Sowing Secrets (14 page)

Dear Fran,

Sorry if I landed you in it, but you really
should
have told me! It was a bit of a shock. Was that true, about another man? Or were you just saying that because you didn’t want me involved with Rosie? And I’d like to meet her, anyway.

You still look just as pretty as ever – haven’t changed a bit! I hope that husband of yours appreciates you.

Love, Tom

I haven’t answered it yet – I can’t think what to say, though it is rather balm to have Tom’s compliments after what Mal said! Besides, if there is even an outside chance that Rosie might be his, doesn’t he have a moral right to meet her? I’ll have to think about that one.

I was still undecided what to do for the best when I spoke to her that evening.

Practically all the everyday village news I would usually give her was now so peppered with the comings and goings of old lovers that I felt I was tiptoeing through a conversational minefield.

‘Are you all right, Mum?’ she asked eventually. ‘You sound a bit peculiar. Distracted.’

‘Now you come to ask, I have felt a bit off colour for a few weeks now,’ I agreed hastily. ‘Perhaps I ought to go and have a chat with the doctor and get a tonic or something.’

She might know a good diet too, because it looks like an integral part of making up with Mal is going to be based on my ability to render myself down to the dimensions of a tapeworm.

‘If you’re just going to sing “Keep Young and Beautiful” at me, I’m off!’ Rosie said, disgusted.

Less than half an hour later she was back on the phone. ‘Mum, I’ve just had a really weird email from Mal.’

‘From Mal?’ I echoed blankly. ‘I didn’t know he emailed you.’

‘He doesn’t usually; he wanted to tell me all about Tom Collinge turning up, which seemed to have sort of slipped your mind?’ she said sarcastically.

‘Oh God!’ I said. ‘Rosie, I
was
going to tell you, I was just trying to work out how to put it.’

‘No wonder you sounded distracted earlier, Mum! Anyway, Mal told me what you said to them both about my father being a stranger and that neither of them believed you, and how deeply hurt he was about it all – what a wuss! I said you’d already told me, and
then
he said he was sure my real father was Uncle Rhodri! He’s mad.’

She insisted I gave her my version of the Highlights of the Night, then said, ‘So you really
were
telling me the truth about my father being a stranger?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you really
don’t
know who he is?’

‘He was a total stranger before that night,’ I said truthfully.

But maybe there was some new element in my voice because she said suspiciously: ‘Why do I have a feeling you are holding out on me?’

‘I can’t imagine,’ I said briskly. ‘I’ve told you the truth, and I know it’s not what you really want to hear, but that’s it. I really don’t for one minute think that Tom is your father, but short of a DNA test we will never know. He – he said he would like to meet you anyway.’

‘Did he?’

She sounded pleased, and I was about to warn her about building castles in the air – or fathers out of surfers – when I thought better of it. She might still be a little girl to me, but she was grown-up enough to make her own decisions.

‘You’d better tell Granny before she visits and hears the village version in the teashop,’ she said sensibly, so I did.

And, actually, it didn’t turn out too difficult. Ma may harbour doubts about my passing lover too, but certainly never mistook Rhodri’s affection for me as anything other than brotherly.

Dear Tom,

Thanks for your email. Sorry everything was such a mix-up and Mal got the wrong end of the stick and hit you.

Actually, it wasn’t me who emailed you in the first place but my daughter, Rosie, in a fit of curiosity after coming across that first note you sent me after finding my website. I didn’t know she’d done it until she forgot to intercept your reply.

Do believe me when I say that had I really thought there was any chance that you were Rosie’s father, I would have told you about her, but I’m certain she’s not.

Rosie knows this, and now I’ve had to tell her all about the scene in the pub too, but I’ve left it up to her if she wants to contact you. I’m trusting you on this one, Tom – if she does write, please be kind, but don’t give her any false illusions that you are her father.

Had it not been for the circumstances, it would have been good to see you again! You look very fit and tanned – the surfing life down in Cornwall must suit you. Please don’t contact me again, though, since all this has upset my husband and made things very difficult.

All the best,

Fran

I have the greatest sympathy for Pandora now, for once the lid is off the box of ghastly delights it simply won’t jam back on again no matter how you try. All my efforts are merely damage-limitation exercises, and I have a horrible feeling that my lies and evasions are going to beget even more lies and evasions until the whole thing snowballs unstoppably downhill, crushing me into a fairly extensive grease spot on the way.

It’s been a few days now, and if Rosie
has
emailed Tom then she is not telling me about it. It is odd and strangely unsettling to think that this substratum of communication might be going on without my knowledge.

I think what I’m feeling is jealousy. Rosie has just been mine for so long, I don’t really want to share her. (And she used to feel the same: before Mal she managed to get rid of every boyfriend I ever had, and if she’d been on the spot when I met him she might have managed to put him off too.) I’m also afraid she will somehow get hurt, but Tom was always quite kind except for suddenly ditching me in a callous-young-man kind of way, so I expect he will be nice to her even if she puts him through a third-degree interrogation on his entire life, which, knowing Rosie, is very, very likely.

Mal’s never emailed or phoned her before, so what got into him? Was it just pique, or did he really think she ought to know? I suspect the former – he’s never done much in the fatherly input line. In fact, Rhodri’s been more of a father figure to her than Mal has, even though he hasn’t been around much. He takes the godfather bit seriously: never misses her birthday or Christmas, and always loves to see her, or hear what she’s up to.

Perhaps that’s why Mal’s suspicions fell on him. Or maybe the Wevills tapped into the old village rumour supply and passed the idea on.

I knew Mal’s grievances were still festering away because I didn’t hear from him until the next day, and by the time he rang I’d convinced myself that there would be so many candidates for a contract in the Caribbean that he wouldn’t get it.

‘Fran?’ he said, sounding tired. ‘I’ve had the interview – been there all day because they narrowed it down to just three of us and we had to wait for them to decide. It’s been a long day.’

‘Well, never mind, Mal. I’m sure another contract will come up soon, a more suitable one, and—’

‘But I
got
it!’ he broke in. ‘They offered the job to me – providing I can be out there by the end of the month.’

‘By the end of
this
month? But that’s impossible, Mal, it’s too soon – and so far away!’

‘I thought you might be pleased,’ he said sulkily. ‘There was a lot of competition and the money’s more than generous. It’s not as though I’m doing it just for me either – it’s for both of us: when I get back we can put the past behind us and make a fresh start.’

‘I’d rather have you home – we can work things out a lot better if you are on the same side of the damned globe!
Please
, Mal, don’t take it.’

‘Too late: I have,’ he snapped, and put the phone down.

He came back home rather sullen and defensive, and Ma telling him to his face that he shouldn’t even
think
of leaving me alone for weeks at a time like he did, let alone for six months, didn’t help.

However, he has now done one of his quick Jekyll-and-Hyde switches and is trying a charm offensive to win me round to the idea. This is not going to happen, because even without the recent hiccup in our relationship, having your darkly gorgeous husband going off on his own to spend six months on a tropical island with goodness-knows-what temptations is not a thought to gladden a wife’s heart.

Mal is so good-looking that when he walks into a room other women tend to sit up and point in his direction like hunting hounds (or boxer bitches in Mona Wevill’s case), and it’s just a pity they can’t tell from looking at him that this is a man who likes his pyjamas ironed with creases down the trouser legs and who can throw a wobbler of epic proportions if his breakfast egg is not exactly to his liking.

Nor am I deceived by his gestures of forgiveness, since I really haven’t done anything to be forgiven
for
. I can see that he still harbours doubts about whether I am telling him the truth … and now even whether I have been faithful to him since we married! Apparently the Wevills have helpfully assured him that they absolutely
refuse
to listen to any gossip about me and other men, and they are sure there is nothing in it!

Since Mal seemed to lose sexual interest in me long before all this, due to my metamorphosis into Blobwoman, all his sudden gestures of affection are not actually leading into the bedroom. I’d be getting worried about this if I felt more in the mood, but not only am I still off colour but I’m now having strange abdominal pangs, so I have finally made that appointment for Thursday with my doctor.

I was lucky – normally unless you are screaming with agony down the phone they won’t give you one for three weeks, probably hoping you will either give up or die before then, thus reducing the number of people in the waiting room.

In addition to my being a hormonal disaster area, the cramping pains are getting a bit much. Could it be my appendix after all? Peritonitis can be a killer!

Where, exactly,
is
my appendix?

It was
not
my appendix.

Last night – was it only last night? – I had such severe stomach cramps and haemorrhaging that I was rushed here to the hospital by ambulance, not even knowing I was pregnant until they broke the news to me later that I had lost the baby.

It’s so hard to take in – difficult to believe that I’d had something so precious and lost it without knowing. I was only about three months gone, so you wouldn’t think a being so newly formed and tiny could stage such a spectacularly awful exit.

When I married Mal I accepted that there weren’t going to be any more children – only now I suddenly realise how desperately I wanted that baby. They only let Mal in briefly after it was all over, and I was pretty out of it by then, but he probably feels the same way. I don’t know what I’m going to say to him, because I feel so guilty, wondering if it was something I did, like cleaning Ma’s house, or hefting that big heavy bag of hen food about.

I’ve just annoyed the doctors by refusing to have someone else’s blood pumped into my veins to replace the half-gallon or so I lost – but it could have been round
anyone
; it’s not like they tell you where they got it.

They have put me on a saline drip instead, which will water down the bit of blood I’ve got left to a pretty translucent pink, and also give my tear ducts a bit of ammunition, since I can’t seem to stop crying even though I haven’t got the strength to sob. I should think my iron count is about nil, and I feel like a burst balloon.

One of the doctors – I think he was a trainee, because he looked about eight – took a few minutes to tell me that about one in five pregnancies end in miscarriage, and it was just my bad luck I was the one. He also kindly assured me that it didn’t mean I would lose the next, and there was nothing to stop me trying again as soon as I had more opacity than a glass of water and a discernible red blood cell count.

Try again?
When Alison went broody and strong-armed Mal into having that sperm count apparently it took half an hour for each one to doggy-paddle languidly past the microscope, and half of
those
were going in circles. But I suppose into every generation of sperm a swimmer is born. And if it could happen once, it
could
happen again … couldn’t it?

When Mal came back to visit me, bringing my spongebag and other necessities, he was very quiet and sat down next to the bed with barely a word. He looked dark under the eyes from lack of sleep and not only was his dark hair ruffled, but his shaving had evidently been a pretty hit-and-miss affair, proof to anyone who knew him as well as I did that he was unusually upset.

‘Mal, I—I’m terribly sorry!’ I said painfully, reaching a hand out to him, though it was quite an effort to raise it from the bed. ‘I know you
said
you didn’t want children because you thought you couldn’t have any, and now it seems you can, and I’ve lost it and—’

‘But, Fran,’ he interrupted, looking startled, ‘I wasn’t just saying that: I never
have
wanted children! If I’d realised it was possible, I’d have been more careful – had a vasectomy, even.’ He took my limp hand in his and squeezed it. ‘No, it’s me who should be sorry that you’ve had to go through this, darling.’

Tears welled up again. ‘I know you’re just being kind, Mal. And the miscarriage
was
horrible, but the doctor says it was sheer bad luck and I’ll probably be all right next time. So I told him about your sperm count being so low and he said they can do things about that these days—’

‘You’re not serious, Fran?’ he said incredulously, paling. ‘I thought if there was one thing we agreed on it was that we didn’t want any children! I mean, apart from the complications you could get at your age, think what it would do to our
lifestyle
!’

While we stared at each other aghast (but for different reasons), he suddenly and magically regained all his poise and colour, like a chameleon in recovery.

‘
Poor
Fran!’ he said kindly. ‘You aren’t in a fit state to think logically about anything just now, are you? But I do understand how you’re feeling, and we’ll discuss it later, when you’re better.’

I nodded, since he seemed to be expecting some kind of response, but my throat was too choked with tears to speak, even if I’d known what to say. But, after all, I’d married him knowing it meant I wouldn’t have any more children, even if I hadn’t realised before today that he actually didn’t want any – so I expect I will eventually settle back into my previous mindset, preferably before I have drowned the entire village in a Niobe of tears.

But who’d have thought my Achilles would turn out to be such a heel?

I hardly slept last night, what with everything circling my mind on an endless loop, but at least they have now taken the drip away and my head doesn’t spin when I sit up.

Irrationally, I’m finding it hard to forgive Mal for not wanting the baby, as if he had somehow caused its loss: that’s about as sensible as blaming the heavy sacks of Happyhen I carried from the car boot.

He has just been in to visit me again, still in Dr Jekyll Nice Guy mode, bearing a large card and a bouquet and being almost insufferably kind and forgiving. But now I’ve regained one or two of my faculties I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of the kindness stems from guilt; he even held my hand when I cried, something he usually finds so hideously embarrassing that it makes him cross.

Then
he started talking about our future as if the baby were the merest unfortunate blip on the even line of our lives together.

‘I’ve been thinking things over while you’ve been in here, Fran, and things are going to change. For one thing, I’ve realised what a financial hole I’ve got into – and I’m going to sort it out! For a start, I’m going to sell the car before I go out to Grand Cayman.’

‘Go to Grand Cayman?’ I echoed blankly, for without really thinking it through I’d sort of assumed that he would turn the job down now. ‘But, Mal, it’s the week after next!’

‘I know, but I accepted the job and I can’t let them down – and the doctor assures me you will be as right as rain in a few days.’

‘But,
Mal
… ’ I said again, but my voice was sounding a bit whiny so I shut up.

He took my pale hand in his and squeezed it, but I just let it lie limp: it didn’t feel like it belonged to me anyway.

‘Look, I wouldn’t leave you at a time like this if I didn’t have to, but I’m doing it for us. With what they are paying me I can clear off any outstanding loans and we can make a fresh start when I get back. I might remortgage the house at a lower rate too, and I’m even thinking about selling
Cayman Blue
and buying a smaller, one-man boat!’

‘Couldn’t you do all that anyway, so you didn’t have to go, Mal?’

‘I’m thinking about what is best for our future, that’s all,’ he said, shifting uncomfortably and avoiding eye contact. ‘You can come out for two or three weeks once I’m settled, darling, and I’ll make everything up to you: it’ll be the holiday of a lifetime. Grand Cayman’s a tropical paradise, with coral beaches and palm trees.’

He sounded like a travel brochure.

‘It would cost a lot of money for me to go out there, you said so before,’ I whispered from behind the sheet of invisible glass that seemed to have come down between the world and me. It didn’t seem important, anyway, because no prize was big enough to fill the aching void within me. When all the colour has leached away from your world, even tropical islands lose their magic. Someone was droning out an old blues song like a dirge, but it took me a few minutes to realise it was me.

‘It’s nice to hear you singing again – you must be feeling better!’ Mal smiled, relieved.

‘That’s not what you usually say,’ I pointed out weakly.

‘Well, I’m saying it now – and it won’t cost much for the air fare out to the Caribbean if we pick the right month, and it’ll be like a second honeymoon. Don’t worry about coping while I am away, either, because I’ll transfer money into our joint household account every month just as usual, and I can negotiate the remortgage over the Internet. And,’ he added, as though it was an extra and very lavish present, ‘I know you don’t like credit cards, but you need something for emergencies, so I’m getting you a gilt credit card on my account. It’ll come in handy for the holiday too.’

‘A credit card? But, Mal, I really don’t want one!’ I objected automatically, because the thought frightens me. I mean, if I don’t have the money in the bank then I don’t spend it: that seems to work OK for me.

‘You never know what might come up, or what you’ll need for the holiday – it’s going to be hot, for a start, and you’ll need cool clothes. Look, I’ve brought you these.’ And he laid a bundle of Cayman Island brochures and a guidebook on my bed.

I lose a baby and he’s so pleased he vows to sell his toys and gives me a credit card with a huge spending limit and the promise of an exotic holiday? Or is it all just guilt for leaving me alone at a time like this?

‘Grand Cayman is a tropical paradise,’ he said dreamily, looking at the cover on one of the brochures.

‘We
had
Paradise,’ I whispered, but he didn’t seem to hear me. Proust got it right when he said the true paradises are the ones you have lost … and it was a long time since Mal had looked at
me
like that. Hot tears were rolling down my face again, but he was now gazing inwards at some wonderful vision.

‘Palm trees, coral beaches, lagoons … lots of sailing. I’ll show you the website when we get back home.’

‘I want my mother,’ I said weakly, childishly, but I don’t think he heard me, he’d gone into the Cayman blue again.

Maybe he did hear me after all, for the next day Ma turned up bright and early and took practical measures to improve my surroundings, if not my state of mind.

By using a sort of cheerful persistence she soon had me arrayed in white broderie anglaise with pink satin ribbon threaded through, all very girlie Victoriana, but, sickeningly, the sort of thing that actually suits me. There was a matching dressing gown and fluffy pink mules.

‘As soon as Mal finally told me what had happened, I rushed out and got them. If only I’d known, I’d have been here sooner, my little Frannie,’ she said affectionately, busily tidying the contents of my bedside cupboard and arranging a randomly selected bunch of flowers she had brought in an ugly vase so that it acquired an unexpected air of bizarre charm, like herself.

‘There,’ she said with satisfaction, ‘I told the girl in the flower shop I wanted one each of everything pink, and see how well it came out!’

Once she had managed to infuse the clinical ambience with a hint of home she sat back, crossed her surprisingly slim ankles, folded her hands over her little fat stomach and said: ‘That Mal behaving himself? Apart from not telling anyone what was going on until last night, that is?’

‘Oh, yes,’ I said, tears coming to my eyes – but they seem to do that every five minutes at the moment, anyway. ‘That big card and the bouquet are from him.’

‘Huh!’ she said, unimpressed. ‘Well, clearly there’s more to him than I thought, so you can try for another baby when you’re well again, can’t you?’

‘Oh, no, I don’t think so … I mean, this wasn’t planned and I’m getting on a bit.’

‘Rubbish.’

‘No, you know I never intended having more children – Mal doesn’t really want any. Besides, Rosie’s enough for me,’ I said firmly. If I keep saying it enough, maybe I will believe it.

‘He’s a waste of space, that Mal, I’ve said so all along. If he hadn’t made you go on all these diets you probably wouldn’t be anaemic now.’

‘I don’t think that’s anything to do with it, Ma. And Mal just doesn’t like fat women … ’

I tailed off, looking at my plump but strangely attractive mother, thinking that if it weren’t for Mal, looking at the blueprint of what I might become wouldn’t bother me. Then suddenly I wondered what blueprint Rosie was following: she’s a changeling princess and might become
anything
.

And I’d barely even thought about how she would be feeling about all this. What sort of mother
was
I? A tear squeezed painfully out and trickled down my face onto the pillow.

‘Let it out, my love,’ Ma said, handing me a tissue. ‘Better out than in.’

She ferreted about in her huge, bulging handbag and produced a scrap of paper. ‘Now, I’ve left a message on your Uncle Joe’s answering machine, but he hasn’t replied yet, so it’s probably night over there, isn’t it? I expect we’ll hear from him later. And Auntie Beth says if you want to have a holiday in the Hebrides to recover you are very welcome, and Lachlan would drive down and take you back up there with him. She’s writing. I’ll phone Rosie up later and break the news to her myself, and I’m going to stay at Fairy Glen and look after you until you are better, because I’m not going home until I see some roses in your cheeks.’

‘Yes but—’

‘I’ve got the dogs with me, and Boot is going to feed the cats and Oz.’

Oz is the tortoise (Tortoz) and Boot is Vernon Bootridge, her gardener/handyman. Theoretically she has him three mornings a week, but actually he seems to have more or less taken up residence in the potting shed, a huge run-to-seed Mellors of a man. An unfortunate penchant for gardeners seems to run in the family.

‘I’m supposed to be showing people round Fairy Glen … tomorrow? Or the next day? I’ve lost count.’

‘Don’t you worry your head about it, my love. I’ll ring the estate agent on my mobile and sort it out.’

‘And the hens – can you make sure the hens are all right? Mal is probably feeding them, but he won’t be
nice
to them.’

She patted my hand. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything. And it’s just as well you’ve got your old ma, because that Mal said he’s still going off jaunting to the Caribbean, leaving you on your own at the end of next week.’

‘It’s work, Ma, and he’s already accepted it,’ I said, weakly defensive. ‘I’m going out later for a holiday.’

‘He should take you with him if he’s going for so long. He can’t act like a single man just when it suits him.’