Trio (38 page)

As the train emerged she found herself blinking at the light. She felt empty and overwhelmed at the same time. So much to take in. With time perhaps she would feel better. She could take some leave, see if Felix and Marge had any plans. Sail away – let the waves rock her and the space of the sea and the sky stretch around her. Make her peace. She pulled the photo from her bag and gazed at it again and watched it blur as her eyes filled with tears.

Caroline    Kay

Theresa

Theresa

‘Does it make you curious?’ Craig asked her, rubbing his thumb along the sole of the baby’s foot. ‘Make you wonder about your own background?’

‘No,’ she said shortly.

He looked at her, brows raised at the edge in her voice. ‘Not at all?’

‘Craig, she didn’t care enough to keep me, why the hell should I want to know any more about her?’

‘Whoa!’ He held up a hand to her. ‘Steady on. I just thought having Ella might make you inquisitive. Now we’re back in the UK it wouldn’t be so hard to get information. And she probably did care, you know, they were very different times.’

‘And I wasn’t exactly perfect.’ She cupped her hand to her ear, a habitual gesture.

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘What?’

‘She wasn’t married,’ he said. ‘You know that much and she went into the Mother and Baby Home to have you so she’d already decided to place you for adoption even before you were born. It wouldn’t have anything to do with what you were like.’

‘Nothing personal.’

He frowned. ‘Why so defensive? You never used to be so prickly about it.’

‘Craig, don’t analyse me.’

‘Just an observation. Your parents are more laid back about it than you are.’

‘I’d never do anything about it even if I wanted to. I wouldn’t treat them like that. I think it’s awful the way people from really good families, happy families, go off . . . it must be so hurtful. I’d never do that to Mum and Dad.’

‘What if she traced you?’

‘I wouldn’t see her. It’s none of her business, my life. Nothing to do with her.’

He pursed his lips and exhaled noisily. ‘Jeez, I better change the subject.’

‘You think I’m being unfair?’

‘It can’t have been easy for her. It must have been heartbreaking, when you think of it.’ He nodded at Ella on the bed between them.

‘You don’t know that, Craig. I just think . . .’ Her mouth tightened and she stopped.

‘Go on.’

‘I think it was terrible, to leave me . . .’ Sudden emotion distorted her face.

‘Oh, Tess!’ He moved closer. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve put my foot right in it.’

‘I am more bothered by it. Since having Ella. I get really cross. I look at her and hold her and I adore her and I think that was me, all those years ago, that was me and she abandoned me. I’m twenty-five years old and suddenly it matters. And I’m so angry inside, like it’s only just sunk in what happened to me. And then I feel guilty about Mum and Dad. And feeling this way. I was only a few weeks old, it can’t have mattered really, not so tiny, but I can’t bear to think about it.’ She cried, ‘Bloody hormones.’

He held her and kissed her hair.

The baby woke then. Her mouth stretching, a cry gaining volume.

‘Perfect timing.’

She laughed and pulled away, reached for a tissue to dry her face.

‘I’ll make you some tea?’

She nodded. ‘And crumpets. I’m ravenous again.’

Like mother, like daughter, he thought, but bit his tongue just in time. The phrase might seem loaded given Theresa’s state of mind.

She turned to plump the pillows up behind her. Lifted Ella from the bed and let her latch on. She wouldn’t think about it again. It was all too upsetting and she had enough to deal with coping with all the demands that a new baby brought.

‘Craig! Craig!’ The terror in her voice brought him, taking the stairs two at a time, banging his elbow on the door jamb in his urgency.

‘What?’

‘Ella.’

Theresa stood beside the cot. Inside, Ella was jerking and bucking, her back arched, her limbs flailing, face con torted.

‘It’s a fit. She’s having a fit.’

‘Ambulance!’ He wasted no time.

Theresa put her hand on the baby’s stomach, willing the terrifying movements to stop. Epilepsy, brain fever, a seizure. Fear sang through her veins. She wanted to lift her up and cradle her but was frightened she would do more damage if she moved her. If she dies . . . the thought took the ground from under her, she clung to the cot side.

Craig reappeared. ‘They’re on their way.’

‘What do we do?’

‘Nothing. They’ll be here soon. Oh, God.’

Ella’s limbs tremored then stopped. Her features slackened, the red drained from her face, her abdomen sank back on to the mattress. She began to whimper. Theresa lifted her up, cradled her against her left shoulder, gently rubbing her back, making soothing sounds. ‘Is she awake?’

Craig checked. ‘Yes, she looks fine. Bit sleepy.’

‘Where are they?’

‘Here soon. You poor wee babby,’ he said to his daughter.

At the hospital they needed to perform a battery of tests to try and establish the reason for the seizure. Family history was one of the questions that kept being raised.

Craig had already rung his mother and established that there was nothing on either side of his that he could have passed on.

‘I’m adopted,’ Theresa told the consultant. ‘I’ve no idea.’

They took turns sitting by her bedside. They allowed Theresa to stay the night, sleeping on sponge block on the floor. She barely slept in the unfamiliar place. The sound of other children sleeping, the whir of heating and clanking of pipes competing with any sound from Ella, so she strained to hear, bracing herself to call the staff if her breathing altered or there was any sign of discomfort.

After two days and three nights there had been no repetition, they had made no positive diagnosis and Theresa was dead on her feet.

‘Some of the blood tests are still being completed,’ said the consultant, ‘and that may tell us more, but I must say there doesn’t seem to be any clear indication at this stage.’

‘Would it help if you knew more about my family history?’ Theresa said.

‘It would help us to rule out or factor in genetic predisposition, but at the end of the day it might not give us an answer.’ She nodded. She could feel Craig’s eyes on her, questioning, would she? She continued to look at the doctor, not wanting to make a decision about it here, in front of a stranger.

They took Ella home. If she had any further seizures they should bring her back to the hospital immediately. They had a list of do’s and dont’s. Don’t use duvets, cot bumpers or too many blankets, don’t overdress the baby, make a note of any symptoms that precede a seizure – aversion to light, vomiting, diaorrhea, high temperature. It was like living with a time bomb.

The following evening she sought out Craig in his study, where he was preparing lectures.

‘You think I should find out my medical history, don’t you?’ She lowered herself into the easy chair.

He put down his pen, blew air out through his mouth. ‘You heard what the doctor said: ‘It might help them get to the bottom of it’.

She rubbed at her forehead. ‘That’s all I’d want,’ she said, ‘just the medical stuff.’

He waited.

‘I’d just be doing it for Ella.’

‘I know.’ He looked at her.

‘It’s scary. Even that.’ She frowned, eyes suddenly wet. ‘Don’t know why.’

‘The unknown.’

She agreed. ‘And ignorance is bliss. But if there was something, in my genes, and I hadn’t tried to find out . . .’ she shook her head.

He moved around his desk and stood behind her, hands on her shoulders, bent to kiss her hair. ‘I love you,’ he murmured.

‘Me, too.’ She kissed his hand. But her thoughts were distracted, strewn about like dropped papers, and she felt only dread at the thought of the journey ahead. The unknown stretched before her like a chasm, black and bottomless.

Caroline

She was walking the Pennine Way, the whole of it, from Edale to Kirk Yetholm, right along the backbone of England. On their visits to Paul’s family in Settle she had walked a lot in the Yorkshire Dales, she had done the three peaks – Ingleborough, Pen-y-ghent and Great Whernside – and had promised herself one day she’d walk the whole length of the hills and here she was. Bliss.

She had left Malham that morning carrying her pack. It was a fair morning, bright and blustery, the sort of day when you could see right across the fells, pick out tiny sheep clinging to hillside tracks and watch the clouds chase across the sky, skimming shadows over the undulating green swards. Most of this section was treeless. The lower slopes would once have held forests but these had been cleared hundreds of years before for farming. The Romans had marched over here, building their long, straight roads, some of which were now part of the route.

Limestone country, and the white rock gave a bright, luminescent feel to the landscape, so that even in the foulest weather it never had the bleak, god-forbidden look of places like Dartmoor with its darker stone, where she had walked the previous summer.

She checked her map and followed the lower trail, which would take her down the hillside to meet a path rising from the hamlet below. She let her thoughts ramble as they did whenever she walked. Not concentrating on anything but aware nevertheless that there was an accounting going on. A weighing up of what she had made of her life, a consideration of what she would like to change, an assessment of her emotional health.

As she rounded the corner she found a stile set in the dry-stone wall. Just beyond it was a cairn of stones and, following tradition, she found a small pebble to add to the mound. Large rocks, fissured and worn, scattered the area and she decided to stop and have lunch among them. She had brought a piece of the creamy Wensleydale cheese, bread rolls, tangy orange tomatoes, locally grown, a flask of coffee and some flapjack. She ate and drank and then closed her eyes, savouring the quiet that was interrupted only by the pee-wit of the lapwing or the melancholy cry of the curlew and the barking call of grouse.

She felt safe on the hills. The nearest she got to peace. ‘The one place I can’t follow her,’ Paul joked. And there was some truth in it. She relished the solitude and gently avoided linking up with other walkers, preferring a brisk ‘good morning’ as she passed them to any conversation.

She would be forty-three next birthday. Her hair was showing grey and every day brought more wrinkles but she felt reasonably fit, work kept her active.

Davey had joined them in the business. He was less interested in the plants but a natural at the landscaping and the structural side of design. People wanted more than a patch of lawn with borders these days and Davey was developing that side of things. He seemed happy with it. She didn’t need to worry about him. Sean was settled too. Doing a computing course. She barely understood what he did but he was happy and had good prospects and he was engaged to an energetic young woman in PR whose confidence was breathtaking.

She had never heard from the Children’s Rescue Society. She had never stopped hoping but sometimes it was hard.

She stirred herself and packed up her rubbish. She hefted the rucksack on to her back, groaning a little at the mild ache in her shoulders. She skirted the rocks and regained the path.

Theresa

‘How was it?’ Craig put his briefcase on the kitchen counter, pulled out a chair.

‘Awful. Just like I expected. Why on earth they can’t just send you the stuff in a sealed envelope and let you get over it in private . . .’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s a safety net, I suppose. Someone to listen, could be quite traumatic . . .’

‘Craig, there was a letter.’

‘What?’

‘A letter. From her.’ Her face crumpled, her brown eyes glimmered. ‘I never thought . . . It’s all very nice but I didn’t want . . . I just . . .’

‘Tess.’ He went to hug her. She pulled away after a minute and handed him the white envelope.

He drew out the paper and read it. He blinked several times, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. ‘Jeez. She was sixteen. Caroline.’