Freeing Grace Page 22

  ‘Yeah? What if what ?’

  Thinking, Leila retied the blue band around her head. ‘My body isn’t set up to reproduce. It doesn’t work. Agreed?’

  ‘Yes and no.’

  ‘Okay, take it a step further. What if that means my mind isn’t, either? I’m not like other women physically, so maybe I’m not like them mentally or emotionally.’

  Maggie looked at her, fondly. ‘Well, you do stand out from the crowd. That’s why I like you.’

  ‘Maybe I’m not capable of true maternal feelings,’ fretted Leila. ‘I mean, how would I know?’

  Maggie reached across and tapped her friend on the head. ‘I come across many, many real mothers, Leila Edmunds, who are total bitches to their children. You don’t want to know what savagery real mothers are capable of.’ She shuddered. ‘Sometimes I want to slap ’em.’

  ‘And fathers too, I daresay.’

  ‘When a child is killed, it’s normally one or both of the parents. Did you know that? Parents can be very dangerous.’

  Leila didn’t answer. She was still fiddling with her hair.

  Maggie burst out in exasperation. ‘For goodness’ sake, this is such total hogwash, Leila! You’re a genius with kids. Much better than me—I’ve got no love for other people’s. I hate it when Toby has a friend over. Whining and whingeing and blackmailing me into producing chocolate fingers. But you’re so much fun with them. Toby thinks you’re the best thing since Lego.’

  ‘He doesn’t have me as a mother twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for the rest of his life.’

  ‘Look.’ Maggie ate the last of her doughnut and licked her fingers. ‘Stop all this soul searching. Doctor’s orders!’

  ‘Okay.’ Leila ducked her head.

  ‘Any child who gets you two is bloody lucky. End of story.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Leila, smiling. ‘Really. Thanks, Maggie. How is Toby?’

  ‘Well.’ Maggie twisted her mouth, noncommittal. ‘He came home from his dad’s on Sunday night, and he said, “Dad looked funny when he was kissing Peter.” ’

  ‘How did you take that?’

  ‘I tried to be very honest with myself. I had to think, “Now, how would I feel if Dad was kissing a Betty or a Barbara?” ’

  ‘And you concluded . . . ?’

  ‘I concluded that I would be jealous either way. And since there is no future in jealousy, I am going to be grown up about it.’

  ‘But Toby . . . d’you mind him seeing them?’

  ‘Yes, no, yes . . .’ Maggie shrugged. ‘I don’t think he was upset by it. Harry’s relationship with Paranoid Peter is a fact of life like any other. We’d all better get used to it.’

  ‘Whew.’ Leila held out her hands. ‘There you are, you see? The trials of motherhood.’

  Buoyed by her conversation with Maggie, Leila drove home via the shopping centre and took a turn around Baby Planet. She couldn’t resist picking up a glitteringly hypnotic moon and stars mobile that played the Brahms Lullaby, a nursery rhymes frieze, a set of tiny sheets, and an old-fashioned woollen blanket with blue satin edging. She stopped off at the DIY store for paint samples and ended up buying enough primrose paint for the whole study.

  Suddenly the world felt like Christmas, but a thousand times brighter.

  As she was parking in the street outside the house, Jacinta came bouncing up to the car. ‘Got the baby yet?’ She squinted hopefully through the windows as Leila climbed out.

  ‘Not yet. She’s going to be a Christmas present.’

  ‘In Santa’s sack?’

  ‘Well, probably not. We’ve no chimney.’

  Jacinta jumped up and down on an invisible pogo stick. Her plait bounced with her. ‘I’m terribly ill. I wasn’t at school today.’

  ‘Not at school, eh? You look the picture of health to me,’ said Leila, and Jacinta’s dusky face broke into a gap-toothed grin of triumph.

  ‘I forgot to do my homework,’ she announced unrepentantly. ‘Mrs Carpenter is a real dragon, and she would have torn me limb from limb and then eaten me. Mum said I could have a day off because school’s not supposed to be a house of horrors.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Leila, reaching for the first of her shopping bags. ‘Run and tell her you’re coming in for a visit, and then you can see what I’ve been buying.’

  As they opened the front door David appeared, zigzagging comically across the hall under the weight of a bulging bin bag. Jacinta giggled.

  ‘Hello, girls!’ boomed David. ‘How’s your love life, Jacinta? Leila— don’t go buying any baby clothes!’ he gasped, dropping his burden at her feet. ‘Jeepers creepers, it’s heavier than it looks.’

  Leila stared at the bag. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘From Brenda Pollard on behalf of the jumble sale committee. They heard this morning from Angus—’

  ‘The old gossip!’

  ‘He’s so excited, can’t contain himself. He told them all about it, so they beetled off and picked out the best stuff they’ve got. It’s all been washed and ironed already. Look.’

  He sank his hand into the bag and pulled out a tiny scrap of woollen cloth. When he held it up, spreading out its arms, Leila could see that it was a stripy jumpsuit.

  ‘Cute,’ enthused Jacinta. She plunged in with both hands, pulled out five garments and laid them carefully on the floor in a circle. She sat among them, cross-legged, humming and examining each in turn. ‘They’re so little.’

  ‘Do babies come that small?’ Leila was doubtful. ‘This one must be a doll’s outfit.’

  ‘Apparently they come even smaller.’ David was still rummaging in the bag. ‘Take a look at these snazzy things!’ He held up a pair of red and white dungarees. ‘They’ve got buttons all down the legs, see? What are those for?’

  Jacinta wandered away and began to tinkle on the piano. Leila stepped forward and peered into the soft, dark recesses of the bag. She could smell the washing powder, and it breathed contentment and delight.

  ‘Your mother phoned,’ said David. ‘They’re off to Nigeria tomorrow, remember? And the wedding’s on Saturday.’

  Leila looked up from the bag. ‘That’s right. I’d forgotten it was so soon. I’ll phone her back and wish them bon voyage.’

  ‘Fola wants to buy us some sort of all-terrain pushchair so we can go striding across the Malverns.’

  Leila laughed. ‘To help me get my figure back?’

  ‘She wants to know what model we’d like. There’s a website. She says to give her a ring once you’ve had a look, and she’ll order it before she leaves.’

  ‘You know, I don’t deserve my parents. Jacinta, are you going to help me carry all this stuff upstairs?’

  The tinkling on the piano became a thumping. Chopsticks, now. David put his fingers in his ears and made a tortured face.

  ‘I thought we could spend your day off tomorrow decorating Fola’s room,’ yelled Leila, over the racket.

  ‘Fola’s room?’

  ‘Fola’s room.’ Leila jerked a thumb in a gesture of dismissal. ‘You’re evicted from your study without further notice. Have to make do with the piano room. I’ve got enough paint for two coats.’

  ‘Oh, God. And so it starts.’ David scrunched up his cheek as she kissed him. ‘The husband is supplanted by the child. Discarded, like last year’s Christmas tree. I’ve read about this kind of thing.’

  ‘We’ll get you a dog kennel to live in.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll start moving stuff downstairs.’ David was bubbling over, still talking as he strolled into the kitchen. ‘Brenda’s daughter’s got a cot we can have. She’s dropping it off tonight.’

  Leila followed him. ‘I saw the adoption people.’

  ‘Of course! How did it go?’

  ‘Fine. They’re working flat out, getting on with procedural things. No end of red tape and hoop jumping. Linda’s made an appointment to come here next week, and they hope to introduce us to the baby once they’ve got this placement order. We’ll need to go and
stay nearby.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Dunno, exactly. Somewhere down south. We’ll spend time getting to know Fola before we bring her home.’

  ‘When’s this going to happen?’

  ‘The court hearing is listed for mid December.’ Leila felt as though she were made of smiles. ‘Four weeks to go! Angus will definitely let you have the leave?’

  ‘Yep.’ David peered into a tin of teabags, fishing out a couple. ‘He’s happy. Says he’ll manage whenever we need time off. When do we actually adopt her, then?’

  ‘We have to allow time for the dust to settle. Six months or a year.’

  ‘It’s all a bit of a learning curve.’

  ‘The point is that once she’s come to live with us, we can relax. They won’t take her away unless we turn out to be Bonnie and Clyde.’

  ‘Or Jekyll and Hyde.’ David rubbed his hands together in anticipation. ‘So we’ll have a baby by Christmas. Scary stuff! Here you go.’

  He turned, holding out a mug, but Leila was gone, dragging the rustling black treasure trove up the stairs and along the landing, calling to Jacinta to come and help.

  A few minutes later, David stood at the foot of the stairs and listened. He could hear his wife opening and shutting drawers in a study that was now their baby’s bedroom. At first she was chatting to Jacinta. Then she was singing: ‘Summertime’, from Gershwin’s opera. David loved the wistful lullaby, and he’d never heard anyone who could make it resonate as Leila did. He sank onto the bottom step, resting his mug on his knees, wandering dreamily among the slow, sonorous cadences of her song.

  The brilliance of sunset drifted into the hall, dancing across the dusty surfaces. The shadows seemed to glow. They were happy again, and young, and hopeful. Everything around them had been dipped in magic. Life was good.

  Even the telephone seemed to respect their celebration. It rang only once, later that evening, as they were about to tuck into lasagne at the kitchen table.

  ‘Mrs Thingummy,’ said Leila, coming back into the kitchen. ‘About the Diocesan Youth Event. She says she’ll call back later.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said David. ‘I should have switched on the answer machine.’

  ‘No, it’s all right. For once I feel warm and fuzzy towards her. After all, someone has to organise these jolly jamborees. Good old Mrs Thingummy. Three cheers, hats off. Where would we be without her?’

  ‘Did you phone your mother?’

  ‘Sure did.’ Leila chuckled. ‘She’s in heaven. We’re having a tartan four-wheel-drive buggy, deluxe model, costs more than a jumbo jet. I couldn’t talk her out of it.’

  ‘Are they all packed? What time are they off?’

  ‘Isaiah’s picking them up at the crack of dawn tomorrow. I’ve said my farewells. They’ll be back just in time to meet their newest granddaughter.’

  ‘Ah!’ David held up a finger before opening the fridge with a flourish. ‘I almost forgot. Dora at the off-licence sent a bottle of Spanish bubbly to celebrate “our happy news”.’

  ‘Now I feel guilty for wanting to cosh her.’ Leila opened the dishwasher and grabbed two glasses.

  ‘How are they taking the news at Kirkaldie’s?’ asked David, watching the froth surge out of the bottle.

  ‘The girls all want to be our nanny. Jodie intends to move in with us.’

  David looked terrified. Leila laughed and laid her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Don’t worry. She’ll have to join the queue behind Jacinta. Management— well, I suspect they’re relieved I haven’t been there long enough that they have to give me paid adoption leave. Sales are down.’

  David’s nod was vacant. It was all too good. His mind had a puritanical, killjoy urge to spoil the moment.

  ‘I wonder who she was?’ he murmured, at last.

  Leila blinked, uncomprehending, ready to raise her glass in a toast to their new child. ‘Who?’

  ‘The baby’s mother. What was her story? What happened to her?’

  ‘I hope we’ll be told, eventually.’

  ‘And what on earth has the father done that’s so wicked he must forfeit his child? Is he such a monster?’

  ‘Perhaps he killed the mother,’ suggested Leila, half-seriously. ‘He’s doing time. That would explain everything.’ A little pile of salt lay spilt upon the table. With one finger, she began to trace a pattern in the white grains. ‘I’d like to meet him.’

  ‘Really? I wouldn’t.’

  ‘I want to know who he is. I want to thank him for her. Linda tells me there’s no plan to let him have continued contact with the baby.’

  ‘So he’ll be saying goodbye. Awful.’ David’s eyes flickered in guilt, processing the thought.

  ‘It is awful,’ agreed Leila, ‘but there may be very good reasons. He might be a monster, as you say. Or else he doesn’t want to know.’

  David tried to picture the father. A drunkard, perhaps, who beat his wife to death. A drug dealer who gave her an overdose. Or a company director who’d seduced his secretary and wanted nothing to do with mother or child.

  Leila brushed away the scattered salt.

  ‘We might not get her at all, David. Something could still go wrong.’ She stretched across and gripped the wooden servers he’d stuck into the salad. ‘Touch wood. Touch wood. Sorry. You’ve got a superstitious pagan at your table.’

  David watched her, and anxiety took a fresh grip upon his stomach. He didn’t like to think about what might happen if this fell through. He stood up. Casually, as if by chance, he brushed his own fingertips along the wooden window frame, from one end to the other, and back again.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The evening of the Fintan House meeting, Lucy phoned. Matt and I were playing a particularly violent game on his computer. Deborah still wasn’t back. Apparently she’d told Matt she had things to do in town and would come home in a taxi.

  ‘Sorry I missed you this morning.’ Lucy’s voice was warm and mellow; she sounded her old self again. ‘I didn’t think you’d appreciate me crashing in to kiss you goodbye at five am.’

  ‘I’d appreciate your crashing in to kiss me at any time,’ I insisted dutifully.

  ‘Look, I really can’t thank you enough, Jake.’

  ‘No worries,’ I said. ‘Forget it. Please.’

  ‘You will come and stay at my place when you’re in London, won’t you?’ she asked. ‘I can only offer you a sofa bed, but it’s quite a comfy one. I’ll actually be in Oslo again next week.’

  ‘I spoke to Bill today. Remember Bill? He and Lottie have offered me their spare room. I’ve imposed on your family too long.’

  ‘I think it’s us who’ve imposed.’ She had the grace to sound embarrassed. ‘Now you know why we needed you to find her.’

  ‘And now I know that back in October you couldn’t have cared less whether I slept in Lincoln’s Inn Fields under a newspaper and got mugged. I was just a gofer. A stooge. A runner.’

  ‘A saviour.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Sorry.’ She didn’t sound quite sorry enough. ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t go, since she didn’t want to be found. And without Deborah, we were going to lose Grace.’ She chuckled. ‘She’s quite a regal little person. Has mini tantrums if you don’t do what she wants. She screws her face up and screams the place down.’

  I gave up on being aggrieved, and suggested dinner when she got back from Oslo, and we picked a day.

  ‘It’s not the same without you at Stanton’s,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for a new job. Delaney’s a prick. Len Harvey’s got your job. Disastrous.’ She gossiped chattily for a while, telling me exactly how disastrous poor Len was. I’m ashamed to say that I encouraged her.

  ‘I’d better go . . .’ she said, in the end.

  I waited. I could tell she had something more on her mind.

  ‘. . . But there was no need to escort her home.’

  Ah. There it was. ‘Didn’t want her doing a runner, did we?’ I replied li
ghtly. ‘After all that trouble finding her.’

  ‘Jake.’ A brief silence and then a sigh. ‘Word of advice. Get out while you can.’

  I tried to protest, but she interrupted me. ‘She’s brought my father to his knees.’

  ‘I’ve got no heart to break,’ I told her.

  By the time I heard a car rumbling down the lane, it was late. We’d already had supper, and Perry had disappeared off to his study. I waited for her footsteps in the hall. I found myself glancing towards the door, wanting to see her. Five, ten minutes passed, but she didn’t come in. So I went outside to find her. She was standing under the lilac tree in her long winter coat, staring bleakly up at the house.

  For a moment, I lingered by the front door. A whisper of light, escaping from an upstairs window, glanced slantways across her face and shoulders; her eyes were in shadow, as though she was wearing a masquerade mask. Watching that motionless figure, I finally faced the fact that she made me feel very strange. It wasn’t just physical desire.

  Deborah’s story was the opposite of mine. She’d sacrificed her youth, been an army wife, brought up children. She’d lived a lie, really, but she’d done it for more or less the right reasons. Me, on the other hand? I’d clung to my youth, avoided commitment, lived selfishly but honestly. I was even selfish in my honesty.

  We were opposites. And yet, at some horribly fundamental level, I recognised something in her, a sort of kinship. A passion for freedom, perhaps. I felt as though she was a part of my past, and my future, and myself. I felt as though she was my home. But I couldn’t have her. Never. I could put that idea right out of my head.

  She didn’t move as I walked up to her. She seemed stunned.

  ‘I never want to go in,’ she said quietly. ‘And he never wants to come out. An agoraphobic, living with a claustrophobic. Impossible.’

  ‘The Dog and Gun is beckoning,’ I suggested. ‘How about a swift one?’

  ‘I’ve already had too many swift ones.’

  She had, too. Her voice lacked its usual precision. ‘I expect they do coffee,’ I said. ‘C’mon.’

  She turned her shadowed eyes up to me. ‘I still care about him, Jake.’