The Accidental Mother (18 page)

“I wouldn’t mind,” Bella said. “Will we have to move again?” Her voice dwindled away to almost nothing.

Sophie looked at her tiny frame, so stiff and resilient, and she wanted to say something, anything to make Bella feel happier and more secure. But she couldn’t lie to her, not now, even if comforting lies were what the girl wanted to hear. She and Izzy deserved the truth.

“Yes,” Sophie said softly. “I’m sorry, Bella.”

“With who then?” Bella’s face was ashen under the bright hall light, her voice small and feather light. “With Dad? Strangers like the childminder?”

Sophie cursed herself inwardly. Just as she thought she was getting the hang of communicating with Bella, she went and put her foot in it. She felt her ineptitude all too keenly.

“All you’ve been through—it must be so hard for your, Bella,” she said eventually, sidestepping her question. “I think you’re amazing. You cope so well when you must miss your mum so much—”

“I don’t miss her,” Bella said. “I can’t miss her. I haven’t got time, you see, because since she went away everything keeps changing and just when I think it’s going to be okay it changes again and I have to get used to all new things and I have to be in charge of worrying about what’s going to happen to us. Mummy told me that I was in charge when she wasn’t around, of looking after Izzy I mean. I think…” Bella paused for a long moment. “If I start thinking about her and missing her, I’m afraid I won’t be in charge anymore. I’ll be too sad and then I’ll forget to do anything else.”

Sophie pulled Bella to her, impulsively wishing that she could draw all the pain out of her small body and absorb it. It was the first time she had really hugged her goddaughter.

“I do see,” she said, thinking about the first months after her dad died. “I really do. But you know what? You don’t have to be in charge. I know that you feel like you do—but you don’t. You’ve got Tess and Grandma and me and even Artemis to do all the worrying and the looking after for you and Izzy. If you want to be sad, you won’t be letting anyone down. Your mum wouldn’t think so, not for a second.” Sophie paused for a moment and thought very carefully about what she was about to say. “I don’t know your dad, Bella. I don’t know why he went and I don’t know why he didn’t keep in touch with you, but I do think you sort of have to give him a chance. Because he is after all your dad, and you said he did used to be your friend.”

“But what if he’s horrible to us?”

“Well, if he is, then you don’t have to live with him. You don’t have to do anything you and Izzy aren’t happy with, okay? Everyone is here to make sure that you and Izzy are happy and safe.”

Bella looked up at Sophie, her dry eyes burning. “But what will we do then?” she asked. “If we can’t stay here?”

There had to be a moment like this, Sophie thought, in everyone’s life, when the very next thing you say might change you and the world as you knew it forever. She felt her stomach dip and churn as if she had just run headlong at a cliff edge and brought herself to a stop at its very brink.

“Then we’ll work out what’s best,” she answered, feeling like a coward unable to deliver the promise that Bella wanted.

“What’s best?” Bella said dimly, staring down at her feet again.

“Yes,” Sophie said.

Bella sat up a little and lifted her chin to look at Sophie. “Okay,” she said with a look of weary resignation that should never have visited her young face. “Okay, Aunty Sophie.”

There had to be something, Sophie thought, some promise she could make to Bella and Izzy that she absolutely knew she could keep. Some promise that could give the children something solid to rely on.

“Bella, I’ve been flaky, I know I have,” she said. “Dragging you to the office and back. Making you watch TV all day long, not knowing what to feed you and then just feeding you one thing, but please believe me when I say I want you to have the best and happiest life you can. I really, really do. And you just wouldn’t have that with me—would you?” Bella blinked at her and said nothing. “But I promise you—whatever happens, I’ll be on your side. I’ll stick by you and Izzy. I’ll never let you down. I promise. Always, forever, whatever.” Sophie said the three words on an impulse and sat back a little as Bella’s eyes widened.

“How did you know?” she asked, resting her cheek against Sophie’s arm with a sudden touching display of affection that Sophie had not expected. She felt Bella’s breath on her skin and kissed the top of Bella’s head, and for a moment it felt as if there was something physical connecting them, a new closeness created on this bottom stair. She would never have known how to kiss Bella before that moment, and suddenly it seemed perfectly natural.

“Know what?” Sophie said to the top of her goddaughter’s head.

“That’s Mummy’s special promise to us. Whenever she said ‘Always, forever, whatever,’ we knew—we knew that things were really,
really
true.”

“Well then, you know that you can trust me,” Sophie said, and Bella tightened their embrace.

It happened then, like a slow-turning circle finally completing itself. Sophie found that she was beginning to care more about what happened to Bella and Izzy than she cared about what happened to herself.

W
hat, nothing at all?” Tess said, attempting to stir some life into her forlorn cup of coffee as she sat at her desk.

“Nothing. Not a word,” Sophie told her over the phone, sitting on what used to be her bed. “I mean, it’s been…” She unfurled a finger for each day since she had spoken to Louis. “Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Five days if you count today. Five days. It doesn’t take five days to get anywhere anymore unless you’re walking. I mean, it’s not as if he was in deepest, darkest Peru. Well, anyway, it doesn’t take five days, does it?”

Tess sat back in her chair. “No, I wouldn’t have thought so,” she said. “But I suppose there are other considerations. Maybe he had to give notice at the charity—” Sophie barked a short laugh at the word
charity.
Tess waited for a moment to continue. “
Maybe
he couldn’t get a flight or get the money for a flight. Have you thought about calling him again?”

Sophie glossed over that rather obvious idea. She didn’t want to dial that number that had cost her fifty-five pounds an hour plus VAT and talk to him, because that would mean that he was still in deepest, darkest Peru which had implications she was aware of but not quite ready to think about yet.

“He said he was coming right away. He made it sound like he was going to leave right at that minute and get on a plane. And the girls are on edge. Bella is really upset about the whole thing, and Izzy goes mental every time the phone or doorbell rings. It’s been a nightmare keeping them occupied.”

“Well, TV does wear a bit thin after a while,” Tess said.

“We haven’t just been watching TV actually,” Sophie said resentfully. “We’ve been to the park twice, the corner shop, Grandma Stiles’s,
and
we sat in the car with the doors open and played CDs for a couple of hours.”

“Izzy too?” Tess asked, genuinely impressed.

“Yes,” Sophie said with more than a hint of pride. “Next time we’re shutting Phoebe’s doors, and the time after that I might turn the engine on. We’ll be on road trips before you know it.”

“Phoebe?” Tess inquired.

“Yes, Phoebe—that’s the car’s name,” Sophie said a little sheepishly.

“That’s a really good idea,” Tess told her with naked astonishment.

“Thanks for your unwavering belief,” Sophie said wryly, neglecting to mention she got the idea out of the dog book. “And they really like shopping, so we’ve done quite a lot of shopping. I rebought all of my maketup, so Izzy owes me all her pocket money for the rest of her life, and we found them some really cute shoes, bought me some ugly sensible ones and some more jeans, and—we even went to the supermarket.”

“And I bet it was better than last time, right?” Tess said.

“No, it was a god-awful nightmare, but you
see,
” Sophie explained seriously, “at least this time I knew what to expect, so it wasn’t so bad. I think I’m building up a resistance to the horror. It’s sort of like when you become an alcoholic and after a while it doesn’t matter how much vodka you drink it doesn’t make you drunk anymore?” Tess decided to leave that part out of her next report. “All in all,” Sophie concluded. “We’ve had a pretty good time.”

“That’s really great,” Tess said. “But listen, we have to give the man every chance to do the right thing. I mean, that was big news you gave him. He might have needed a day or two to come to terms with it.”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “Oh, what, like I got, you mean?” she said sulkily.

“You weren’t married to Carrie,” Tess admonished her.

“No, and neither was he for very long!” Sophie said. Just at that moment the doorbell vibrated through the flat with its insistent electronic rattle.

“It’s the door, it’s the door, it’s the
door,
IT’S THE DOOR!” Izzy’s cries grew louder as she made her way from one side of the flat to the other.

“Oh, shit,” Sophie said. “I’ve gotta go. Izzy, don’t open the flat door!” The sound of the flat door banging hard into the hall wall echoed in Tess’s ears. “Izzy, don’t you dare open the front door!” Tess heard Sophie call out.

“If it’s him, ring me,” Tess said. But she realized she was talking to a dial tone.

“Oh, it’s you,” Izzy said, looking up at Cal. Sophie arrived 0.01 seconds after Izzy had opened the main front door, streaking past Bella, who stalked into the bedroom and shut the door firmly behind her.

“What did I say about opening the front door?” Sophie asked Izzy, ignoring Cal for a moment.

“You said don’t open the front door,” Izzy replied, looking up at her sweetly.

“And what have you just done?” Sophie asked.

Izzy gave Sophie a look that implied she thought Sophie was a bit of an idiot. “I opened the front door!” she said slowly and carefully, because it was obvious.

“But I said not to!” Sophie said, raising her voice a little and stamping her foot a little bit.

“I know!” Izzy said. “But it’s not him anyway, it’s just
him.
” And she flopped facedown on the doormat and lay there perfectly still in mercifully silent protest. Sophie, who had become used to this particular maneuver, had stopped worrying that Izzy was suffering from blackouts and looked up at Cal.

“Aren’t you supposed to be individually testing thirty-eight thousand fairy lights for the Madison party?” she asked with a tight smile.

“Couldn’t be arsed,” Cal said drily. He looked down at Izzy. “I have to say, Izzy, I thought you’d be more pleased to see a man with an Animal Park play set.”

Izzy did not move.

“Animal Park doesn’t match up to her daddy,” Sophie told Cal, worrying about how much the three-year-old had invested in the appearance of her father. She had thought Izzy might just forget about it after it was mentioned. But she didn’t; the arrival of Louis seemed to be the subject of her every thought and question. “But why are you here, Cal? You really should be at the ship, you know—marching about with your clipboard giving all the workmen a hard time!”

Cal looked skeptical. “I’ve already done that,” he said. “Even though it’s not in my job description. I need you to check some final details with me and sign off some invoices. I’m not authorized.”

Sophie nodded. “Come on then, Iz,” she said. “Upsadaisy.”

“I wanted it to be the daddy man, not the flowery smelling man!” Izzy wailed. Sophie scooped her up, flung her over one shoulder, and began staggering up the stairs.

“I feel strangely rejected,” Cal mused as, back in the living room, Sophie deposited Izzy on the armchair and looked at her. She wasn’t really crying; it was this other type of crying she did—a sort of dry, repetitive whining, usually when there was a remote danger that she might not be the center of the universe for five seconds.

“How about you take a chocolate biscuit to Bella to cheer her up?” Sophie suggested.

Izzy’s face instantly transformed into a radiant smile. “And me as well?” she said. “Can I take me one too?”

Sophie nodded and handed Izzy two cookies. “Go on then, and don’t eat Bella’s on the way!” Izzy giggled and ran out of the room. Sophie looked at the packet of chocolate biscuits and then at Cal. She took one out and put it entirely in her mouth.

“So what’s the problem?” she asked him through a haze of crumbs.

“Oh, if only Jake could see you now,” Cal said, observing her with some distaste. “If you had a sex life, you know, you wouldn’t be bulimic. Anyway, there are no problems. I just wanted to check a few details with you, like you have confirmed the menus with the caterers…”

“Check,” Sophie said breezily.

“You have okayed the pyrotechnics with Health and Safety chaps.”

“Check,” Sophie said, as if there would be anything that she, the queen of perfection, would overlook.

“You have arranged a babysitter that won’t send the girls into hysterics?”

“Che——-Oh, fuck,” Sophie cursed and took another biscuit from the packet.

“I knew it,” Cal said. “Well, you have to be there. All the big cheeses will be there, including Gillian. The Madison do is possibly the biggest party McCarthy Hughes has ever thrown this side of the Atlantic. It’s going to be fabulous, and you’ll be there in the spotlight, everybody looking at you and thinking how wonderful you are.”

“I know!” Sophie wailed. “But the girls don’t like anyone but you. Will you do it?”

“I’m not doing it,” he said. “I’ve worked my butt off for this party. I’m going to be there to enjoy it.”

Sophie nodded. Cal was right. Besides, he was the master at making sure people were mixing and at troubleshooting any incipient problems. After all the help he had given her, he was the one who deserved the credit most of all.

“Right,” she said.

“So…?” Cal waited.

“Well, I mean, that’s it, isn’t it? I can’t go,” she said, nodding in the general direction of the bedroom. “I can’t take those two to a grown-up party. There are too many choking hazards for one thing. Plus, practically everything is flammable. Imagine the insurance costs if we sank it!”

“There’s got to be someone,” Cal said, thinking furiously. “Someone that they know you won’t leave them with forever. Someone strange enough for them to feel at home with—”

“Thanks,” Sophie said.

Cal clicked his fingers. “How about their grandma?” he suggested.

“Nope, she’d never get up those stairs,” Sophie said.

“No, their other grandma—your mum, I mean,” Cal added, as if it were obvious.

“Well, technically, she’s not their grandma,
but
…” Sophie considered the prospect of her mum in charge of Bella and Izzy for a couple of hours. She had not heard from her mother since the night she had come around with the dog book, not unless you counted one phone message, which consisted entirely of yapping dogs, and that was probably more to do with Scooby messing with the speed-dial button than her mum trying to call her. Anybody else’s mother would have been here helping out, taking an interest, interfering at the very least. Still, it did seem like her mum was the last—no, only—resort.

“Would they like her, do you think?” Sophie asked him.

“They’ll love her. She’s bonkers,” Cal said. “Plus, she can come here and they’ll feel safe.”

“What the hell?” Sophie said, picking up the phone and dialing her mum’s number.

After the usual dog-related pauses, her mother came to the phone. “Hello?” she said.

“Mum, it’s me,” Sophie told her. “Listen, I’ve got a favor to ask you, and I really need you to do this for me, no arguments.”

Sophie kissed Izzy and then Bella on the tops of their heads.

“Those pajamas are fab,” she told them. “Total princess jammies.”

Izzy giggled. “You look like a
real
princess,” she said. “All sparkly and lovely, and you don’t smell. I quite love you when you look nice, actually.”

Sophie glanced down at herself. Thanks to her mum’s early arrival, she hadn’t scrubbed up too badly. She’d even managed to shave her legs and wax her top lip, as well as shower and wash her hair. She hadn’t had time to straighten it, though, so it just sort of wafted about, like a cloud of gold as Bella had poetically put it. More like a flyaway mass of static, Sophie thought, but she preferred Bella’s description.

“It’s not bad, this dress, is it?” she said, delighted that after mountains of chips it still fitted her.

“You do look pretty,” Bella said solemnly. “But you are coming back, aren’t you?”

“Of course!” Sophie exclaimed, crouching down with some difficulty in her heels. “Now you two be good for my mum, okay? Go to bed and go to sleep, and I’ll see you when I get in.”

“You’ll definitely come in our room and see us, won’t you?” Bella insisted.

“Yes, I definitely will,” Sophie said. She stood up, using Izzy’s head to steady herself. “Right, I’ll be off then.”

Sophie walked down the steps to the street door with her mum. “Now you know what to do, don’t you?” she asked her.

“Yes.” Iris nodded. “Watch telly and get drunk.”

“Mum!” Sophie protested. “I’m serious!”

“So am I, darling. Okay, don’t let them play with matches, don’t give them any sharp objects, and don’t let them run under a bus,” Iris recited the list of concerns that Sophie had given her verbatim, although she considered most of them unlikely since both the girls were going to be asleep. “Look, you’ve been doing this for a little over three weeks. I’ve been doing it for thirty-five years—”

“Mum, I’m twenty-nine!” Sophie said, appalled. “And I’m not joking about the bus thing. The latch on the door downstairs is, well, dodgy—”

“They’ll be fine. I’ve got your cell phone number. I’m just glad you asked me to help you at last.”

“What do you mean? I was waiting for you to offer to help me!” Sophie exclaimed.

“Oh no, dear,” her mother said mildly. “I learned a long time ago never to offer to help you. It just annoys you, because you usually know best. I’ve been waiting years for you to need me for anything. Now, off you go and have a good time.” Iris gave Sophie a look of approval, and Sophie smiled warmly at her mum.