The Year of Taking Chances (30 page)

Barry cleared his throat.
‘I thought I noticed the garage door was open.’

Gemma’s head was jangling from all this strange and unwanted information.
‘What, he’s gone out in the car?
He’s not meant to be driving yet!’
She ran a hand through
her hair.
‘What’s he playing at?’

‘Was the thought of having us for lunch really that bad?’
Judy joked, but nobody laughed.

‘I don’t understand.’
Gemma turned dazedly to her dad.
‘I don’t know what he’s thinking.’

‘Don’t worry, love.
He’ll be back in a minute.’

‘I mean, he’s been in a strange mood for weeks.
We had a bit of a row this morning, but .
.
.
’ She stopped, not wanting to air any dirty laundry in front of Judy.
‘What
exactly did he say?’
she asked her son.
Maybe Will had got it wrong, misunderstood somehow.

‘He said .
.
.
’ Will cleared his throat, looking agonized.
‘Er, he said .
.
.
’

‘What?
For goodness’ sake, spit it out.
What did he say?’

Will squirmed miserably in the limelight.
‘He said, er, “Eff this for a life.
I’m off.
See you around.”’
He hung his head.
‘That was about it.’

Gemma’s mouth fell open, then shut.
Fuck this for a life?
‘Oh God,’ she said weakly.

‘Where will he have gone?’
asked Barry.
‘Do you want me to drive around, see if I can find him?’

‘I don’t know,’ Gemma replied.
She didn’t seem to know anything any more.
Her marriage, so rocky since the accident, appeared to have cracked wide open in the space of a
few minutes.
If that’s how you feel, maybe you should get lost!
she heard her own voice shrieking, and a cold sensation trickled down her back.
‘I just don’t
know.’

Spencer didn’t come home at all that day.
Gemma phoned and texted him numerous times, until she discovered he’d left his phone at home.
She called Harry and his
other mates, but nobody had seen or heard from him.
He’d taken the Mazda and vanished.
She could hardly bear to think about what could have happened.

‘Has he shown any suicidal tendencies?’
Judy had asked unhelpfully, eyes wide, as the kitchen filled with the smell of burning roast dinner.

Gemma had felt like slapping her at the time –
I’ll give
you
suicidal tendencies in a minute, Judy
– but the words refused to dissolve and disappear, hours later.
Was
he suicidal?
He’d certainly been depressed for a long time, there was no doubt about that, but she hadn’t thought things were that bad.
What if he felt so desperate, though,
that he’d gone out in the car and deliberately crashed, ending it all?

‘Where
is
Daddy?’
Darcey asked at bedtime, her little face screwing up in confusion.
‘Where has he gone?’

That was the question Gemma couldn’t answer.
‘I’m sure he’ll back soon,’ she told her daughter, hugging her close and kissing the top of her head.

She wished she could believe her own reassuring words.
Lying in bed that night, she couldn’t sleep for terrifying visions of Spencer, wild-eyed, ramming his sports car at top speed into a
brick wall and collapsing over the wheel.
The knock at the front door, police officers with their caps removed, eyes sorrowful.
‘Mrs Bailey?
I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news for
you.’

Has he shown any suicidal tendencies?

Where
is
Daddy?

If that’s how you feel, maybe you should get lost!

Tears leaked from Gemma’s eyes as she grabbed Spencer’s pillow and breathed in his scent.
She bitterly regretted losing her temper, but the words had burst out before she could hold
them in.
She hadn’t meant it, though!
She didn’t really want him to get lost!
She just wanted him to love her again, to look at her and smile as he used to do.

‘Oh, Spencer,’ she wept, wrapping her arms around the pillow and wishing it was him in her embrace instead.
‘Please come home.
I’m sorry.
Please just come
home.’

‘Bloody Nora, Gemma, you look terrible.
Are you all right?’

Caitlin herself had had a sleepless night following the discovery of the adoption papers in Jane’s bedroom, but Gemma looked like the walking dead; her eyes bruised-looking, her skin pale
and puffy.

She steadied herself against the hall radiator as she took off her coat.
‘Spencer’s gone,’ she said, her voice wobbling.

‘He’s gone?
What do you mean, he’s gone?’

‘He’s left us.
Walked out.
Just disappeared yesterday: no note, no phone call, nothing.
He hasn’t taken his medication or his phone, he hasn’t even taken his
toothbrush.’

‘Shit.
Have you phoned around?
Has anyone seen him?
He might be with Harry.’
She blushed as she said his name, like a stupid teenager.

‘I’ve phoned everyone.
I’ve even phoned the hospitals around here.
Nobody’s seen him.’
Tears broke free of Gemma’s lashes and spilled down her cheeks.
‘He’s taken his car, the stupid idiot.
When he’s not even meant to be driving again yet.’

‘Oh God.
How come?
Did you have an argument or something?’

‘Kind of.
I lost my temper with him when he .
.
.
’ She looked at her feet, her rosebud mouth turning down.
‘Well, he called me fat, and it was the last straw.
I did shout at
him a bit.’

‘Oh, Gemma.’
Caitlin put her arms round her, feeling Gemma’s tears wet through the jumper she was wearing.
This was horrible news.
Gemma and Spencer had once seemed the golden
couple of the village.
He wasn’t supposed to say things like that to her!
‘I’m not surprised you lost your temper.
You’ve had the patience of a saint, you really have.
And
you’re not fat anyway, you’re absolutely bloody scrumptious.’

Gemma sagged and Caitlin could tell she wasn’t convinced.
Gemma was the bubbliest, most cheerful and lovely person she’d ever met, but today it was as if there was a dark cloud
hanging over her.
Head-injuries or no head-injuries, right now Caitlin felt very much like giving Spencer a good old slap.

‘Anyway,’ she said, squeezing her friend before letting go, ‘let me remind you of one of the perks of being your own boss.
In times of crisis it is perfectly feasible –
in fact, I’d say, essential – to eat cake at nine o’clock in the morning and not even
think
about rushing on with work.’

Gemma’s lips quivered, then turned upwards at last in a little smile.
‘Yeah, stuff it, I’ll get even fatter just to spite him,’ she said.
‘I’ll be the fattest
woman who ever lived.
Then he’ll be sorry.’

‘Quite right,’ said Caitlin bracingly.
‘That’ll show him.’

They discussed the Spencer issue over the first cup of coffee and then Caitlin talked about her own trauma over a second, her hands shaking on the mug as she relived the moment when she
discovered that she wasn’t the person she’d always thought.
Now it was Gemma’s turn to look concerned and dish out a comforting hug.

‘Oh, love.
I know you were wondering, but all the same, what a shocker.’

‘Yeah.
It’s really thrown me.
I feel like my whole childhood was a lie.
I mean, none of it was what I thought.’
She gazed out at the garden where the cherry tree was in full
pink bloom now, bright and beautiful.
Jane had loved that tree, she remembered with a pang.
Spring’s on the way!,
she would say every year when it flowered.

‘It wasn’t a lie.
They
did
love you and, from what you’ve said, they were great parents.
And yes, they probably should have told you – they
definitely
should have told you – but .
.
.
’ Gemma spread her hands.
‘People do make stupid mistakes.
I bet they thought they were protecting you by not saying anything.’

‘I kind of know that.
But oh .
.
.
’ She clutched at her heart.
‘It feels so raw, you know.
So painful.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive
them.’

They were silent for a moment.
‘Are you going to try and trace your birth mother?
Is she still alive, do you know?’

‘No idea.’
Caitlin got to her feet and changed the subject.
‘We’d better get on with some work.
Isn’t What’s-Her-Name coming round later, that
actress?’

‘God, yes, I’d completely forgotten.
Look at the state of me!
And I’ve got my new orders to be getting on with before then.
Right.
Come on, Gemma.
Come on, Caitlin.
Let’s
find some happy music on the radio and get stuck in.
We’ll get through this, you know.
We will.’

‘We damn well will.
To work!’

The afternoon fitting turned out to be great fun.
The actress was in her twenties, beautiful and exuberant.
Somehow or other her niceness hadn’t been knocked out of her,
and she arrived with a box of colourful macarons and lots of excellent
EastEnders
gossip.
Like Bunty, she ordered not one but two evening dresses, one in a rich plum-coloured shot silk,
another in black velvet, and both Gemma and Caitlin ended their working day feeling more cheerful.

After Gemma left to pick up her daughter, the house fell silent, but Caitlin refused to allow the demons back in.
Instead she kept herself busy clearing away all the shattered glass she’d
left on Jane’s bedroom floor, and wrapped the broken mirror in sheets of newspaper and parcel tape so that the bin men wouldn’t slice their fingers on it.
She tidied the pile of secret
papers and put them in a big envelope on the chest of drawers, to be looked at when she felt strong enough.

Gemma’s question kept playing on her mind, though.
Are you going to try and trace your birth mother?
Is she still alive?

Caitlin was curious, there was no denying it.
Would they have anything in common, she and Alison Wendell?
Did Alison ever think about Caitlin and wonder what had happened to her daughter?

She poured herself a gin and tonic and turned on her laptop again.

I just found out I was adopted
she typed into Google and a long list of forum posts immediately appeared.

I am still in shock.

I am devastated.

Help!

Why didn’t they tell me?

I found out on Facebook.

My aunt told me.

Everybody knew except me.

Oh Lord.
This was awful.
There was a whole world of bewilderment and betrayal out there, so many thoughtless parents making bad decisions.
She felt like reaching an arm into the Internet and
scooping up all the people who’d been let down, like her, for the most enormous group hug.
Me too.
I understand.
It’s shite, isn’t it?
I just don’t know who I am any
more.

There were stories of people tracking down their birth mothers and, to a lesser degree, their birth fathers.
There were also stories of lost siblings, half-brothers and sisters, even
twins
who’d been adopted by different families.
Who had thought
that
was a good idea?
They should be strung up for it!

It made her think, though.
Siblings.
Had Alison Wendell had any babies after her?
Or before?
There might be a whole clan of Caitlin-alikes up in Scotland, tall and clumsy, with big noses and
fine hair.
She couldn’t help a tiny smile at the thought.
They could hang out together and have a good old bitch about the crap genes they’d inherited, and then be best big-beaked
friends forever and ever.

The thought tore at her.
She’d always wanted a brother or sister.
Hadn’t she always longed for one?

Two gins into the evening and the situation felt decidedly unreal.
Should she?
Dare she?
Her fingers hovered.
Her heart boomed.

What the hell, she thought, clicking back to the Adoption Search Reunion website that she’d looked at previously.
She would just register her name and see if it linked to anybody else.
It
didn’t mean she had to go and meet them, if she bottled out later down the line.
It wouldn’t commit her to doing anything she didn’t want to.

Taking a deep breath and a last swig of Dutch courage, she began to type.