The Year of Taking Chances (28 page)

‘Great,’ said Will, which was pretty much the teenage equivalent of
him
whooping and punching the air.
‘Thanks, Mum.’

She turned warily to Spencer, not quite sure what to expect.
He wouldn’t object to her moment of glory, would he?
‘Spence?’
she said, trying to read his expression.
‘I
mean .
.
.
It’s too good an opportunity to turn down.
Don’t you think?’

There was a long agonizing moment, then he forked up another mouthful of food.
‘It’s brilliant, love,’ he said gruffly.
‘Well done, Gem.’

That would do.
That was enough for her.
‘Thanks, guys,’ she said, trying not to show just how relieved and exhilarated she felt.
Her heart was beating a tattoo inside.
‘I’m really pleased.
Anyway, enough about that.
How was everyone else’s day?
How did you get on in football, Will?’

After tea, Gemma texted her dad, her brothers and everyone else she could think of about the image from
Metro
, then went along to the pub to explain the situation to
Bernie.
His face sagged in dismay when she said she was going to have to leave her job, but she was able to cheer him up pretty quickly by getting out her phone and showing him a photo of Bunty in
all her glory.
‘Fine figure of a woman there,’ he said appreciatively.
‘Bloody marvellous lady she is, too.’

‘Better get your skates on then, Bern,’ Gemma said with a wink.
‘I reckon she’ll have all sorts of new admirers after her now, you know.’

Walking back through the dark village, her mind whirled with dresses and designs.
What to do first?
Well, she needed to clear the decks of all her outstanding work before she could even think
about her new customers, that was a definite.
There wasn’t too much to do, thankfully: Helen Bradley’s curtains just needed the webbing attaching and a final press, and one of the
bridesmaid dresses needed altering where the bridesmaid in question, ten-year-old Lottie Mayes, had had a sudden growth-spurt.

Once she’d done all of that, she could go through her first orders and work out how much fabric she’d need, then make a dash tomorrow to the wholesaler to pick everything up.
She had
someone coming for a fitting next Monday, another lady the Thursday after and .
.
.
Her head swam.
She was never going to manage this.
It was too much for one person to cope with alone.

Her phone buzzed with another text from Saffron.
It was as if her new friend could read her mind, all the way from London.
And maybe rope in an assistant!
Get that husband of yours on the
case, all right?!

She snorted to herself.
Yeah, that would be the day.
But he’d taken the news well, at least.
He’d actually congratulated her, hadn’t he?

Maybe, just maybe, things were taking a turn for the better at last.

Of all the hiding places in the world, surely only Jane Fraser would pick a shoebox with a picture of stiletto heels as the safest spot to stash her secrets.
She must have
guessed it was the last place her clod-hopping, trainer-wearing daughter would be interested in noseying around while she was alive.

And how right she’d been.
Caitlin had never fathomed why some people – her mother included – became so shrieky and excitable about something as silly as a pair of
shoes
,
especially when they looked about as comfortable as torture implements.
When it came to clearing Jane’s wardrobe, Caitlin had painstakingly sorted through all the clothes, belts and handbags,
but had left the shoe collection still boxed in piles on the bedroom floor, meaning to take the lot to the charity shop just as soon as she had an hour to spare.
She hadn’t so much as lifted
any of the lids to peep in at them.
She could so easily never have known.

But then, on a quiet Sunday afternoon, she rushed in there, having decided to bring her mum’s antique dressing-screen down to the living room.
Over the next few weeks there was a whole
rash of new customers booked in for appointments with Gemma, all of whom would be disrobing and having the cold tape-measure held expertly around various parts of their bodies.
It would be far
nicer for them to have a proper space in one corner to undress, instead of being sent up to the bathroom, as they’d done with Bunty.
Maybe she should buy a pretty silk dressing gown too, she
thought, hurrying across the bedroom, so that—

‘Ow!
Bollocks!’

All long limbs and awkwardness, Caitlin had been born clumsy and, in her haste, she’d skidded on the polished floorboards and stumbled right into the shoeboxes.
Down they toppled like
dominoes, lids bouncing off and disgorging sequinned slingbacks, black patent courts, silver sandals .
.
.

She rubbed her knee where she’d banged it on the floor and began stuffing the shoes back in their boxes with a huff of impatience.
The sooner she got rid of this lot, the better.
But then
she noticed that a box near the back had tipped on its side, revealing a heap of folded papers inside.
Stupidly her eye went to the description on the cardboard box –
Jacquetta, size 6
– and then back to the papers.
Uh-oh.
What were these, then?

Her hand closed around the documents and her heart bucked violently as she saw the logo on the top letter:
Aberdeenshire Council Children’s Services: Adoption and Fostering Unit,
it
said.

Her breathing was rapid and shallow.
‘Adoption and Fostering Unit’, right there in black-and-white.
Oh no.
Oh no
.

So it was true, she thought dully.
I guessed right.

But it was little consolation when her world was falling apart.

Five minutes was all it took to recalibrate her entire ancestry.
Five short minutes to realize that everything had been a lie.
According to the certificate she’d just
discovered, she’d been born Josephine Wendell, to Alison Mary Wendell, no mention of any father.
So she wasn’t even called Caitlin Fraser.
She was Josephine frigging Wendell, who
sounded like a repressed Victorian aunt straight out of a black-and-white photograph.

She put a hand to her mouth, trembling, unsure whether she dared read any more.
Josephine.
That was her.
She didn’t feel like a Josephine, though.
Not even slightly.
As for Alison Wendell
.
.
.
that was her mother.
Her real mother.
Oh,
Alison
, she thought, with a stab of sadness.
Didn’t you want me?
Why did you give me away?

Tears trickled down her face as a terrible catalogue of possibilities turned like a carousel in her mind.
Maybe Alison had been mentally ill.
Maybe she was an alcoholic or drug addict.
Maybe she
was a frightened teenager.
Maybe she’d been raped.

The papers slithered from her fingers as Caitlin put her head in her hands, haunted by so many dreadful thoughts.
She could hardly take it in.
How long had they spent together, she and Alison?
Had Alison held her, cuddled her, stroked her warm baby-head and wished things could be otherwise?
Had they even been together a single night?
What had happened next?

Maybe Alison was terminally ill.
Maybe she’d passed on some genetic catastrophe that was lying dormant in Caitlin’s cells right now, waiting for the right moment to explode and wreak
havoc.

She squeezed her eyes shut, wrapping her arms around herself.
Maybe she should stop bloody well terrifying herself with all these ‘maybe’s, she thought.

A little while later, she blew her nose and stiffened her resolve.
Well, Pandora’s box was open now, she might as well know it all.
Heart pounding, she began leafing tentatively through
the other documents saved and hidden for so many years by her mother.
(Could she still even call her that?
Was it allowed?
Oh, why hadn’t Jane told her about this before?
Why hadn’t she
explained?
Why had she blurted out an apology as she lay dying, then left Caitlin to piece together the awful, life-changing pieces by herself ?
Talk about selfish.
Talk about lame!)

There was the case file: details of her birth and the particulars of the foster home where she’d spent almost two years.
(Why so long?
Didn’t anybody want her?)

There was the Deed Poll certificate, confirming that Josephine Wendell was now Caitlin Rose Fraser.
One piece of paper, and she was a different person.
How could that even be allowed?

There was the adoption certificate, dated June 1st, of course.
A special day
.
And last but definitely not least, there was her birth certificate, with Alison’s name on it.
Not lost,
after all.
Right here, tucked away the whole time.

Josephine Wendell, born in Inverdowie, Aberdeenshire.
Just down the road from where her parents had grown up, which was handy.
Very handy, if you wanted to pop along and adopt someone
else’s baby.

Bloody hell.
This was seismic.
This changed everything.
How she wished she could have remained in blissful ignorance a while longer; that she’d walked, not run, into the bedroom and kicked
open the box of secrets.
Five minutes earlier she had been Caitlin Fraser, head busy with thoughts of a screen and a dressing gown.
Now she was no longer sure who she was, or what she should even
call herself.

She stared blindly around at the room where her parents had slept for so many years.
As a child, she’d been allowed to come in here after eight o’clock on weekend mornings and
scramble into the double bed with them, lying snuggled between their warm bodies, safe and secure.
She could still remember the joy she’d felt, turning the handle of their door and clambering
up onto the bed.

When she was a bit older she’d tottered in here on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day mornings, carefully clutching a home-made card decorated with felt-tip drawings, as well as a
slopping lukewarm cup of tea and, as she grew older still, a congealing fried breakfast for the lucky parent.
Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
That was a laugh now, wasn’t it?

They’d lied to her the entire time.
A veil of deceit had been carefully constructed, wrapped tight around her whole life.
Secret social-services meetings, folders of paperwork up in
Aberdeenshire, the stupid June 1st celebration cake and champagne –
Oh, just because!

Nobody had bothered to tell her, to explain a single thing.

A sharp pain pierced her as her gaze fell on Jane’s favourite framed photo: Caitlin aged about four in a blue nylon nurse’s costume, a plastic baby doll cradled in her arms.
You
could almost hear the far-away childish voice echoing through the years:
I want to be like YOU, Mummy.

Well, not any more.
She did not want to be like Jane – a liar, a deceiver.
Fuck that.

A cry escaped her throat and she snatched up the picture, drew her arm back and hurled it right into the centre of Jane’s huge gilt mirror.
The mirror that had reflected the face of those
liars for too long.
Glass smashed everywhere in long, jagged shards and the room was left distorted, kaleidoscoped in mirrored fragments.

Caitlin didn’t care.
She just didn’t care.
She whirled out of the room and out of the house, slamming the door on the whole toxic place.
And good riddance.

It had taken well over two and a half hours of headless-chickenesque frenzied activity, but at last Saffron felt ready for Eloise’s lunchtime arrival.
The carpet was
hoovered, the bathroom pristine, and she’d even got down on her hands and knees and scrubbed some of the more mysterious and lingering stains from the kitchen lino.
She had bought fresh
bread, ham, tomatoes, houmous and cheese from the deli two streets away, as well as a salted caramel torte for afters.
A bunch of white tulips in a striped ceramic vase completed the ‘Single
and Pregnant but Coping Magnificently, Thank You Very Much’ effect she was aiming for.
Mind you, she did scoop up all the pregnancy books and magazines she’d acquired and stuffed them
at the bottom of her wardrobe, along with the beautiful baby outfit from her mum.
There was such a thing as rubbing salt in a wound, after all.

Still, she was not about to apologize for being pregnant.
Absolutely not.
She hadn’t done this to spite Eloise in any way.
It had just happened.
She hoped, more than anything, that she
could make her sister understand this.

The doorbell rang and she took three deep yogic breaths—
cool, calm, collected,
she reminded herself – before going to answer it.

‘Eloise, hi.
Come on in.
No Simon today?’

‘No, he’s at home.
It’s just the two of us.’

‘Lovely,’ said Saffron, although she felt apprehensive without the steadying presence of Simon there.
Eloise could be fairly intense at the best of times, and Saffron’s walls
were not the thickest.
She made a note in advance to apologize to her neighbours for what could potentially end up a shrill-voiced, door-slamming encounter.
‘Come on up.
Lunch is
ready.’

The two sisters sat opposite each other at the small dining table under the window and Saffron couldn’t help seeing the flat through Eloise’s eyes: cluttered, small and not remotely
baby-proof.
Unlike Eloise and Simon’s large detached house in the countryside, in other words, which already boasted teddy-bear wallpaper and a mobile in one of the bedrooms.
(‘We like
to be prepared,’ Eloise had smiled five years ago, when they decorated.) How that room must torment them now, Saffron thought with a twist of sympathy.

‘So,’ Eloise said, buttering her bread with exaggerated care.
‘I wanted to say sorry, for the way I behaved at Mum’s the other week.
It was unfair.
I completely
overreacted.’
She raised her eyes and fixed them earnestly on Saffron.
‘I’m sorry.’

Wow.
That had come a lot easier than Saffron had expected.
‘I’m sorry, too,’ she found herself saying, despite her earlier vow not to apologize.
‘I know how hard it must
have been for you to hear my news.
I should have found a way to tell you more sensitively, before you guessed.’

‘The thing is,’ Eloise went on, as if she hadn’t spoken, and Saffron stiffened at the determined look on her sister’s face.
Ah.
Okay.
Maybe it wasn’t going to be as
straightforward as all that.
‘Simon and I, we’ve been wondering if .
.
.
well .
.
.
’ She faltered as if she’d forgotten the lines of her script.
‘Well, we’re
all set up for a baby, you see,’ she said in a rush.
‘We’ve got the house and the security, plus we really, really desperately want a child.
Whereas .
.
.
’ She broke off
again, dedicating her attention to the butter knife.

Saffron felt her skin prickle.
Danger, danger.
Proceed with caution.
“‘Whereas” .
.
.
?’
she prompted, narrowing her eyes.

Eloise leaned forward and Saffron caught the faint waft of violets.
‘Whereas .
.
.
Well, don’t get me wrong, this is a lovely flat, but have you seriously thought about having a baby
here?’

‘Yes.
Quite frequently.’
Saffron could feel her gaze becoming steely.
Where exactly was Eloise going with this?

‘Only .
.
.
Well, we’d be happy to help.
Look after the baby, I mean.
It could .
.
.
’ At last she lifted her gaze, the naked desperation vivid in her wide blue eyes.
‘It
could stay with us some of the time.
If you want.’

Saffron had not been expecting that.
‘What do you mean?’
Her hands rose instinctively to rest on the soft swell of her belly, as if guarding the contents.
‘Stay with you?
Why?’

‘We could look after it sometimes.
Maybe during the week, while you were working .
.
.
’ A pleading note had entered her sister’s voice.

Had she actually gone mad?
Saffron stared at her in astonishment.
‘No, thanks,’ she said.
‘The baby will be here with me.’

‘But we just thought maybe .
.
.’

‘No.
Thank you.
I can look after my own child.’

Eloise’s eyelid twitched.
‘It’s just that you’ll be on your own.’

‘I know.
I don’t need reminding.
But I’ll manage.’

‘But we’ve got a nice garden.
And the baby could have its own bedroom.’
Full-force pleading shone from Eloise’s face.

‘You’re asking me if you can have my baby.’
Saffron could hardly believe what she was hearing.

‘Of course I’m not!
Not exactly.’

‘Well, the answer is no, Eloise.
No way.
Whether you’ve got the fanciest garden and biggest bedroom in the world.
What the hell is this?
You can’t just come round and ask
someone for their baby!
Have you lost the fucking plot?’

‘No!
It was only an idea, Saff .
.
.
’

‘A bloody awful idea.
How dare you?
Coming round suggesting I can’t look after my own child.
What a nerve!
Who do you think you are?’

The butter knife slipped from Eloise’s fingers, chinking against the plate.
‘Simon said I shouldn’t,’ she mumbled, chin trembling.
‘He told me not to ask you.
But I
had to try.
The last I heard, you didn’t even want children, so I just thought .
.
.
’

‘Well, you just thought wrong.’
Astonishment gave way to rage, and she felt the same lioness instinct she’d experienced during her first ultrasound.
Back off, Eloise.
My
baby.

‘I’m sorry.
I just .
.
.
’

Saffron didn’t want to hear any more.
‘You haven’t even asked me how I am,’ she snapped, over her sister’s wheedling.
‘Let alone about the pregnancy.
Would
you still want the baby so much if I told you he or she might have Down’s syndrome?’

Eloise’s head jerked nervously at the question.
She licked her lips and said nothing for a moment.
‘Does it?’
she whispered.

Saffron banged a fist on the table, making the tulips quake.
‘
It?
Can you stop calling my baby “it”, please?’

‘Sorry.’
Eloise hung her head and there was a pause while the room seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for the answer to her question.

‘I don’t know yet,’ Saffron muttered eventually.
‘There’s a one in thirty-six chance.
I’ve got to have an amniocentesis the week after next, which will tell
me.
That’s if it doesn’t terminate the pregnancy, that is.’
Her pulse ticked faster, too.
So much for cool, calm and collected.
‘Hadn’t factored that into your
calculations, had you?’
She stared her sister down.
‘I guess that means you’ve changed your mind.’

‘Oh, Saffron.’
Eloise seemed to shrink in her chair.
‘I had no idea.’

‘No, you didn’t, because you didn’t even bother to ask.
You just jumped right in with your stupid, selfish suggestions.
You might as well leave, if that’s all
you’ve got to say.’

Eloise’s voice was barely a whisper.
‘You must think I’m awful.’

‘I do, right now.
Yes.
I do.’

‘I
am
awful.
I’m a complete bloody psycho.
What’s wrong with me?
What is
wrong
with me?’
She wiped her eyes.
‘Sorry.
I’m really, really sorry.
Can we just rewind, and delete all of that?’
Her lip trembled.
‘I know it’s not your problem, but I’ve turned into one of those obsessive madwomen.
All I can think about is
babies.
I’ve even started eyeing them up in other people’s prams.
I feel my hands twitch, as if I’m going to snatch one away.’

Angry as she had been, Saffron’s rage began to cool.
She had never seen competent, success-story Eloise so anguished.

‘I could do it, you know,’ she went on.
‘Steal one, I mean.
I can totally see myself stealing a baby.’
She made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
‘And I couldn’t even pretend it’s because I’m hormonal, because I’m not.
Lose-lose!’

They were both silent for a moment.
Eloise crumbled some cheese over her bread while Saffron dolloped a lump of garlicky houmous onto her plate.
Her appetite had deserted her, though.
‘Eloise .
.
.
I’m sorry, okay?
I really am.
I wish more than anything that you could be pregnant too.
But this is my child and I can deal with it, whatever the consequences.’

Eloise blew her nose, eyes bright and wet.
‘I know,’ she said, looking away.
‘And you’ll be a lovely mum.
You’ll cope brilliantly, just like you always do.’
She sniffed.
‘Tell me what happens with this amnio test then.
What did the doctors say?’

And so, even though Saffron was pretty sure Eloise already had an encyclopaedic knowledge of amniocentesis procedures, due to her vast collection of pregnancy and baby reading material, she
dully repeated the few facts she knew about what would happen and why.

‘I’ll come with you, if you want,’ Eloise said, after a deep breath – an incredibly magnanimous offer, given the circumstances.
‘Will the father be there?
I’d
love to meet him.
Max, did you say his name was?’

‘Yeah.
But he won’t be there.
He’s not interested.
Couldn’t even be bothered to reply to the letter I sent telling him I was pregnant.’

Eloise twisted her wedding ring on her slim, pale finger; an unconscious ‘thank-goodness-I’m-married’ reaction.
‘What a sod,’ she said.
‘Shall I send Simon
round to punch his lights out?’

It took a leap of imagination to visualize Simon, the human guinea pig, punching anyone’s lights out, let alone squaring up to Max, but the notion did make Saffron laugh for the first time
since her sister had arrived.
‘I might just take you up on that,’ she said.

The rest of the afternoon ran on smoother tracks, thank goodness.
Conversation turned to safer subjects: work and holidays, and Simon’s promotion hopes.
When Eloise
looked at her watch and said she really must be getting back, Saffron was able to hug her with genuine fondness, assuring her that their earlier conversation could be put firmly behind them and
never referred to again.

A moment of madness, Eloise said, and then a wistfulness stole across her face as they parted from the hug.
Her hand hovered above Saffron’s belly.
‘May I?’

‘You may,’ Saffron said.

A whole array of emotions was visible in Eloise’s eyes as she gently put a hand to Saffron’s bump, fingers outspread.
‘Wow,’ she said.

The sisters shared a proper smile.
‘Wow,’ Saffron agreed.