The Accidental Mother (2 page)

“It’s her first job,” Sophie said. “Everyone’s crap at their first job. I was, and I bet you were. She just needs a bit of time to get into it.”

“She’s had eight months,” Cal said.

“Just get her, okay?” Sophie asked him in her boss voice. Cal saluted her in the way he had a habit of doing whenever she resorted to using it and headed purposefully toward the ladies’.

Sophie watched the numbers on the lift creep up and sighed. She had been training Lisa for close to a year now. Sophie really liked Lisa; she could see she had potential, but Lisa just couldn’t seem to separate her head from her heart; it was as if the two organs had been fused into one tumultuous mass. Lisa had such a dramatic love life that the average romance writer would have turned it down as too unbelievable. Sophie had tried to give her pep talks. She had tried to be firm but understanding.

The last time Lisa had had a crisis during office hours Sophie had even wiped Lisa’s eyes and gently suggested that she might want to try to cut down on the number of men she dated or even stop seeing men for a while—since it didn’t seem to be working out for her.

“Give them up completely like you, you mean?” Lisa had asked her with the typical wide-eyed tact of a twenty-one-year-old. “But what about sex? Don’t you miss shagging?” Sophie remembered feeling her cheeks begin to color, and she’d decided against confiding in Lisa that in the eighteen months since her boyfriend, Alex, had left her via email she hadn’t had sex once. It wasn’t that she didn’t miss it, she did in a sort of abstract, romanticized way. But she didn’t miss it with anybody in particular. Not even with Alex, with whom she had nearly been in love, did the earth move for her. She suspected that the earth didn’t move for any woman at all and that the whole thing was a massive conspiracy made up by women’s magazines to make all women feel insecure. But then people like Lisa did sort of throw that theory out the window. Lisa, it was clear, really enjoyed having sex, even if it inevitably ended in emotional disappointment.

“I haven’t given men up,” Sophie had told her. “I’m just choosing to put my job first at the moment. I think you should do the same. Now is an important time for us. If Gillian decides to give up work, then someone will need to take over her job. Opportunities are opening up. I want the best out of my career, and so should you. I’m giving you a big chance here, Lisa, it’s time for you to grasp it with both hands. Don’t let me down.”

“I won’t, I won’t,” Lisa had promised her. But she had fallen in love with the watercooler deliveryman on the way back to her desk instead, and when he dumped her two weeks later, she was back to square one.

The lift had paused on the floor below Sophie’s.

“She’s here.” Cal almost shoved Lisa at Sophie, who looked at her trainee with a critical eye. She had reapplied her makeup, but her eyes were red and puffy, and her nose swollen. She’d been crying again.

“Dave chucked you?” Sophie asked her in the final few moments as the lift reached their floor.

Lisa’s tender eyes widened with distress. “All I did was ask him to meet my mum. Is that too clingy?”

Sophie sighed. “We’ll talk about this later,” she said. “Just stay focused and remember what you’re here for.”

And the lift doors slid open.

When Sophie and Lisa returned from the meeting, Sophie was feeling very pleased with herself. It had gone exceptionally well, she was going to look really good at the next new business meeting, and Lisa had made it from the meeting room back to her desk without becoming engaged. Things were looking up. Sophie even had time before lunch with Jake to catch up on her paperwork. Or maybe she should swing by Eve’s office and tell her about her new contract, show off her new boots, and generally try to piss Eve off, which was difficult with the undead, because they tended not to be that emotional.

“You don’t have to tell me it went well,” Cal said, peering at her over the top of a copy of
OK!
“I can tell it went well just by looking at you; you’ve got that triumphant Boudicca look again. Sophie Mills, Warrior Queen Party Planner.”

Sophie stopped dead in front of his desk and took the magazine from his hands. “Do some work,” she said. “I’ve got some free time now, so I’m going to catch up on some—”

“Celebrity gossip?” Cal said, looking miserably at his magazine.

“Filing,” Sophie lied.

She had barely made it to the exclusive celebrity wedding pics when Cal interrupted her. “Slight problem with you catching up on your filing,” he said, glancing over his shoulder with a fastidious look. He lowered his voice. “Of the unscheduled variety. Elasticized waistband. Head scarf.” Sophie blinked at him. “There’s a ‘lady’ here to see you!” he exclaimed, as if his previous description had been more than sufficient. “Your twelve o’clock—the T.A.? Or Tess Andrew, I should say.”

Sophie blinked at him. “But I told you t——”

“I know!” Cal said,” but I couldn’t find anything anywhere and Lisa was in with you so I was waiting for Lisa to come out but she’s in the loo again and anyway the woman’s here now. She’s eight minutes early. So it’s not my fault.”

Sophie thought about Jake, who might even at that very moment be about to “swing by” and “want,” and a part of her was relieved by this obstacle that had presented itself even if she didn’t want to let down her most important client.

“Can you cancel her? Tell her my diary’s double-booked or something?” Sophie asked with the justifiable conviction that Cal could get most people to do most things.

Her PA stepped into her office and closed the door behind him, standing close enough for Sophie to smell Chanel Allure mixed with the slightly salty scent of his own skin. She wasn’t sure if it was
pour homme
or
pour femme.

He held out a graying and dog-eared business card. “She gave me this. She said could she have it back please as she’s only got one. Budget cuts or something.”

Sophie took the card and read it, “Tess Andrew, Highbury and Islington Social Services.”

“But we deal only with private companies,” Sophie said, looking confused.

Cal shrugged. “Obviously I already did tell her that. But she says it’s personal business. She says she’s got to see you—now.” He paused for a beat. “Look, Sophie, I’m sorry, but she means it, and she
is
in the diary, after all. She says she phoned this morning and a nice young lady fitted her in and said it would be no trouble at all. She says it is really urgent.” Any trace of Cal’s habitual humor or sarcasm was gone.

“Urgent?” Sophie said uncertainly. What could a social worker want with her? Oh, God, she groaned inwardly. She hoped it wasn’t the neighbors complaining about her mother’s dogs again, not that she could blame them. It didn’t do much for house prices, living next door to a kennel. However, Sophie was not her mother’s keeper. She couldn’t stop her breeding dogs if she wanted to—they were all looked after. Sophie could vouch for that. She had grown up in the dog-related chaos, and she’d frequently felt the dogs had taken precedent over her. She told as much to the community liaison officer from the council who’d been sent around to vet her mum. But after her dad had died, sixteen years ago, Mum had begun not only to breed dogs but to take in waifs and strays. She needed a farm in Surrey really, not a Victorian terrace in Highbury. Sophie couldn’t think of another reason for a social worker to be here, and she could do without all that again, but Cal said she had to see her. If he couldn’t persuade this Tess Andrew to leave, then nobody could. She must be one of the few rare humans who were immune to his charm.

“Okay, if I must,” Sophie said, briskly managing the moment with her usual aplomb. “Maybe I can get her in and out before Jake gets here.”

“Jake’s coming here to pick up you up?” Cal asked, raising an interested eyebrow. “He so loves you.”

Sophie found Tess Andrew sitting in Cal’s chair anxiously clutching a large sequined bag.

“Miss Andrew.” Sophie smiled at the pleasant-looking woman, who was probably in her fifties, amply proportioned, and with a kind of innate air of disarray, set off nicely by her hippie gypsy look. “How can I help you? Because I have to say, when it comes to my mum and her dogs—there’s no logic there. She sees their ‘little faces,’ and all sense goes out the window. I don’t get it myself. I’m a cat person.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Mills? It’s not about dogs. Or…er…cats.” The woman followed Sophie into her office.

“Sophie, call me Sophie. If it’s not dogs, what is it? Drains?” Sophie speculated out of left field. She wasn’t exactly sure what it was social workers did, and the downstairs drains were a bit iffy.

“Thank you so much for seeing me at such short notice,” Tess Andrew said. “It must be odd, me, just turning up out of the blue, but it’s all been a bit of a rush. I thought we had time—but then there was Christmas and New Year, and, well, it—just ran out, and suddenly, out of the blue—we found you.” She beamed at Sophie and then switched off her smile abruptly. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”

Sophie felt her stomach swell and buckle. Those were the words her headmistress had used on the day her dad died of a heart attack. She had called Sophie out of class and sat her down in her office and said, “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news…” Sophie felt a cold fear drench her. Was it Mum after all? Was Mum ill or…? “Okay,” she said, steeling herself. “Go on.”

Tess Andrew composed herself. “I’m very sorry to tell you that your friend Caroline Gregory is dead,” she said.

Sophie stared at her. She felt a bubble of relief burst in her chest, and she laughed.

Tess Andrew looked startled, and Sophie realized what it must look like. “Oh, I’m sorry, Ms. Andrew. But there’s been some kind of a mix-up. I don’t know anyone called Caroline Gregory. I thought you’d come to tell me my mum was ill.” She took a breath and composed herself. “I’m sorry, but I think you’ve wasted your time. I think you’ve got the wrong Sophie Mills.”

Tess Andrew looked puzzled and closed her eyes for a moment as she furrowed her brow. “Oh no,” she said, looking awkward and uncomfortable. “Oh, look—I’m so sorry. I forgot. I have made a mistake, but not about you. Of course she didn’t use her married name, did she?” Sophie gave her blank look and watched as the social worker composed her face again into its bad news mode. “I’m sorry, Sophie. I meant to say Carrie, Carrie Stiles of St. Ives in Cornwall. She was killed in a car accident, outright. Carrie Stiles is dead.”

For a second Sophie remembered laughing with Carrie in the girls’ room of Our Lady Catholic High School for Girls, folding the waistbands of their gray pleated skirts over and over as the hems gradually rose above their knees, and standing on the toilets smoking cigarettes out of the open windows.

Carrie Stiles was dead. Carrie, who had been her best friend once. Her sister and ally for a long time, until the friendship had eventually ebbed as old friendships do and dwindled to a phone call once a year or so, with Christmas cards and presents for Carrie’s kids, Sophie’s godchildren. But if someone had asked her, just out of interest, who her best friend was, Sophie would instantly have answered “Carrie Stiles.” She struggled to remember how old the children were. Young, possibly even less than six, she thought. Cal always organized the birthday presents—he would know. She looked at Tess Andrew, who was watching her closely, holding a packet of tissues at the ready.

“I’m sorry—it
is
a shock,” Sophie said, still not able to register the information that this Tess Andrew had given her. “We were close once. But thank you. Thank you for letting me know. I didn’t realize Social Services did this sort of thing. I thought you were too understaffed and overworked for that. So—When’s the funeral, do you know?” Sophie was aware that her voice sounded all wrong. As if she were making an appointment for a routine meeting. Not a funeral. Not Carrie Stiles’s funeral. But Carrie had been alive somewhere else for so long, it seemed impossible that she was not still there, leading her life as usual, just out of view.

Tess squeezed the packet of tissues and twisted them. She looked more upset and uncomfortable than Sophie did. It was the shock, Sophie supposed. It didn’t seem real yet. Not like the day Dad died. That had been real from the moment she had known. The truth was that, while Sophie still thought about her dad every single day, she hadn’t thought of Carrie in ages. She tried to remember signing the last Christmas card she’d sent her, just a couple of weeks ago, but couldn’t. Cal wrote out all her cards, including the few personal ones. Sophie just signed them one after another—her name and then three kisses, XXX.

“I’m afraid,” Tess said uneasily, “that the funeral was some time ago. A little over six months ago, actually. From what I understand, it was quite an affair. Carrie had a lot of friends in the area. They organized it down there for her. Her mum went down; she was in better health then. She said it was exactly how Carrie would have wanted it,
pagan
I think was the word she used. They scattered her ashes in the sea, at a favorite spot of hers and the children’s.”

Sophie tried to picture a group of people she didn’t know scattering Carrie Stiles’s ashes in the sea. It didn’t make sense to her. It was like a dream. “Oh,” she said. It was strange to know that Carrie had not been in the world for six whole months now, that the Christmas card would have gone unopened. She was unjustly hurt that she had missed Carrie’s funeral but not surprised. She did not know any of Carrie’s St. Ives friends, and she’d hardly known Carrie’s husband. Sophie took a deep breath and tried to bring the real world back into focus.