No Child of Mine (3 page)

Ten minutes later she was stepping out of the bath and reaching for a towel when her work mobile started to ring. Seeing it was Wendy, her manager who had a habit of calling out of hours with issues that could easily wait, she let it go through to messages, and wrapped her hair in a towel as she padded through to the bedroom. The sun had moved round by now and was spilling in through the front window, casting a soft crimson glow over the gaily upholstered love seat that hugged it. This was where she and Gabby as children used to sit with their father, gazing out over the church and village as he told them stories about angels and imps, trees that could talk and the miracle bird who could make all the bad things go away.

She could do with the miracle bird now to transport the dreaded Gina to the far end of Purgatory.

If only.

‘Am I allowed to come in?’ Jason called out sheepishly from the landing.

Though Alex didn’t normally cover up in front of him, she was still too cross to want to risk arousing him with her nudity, so grabbing her robe she said, ‘It’s your room too.’

The latch clattered as he released it and the hinges gave a faint squeal before he popped his head in, apparently still not entirely sure it was safe to enter. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, helplessly.

Sinking down in front of the mould-spotted mirror of the dressing table, she glanced briefly at his reflection as she replied, ‘You always are, but it never changes anything, does it? She still keeps calling at the last minute with some demand or other, and you just up and jump every time she cracks the whip.’

‘Oh, come on, you’re not being fair. I don’t do it for her. It’s Heidi ...’

‘Who has two aunties and an uncle living within half a mile of her, any one of whom could easily take her.’

‘They’ve got kids of their own ...’

‘And you’ve got another commitment this evening. Just tell me this: what is the point of a tech run without a technical director?’

Grimacing, he said, ‘I’ve been to most of the rehearsals so I’ve got a fair idea of what’s required already.’

‘But eight busy people are making it their business to come to our village hall this evening in order to stage a rehearsal especially for you.’

‘I swear, you can’t make me feel any worse than I already do. Maybe if you could delay for an hour. I might be back by then ...’

‘No you won’t, because as I’ve already pointed out, you’ll have to wait with Heidi while she has her lesson, and you know very well that Gina will have something else for you to do when you get back there.’

‘If she does then I’ll just tell her ...’

‘No, Jason, you won’t tell her anything, because you never do. You let her rule you through those children, and as far as I can see that’s never going to change.’

‘What am I supposed to do, pretend my children don’t exist?’ he cried, throwing out his hands in frustration.

‘Now you’re being ridiculous. All I’m asking is that you stick to your word when you give it, especially when other people are going out of their way to put on a rehearsal that
you
asked for.’

Looking guiltier than ever, he pushed his hands across his face and back through his hair. ‘We talked about this before I moved in,’ he said. ‘We agreed, you understood that the kids have to come first ...’

‘But this isn’t about them, it’s about Gina, surely you can see that. As I said, she’s always ringing you at the last minute, using you like a handyman or a babysitter, or someone she’s still married to. And if she doesn’t ring herself she gets Tiffany or Heidi to do it for her, turning the screws even tighter, making you feel like you’re neglecting them, or that you don’t care – or even that you just upped and abandoned them, when we all know that it was their mother who broke up your marriage, not you. She’s the one who was having an affair and got you to leave your own home so she could move him in, and now he’s dumped her for someone else she’s trying to get you back ...’

‘But she’s not going to win ...’

‘Says you.’

Taking a deep breath in an effort to calm things down, he said, ‘Look, I don’t want to fall out with you ...’

With an incredulous laugh she cried, ‘It’s already happening, the same way it always does when you go rushing off to tend to her little emergencies. But if I continue this I’ll be playing straight into her hands, and frankly one of us doing that is enough. What time are you leaving?’

Glancing at his watch he said, ‘I guess I ought to be on my way. What are you doing about food tonight?’

‘We’re going to the pub after rehearsals so I’ll hang on till then. If you’re hungry now there’s a pack of sandwiches in my work bag, which is around here somewhere. Prawn and mayo.’

‘Oh yippee, my favourite,’ he responded, with a wryness that made her swallow a smile. She wasn’t quite ready to forgive him yet, but nor did she want them to part bad friends, particularly when she knew what a struggle he had with not being a full-time dad. It really wasn’t his fault that his marriage had broken up, though obviously she couldn’t help feeling glad that it had, or he wouldn’t be in her life.

‘Looks like you’ve got a message,’ he said, pulling out her mobile as he rummaged about for the sandwiches.

‘It’s work,’ she said, taking it from him and quickly checking to make sure it wasn’t anything urgent. As she’d expected, it was from Wendy, reminding her that her annual CRB check was due, which could easily have waited until the morning, but hey, why wait when she could ring someone at home? Her other phone started to ring. ‘Ah, thanks,’ she said, as Jason passed it over.

‘Two lives, two phones,’ he teased. ‘I just hope you don’t have two lovers.’

Catching his eye in the mirror, she narrowed her own meaningfully as she said into her personal phone, ‘Hi Mattie, everything OK for this evening?’

As her co-producer began giving her a blow-by-blow account of everything she’d done in preparation for the rehearsal, and Jason left, Alex pulled out a drawer to look for fresh undies. When Mattie got going she generally wasn’t required to say much more than ‘great,’ ‘fantastic,’ ‘you’re amazing,’ which she was delivering in abundance as she pulled on some tatty jeans and a strappy T-shirt and pushed her feet into a pair of old ballet pumps. Having known Mattie for most of her life she was used to her friend’s obsession with detail, which, though exasperating at times, made her pretty indispensable too, because no one else Alex knew came even close to possessing Mattie’s magnificent organisational skills. And Mattie loved being involved in the theatre almost as much as she loved being Alex’s friend, though they’d never been as close as normal best friends, mainly because Mattie couldn’t cope with anything too personal.

By the time Mattie rang off Alex was more or less ready to leave, so checking a text that had come in during the call she started down the stairs. As soon as she saw who the message was from her heart melted.

Hello Auntie Lex, I came second in the sack race and Mummy won a goldfish on the bows and arrows which she let me have. Love Jackson
.

You’re brilliant
, she quickly texted back to her sister’s mobile.
What are you going to call the goldfish?

Before a reply came through the phone started to ring, and seeing an unfamiliar number she clicked on saying, ‘Hi, Alex Lake speaking.’

‘Oh, yes, Alex,’ the voice at the other end stated, as though she’d momentarily forgotten who she was calling. ‘It’s Heather Hancock here. I’ve just heard that Jason’s not going to be at the run-through tonight, so I guess it’s been cancelled.’

‘Actually, it hasn’t,’ Alex told her, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. How did Heather Hancock, reporter-at-large for the
Kesterly Gazette
, already know that Jason’s plans had changed? As if she needed to ask. Her good chum Gina had obviously been in touch for a bit of a gloat.

‘Nevertheless, something else has come up that I really ought to go to,’ Heather was informing her. ‘I’ll be in touch to rearrange.’

‘Hang on,’ Alex cried before she could ring off. ‘That will be before the opening, I take it.’

‘Of course, if I can fit you in.’

Bristling, while reminding herself to try to sound friendly, Alex said, ‘The deal was you’d give us some publicity upfront if we let you come to the tech run.’

‘Actually, I don’t think there was a deal,’ Heather interrupted, sounding bored. ‘I just agreed to drop in on a rehearsal if I was passing and had time. Tonight was always going to be difficult, and now I know Jason’s not going to be there ...’

‘But he’s not in it, so what difference does it make?’

‘As I said, something else has come up. I expect you’ve heard about the show due to open at the Kesterly Playhouse. Obviously, something of that calibre has to take precedence, especially when one of the cast used to be in
Emmerdale
. The public will want to read about her.’

Throwing the put-down straight back at the local hack, Alex said, ‘How gracious of her to spare the time to talk to a provincial paper that no one ever reads.’ She winced.
As usual she’d gone too far
.

‘If that’s what you think then there’s really not much point in me covering your little amateur production at all,
is there?’ came the tart response. ‘Best go, see you around,’ and the line went dead.

As furious with herself as she was with Heather Hancock, Alex stuffed her phone in her bag and tore open the front door. What was she thinking, letting that supercilious old cow get under her skin when her little theatre group needed all the free publicity it could get if they were ever going to land any bums on seats? Were it not for the fact that Heather Hancock was a friend of Gina’s, as well as a known self-adulator, she’d never have risen to the bait.

So merrily off down the hill the evening went, hardly pausing for breath, and all courtesy of Jason’s wife who was no doubt already being informed by her best chum of just what a pathetic and nasty piece of work Jason’s girlfriend actually was. (Alex doubted they’d put it so politely, but it was as far as she was prepared to go in lambasting herself.)

Remembering that her nephew had probably texted back with his goldfish’s name by now, she dug out her phone while locking up the house and after checking she started to laugh.

Fantastic. I’ve always wanted a goldfish named after me
, she texted back.
Can’t wait to meet her
.

If only all kids could be as happy and loved as her sister’s twins.

The little girl was shaking so badly that she was terrified of not being able to keep quiet. Her mummy had told her she must, so she was trying, but it was hard, so hard, and everything was dark. There was a little boy here too, snuggled in tightly against her. She could feel his fear pounding through her. It was making it difficult to breathe.

There was lots of screaming outside, and roaring in anger; loud thumps, crashes, heavy footsteps and the smashing of glass.

The little girl squeezed herself into a tight ball.

The boy was standing up. He was older than her, taller, braver. He was opening the door, telling her to stay where she was, and then he was gone.

She wanted him to come back.

She didn’t want to be on her own. The bad man might get her.

Her mummy would come for her soon.

She’d promised.

A door slammed and everything fell silent, but she was still too afraid to move.

Where was the boy? Why hadn’t he come back?

The darkness was like a monster, trapping her in its lair. It was closing in on her, wrapping itself around her; her terror was so fierce it was eating her up.

Her mummy must have forgotten where she was.

Still shaking, she stood up and went to the door.

Suddenly there was noise again, and she shrank back. The bad man was out there, he’d come to take her away so she’d never see her mummy again.

Using a fist to stuff down her sobs, she cowered into the shadows, squeezing herself in behind a giant box. She could hear lots of people and no one sounded like her mummy.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she had to keep quiet.

She wanted her mummy.

Why didn’t she come?

It was a long, long time later, after everything had gone quiet again, that she stood on tiptoe, straining towards the latch. It was too high; she couldn’t get out. She tried and tried, but her arm wasn’t long enough. She could see her hand in a chink of light, pale and small, fingers outstretched. The latch was above it, but she couldn’t reach.

‘Mummy,’ she sobbed. ‘Mummy.’ She was crying very hard now, and wanted to scream, but she couldn’t make any sound come out. She tried and tried, but all that happened was a silent rasp of terror, and still nobody came.

As Alex’s eyes flew open she knew right away, though on a distant level, that it was a nightmare, but the terror, the need to scream was still with her. Her heart was like a pounding fist; sweat was pouring from her skin. It felt so real. She must break free of it, tear through the force of its horror and properly connect with where she was, and who she was now.

It took a while, longer than usual it seemed, but
eventually the dreaded demons of her past began falling away. If only it was just a dream, something created out of a small reality and blown into nonsense, but she knew the child was her; and that the little boy, who she’d never seen again, and never would, was her brother.

Moving carefully, so as not to wake Jason, she pushed aside the duvet and went downstairs to make herself some tea. She knew from experience that it wouldn’t be possible to go back to sleep for a while, so there was no point in trying.

The dismaying, and most disturbing part of the dream – this was the first time she’d had it for months – wasn’t so much what was happening in it, though God knew that was the worst of it – it was that her unconscious mind felt compelled to go back to that horrifying time.

When would she ever be free of it?

Why couldn’t she let it go?

She understood now that she’d been too young when the nightmares began for her adoptive parents to explain what was causing them. It wasn’t a tale a child should hear at any age, and certainly not when she was barely five. It wasn’t until she’d reached her teens, and still unable to escape the night-time terrors, that her father had finally decided she must be told the truth. They weren’t, as she’d always been told, an abstract reconstruction of something she might have seen on TV as a child, or read in a book, but a more or less accurate representation of the truth, as she’d known it, aged three.