jake. After so many years, it’s hard to carry on caring. He will improve, you know. In a few weeks or months. He always does.’

I took her shoulders and turned her around, drawing her out of sight of the window. ‘And you, Susie?’

She rested her head against me, just for a moment. Then she moved back to the stove and picked up a wooden spoon. ‘I’m managing, Jake, really I am. I’m doing this for Matt.’

I had an image of Matt, dropping out of school, abandoning his future and stacking supermarket shelves into middle age. ‘But . . . what if Matt’s only doing it for Perry? And Perry’s only doing it for . . . well, Perry.’ I considered this idea. ‘And for Grace too, I think.’

She smiled, stirring. ‘It’s no good, you know. Now that I’ve met that little girl, it is unthinkable to pack her up like a parcel and send her off into this . . .’ she searched for a word, ‘. . . this
vicious
world. How can strangers be trusted to love and cherish her?’

I was silent. I saw her point.

‘I thought I could escape,’ said Deborah, and her spoon whirled crazily, round and round in its saucepan. ‘But I never shall. I’m a life prisoner.’

For the next few days, Deborah rushed frenetically around the place, putting up a tree and lights and Christmas decorations. She spent hours arranging little clothes in drawers and making space for all sorts of plastic paraphernalia that I couldn’t put a name to. She did her very, very best.

But her eyes were blank.

The tanned and freckled girl I’d found, sitting on a piece of driftwood with her feet buried in the warm sands of Kulala Beach, that girl was gone. Susie was gone. I had forced her into exile. This imposter wore pearls, and a frown. And she’d done something awful to her hair. The bleached honey no longer tangled and twisted around her shoulder blades. It was ordered now, smooth and expensive, hanging in a lifeless curtain down her cheeks. She scurried all day, as though she was a robot and someone had wound her up with a key, and she couldn’t stop.

I wanted Susie to come back. I knew she was still alive, still there, hidden under a mask of cashmere and lipstick. Sometimes I caught a glimpse of her in a musical lilt of the voice or a twist of the mouth. I wished I had left her where I found her.

Perry barely emerged from his study. When he appeared, his movements were slow; even his thought processes seemed to be dulled. He’d take a long moment to answer any remark, as if he had to drag his mind back from a land immensely far away. You could feel his lifelessness settling into your bones even when he wasn’t in the same room. It was a paralysing mist that pervaded the house. I couldn’t have stood it for long.

Imogen Christie paid one more visit—tying up loose ends, she said. I made myself very scarce that day; I gather Perry rose to the occasion, as ever.

I made it clear that I’d be leaving for good first thing on Thursday morning. Matt and Deborah were off to court in the afternoon, where a judge would rubber stamp the deal, and I wanted to be well away by then. There was nothing more I could do. This was not my family, not my home. I had to face the wreckage of my own life. And leave them to theirs.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Dusk. Sullen clouds raced across a tea-coloured sky. Leila hurried along the home straight, coatless, shivering, while delinquent gusts spat mouthfuls of freezing rainwater over her.

Tomorrow was the day of the court hearing. And she’d decided what to do.

She could no longer bear the inaction, the passivity. What did she have to lose? They were into injury time, she and David. If they didn’t score now, they never would. So. She was going to telephone the social worker as soon as she got home. Make sure they weren’t forgotten. Stir it up.

She had to negotiate an automated telephone answering system, and then wait while it played soothing music, and it all took time. In the gloomy hall, she glanced nervously at her watch. David would be home soon, and he wouldn’t approve of what she was doing.

The music broke off, and she heard the familiar voice, rather cautious.

‘Hello? Linda Hooper.’

‘Linda.’ Leila tried to sound pleasant and unthreatening, but her heart was stamping with big boots. ‘It’s Leila Edmunds here. You know . . .’

‘Yes, Leila. I know. What can I do for you?’

Good question. Leila’s resolve faltered. ‘I just . . . I wanted you to know that we still want the baby. We’re here, ready, waiting. Please make sure they know that. Please,
please
don’t let them forget us.’

There was a defensive silence. Then Linda’s voice, quite curt. ‘We’ve done what we can, Leila. It’s not our fault.’

‘I know it isn’t. I know that. But we seem so forgotten and sidelined and unimportant. I feel as though we’ve done something wrong—we’re being punished in some way.
Did
we do something wrong?’

‘No, it was the grandmother—’

‘I want everyone to understand that we’re still here, we haven’t gone away. Please, Linda. Can’t you do
anything
?’

There was another pause and then a heavy sigh.

‘Look, Leila, I know you’re very upset about what’s happened, and the way it has been handled. I am too. But it isn’t down to me. I have absolutely no say in this. None. It’s all going to be ratified at about two o’clock tomorrow by some judge in Woodbury County Court.’

Leila’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Woodbury? You mean in Suffolk? Is that where they—’

Hurriedly, as though to cover her mistake, the social worker interrupted. ‘Everything’s already sewn up.’

‘But . . . David and I, we never got a say. We never had a
voice
.’

‘I’ll be in touch, Leila.’ With practised efficiency, Linda was ending the conversation.

‘Wait! Give me the birth family’s name. Just a name. Give me a phone number. Let me talk to them.’

‘Out of the question.’ Linda’s voice had sharpened. ‘Absolutely out of the question. You know that.’

‘But—’

‘Drop it, Leila! Drop it right now. If you want this department to work with you in the future, you’d better calm down. I’ll pretend I didn’t hear the suggestion you’ve just made.’

Leila hung up, deflated by the threat. Well, what had she expected? A miracle?

It was almost dark by now, and she hadn’t turned on any lights. As she reached for the switch, she caught her breath at the sight of a shadow looming in the frosted glass of the front door. Whoever it was, he was standing close, peering in.

‘Shit,’ she hissed, recognising the figure. ‘Not now.’ Her pulse was still galloping, but her fright had turned to irritation. She looked around, irresolute, wondering whether she might get away with hiding. The shadow rattled the door.

‘Let me in, Miss Dark-as-Night,’ wheedled a hopeful voice.

Leila swore, squared her shoulders and unlocked the door.

‘Christopher!’ she mumbled unenthusiastically.
Sod off
.

‘Ah, my little Leila! Just passing.’ He was wearing an off-white mackintosh, like a flasher at a bus stop, and a plastic shopping bag dangled from one veined hand.

‘Nobody’s ever just passing Birmingham, Christopher.’

Her father-in-law bared his excellent teeth. ‘Memorial service in Nottingham, tomorrow morning. Tragic golfing accident.’ He slithered across the threshold, stopping just in front of her. ‘I couldn’t resist calling on my Queen of Sheba.’ He pressed his mouth against her cheek, narrowly missing her lips. ‘David out?’

Yuck.
‘Yes. But I’m expecting him back any time. Cup of tea?’

‘I thought something stronger.’ He held up the shopping bag, and it clanked. ‘I even brought the lemon.’

She eyed him with loathing; imagined her knee coming up and Christopher doubled over, wheezing in pain.

‘It’s cold in this doorway,’ he said, hinting. ‘There’s a gale blowing up.’

Cursing to herself, Leila led the way into the kitchen, snapped on all the lights, and ostentatiously plugged in the kettle. Christopher slid off his coat and poured gin and tonic for them both, spilling some. He planted himself in front of her and handed her a tumbler.

‘Come on. Have a proper drink with me for once, Leila. You don’t want bloody tea. Tea’s poison.’

She took a sip, and forced herself not to splutter. It was almost pure gin. He watched her with his faded blue eyes, smiling genially. Abruptly, she turned her back and began to scrub the draining board.

‘Does Hilda know you’re here?’ she asked.

‘Of course. I’ve no secrets from her.’ She heard him swallow the rest of his gin, and the clink of glass as he poured himself a refill. ‘Incidentally, I hear you insulted my wife at our party.’ Clink, chink. Glug.

He stepped closer. ‘Ooh,’ he murmured, into her right ear. ‘That
was
naughty.’ And swinging an arm, he smacked her on the bottom.

It was not so much painful as utterly unexpected. And it was too much for Leila. After all these years, and at the wrong moment, Christopher had finally gone too far. Whirling around she brought her palm across his cheek, hitting him with all the strength she could muster, and the shock ran up her arm and into her shoulder. The impact made a satisfying, whip-cracking sound.

‘You are
repulsive
!’ she yelled.

Christopher fell back against the table, mouth open in astonishment.