Forget Me Not (39 page)

‘How long did it take the police to arrest him?’

‘Three days.’

‘Presumably your minicab company helped track him down.’

‘No. They couldn’t,’ she replied. ‘They didn’t know him.’

I looked at her blankly. ‘But I thought he was a minicab driver.’

She shook her head. ‘I’d made a terrible mistake. I didn’t see that there were
two
black BMWs parked outside the house – one of them was my minicab, the other was … him. The reason he was there was because he’d just stopped at the off-licence to buy cigarettes, then I approached his car, and when he realised my error he saw his opportunity …’

‘How evil,’ I murmured.

Jenny looked at me, her eyes blazing. ‘
Yes
… The trial was five months later,’ she went on after a few moments. ‘At Harrow Crown Court.’

‘Five months seems quick.’

‘They fast-tracked it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because …’ Her chin quivered again. ‘Because I was pregnant.’

She has the face of an angel
. My insides seemed to dissolve.

‘
He’s
Grace’s father?’ I whispered.

Jenny nodded. Then her head sank to her chest.

‘Good God.’ I’d been too stunned by her story to make the connection. I felt my eyes fill.

Jenny gave a teary gasp then looked up. ‘To begin with I thought that the stress of it all had stopped my periods. But after the second month I began to feel sick. And when I did a test and it was positive I was faced with a terrible dilemma. The options would go round and round in my head. Abortion? Adoption? Keep the baby? They all felt impossible.’

‘So what made you decide to go ahead?’

‘The fact that I was so full of
hatred
. I
loathed
him. He’d violated me, body and soul. And I came to realise that if I had the baby and let myself love it, perhaps this hatred wouldn’t eat away at me for the rest of my life.’

Now I remembered some of the things that Jenny had said when the girls were first born.

My greatest fear was that I wouldn’t love the baby – I
needed to
.

I love her more and more each day
.

Do you have any regrets?

I thought it would help me bond
…

Your life’s about to be filled with unimaginable love
.

‘It’s a miracle,’ I heard Jenny say. ‘Because when I look at Grace, I feel nothing but love. Yet that love came out of something that was brutal and ugly.’

I now understood why Jenny had excluded Grace’s father; I understood her secrecy; I understood the elaborate security on her flat. I understood why she was so resolutely single, and why she could be moody. I understood why she had named her child ‘Grace’.

‘Amazing Grace,’ I murmered.

‘I think she is,’ Jenny said. She lifted her eyes to the photo of Grace on the mantelpiece. ‘She’s my golden lining.’

‘You’re amazing too, Jenny. To have shown such courage.’

‘I knew it was the only way to save myself.’

‘But were your friends supportive?’

She looked at me. ‘I didn’t tell them. I felt so ashamed …’

‘But you’d done nothing wrong.’

‘I didn’t want to be seen as a victim. I preferred people to think I’d had a fling and that it hadn’t worked out.’

‘Didn’t you have a best friend you could talk to about it?’

‘Not really, because my closest friend had moved to Aberdeen the year before. I told my sister Jackie, of course, but she was living in France by then with her husband. I had a lot of counselling and that helped – so much so that I decided to retrain as a counsellor myself.’

‘And your parents – you said they weren’t helpful.’

‘Helpful?’ Jenny emitted a little shriek of bitter laughter. ‘They were
awful
. When they realised what I intended to do.’

‘But why? You weren’t at fault in any way and the baby was totally innocent.’

‘Well, they’re not the most broad-minded folk. They were worried that there’d be gossip about how the baby had been conceived and that this would be somehow stigmatising – I suspected that they were worrying about themselves more than me. I suppose they simply couldn’t deal with it,’ she went on. ‘So they didn’t want the physical reminder of it. They urged me not to go ahead – despite being so “religious” of course,’ she added contemptuously. ‘Mum said I’d never get over it if I had the baby. But I believed that was the only way I
would
ever get over it. They didn’t meet Grace until she was nearly two, and then only under pressure from my sister. There’s a part of me that will never forgive them for that. Just as I will never forgive him.’

‘And how long did he get?’

‘Eight years. It was a long sentence because he’d abducted me and threatened violence – although the police never found the knife, so there was only my word against his in court about that, which added to my stress.’

‘Did he plead guilty?’

Jenny gave me a wintry smile. ‘No. He claimed that it was consensual. He said that I’d come up to his car and asked him if he “was going to take me home” and that he’d interpreted this as a come-on. But the jury didn’t buy it; the guilty verdict was unanimous.’

‘Had he ever done it before?’

‘No. And the Home Office reports say that he’s shown “considerable” remorse while inside. He’s in Wormwood Scrubs. Less than three miles away,’ she added with a shudder.

‘And when will he be out?’

‘He’ll come up for parole next year and will automatically be released the year after that, when he’s served six years.’

‘Did he know you were pregnant?’

‘No. I asked for the witness box to be screened so that he couldn’t see me. But the jury could. So there it is,’ she said quietly. ‘Now you know.’

‘I wish you’d told me before.’

‘I sometimes wanted to. But I find it easier to bear if I say nothing about it. I’m only telling you now because I’m so anxious about what to tell Grace. I’m a counsellor, Anna, but I can’t counsel myself on the most important issue of my life. Because whenever I imagine talking to Grace about it, then I inevitably have an image of him, which makes me feel so angry that I can’t even think, let alone find the right words. So …’ She looked at me. ‘What would you say?’

I shook my head. ‘I really don’t know. It would be incredibly hard. The knowledge that one’s child’s beginnings had been so …’

‘Violent,’ Jenny whispered.

I nodded. ‘I can see how you’d want to say nothing, or invent a story.’

‘Oh yes,’ Jenny sighed. ‘You’d do anything to conceal the truth.’

‘So … what
would
I say? Well, you could maybe simply tell Grace that her father wasn’t nice to you, so you’re angry with him and you don’t want to see him at the moment.’

‘I
never
want to see him.’

I looked at her. ‘No. Of course you don’t.’

I stayed with Jenny for a while, just sitting with her, still reeling from what she’d told me, and at the thought that she’d carried this terrible secret for so long. I yearned to offer her some piece of comforting advice, but for her there could be no easy solutions or right answers. She was going to spend the rest of her life working it out.

What had happened to Jenny made me reflect over the next few days on the many different ways in which men can father children – within long marriages, or short relationships, or from one-night stands, or from a hate-filled encounter of the kind she had suffered, or through the clinical arrangements involved in sperm donation, or the contrived collision of gametes in IVF. I thought of the way men can become de facto fathers through adoption, or unwittingly, through a partner’s deceit, or by agreeing to stand
in loco patris
to another man’s child, in the way Dad had done with Mark. And of course they can become stepfathers – as Patrick would probably be to Milly one day, I thought as I got our things ready for St Mawes.

‘Would you like to watch a DVD while I do the packing, darling?’ I asked Milly. ‘Patrick will put one on for you.’

‘Of course I will,’ Patrick said.

‘Beast!’ Milly yelled. ‘Want watch Beast, Mum.’

‘
Beauty and the Beast
it is, then.’ Patrick put the disc into the player while I went upstairs to get everything ready. We were leaving after breakfast the following day.

Patrick had arrived with his large leather bag and with a Maisie Mouse suitcase for Milly – it was typically thoughtful of him, and she’d already filled it with her toys, crayons and books.

As I got my things out of the wardrobe I thought how lucky I was to be with someone as decent and generous as Patrick. I thought of how tolerant he’d largely been about Xan and of the self-control that he’d shown. I thought, with shame, of the way I’d often failed to protect Patrick’s feelings, but of how forgiving he’d been.

Milly was looking forward to Cornwall, but couldn’t understand why we were going with Patrick, not Xan.

‘The reason why we’re going with Patrick’, I’d explained the day before, ‘is because he thought it would be lovely for you to go to the seaside; and also because he’s Mum’s special friend, darling.’

‘No. Dass Jamie,’ she’d corrected me without looking up from her colouring book.

‘Well, Jamie is a special friend of Mum’s – but in a different way, because he works with Mum, doesn’t he? We make …’

‘Gardens,’ she interjected happily.

‘Yes. We make gardens together.’ Though not for much longer, I’d thought miserably. Jamie had decided to go back to Australia once our current projects were finished. ‘But Patrick is my special friend,’ I’d tried again.

‘No,’ Milly had insisted. ‘Dass Jamie.’

‘Whatever you say,’ I’d said and sighed.

As I pulled summer dresses, cardigans and jeans out of my wardrobe I heard Patrick coming upstairs. ‘Is everything all right down there?’ I asked. ‘I’ve just got to get Milly’s things ready, then I’ll make supper.’

‘It’s fine,’ he said, bending to kiss me. ‘She’s being as good as gold.’ He sat on the corner of the bed while I folded things into my suitcase. ‘How long is it since you’ve had a holiday?’

I straightened up. ‘A very long time. I had a week in Brittany when Milly was eighteen months and that was it. She’s been rather short-changed in that department.’

‘We’ll take her on some lovely holidays,’ Patrick said and he kissed me again. As he went downstairs I felt a warm glow at the prospect of our shared future.

I crossed the landing into Milly’s room and got out her T-shirts and shorts and her socks and summer dresses and her little mac with the ladybird pattern, and her red swimsuit because, although the sea would be too cold for her to swim in, the hotel had a heated pool.

Then the phone rang. It was Cassie, wanting to talk about Dad’s seventieth birthday on 9 September. ‘We should throw a surprise party for him.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘He’s not in the mood. Let’s just do something low-key but nice in a good local restaurant.’

‘At lunchtime, presumably, so that Milly can be there.’

‘Yes.’

‘And how many people should we have?’

‘About ten? We’ll ask Dad whom he’d like to invite.’

‘And we’ll pay for it,’ said Cassie. ‘Fifty-fifty?’

‘Sure. In fact, I’m happy to stump up more if you haven’t got it at the moment.’

‘Oh I’m fine,’ Cassie replied. ‘For once in my life I’m quite flush, Anna. In fact, my fortunes are about to turn.’

‘Really?’ I said. ‘Why?’

‘I can’t tell you,’ she said enigmatically. ‘Suffice it to say that I’ve been working hard on a special project and my enterprise is about to pay off.’ As I had little faith in Cassie’s ‘projects’ my heart sank. But before I could ask her more, she’d gone on to discuss venues for Dad’s party. ‘How about the Belvedere?’

‘Possibly. Or Julie’s. We could have a big table in the window upstairs. But we’d better get on with it,’ I added. ‘It’s only three weeks away.’

Then Xan phoned, worrying about Milly’s car seat. Had it been correctly fitted into Patrick’s car? I assured him it had been and that Patrick was a sensible driver. Then he wanted to say goodnight to Milly so I took the phone down to her. Although it was only a brief call, it seemed to upset her. ‘Daddy,’ she said, her eyes filling, when we’d hung up.

‘You’ll see him very soon,’ I said. ‘Next week.’ Shortly after which he’d be leaving for New York, I thought miserably.

‘Want Dad!’

‘You’re going to have such a lovely time in Cornwall, poppet. I’ll buy you a little fishing net. Would you like that? A pink one?’

‘Yes. Want pink net, Mum. And pink bucket. And pink spade.’

‘We’ll catch some little pink fish,’ Patrick said. ‘And some pink crabs.’ Milly smiled. ‘And I’m sure we’ll find some pink shells. Wouldn’t that be nice?’

She nodded. ‘Want my
dad
.’

I made her some warm milk, settled her in front of
Beauty
and the Beast
again with Patrick and went back upstairs to finish her packing. As I was putting in the last of her things I heard her let out a squawk.

‘Please don’t do that, Milly,’ Patrick gently admonished her.

‘No!’ I heard her yell. ‘Go away!’

‘Be a good girl, Milly.’ Milly was obviously doing something she shouldn’t be doing, but it sounded as though Patrick was handling it well.

‘Get down,’ I heard him say, louder now. She must be standing on the table. ‘Please get
off
, Milly.’

‘Go away!’ she shouted. ‘My don’t
like
you.’

‘I know you don’t mean that. Now, come on, Milly …’ I decided to let Patrick sort out the situation. He was a father himself, after all, and I didn’t want to look fussy or mistrustful. Besides which I wanted Milly to recognise him as a figure of benign authority.

‘Go a-
way
!’ she yelled.

‘Right,’ I sighed. Time to intervene. I lifted the suitcase off the bed and dragged it to the top of the stairs.

‘Would you please get down, Milly,’ I heard Patrick say as I began to walk down the steps. ‘Now!’ he commanded.

‘Go
a-way
!’