Gracie (31 page)

‘Listen to me, young Gracie. I know babies – we had enough of them, me and the missus – and I can see there’s nothing wrong with that little ’un that a dose of Virol won’t fix. A bit of building up and she’ll be right as rain, mark my words.’

Gracie smiled to herself as she walked outside. Henry had reiterated what she herself had been thinking: Fay was going to be just fine.

She pushed the canopy back and stood for a moment looking at the pram, trying to get her brain to process what she could see.

The pram was empty.

Gracie looked all around but there was no one with a baby. And then she screamed and started to run.

‘Where’s Fay?’ Gracie shouted as she flew into the hotel and ran through the lobby into the kitchen. ‘Who’s picked Fay up? I left her in her pram outside. I went to make up her bottle and she’s gone! The pram’s empty, her blanket’s gone …’

‘Calm down,’ Ruby said as she ran through from the office. ‘Someone’s probably picked her up. Where was she?’

‘Just under the window in her pram. It’s a nice day, I was going to feed her out there on the bench. Ruby, she’s gone, the pram’s empty …’ Gracie could barely breathe, she was hyperventilating so badly.

The two young women ran back outside together and looked in the pram, more in hope than expectation – and then realisation hit and all hell broke loose.

‘Where’s my baby?’ Gracie screamed at full volume. ‘Where is she?’

Word of Fay’s disappearance spread like wildfire and people ran back and forth between the two properties, looking in all manner of unlikely places around the hotel. Gracie’s screams had alerted some of the guests and a few neighbours, and within minutes the area was alive with those who wanted to help, and those who just wanted to know what was going on.

‘We have to call the police,’ Ruby said, ‘and we need to ask around properly. Shouting isn’t getting us anywhere. I saw Sean and his mother outside earlier, maybe they saw something.’

‘Sean was here?’ Gracie’s brain started ticking.

‘He didn’t come in, Rosaleen went out to him. It looked like they had arranged to meet and he didn’t want to see any of us …’

‘Oh God, they’ve taken her! Don’t you see? That’s what Sean was doing here. They’ve taken Fay, they’ve taken her away from me …’

Despite Ruby trying to hold her back Gracie ran into the road, screaming hysterically. ‘They’ve taken my baby, they’ve taken my baby. Help!’

As Gracie ran back and forth so Jennifer McCabe watched, listened and smiled from her vantage point behind the nearby breakwater. She could see them, but they couldn’t see her unless they ventured down to the water’s edge. Although the sun was breaking through it was still a cool day so the beach was almost deserted and she was well tucked in behind one of the struts.

When Sean had cautiously told Jennifer that his mother had refused to meet her she was steaming mad. She had told him she wasn’t prepared to accept it but he didn’t take her seriously and so, after he had gone off to work at the café the next day, she had not gone to work but had instead gone to the hotel to try and force a meeting with the woman.

It wasn’t that she cared about Sean’s mother; she didn’t at all. She was simply furious that Rosaleen Donnelly was happy to be with Gracie and Fay in Ruby’s hotel, yet she was refusing to have anything to do with her. Jennifer was determined that the woman would speak to her.

When his mother turned up on the doorstep Sean had nearly had a heart attack on the spot. In panic he had carelessly bundled Jennifer down the side of the single bed, and thrown the grubby bedspread on top of her. She had laid there, imprisoned between the bed and the wall, for as long as it took him to chivvy Rosaleen away again by offering to escort her back to the hotel.

As Jennifer crawled out of the space she couldn’t believe that Sean had done that to her but she was more furious with herself for letting it happen. She should have stood up to him, to his mother, and demanded that they stop going on about bloody Fay Donnelly. The baby who was causing her more problems than even her sister had.

It wasn’t often that Jennifer McCabe admitted she had made a mistake but this time she had. She had allowed Sean to put his mother, and Gracie’s baby, first.

The more she thought about it, the more it rankled her that the woman had turned up unannounced and uninvited. It rankled that she had then scolded him like a schoolboy for the state of his living accommodation and it rankled that she had had to listen as Sean had initially denied her to his mother. ‘Jennifer is my sister-in-law. Gracie is just making this up to justify herself.’

But worst of all, it had hurt her because despite her original intentions, she really did love Sean.

She had always been the negligible twin, the one no one noticed or was interested in; the attention always on the little blonde poppet who was her twin sister. When she was a child Jennifer had hated being disregarded but then the light-bulb moment had come when she had discovered exactly how to use it to her advantage.

Jennifer had soon learned how to lie with wide-eyed innocence and let others take the blame for her misdeeds. She cheated at school with ease because no one expected it of her, and she could steal sweets from the shop on the corner and pencils from Woolworths and get away with it every time. Whatever she did she had always been able to deflect the blame onto someone else, because no one ever noticed she was there.

Just like her sister had never noticed she was there, inside her marriage.

The moment Gracie had refused to have her and Jeanette as bridesmaids at her wedding was the moment she had set Gracie in her sights.

Jennifer McCabe had never taken well to being snubbed. Jeanette had grumbled and stamped her dainty little feet but Jennifer had shrugged, feigned disinterest and bided her time.

She was a firm believer in
everything comes to those who wait
.

It was her ability to blend into the background that had made her feel quite secure sitting quietly in a deckchair a little way along the promenade, waiting for the right moment to ambush Rosaleen. She didn’t want to go into the hotel and be thrown out but she was determined to talk to the woman, to make her see that she was the right person for Sean. She wanted Gracie to be dismissed and she herself accepted in her place.

So she had watched and waited.

But as she was thinking about what she was going to say, Jennifer spotted Sean in the distance, walking along the promenade with his mother. She had been incensed to see the two of them strolling along the seafront deep in conversation and looking far too comfortable with each other for her liking.

But worst of all, Sean had told her he was going to work and had instead secretly gone to visit his mother. Sean had lied. He had put his mother first once again.

It was as she focused on them, analysing their every movement from a distance, imagining the conversation and wondering what to do next, that she had seen Gracie out of the corner of her eye. She was wheeling a pram along the road, a pram that Jennifer knew contained the baby, who was a stumbling block to her complete ownership of Sean Donnelly.

Jennifer watched from her hidden position as Gracie carefully pushed the pram into just the right place under the overhang of the porch; she watched her turn it around so the sun shone down on the tasselled canopy and not the baby, and then she watched her sister go back inside.

Jennifer stared across the road, taking in every detail.

It was a big and bouncy coach-built pram with huge wheels and a cream and silver body that caught the weak sunlight as it filtered down and magnified it. As she watched the canopy’s fringe flutter gently in the breeze the picture postcard image of domesticity and motherhood infuriated her.

Without planning or formulation Jennifer had instantly known what she was going to do – and at that moment it seemed like the best idea in the world.

One that would teach them all a lesson.

She had left her deckchair and strolled over the road, her head down and the collar of her jacket up. She walked quietly up the path and then, ducking down just enough not to be seen through the windows, she swiftly lifted the baby out of the pram, pulled out the blanket and strolled casually away with the child in her arms, hoping no one had seen her.

And no one had. The whole exercise had taken seconds.

Jennifer walked along the pavement a short way then crossed over, went down to the beach and settled on the far side of the breakwater, which was out of sight of the hotel. She swaddled the baby up tightly in the expansive crocheted blanket, tucked her up against the seaweed-clad panels, out of sight, and then waited expectantly for the furore.

‘But she’s sickly, she needs to be here with her mother …’ Gracie screamed as the implications of what had happened hit her. ‘How can they do this?
How
can they? Where’s Sean?’

Gracie was running back and forth in the middle of the road like a mad woman.

‘Come here …’ Ruby pleaded as she tried to catch her. ‘This won’t help. We have to go inside and think, and decide whether to phone the police.’

But Gracie wasn’t listening. She just kept repeating herself over and over. ‘They’ve taken Fay …’

‘
Who
has? Who do you think has picked her up?’ Ruby grabbed Gracie by her upper arms and gently shook her. ‘
Who
?’

‘Sean and his sodding mother of course! You said he was here and now Fay’s gone; they’ve taken her.’

‘But Sean and his mother are over there. Look, they’re over there walking this way, they haven’t got Fay …’

Gracie looked over to where Ruby was pointing and saw them walking in her direction. Rosaleen had her arm hooked through her son’s and both had their heads down, engrossed in their conversation.

‘I don’t understand, where’s Fay then?’ Her hand flew up to her mouth as she tried to block the scream. ‘Oh my lord, Jennifer … this is the sort of thing she’d do when she’s having one of her jealous turns!’

She ran over to them.

‘Have you got Fay? Where’s my baby? Has Jennifer got her?’ Gracie pummelled Sean’s chest with her fists as she screamed questions at him.

‘What are you talking about?’ Sean asked as he grabbed her wrists to stop the attack.

‘Someone’s taken Fay out of her pram! She’s gone, my baby’s gone …’

‘And you’re thinking it was us? That we have Fay?’ Rosaleen Donnelly’s shock was so apparent that Gracie knew it wasn’t them. It had to be Jennifer.

‘Does she know you’re here?’ she screamed at Sean, her face inches away from his. ‘Does Jennifer know?’

‘What’s that got to do with this?’ he asked, but Gracie knew he was being evasive. She also knew from the guilt written all over his face that Sean had gone to see his mother without telling Jennifer.

‘Jennifer has her.’ Gracie took a deep breath and looked around, her eyes taking in every person she could see and then she looked further, desperately scanning the beach.

‘She has her, I know she has, and she’s watching this and enjoying it. This is for your benefit …’

‘Are you mad, Gracie? Why in heaven’s name would she do that? She doesn’t want anything to do with that baby.’

Gracie vaguely registered Rosaleen Donnelly as she took a step away from her son and turned to look at him.

‘That baby? Did you just say
that baby
? That’s your daughter and she’s missing, and all you can say is
that baby
? Now get yourself together and find out what’s going on, Sean Donnelly! Be a man!’

Sean looked at his mother, put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in to him.

‘I didn’t mean it like that, Mam.’ He looked at Gracie. ‘Where shall we start?’

‘With Jennifer.’

‘I’ll drive Sean to find her,’ Johnnie said.

Jennifer watched the scene unfolding with delight. She loved seeing the friction between Gracie, Sean and Rosaleen.

That’ll teach them, she thought as she savoured it all, but then the baby started to whimper.

‘Shut up, they’ll hear you.’ She put her hand on the baby and half-heartedly pushed her back and forth, rolling her in the sand, while still keeping an eye on the chaos around the hotel.

But then the whimpering turned into a full-blown cry and, despite Jennifer’s efforts to stop her, the volume increased.

Jennifer peered over the top of the breakwater and again smiled at the chaos she had caused.

She had wanted to teach them all a lesson and she had succeeded, but now she had had enough. She was bored.

As she watched everyone in deep conversation she took her chance and ducked off in the other direction, leaving Fay alone and crying, tucked out of sight behind the breakwater strut, with the tide slowly but surely coming in.

‘Excuse me,’ the woman said as she approached one of the guests standing on the edge of the group outside the hotel. ‘I heard someone say there’s a baby missing. There’s a bundle down at the water’s edge over there that my dog was sniffing … I didn’t take any notice but maybe …’ As she pointed her voice trailed off because everyone started running.

‘She’s here, we’ve found her …’

Gracie ran down to the spot with Sean alongside her. She was scared as she had never been scared before but then she heard the cry.

‘See? I told you it wasn’t Jennifer …’ Sean said.

‘Then who do you think it was, Sean?’ She screamed at him. ‘Who else would have dumped Fay on the beach?’

‘I don’t know, I don’t understand it – but Jennifer isn’t here and Fay is safe.’

Gracie held Fay to her. ‘Listen to me, Sean;
listen
to me! As long as you are with Jennifer you will never see Fay again. She’s dangerous, and so are you when you’re with her.’

Sean shrugged and walked off, oblivious to the look of horror on his mother’s face.

‘Hello Gracie,’ the man said as he approached her on the pavement. ‘Fancy a spin on the rollercoaster and an ice cream?’

Gracie was just going into the chemists on the Broadway in Thorpe Bay when Edward Woodfield appeared in front of her. For a moment she didn’t recognise him. The voice was familiar, with its gentle tone and perfect enunciation, but his whole appearance was so different. She was momentarily thrown as she realised who it was, and she looked at him with a mixture of shock and curiosity.