A Sister’s Gift (32 page)

‘Wee’s fine,’ she confirms after a few moments. ‘Now, would you two ladies like to hear the baby’s heartbeat?’ The midwife puts some Vaseline on my sister’s tummy and then suddenly
there’s this
whoosh-whoosh-whoosh
sound, loud as a waterfall beating in my ears. ‘Lovely and strong, isn’t it?’ Jane smiles.

‘That’s…that’s
him?’
I can hardly get the words out. I go and sit down on the little chair by Scarlett’s bed, my hand on her arm. Is that my baby? He’s real. He’s here. I stare at my sister’s flat stomach and the whole thing seems unfathomable, would be totally unbelievable if it weren’t for that
whoosh-whoosh-whoosh
that’s filling up the whole room and filling up my heart. I feel my own stomach contract involuntarily. What wouldn’t I give to be her right now, lying on that couch? I want to be the one waking up every morning complaining of sickness. I wouldn’t mind. I would be
happy
, if it were me.

‘Him
or
her,’ Jane reminds me. ‘That’s a good strong heartbeat your infant’s got there. Very strong, in fact.’ She frowns slightly for a moment, as if something’s perplexing her. ‘Have you had your scan yet, lovey?’

Scarlett shakes her head. ‘You booked me in but the letter that came through said it would take a few weeks…’

‘You’ll be looking forward to that, won’t you?’ The midwife’s eyes light on hers softly and for a moment Scarlett looks as pleased and happy as any newly expectant mum. ‘Will the dad be accompanying you?’

‘He…he might. My sister will come, though, won’t you?’ She looks at me for confirmation. ‘In any event, this baby’s going to have the best daddy in the world,’ she puts in unexpectedly now.

‘Sure,’ I say.

He’ll make the best daddy in the world if he ever comes back home again
. I shift from one foot to the other uncomfortably. I want to hear my baby’s heartbeat again. What does that feel like? I glance at my sister enviously. What does it feel like to have someone growing inside you?

‘And at least once the scan’s done we’ll be a bit clearer about your dates…’ the midwife’s saying now.

‘My dates?’

‘Date of your last period, darling.’

‘Oh.’ I watch as Scarlett’s tongue goes to the side of her cheek. ‘I told you what the date was.’

‘Indeed you did,’ Jane glances at her notes. ‘Call it intuition – or maybe fifteen years’ experience on this job – but I’ve a feeling you’re a bit further ahead with this pregnancy than you think…’

My sister pulls an uncomfortable face.

‘We’re a hundred per cent certain about the dates, Jane,’ I say as I watch her putting the heartbeat monitor away in her bag. ‘Scarlett’s been trying to get pregnant since January, so it might have been possible, except all the other pregnancy tests were negative, weren’t they, Scarlett?’

My sister nods, inexplicably tongue-tied all of a sudden, and Jane laughs. I look from one to the other, perplexed.

‘These things are often far more hit-and-miss than you think. Your sister might have
thought
she’d had a period, but not done so in actuality. If there wasn’t enough pregnancy hormones around at the time she used the test kit then it wouldn’t have picked it up. Still…’Jane zips up her bag with a flourish. ‘All’s well that ends well, eh? And I bet you had fun trying.’ She winks at Scarlett.

‘Trying what?’ I snap before I can stop myself.

‘To get pregnant,’ Jane says baldly.

‘She didn’t,’ I assure her, my face growing hot. ‘She’s acting as my surrogate. She’s having the baby for me and my husband so she didn’t…’ I look at Scarlett and my throat just closes up in the strangest way.

‘No, I didn’t,’ Scarlett confirms hurriedly. ‘It wasn’t like that.’ But her face has gone as pink as a stick of seaside rock right now. She can’t imagine I would spill the beans to this lady about how we actually went about it? Her tongue is planted firmly in her cheek and she’s staring at the floor. Her hands have dug deep into her dressing gown pockets as we speak and she reminds me
so much of her seven-year-old self for a moment it’s almost comical; she looks exactly like she used to look whenever she’d been caught out at something.

I push away the image that Duncan planted in my head a week ago of Scarlett and Richard kissing at the window. And her
topless
. I frown, scrutinising her a little closer and my sister offers up a wan smile.

‘I really don’t think there’s any mistake about my due dates either, Jane.’ Her chin juts out and she stares at a spot on the wall in front of her while Jane finishes up her notes.

‘I’ve been wrong before,’ Jane admits, ‘though not often.’ She snaps her file shut but I can’t tear myself away from my sister’s face because I’ve got the strangest sensation that Scarlett’s just lied to us both.

‘Hey, that’s really terrific.’ I put down my magazine as Christine holds up the newly-framed picture of Rochester Bridge.

‘You’ll have to apologise to Beatrice Highland for me, Hollie.’ Richard’s mum props the picture up on the table so we can get a better look. ‘I don’t suppose they’ll be using
my
framing services again in a hurry.’ She laughs disparagingly and we both look towards Hol, who seems to be more preoccupied with her own thoughts this morning. Three guesses why.

I glance up the stairs but there’s no sign of Richard coming down. He and his mum arrived in the early hours of last night; I was in bed by then, it must have been two a.m. when I was woken up by the sound of them all talking on the stairs. I have no idea where he’s got to now.

‘Beatrice knows we’ve all had a lot on recently.’ Hollie barely glances at the drawing. ‘She understands. Still, hopefully things are all returning to normal now. Slowly but surely.’

I watch her curiously as she arranges a vase full of red and yellow tulips on the dining table. Are things really ‘returning to normal’ for her? I wonder how they could be. Richard’s stayed away for weeks now – it’s all to do with work, the official story goes – but we all know it’s much more than that. She won’t be drawn on it. Still, I’ll see him today. He won’t be able to avoid me forever. It’s ridiculous he should try to, anyway.

‘Slowly but surely,’ Chrissie echoes. ‘I can see you’re feeling a
lot better too, aren’t you, Lettie?’ She keeps trying to include the two of us in the conversation. The strain between us must be palpable, especially now Rich is back in the house.

‘Not so nauseous.’ I throw Chrissie a small smile, because she is kind and she drove all the way down here this weekend not just to deliver the picture but to see me, too. She wanted to thank me personally for the favour I’m doing for her ‘two favourite people’.

‘In fact, I’ve been thinking I might soon be well enough to make the trip back to Manaus, as it happens.’

‘Oh.’ My sister frowns, letting the tulips slide from her hands, and the whole bunch sag out to the side of the vase immediately. ‘Have you had word from Eve then? Or that new lot who are taking over who contacted you?’

‘No,’ I allow. ‘But no news is good news, isn’t it?’

Hollie looks perturbed. ‘I just meant – perhaps you should make sure it’s still all OK. Before you book the tickets. There was that letter saying they were looking into those allegations, don’t forget…’

Chrissie looks at us both quizzically and I shoot my sister a furious glance. What on earth did she have to bring that up in front of Chrissie for?

‘All nonsense.’ I wave my hand dismissively at her. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong, I told you that.’

‘You miss your work in Brazil desperately, don’t you?’ Christine leans forward and touches my arm gently. ‘I’m really impressed with how you’ve coped these past few weeks. It can’t have been easy for you.’

‘It hasn’t been.’ That momentary touch on my arm, the kindness in her eyes, it drags something out of me that I didn’t even know was there.

‘Oh, my dear. What’s brought all this on? Don’t cry.’ Chrissie wraps her arms around me in a warm hug and over the top of her shoulders I spy my sister scrambling around for a tissue.

‘I’m not sad, Chrissie, honest. I’m just…’ I gulp. I’m just what? Empty. Lonely. I miss him, that’s all. His friendship at least.

‘What you’re feeling right now – it’s just natural, darling. It’s the hormones. They do that to you, make you sick and make you weepy and all sorts…’

‘I miss all my friends back in Brazil,’ I tell her staunchly. I do miss them. I miss Gui because everything was all so uncomplicated with him. I miss the tribe. I miss my PlanetLove colleagues. I miss Rich, too.

Christine smiles softly. When she does that thing, wrinkling up the sides of her eyes, she reminds me of Rich and I have to look away from her.

‘I know, darling. But when you leave here and go back there you’ll miss
us
too, won’t you?’ She glances up at my sister and I get the impression she’s doing her best to re-establish some of the rapport that’s been lost between us.

Does Christine even
know?
Richard’s been staying at his parents’ place since he got back from Italy last month. He must have spoken to her about what went on, surely? I can’t believe he wouldn’t have said something…

‘Look, where’s Richard this morning?’ I blurt out at last. ‘I haven’t seen him since – well, since I got pregnant. Is he planning on staying away from me forever?’

‘Away from
you
, Scarlett?’ Christine looks at me in surprise. ‘Well – you were asleep when he and I arrived last night of course, but I thought you might have seen him this morning?’ She looks from Hollie to me questioningly, then runs on. ‘This whole restructuring of the business thing – it’s been a complete and utter nightmare, of course. And with you being so unwell, he thought he’d best stay up with us and sort out work and leave you two girls to it. I’m sure Hollie’s told you that?’

‘Is that the reason he’s given for staying away?’ I feel my mouth drop open slightly. I want to tell Chrissie the truth, I really, really
do because if we’ve got to keep up this whole pretence for very much longer I think I am going to explode.

‘He had to go out to his local office first thing,’ Hollie puts in hurriedly.

‘He’ll be…he’ll be home tonight then?’ I breathe.

‘No, Lettie, he won’t be here tonight. He only came down to bring his mum and then he’s off again. He and I have a lot to catch up on.’

‘You’ll have had plenty of time to talk. I need to see him too, you know. He hasn’t yet thanked me personally for that the fact I’m carrying his child. He hasn’t even had the decency to…’

‘Scarlett!’ Christine’s eyes have widened in horror. ‘I think you can understand why Richard and Hollie would need to have time to reconnect with each other. They are married after all.’

Hollie gets up slowly and walks out of the room. I’d go after her if Christine didn’t have her hand on my knee, preventing me.

‘It’s been really hard for them, darling. You must try and understand that. What you’re doing for them is truly wonderful, but it doesn’t mean you’ve…how can I put it…earned the right to any place within their marriage. I haven’t known how much you’ve been aware of – it’s delicate, isn’t it – one never knows how much one should say. But I suspect there’s been some unhappiness brewing between Hollie and my son and the Italy business is only part of it. I do think it’s odd he hasn’t wanted to come back home sooner than this. And I know she’s been really unhappy at the prospect of him having to look so far afield for work. Quite apart from the fact that he’s wanted to give you both your space…’ She touches my shoulder gently. ‘Well, you know how it is.’

I fold my arms. ‘You think they’ve been at loggerheads then? About what? Is it the baby?’ I look at her through lowered lids.

‘I suspect that may be part of it. He’s not told me the whole story of course. I thought maybe Hollie might have filled you in on more details?’

I shake my head. ‘I just can’t believe he’d come home and not even say hello to me,’ I mutter out loud, because that’s the thing that’s really hurting. ‘And then to sneak off in the morning without even…’

‘Well, it was very late last night…Look, this isn’t about
you
, darling. Please don’t take it personally. There’s stuff going on between them. That’s why I came down really. I’ve offered to look after you for tonight while they go out and enjoy themselves somewhere. They both need the break, don’t you agree?’

Hah! Is that why Hollie had her little travel case out on the bed this morning? They’re going away for a minibreak so everything can be all lovey-dovey between the two of them again.

‘I don’t need anyone to look after me now, Christine,’ I say stiffly. ‘I’m feeling much better. I just said so. I’ll be going back to Brazil very soon.’

‘That’s hardly wise now, is it?’ she says gently. ‘You’re bound to be feeling fragile for a while yet. Why risk any harm to yourself or the baby when you’re so well looked after here?’

‘Because it’s stifling me!’ I tell her candidly. ‘I have a life outside of Rochester. At least I had one. I have to get it back before it all slips away from me for good. What Hollie said about PlanetLove looking into allegations about me – that’s bugging me too. I really need to get back to find out what all that’s about – somebody must have made a mistake somewhere – but it’s one that might prejudice my job.’ I’m hoping that all this talk of mundane matters will put her off the scent of what’s really on my mind.

I’ve been feeling gradually better over the last few weeks, it’s true. I’ve only hung on in the hope that I could come to some sort of truce here – with Rich and with my sister too. I didn’t want to leave with this horrid atmosphere still hanging over us, but it doesn’t look as if it’s going to go away that easily.

I stand up, my legs shaking, and go over to the table, my eyes lighting on the drawing of the bridge that Christine propped up there earlier.

‘My sister doesn’t get this picture at all, does she?’ My fingers run over the smooth edge of the dark silver frame as I take it in again. ‘You know why? It’s because she doesn’t like to see the darker side of things. She once told me that the chapels they built on either side of medieval bridges weren’t put there just for grateful travellers to give thanks for their safe passage over. They were there so that outbound travellers could pray they wouldn’t get mugged or murdered while going across, either.’