Sheer Abandon (68 page)

“I’m sorry,” said Kate, “but you’ve got to. Don’t you think you owe me anything?”

“Of course I do. But not that.”

“You cow.” Kate walked over to her; for a moment, Martha thought she was going to hit her. “You stupid cow.”

Nat stood up.

“Kate, there’s no need for this. It isn’t helping. If she won’t tell you, she won’t tell you. She’s got her reasons, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, like she had them for abandoning me. Well, it won’t do. I want to meet my father. He might be a bit more satisfactory. Stupid cow,” she added.

“Kate!” said Nat again. “I’m sorry,” he said, addressing Martha, “she’s not usually so rude.”

For some reason this amused Martha: so much so that she smiled, almost giggled. She supposed it was a relief from the tension.

Kate walked over to her and slapped her hard across the face. “Don’t you laugh at him,” she said, “he’s worth a million of you.”

“Kate, I wasn’t laughing at him,” said Martha, shocked. She put her hand up and touched her face. “I was laughing at—Well, it doesn’t matter.”

“Like I don’t,” said Kate. “Like I don’t to you. Not at all. Like I never have. Just something to get rid of, I was, wasn’t I? Why didn’t you have an abortion? Tell me that. Why didn’t you just flush me down the toilet, that would’ve been much better, wouldn’t it?”

And she started to cry, great noisy sobs, that got louder and louder, rose to a scream; Nat tried to calm her, but it was hopeless. She went on and on, beating her clenched fists helplessly against her sides; and then collapsed onto the sofa, her head buried in her arms, her hair showering over them.

Martha looked at her, and suddenly felt something: felt something for Kate for the very first time. Felt a stir, a stab of sorrow, to see her like this, in such grief, in such pain. It touched her, that pain, and it was like none that she had ever felt before, it was deeper, sharper, more dreadful. She wondered if it was some sort of maternal feeling for Kate, belatedly felt; it was certainly feeling for her, of a kind, and in some strange way, a relief.

She sat down beside her, put an arm rather tentatively round her shoulders; Kate shook it off viciously.

“Don’t! Get off me.”

But that feeling, that stab of feeling, had given Martha courage. “Could you just listen to me, for a little while?” she said.

“What, and you try to explain? No thanks.”

But she had at least looked at her, while sniffing and wiping her eyes on the back of her hand; it was a contact of sorts. Martha went to fetch her some tissues; she took them without a word.

“I think we’d best go,” Kate said to Nat, “there’s no point staying here.”

“Don’t you think it might be an idea, Kate, to listen to what she’s got to say?”

“No,” said Kate briefly, “I don’t. Only thing I want to hear from her is my dad’s name. Come on, Nat, let’s go.”

She walked over to the door, had trouble with the lock. Martha followed her, undid it for her.

“I’m…so sorry,” she said, meeting her eyes. “I know it doesn’t mean anything to you, but I am, truly sorry. I wish you’d let me talk to you.”

“You could have done that months ago,” said Kate. “It’s too late now.”

And she and Nat were gone.

Janet Frean was getting very impatient. The story was going to lose impetus if it wasn’t run soon. The child would be less famous; Martha’s temporarily high profile would drop. It was ridiculous. Why weren’t they doing it? It was a brilliant story; Nick was a brilliant journalist. The timing—her timing—had been perfect. She had tossed a gift into their laps. She was going to be very angry if it didn’t appear. Had Nick gone soft suddenly? Surely not.

She looked at her watch; she had to leave in an hour. She was speaking at a dinner in Bournemouth, a medical conference, and she couldn’t be late. She called Nick: no reply. She left a message and went to change. Half an hour later he still hadn’t contacted her. She really needed to speak to him, find out what he thought he was doing.

While she was packing her overnight bag, she decided to e-mail him. She could tantalise him with a few more details, make it spicier still. That would at least make him get in touch. There’d be something very wrong if it didn’t.

She went into her study, switched on her laptop. There were several e-mails for her, one from Jack Kirkland, telling her to be sure to spell out their policy on health that evening, that their line on it was their trump card at the moment. As if she needed to be told. It was a medical conference, for Christ’s sake. God almighty, what did he think she was?

She scrolled through her address book, found Nick’s name, and started to write.

“She’s sent me an e-mail,” said Nick to Jocasta. “She really is not going to wait much longer. Hold on, I’ll read it to you. She says she doesn’t want the story wasted, now—oh yes, ‘Please don’t leave it too long. I don’t want to have to give it to someone else. Incidentally, I have a bit more to tell you—details of the family tree—let me know if you want it.’”

“What do you think that means? Who the father is? Shit, I’d so love to know.”

“God knows. And she says not to delay too long, and then, that if I haven’t done it by Monday, she’s going to the
Sun
.”

“Bloody hell! Bloody, bloody hell, Nick. What are you going to say?”

“God knows.
I
certainly don’t…”

“Mum! I feel sick.”

Janet looked doubtfully at Arthur. He was her second youngest, and his digestion was delicate. He did look very green. She glanced at the clock: she really should have gone.

“Where’s Dad?”

“In his study. On the phone. He told me to find you.”

“Well, let’s get you downstairs, maybe some TV would help—Oh, Arthur!”

Everything Arthur did, he did thoroughly. Including vomiting. Janet’s trouser suit was clearly no longer fit for public viewing. By the time she had got Bob off the phone, Arthur cleaned up, and changed her suit, she was extremely late.

She was driving herself; she grabbed her briefcase and her overnight bag, ran to the car, and started it. And realised she had forgotten her handheld. A nifty little device, which could send and receive e-mails—and act as a mobile. Pretty crucial this evening.

She ran back into the house; Bob was in the hall.

“Thought you’d gone.”

“I had, but I’d forgotten my BlackBerry.”

“What on earth do you want that for?”

“It’s got some notes for my speech on it.”

He knew that was a lie; he’d already seen the whole speech, neatly printed, lying on her desk. He went back into the house and to Arthur, who was now very cheerfully watching some old
Starsky and Hutch
videos and demanding ice cream.

Martha hadn’t realised how tired she was until she was on the A12. Driving out through the endless suburbs of East London at least offered some variety, required the occasional gear change. Confronted by the endless sheet of road ahead of her, she felt her brain begin to glaze over.

Maybe she should stop, stay at a motel, and drive on in the morning. She could call her parents and tell them what she was doing, so they wouldn’t worry. She dialled their number. God, what had everyone done before there were car phones? The answerphone cut in. She knew what that meant, that they were watching television.
Casualty
, probably. They never heard the phone from the sitting room. Damn. And they very seldom checked the answer machine until the morning. Well, she could keep trying, but she left a message anyway, saying she might find a B&B and come on in the morning.

She felt her eyes getting sore: another symptom of tiredness. She rubbed them, started playing the number games she always used at these times to keep her awake. Counting backwards in threes, counting upwards in sevens, doubling numbers—it helped for a bit. Maybe she could get there.

She felt terrible. Really terrible. The encounter with Kate had shaken her horribly. For some reason, she hadn’t expected quite so much hostility. Naïve really. She probed her feelings for Kate, as if they were an aching tooth. The main thing seemed to be a total lack of them. That was in itself disturbing. Surely she should have felt something, some sort of recognition of their relationship. She was her mother, for God’s sake. Not love, of course, that was the stuff of fairy tales, but concern, sympathy, sadness that she had missed so much of her. It wasn’t there. Only one thing was there and that was guilt. In spades.

She hadn’t even liked her; she had seemed a hard little thing. And distinctly lacking in charm. But then, as situations went, it had hardly been one to bring the best out in her. The boy had been rather sweet, she’d thought; she’d liked him much more.

She was obviously completely lacking in any kind of maternal instinct. Clearly, she was exactly as Kate saw her: tough, uncaring, totally self-centred. It wasn’t a very happy thought. She supposed the guilt was something in her favour; she’d never felt it over Kate before. Mostly because she hadn’t allowed herself to. Guilt would have meant an acknowledgement of what she’d done, there could be no question of it.

She tried the vicarage again: still no reply. Well, maybe she could make it. She’d have a coffee at a Little Chef and carry on. It would be much nicer to get there, get to her own bed.

Nick had finally replied to Janet’s e-mail:

Janet: Doing my best, lot of ends to tie up. Please bear with me. Re family tree, what do you mean exactly? Nick

Janet was not impressed.

Martha was back on the road; she felt quite wide-awake now. She began to try to frame her conversation with her parents, wondering how to lead into it. How could you possibly break such news gently? Maybe she should show them the cuttings about Kate, the story that Carla Giannini had written? And then say, well, what? “I’m actually her mother. It was me that abandoned her in the cleaning cupboard.” That would really be easy for them, wouldn’t it?

Well, what about the early cuttings? Would that be better?

“This is what I actually did when I got back from travelling. I was too afraid to tell you.” How would that make them feel? Or “You’ve got another granddaughter. She’s called Kate and she’s sixteen.”

“Fuck,” said Martha aloud. And this was only the beginning. There was Paul Quenell to inform, and Jack Kirkland. Her friends. What friends? They seemed very few in number suddenly. But they all had to be told and within the next few days, possibly the next few hours, if Janet went to another paper.

Janet e-mailed:

There can’t be that many loose ends. And what do you think family tree means? Use your common sense. Might speak to Chris myself to push it forward. Terrible waste, if he won’t run it. He would have done last Friday I’m sure, with our subject hot off the TV. Maybe you could let me have a draft? Janet

Shit. Now what did he do? Suppose she did talk to Pollock? Nick began to panic. Better call him himself, warn him. But then he’d want to know what it was about. Shit. He began typing.

Janet: What??!! You know we never show drafts. Talk to Chris if you want to, but he’s entertaining heavily this weekend, never welcomes interruptions.

This was true; he was. He always was, he took his Saturday nights very seriously. He and the current Mrs. Pollock, a television executive, gave famously large and starry dinner parties, followed by even larger brunches the following day. Only the kind of headline that took over the whole of the front page was allowed to interrupt them; and however much they all cared about Baby Bianca, she didn’t justify seventy-two point. So quite a clever move there.

I’m really doing my best. Obviously family tree interesting.

Speak maybe tomorrow. Nick

Please God that would keep her quiet.

But:

OK. Let’s speak. I’ll call tomorrow lunchtime, check on progress. Maybe you could confirm this is OK.

This was getting very difficult. Maybe he was going to have to run the story after all. To save Martha and Kate from something much worse.

Martha knew it was crazy, but she rang Ed. She felt so lonely, so besieged by fate; losing him now when she had found him again, albeit briefly, was almost unbearable. She was beginning to wonder why she was being protective of—of
him
. She certainly didn’t owe him anything. But—she did. It was ripples in the pond: the wider they went, the worse it got, the more people were hurt. “Hi, Ed, it’s me. Just wondered how you were. Give me a call if you can, I’m in the car.”

It was horribly reminiscent of his endless, caring calls to her, when he must have known that there was little chance of a response: or the response he wanted, anyway. It was a measure of how low she was feeling that she was prepared to put herself at such risk. Martha Hartley didn’t do risk.

She was getting sleepy again: very sleepy. She was going to have to stop. Only there were fewer motels out here, and it was too late to go off the road, find a B&B. She put a Stones CD on and turned the volume right up. That often helped.

Then the phone went. Ed’s name came up on the screen. Her heart lurched.

“Hi, Ed.”

“Hi. Where are you?”

“About an hour from Binsmow.”

“Yeah?” The voice was polite, no more. “Going to see your parents?”

“Yes. And to—well, to tell them.”

This was awful. She had only heard his voice this hard once before and that had been the night of their terrible row, when he had gone for her, told her how cold and controlling she was. She threw caution not just to the winds but into outer space.

“I’m scared, Ed. So scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of hurting them. That’s the main thing, you know. That’s how it all began.”

“Yeah. Well, I’m sure you’ll manage.”

“Ed…”

“Yes, Martha?”

“I’m missing you.”

This was unbelievable: that she was talking to him like this, throwing herself on him.

“Well, I miss you too. But like I said, there are limits. I can’t cope with all this shit, you know? About the father.”