Bay of Secrets (15 page)

‘Then I should like you to come and work for me in my private clinic,’ he said.

*

When Sister Julia returned to Santa Ana it transpired that the reverend mother already knew of the doctor’s request.

‘You must not feel flattered, my child,’ she said. ‘Although you have done well and you have done your duty. Your life is here with us at Santa Ana but your work must be with the doctor – for now. You will be our representative. We trust that you will not let us down.’

Sister Julia bowed her head in acquiescence. ‘I will try not to, Reverend Mother,’ she said. It was clear that the reverend mother thought as highly of the doctor as if he were a monastery leader, as if his power was indeed come from God. It was true that he was a most religious man; he quoted passages from the Bible frequently. But … whether or not Dr Lopez’s power came from God, she knew that she could indeed be of some use.

Slowly, she was growing accustomed to her new life – at the convent and caring for the women. What she could not get used to, however, was the pain of a woman who had made the decision to give up her child. She heard their mournful, desperate cries and their empty weeping and she thought of her own mother. How could she not think of her own mother? She would never – she thought – grow used to that.

Ruby chose a quiet corner in The Gull restaurant in Pride Bay. She’d arrived early, tried not to think about the fact that it was Friday the thirteenth – something that had escaped her attention when she and Frances had fixed up the meeting.

‘There’s something I need to talk to you about,’ Ruby had said when she finally phoned her. ‘Are you planning to come down this way soon? I wondered if we could meet up?’

She heard Frances’s hesitation. ‘What’s this about, Ruby?’ she’d asked gently.

Ruby hadn’t really wanted to say too much; it was something that she’d rather do face to face. But … ‘It’s about my parents,’ she said. ‘About me, really. About the circumstances surrounding my birth.’ It all sounded a bit formal. But how else could she say it? And if there was anything – she was pretty sure Frances would be in the know.

‘I see.’ There was another pause. ‘To tell you the truth, Ruby, I’ve been expecting something like this.’

‘Oh.’ That didn’t sound good. That sounded as if there was something to know. That she hadn’t been mistaken. That there was some big secret surrounding her birth.

‘I’ll come down to Dorset.’ Frances sounded brisk now.
‘The sooner the better, I think, don’t you? Next weekend perhaps?’

‘Fine.’
The sooner the better
 … Ruby gulped. ‘Thanks, Frances.’ But she needed to know. And with her parents no longer alive, Frances was the only person who could tell her.

*

Ruby looked around her at the cream and red old-fashioned decor, the white tablecloths, the folded napkins. What was she about to hear? She’d better order a drink – she’d probably need one …

‘Ruby, my dear.’

Ruby got up to greet her and felt herself immediately enveloped in a hug. ‘It’s good to see you,’ she said, and meant it. Frances’s calm eyes, warm smile and loose curls now flecked with grey, white and pepper-brown, were like a tug at the blind of her memory bank. Not from the funeral, but from before. She felt such a pull of emotion that she had to blink back the tears as Frances kissed her cheek. Frances was so associated with her mother; she could see them sitting together at the kitchen table of her childhood, nursing mugs of instant coffee when she came in from school; Frances with her feet up on their couch while Vivien caught up with her ironing pile. Serious chat, a bit of gossip, lots of laughter.

‘How are you?’ Frances settled into her seat. ‘How on earth are you managing with everything? I had been wondering, you know.’

Where to begin? ‘I’ve got the house up for sale now,’ Ruby told her. ‘I’ve been looking for somewhere else to live,
but no luck yet.’ She thought of the auction. And the cheek of that man … Not only bidding against her but having the nerve to try and chat her up afterwards – if that was what he’d been doing. God. Ruby had been so angry she could have whacked him one with her handbag as she rode away – if she hadn’t been wobbling so precariously at the time.

‘Who are you?’ she’d asked him. ‘And how do you know my name?’ What was he – some sort of stalker?

‘I saw you playing at the Jazz Café,’ he said. And, ‘I didn’t know I was bidding against someone I knew in there.’

What was that supposed to mean? He didn’t know her and she certainly didn’t know him. She frowned.

‘Or knew of,’ he added. ‘Know of?’ He seemed a bit desperate now. ‘Seen around?’

‘You don’t.’ Her tone was crisp. ‘You haven’t.’ She was not amused. ‘You don’t know me, and I don’t know you.’ She pushed herself off with some difficulty and prayed she wouldn’t fall. ‘End of.’ That would tell him.

‘So you’re staying here in Dorset?’ Frances asked her.

‘Yes.’ Ruby shrugged. ‘At least for a while.’ For the moment they were on safe ground. She glanced across at Frances. How long before they stopped skirting round the difficult stuff and got down to the nitty-gritty?

Frances seemed to know what she was thinking. ‘Shall we order before we talk?’ she suggested.

Ruby nodded. In some ways, Frances was the closest she now had to family. She didn’t really count the grandparents in Scotland who she hardly knew and who had barely
acknowledged her at the funeral. At least Frances had been a constant presence during her childhood. But Ruby had yet to become accustomed to the new, true meaning of ‘only child’. There was no one left. She repressed a sigh. Even her memories were at risk of irreparable damage – after tonight.

She chose fresh whole local plaice with salad and new potatoes; Frances opted for sea bass, vegetables and chips. They decided to share a bottle of Soave.

‘You’d better tell me everything that’s happened, my dear,’ Frances said. ‘And then I’ll do what I can to fill in the gaps.’

Ruby took a deep breath and out it came. The photographs in the shoebox, the baby’s bonnet and love beads, the guitar plectrum. The doctor’s letter about her parents’ infertility, the lack of early baby photos in the album, the fact that she looked nothing like either of them. And her confused grandmother’s ‘bolt from the blue’.

Frances nodded. ‘I see.’

By now their food had arrived, but neither of them was eating much. Ruby was pushing her fish around her plate – at least it gave her something to do. Frances was looking grave. Her gaze kept drifting beyond Ruby as if she was seeing her friend Vivien throwing back her head and laughing in that way she had or frowning as she stood a distance away to look at one of her watercolours.

‘And then I took a proper look at my birth certificate,’ Ruby said.

‘Ah.’ Frances nodded. And was it Ruby’s imagination or did she see a faint blush on her cheeks?

‘The registration of my birth appears to have been delayed,’ Ruby said. ‘For some reason.’

‘Yes, it was.’ Frances looked thoughtful.

For a few moments they were both silent.

Ruby smoothed some white fish from the bone and took a mouthful. She’d kept her part of the bargain and now it was time for Frances to come clean. Why was she hesitating? Had she promised to keep her mother’s secret?

Ruby swallowed. ‘Mum would want you to tell me the whole story,’ she said. Family secrets were all very well, but didn’t everyone have the right to the truth surrounding their own birth?

‘Oh, I know she would,’ Frances agreed. ‘She wouldn’t want you to be floundering around in the dark. She told me so herself.’

‘Then … ’ Ruby took another deep breath. ‘Is she my mother?’ she asked. ‘My birth mother, I mean.’

Frances took a sip of her wine. ‘Your mother – and your father for that matter – did what they did for your own good, my dear,’ she said. ‘They may have done wrong. But they only ever had your best interests at heart.’

She’d have to see about that, Ruby thought. But what did they do exactly? ‘You’d better just tell me,’ she said.

‘Vivien was a good woman.’ Once again, Frances’s gaze became distant.

But that was the past. This was the present and Ruby wanted some answers.

‘She loved you more than the world,’ said Frances. ‘Whatever I tell you, you have to understand that. No one could have loved you more.’

Ruby could feel her eyes filling yet again. Damn tears – they were round every corner. And that was all very well. ‘But she’s not my mother? Is that it?’ Ruby took a gulp of wine. ‘Come on, Frances. Spit it out.’

Frances sighed. ‘No, you’re not Tom and Vivien’s daughter,’ she said. ‘Not biologically, at least.’

Dorset, April 1978

The knock on the door was a quiet one. But Vivien heard it.

With the faintest of sighs, she put down her paintbrush and got to her feet. There was never enough time to work on her painting and when Tom went out it didn’t take her long to grab her materials and the opportunity. She adored him. But. Time alone … Sometimes it seemed an almost forbidden luxury. She opened the door.

For a moment she didn’t recognise the girl standing there. It was beginning to rain – big, fat drops splattering on to the dry stone path. Tom had been planting some marigolds (to keep away the slugs, he said) and they were squatting in the border like trainee soldiers determined not to step out of line. Then she realised. ‘Laura?’

Well, she hadn’t seen her for quite a while. But her mother …
Oh, my heavens.
‘Laura.’ Her voice was softer now. She had known this would happen. But still, it had taken her by surprise. Vivien put out a hand and drew the girl gently inside.

Laura Woods blinked. ‘Hello, Vivien,’ she said.

She was wearing a long cheesecloth skirt decorated with
red roses and an embroidered smock top. She’d lost a lot of weight since Vivien had seen her last and her blonde hair was long and straggly. In her hands she dangled a tatty wicker basket and over her shoulder hung a brightly coloured fabric bag.

‘Come in,’ Vivien said, though she already was. It was more something to say, Vivien knew that. Instead of what she must say. ‘I’m so sorry, Laura.’

The girl nodded, didn’t look up. She seemed kind of vague and not quite with it. Which was hardly surprising. How must it feel to lose your mother at – how old was she? – only twenty?

Laura shivered. ‘I came back as soon as I heard,’ she said at last, as though Vivien had accused her of something.

‘Of course.’ Vivien nodded. Although she had been angry with her before for not keeping in touch with her mother, she did understand what Laura must have been through when her parents’ marriage broke up. Going off like that so soon after the divorce, disappearing from her parents’ radar so completely had seemed, even at the time, an act of rebellion. Perhaps she’d found it hard to forgive her parents for splitting up, perhaps she wanted to assert her own independence, perhaps she simply needed to get away from the mess at home. Whatever the reason, Laura had gone – and she’d rarely looked back.

‘Why didn’t she tell me?’ Laura’s eyes were wide, blue and accusing.

‘Tell you?’

‘That she was ill. That she was dying.’

Vivien had guessed this would happen too. ‘She was trying to be brave, Laura,’ she said. Though privately she agreed with the girl. Of course she should have been told. Poor Laura. Her heart went out to her.

‘Brave!’ Laura shook her head as if she couldn’t believe it.

Vivien could only imagine what she was feeling. Pearl might have had the best of intentions but not to tell your own daughter that you didn’t have long to live simply wasn’t fair. In her determination not to make Laura obligated to come back and see her, Pearl had denied her daughter the right to say goodbye.

‘Where were you?’ Vivien led the way into the sitting room. Automatically she put her paintbrush in the jar of water as she passed the table.
When you heard the news
, she meant.

‘Spain.’

‘Oh.’ Not that it made any difference. Vivien gestured towards the sofa and Laura perched on the edge, as if she might want to make a quick getaway. Her wrists were bony, her brown fingers constantly fiddling with a thread from the blanket in the basket she’d placed on the sofa beside her. Her face was brown too. She looked so different. Weather-beaten at twenty, Vivien thought.

‘I had to get the money together to come back,’ Laura said. ‘It wasn’t easy.’

‘Didn’t your father—’

‘No.’ Laura cut her off. Her face hardened. ‘I don’t want a penny from him.’

Vivien nodded. She could understand that too. ‘Let me make you some tea,’ she offered. Although she looked as if she could do with something stronger.

‘Thanks.’

In the kitchen, Vivien took stock. Pearl had lost her battle with cancer a few months earlier. She had spent her final two months in a hospice. Vivien had visited her every day and watched her fading away before her very eyes. It had been agonising.

And now Laura had come home …

‘Do you take sugar?’ she called. What could she say to her? How could she help her cope with the loss of her mother?

‘One, please.’

From the other room, Vivien heard a snuffling sound. Oh, God, she was crying. She had come back to a country that must seem so alien to her, to a motherless house that was no longer a home. And now …

Vivien hurried back in with the tea tray. Perhaps she should suggest that Laura stay with them for a while. She shouldn’t be alone. She needed time in which to adjust to life back in England, time in which to come to terms with her mother’s death – somehow. Was she very short of money? Did her father even know she was back? She’d need a job. She—

‘Laura?’ Vivien stopped in her tracks.

‘Mmm?’

Laura wasn’t crying. Laura was holding a baby and the baby was crying – or beginning to. It – he/she? – was still half
wrapped in the blanket and sling that Vivien now realised had been bundled up in the basket Laura was carrying. And the baby was nuzzling into Laura’s neck, whimpering.

Vivien put the tray down before she dropped it. ‘You’ve had a baby,’ she said, somewhat unnecessarily.