Motherlove (17 page)

‘Oh. Has to be 90, does it, 'cos I was born there March 16
th
but it was 1988.'

Kelly's pulse, which had started to race, slowed again. ‘Sorry. It's got to be 90.'

‘So I don't get it, then? The prize or whatever?'

‘No, sorry. There's no prize.' Was a chance to give a kidney a prize? ‘Just trying to contact people.'

‘Oh. Well, it's not me then.'

‘No. But thanks for phoning.'

After all, she thought, look on the bright side. It did show that someone had noticed it. There might be more.

There were more, that night and the following morning. Two people who'd misread the dates, two men who thought it must be a coded invitation to kinky sex, one who wanted to know what colour her knickers were, three who were convinced there must be some cosmic significance to those dates or evidence of extra-terrestrial landings and one a very vague old lady who wanted to talk about crochet patterns.

But also two people born in Lyford and Stapledon General, in the week of the 13
th
to 19
th
, March 1990. One of them, Christopher, was a man, and couldn't possibly be her missing phantom sister, but he sounded so excited by the idea of a post-cot reunion, as if he had been waiting twenty-two years for someone to suggest it, that she invited him along to the meeting she had arranged with Andrea, born on the 17
th
.

‘So, anyway, it will be September next year.' Andrea sipped her drink and looked at her engagement ring. A large diamond. At least Kelly assumed it was a diamond. She only bought jewellery from the stall in the market that made stuff out of recycled tin cans. The diamond might be glass, but she guessed Andrea wouldn't be looking quite so smug if it were.

Andrea Marley. A girl born in the same week as Kelly, in the same hospital. And for all that, Kelly realised, not really on the same planet. She was getting married to her Matthew in fifteen month's time because apparently weddings took that long to arrange. In Kelly's world, weddings were a quick trip to the registry office. Or a bit of tantric chanting on Carn Ingli. Or once, at the old church by the beach, with the bride arriving along the sands on Maddy Davies' almost white pony in a high wind. Why did you need a year and a half to book church, flowers, dresses, morning suits, country house, photographer, hair-dresser, manicurist, sunbed?

‘Wow,' she said, smiling at Andrea, wanting to set her at ease. Why was Andrea so stressed? She was beautiful and knew it. Beautiful with all the perfection of a boiled egg. She was dressed perfectly for this bar, Rick's Place, brushed steel and smoked glass, Space Age superimposed on Art Deco, with its tapas bar and continental beers and barmen doing little dances as they whisked up cocktails.

Rick's Place had ambitions to be somewhere other than Lyford. It wanted to be the place where people who were Somebody came to be seen, to be photographed on their arrival by lurking paparazzi. Except that there weren't any Somebodies in Lyford, or paparazzi either. They were all twenty-five miles down the motorway in London. But Rick's Place clung to the hope that one day, maybe, Somebody would walk in.

The aspiration had rubbed off on Andrea. For her it was
the
place. She had dressed up and Rick's Place was probably delighted with her, because most of the customers were increasingly loud topers working their way round the watering holes of Lyford's civic centre, before heading on to the Desert Dunes nightclub.

‘And we're thinking of the Seychelles for the honeymoon, but we still need to decide on a hotel. It has to be just right, doesn't it?'

‘Wow. Seychelles,' said Kelly.

‘I don't even know where the Seychelles is,' grinned Christopher. He was just as excitable as he had sounded on the phone. Gawky, sandy hair that stuck up, and a tendency to jump up and down in his chair. He seemed genuinely impressed by Rick's Place. He'd seldom been to pubs. He spent most of his time on the computer, at work at J C Electronics or at home playing Warcraft.

There was a pause. ‘They're islands,' said Andrea witheringly. She was sure of that, if nothing else.

‘In the Indian Ocean, near Madagascar,' added Kelly.

‘Oh Madagascar! Great film!' enthused Christopher.

Andrea sighed. ‘Well, anyway, until the wedding, I'm working for Catterick and Mayhew's, but I'll probably quit when I get married.'

‘To have babies?' suggested Christopher.

Andrea winced. ‘No, not babies, thank you. So. Kelly. Do you have a partner? Someone special? Any plans?' She had been talking about herself since she came in, while desperately searching for clues. She knew exactly what to make of Christopher, in his Primark pants and his shirt with the egg stain, but she was at a complete loss with Kelly. How do you place someone in patchwork leggings, magic unicorn T-shirt, a velveteen waistcoat with feathers in its embroidery, a nose stud, a Buddhist tattoo on the back of her hand and a green streak in her hair? What sort of person would dress like that for a visit to Rick's Place? Either a
Big Issue
seller or – and this was the point – a real celebrity, someone so gloriously successful that she could set her own rules. Andrea's instinct, if they'd met in the street, would have been to step around Kelly as if she were a dog turd. In Rick's Place, she was more circumspect, just in case Kelly really was the Somebody the bar had been waiting for.

‘Lots of special people,' said Kelly. ‘And no particular plans. I just wait for things to happen.'

‘What do you do then?' asked Christopher, and Kelly could see Andrea's ears prick. The question she had wanted to ask but hadn't dared.

‘Bit of this, bit of that,' said Kelly helpfully. ‘A bit of hill farming in West Wales. In a, you know, amateur sort of way.'

Andrea sipped her drink. That didn't help. Amateur hill farming was just the sort of thing celebrities would take up as a hobby. ‘So, then, I saw your ad. For a reunion. Any particular reason? Just to see where we've all got to in life?'

Kelly realised that was what Andrea had been doing from the moment she walked in. She had been presenting her CV, to prove that she too had been stunningly successful, in case they all turned out to be supermodels or millionaires or heart surgeons.

‘It is kind of fun, isn't it?' Kelly suggested. ‘Thinking of a bunch of babies that just happened to be born in the same ward at the same time, like an island in an ocean, and seeing where life has taken them.'

‘Yeah!' agreed Christopher. ‘Like, my brother went to Scotland.'

‘But the real reason I put the ad in was this
…
'

Kelly explained, as concisely and undramatically as she could. It had never seemed particularly dramatic to her, but she didn't know how other people would react.

Christopher gaped open-mouthed. ‘Like, you mean, they swapped labels, so we all got muddled up?'

‘Not you, Chris.' Kelly smiled. ‘At least, you certainly weren't muddled up with me, because my Mum definitely gave birth to a girl. But maybe Andrea…'

‘No way!' Andrea was horrified. ‘No! I don't care what you say! It's not true!'

‘Well, it probably wasn't you,' agreed Kelly.

‘I'm telling you it wasn't me!' As if she had been accused of something. She was determined to prove it, for her own sake rather than Kelly's. ‘It's rubbish. I look just like my sister. Ask anyone. People used to think we were twins.' She half rose, her voice upping an octave. ‘And I look like my mother. Anyone can see. So you got that completely wrong.'

A couple sitting nearby, by mutual consent, picked up their drinks and moved to another table. A couple of men in suits at the bar swivelled on their stools to look.

Andrea was turning lobster red, torn between denial and her embarrassment at making a scene.

‘Don't worry, it was only a chance,' said Kelly, hoping to calm her down. ‘She's out there somewhere, but I wasn't really expecting miracles. It's just that, Mum being so ill and maybe needing a kidney transplant eventually, and I'm not a match…'

If it were possible for Andrea to look more horrified, she did now. ‘You mean—' She almost choked on the words. ‘You want to find someone so you can take their liver?'

‘Kidney. Only one. And only if they want. They don't have to.'

Andrea looked at her as if she were a bodysnatcher with a big knife. ‘You're sick. You're really sick. I'm not staying here!' She gathered up her coat and bag, heading for the door in such haste she almost tripped over. One of the men in suits held the door open for her, and put a hand on her arm in concern as she pushed past. She shook him off and was gone. The man glanced back at Kelly and Christopher with a raised eyebrow and a smile. Kelly liked the smile. Quirky.

‘Oh well,' she said, and looked at Christopher. ‘Do you think I'm sick?'

‘No. No way. She really blew a fuse, didn't she? And all the time she might be your mother's daughter and you're her mother's daughter and… That's kind of crazy, isn't it?'

Kelly laughed. ‘Nothing wrong with crazy. But I don't think it is Andrea. Seriously. She was born on the 17
th
. I know I put a whole week in the ad because I wasn't sure how long my mum was in hospital, but I don't suppose it was that long. Andrea was probably born way after Mum left. Do you think I should have explained that to her, set her mind at rest?'

‘Oh. Er…' Christopher didn't get asked for advice very often. ‘I dunno. Yeah, well, she wasn't exactly listening, was she?'

‘No.'

‘You should have grabbed her liver. Have it with fava beans and a nice chianti.'

‘I should?' Christopher's Hannibal Lector impersonation was lost on Kelly.

‘Yeah, you know. What are fava beans?'

‘I don't know. I know a lot of beans, but not fava.'

‘I thought, maybe they were like baked beans. But I don't like liver really, anyway.'

‘Nor me, but then I'm a vegetarian.'

Kelly liked Christopher. It was possible to have a happy conversation without either of them having the first idea what the other was talking about. He needed to get out more, but he was okay. Unfortunately, he couldn't stay to see the evening out.

‘I've got a raid. I've got to be there for nine.'

‘The police? You know they're coming?'

‘What?'

‘A raid?'

‘Oh, right. Not police. Warcraft. My guild.'

‘Ah. Right.' She said goodbye with a big hug, which was the way Kelly said goodbye to most people. He ambled off while she sat with the remainder of her drink. A fabulously expensive continental lager.

She glanced at the people around her. A few couples, one of them snogging, the others intensely private, and a gang of rowdy youths, whose raised voices were turning to gibberish as they downed more drink. No, it really wasn't her type of place. She drained her lager and stood up.

‘Eh, eh, look, e… eh, uh, ha ha!' One of the lads grabbed the fringe of her scarf. ‘Look, she's got a tail.'

She laughed, tugged it back and stepped round him. Not difficult because he needed the support of a table to stay upright.

‘Eh, eh. What's this then?' One of his companions blocked her path. Not belligerent exactly. Just some drunken illusion of having fun.

She stepped; he stepped.

‘Come on,' she said.

‘Come on, come on, cmon cmon cmon cmon.' His repetition turned to a chant that the others joined in. The game was to catch her tail.

‘Hey!' An authoritative bark from the bar manager. Most of the lads stepped back, but one lunged again for the fringe, grabbed her leg instead and nearly sent them both toppling.

Kelly, who had wrestled worse, was prepared to jab him if he didn't move, but she found she had no need. An arm slipped round the lad and prized him away.

‘Come on now. Leave the lady alone.'

It was the man in the suit who had smiled when Andrea left.

Kelly's half-hearted assailant looked at him as if debating whether to punch him in the face or throw up. The suit gestured to Kelly to follow him to the clear space near the door. That smile again.

She laughed. ‘Thanks.'

‘No damage?'

‘I don't think so.' She examined the fringe of her scarf. ‘I've been in worse at the Mill and Tuppence.'

‘I thought you looked as if you could take care of yourself.' He grinned. ‘But then how can I judge? You don't exactly look like anyone else I know.'

‘Well, we're all different, aren't we?'

‘Yes, but most of us spend our lives trying to be exactly the same.'

Did he? Was he the same as everyone else in the bar? In a sense. Mid-twenties, well groomed, smart but not flashy. But still unique. Nicely unique. She smiled. ‘Thanks anyway. I'm Kelly.'