A House Without Windows (8 page)

The rain finally decided to splatter the sidewalks as Dr Liam Darrah made his way along Elm Street, downtown Toronto.   Ducking into The World’s Biggest Bookstore to avoid a soaking he was soon lost among the familiar bookshelves, but that afternoon his gaze eventually wandered to the British newspaper section.  He liked to glance through The London Times once in a while; somehow the English place names made him feel closer to his father, still living alone in the wilds of Norfolk.  Every time he took Patty with him to visit they never seemed to get along, but then he remembered that most people usually rubbed his father up the wrong way.  The only person he’d ever seemed to get along with was Beth, but that was a long time and many tears ago.

He picked up a copy of The Londoner Standard; it would be something to read on the tram back to Queen Street.  When the rain stopped he walked briskly towards the tram stop, the newspaper rolled under his arm.

As usual the tram was full of shoppers with bulky purchases, workers hurrying to get home, and tourists.  There were a multitude of accents and he picked out the flat vowels of a family from somewhere in the North of England on the seat in front of him, making their way back to their hotel after a day out at the CN Tower and the Eaton Center.  He’d become quite proficient at recognising the British regional accents when he’d worked in Norfolk; at first they’d all sounded the same, but then as his ears had become accustomed to the variations in sounds he had found the different pronunciations quite delightful. 

One of the British children was a toddler of around 18 months, who looked about the same age as his own son.  He stood up on the seat and looked around, until admonished by his mother.  Liam smiled at the mother and then decided to unfurl his newspaper for something to do.  He quickly read the headlines which were a couple of days old, but then the sounds of the people around him fell away as he gazed in stunned silence at the picture inside the front page.  The photograph caused him to miss his usual stop, and when he did look out of the window he found he’d ended up much further down Queen Street than he wanted to be.

The photograph showed a slim woman with very short blonde hair on the steps of a hospital in Croydon, Surrey.  She looked very pale and tired and somehow overawed.  She was accompanied by a nurse holding a newborn baby in a shawl, and by a young girl of about 9 or 10 years of age dressed in clothes that were slightly too big for her.  Both the woman and the girl were wearing sunglasses even though it was January, and the girl was clutching a large book close to her chest.  With them were an older couple possibly in their early to mid sixties.  The older couple he recognised immediately as Sally and Robert Nichols, the two people who would have been his mother and father in law had Beth lived.

He took a closer look at the woman wearing sunglasses.  She looked older than when he had last seen Beth, but she had Beth’s mouth and fair hair.  He did not recognise the young girl at all.  He supposed her children must be brother and sister; fathered by her abductor.

The second page of the newspaper was mainly devoted to a story by Iain Treacher of how a Mr Edwin Michael Evans had lived the quiet and proper life of a builder and architect in Bingley Road, Woodside, South London, for a number of years.  The neighbours had all described him as a bit of a loner who used to keep to himself.  However, his social misfit tendencies were to hide the fact that for almost 10 years he had kept a young woman, Dr Elizabeth Nichols, prisoner in his cellar, along with her daughter Amy whom Dr Nichols had delivered herself with no medical aid.

Liam’s heart pounded in his chest with the realisation that Beth was the woman in the photograph, and that she was still alive.  He suddenly felt nauseous and needed to get off the tram.  When it came to a stop he staggered off and expelled the remains of his lunch onto the sidewalk.  He was conscious of people staring at him, but at that precise moment he did not care at all.

It took him a while to get back to his house on Kingston Street, but the extra walk cleared his head.  Keeping the precious newspaper under his arm he stopped in one of the stores along Queen Street to buy some cold water.  The shop assistant had asked him if he was ok, and Liam just nodded; lost for words.

He could see on his return that Patty had already given Toby his dinner.  The toddler sat contentedly in his high chair gnawing on a piece of apple, as Patty ate her meal beside him.

“You’re later than usual today.  Have you already eaten in town?”  Patty smiled, but then her expression changed as she turned to look at her partner.

“Yes.”  The lie came easily.

“Are you ok?  You look pale.”

“I think I ate a bad hamburger, eh?”  Liam kissed the top of his son’s head and gave Patty a peck on the cheek.

“I take it you don’t want anything to eat?”

“Not yet; I’m going to have a shower.”

As the jet of warm water pounded on his face Liam tried to come to terms with the item of news that he had read on the tram; that his previous fiancée whom he thought had died was actually still alive and had been held prisoner for almost a decade.  There was also the question of the little girl in the picture; the writer stated that Amy was the daughter of Dr Nichols, who had been delivered whilst her mother had been held captive.

Wrapping himself in a towel Liam padded out of the en-suite shower room and had another look at the photograph in the newspaper lying on the bed.  It was difficult to see whom the girl resembled due to her wearing sunglasses, but he wondered whether there was a possibility he could be her father instead of the abductor.  He also knew that he could never rest until he found out. 

He felt sick all over again.  He sat on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands.

“Oh dear, you are ill aren’t you!”  Patty popped her head around the door on her way to bath Toby.

“Sorry baby, I’ll be alright in a minute.  I’ll read Toby a story when he’s had a bath.”

“Ok, but you’re making the quilt all wet.”

Liam stood up to dry himself.  He put on a t-shirt and a comfortable pair of jeans, walked through to his son’s room, and sat down in the rocking chair and put his head back on the cushion.  Only a few hours ago his life was well ordered and predictable; off he would travel to his downtown practice every morning, and at the end of the working day he would return on the six o’clock tram.  Patty would have a meal ready, and they would sit and eat together with their son.  After Toby was asleep they would watch TV in the evenings, and sometimes they would make love on the sofa if the programme sucked.

His life had suddenly been turned upside down.  He looked around his son’s bedroom; the little cot in the corner crammed with soft toys, the rocking horse that Toby loved to sit on, and the bookshelf next to him full to the brim with well-loved and well-thumbed books.  He had a son whom he adored and cherished, and a beautiful red-headed partner that most guys would give their right arm for.  However, Patty wasn’t Beth, but she was the mother of his son and he would do anything for her.  The only thing he couldn’t do was to love her as much as he’d once loved Beth.

Liam smiled as he listened to Toby’s protestations at having to lie still for a clean diaper.  Patty seemed relieved to hand him over to his father

“Hey, little man!  Which story tonight then?”  Liam gathered his son in his arms in the rocking chair and reached over for a few books.  He let Toby choose a story, enjoying the clean baby smell and warmth of the little body close to his.

When the stories were told and Toby’s head lay heavy on his chest, Liam closed his eyes and rocked quietly in the chair.  He knew he could never give up the love he felt for his son in favour of a possible daughter that he had never known existed.  On the other hand he had loved Beth with a passion so deep that it had taken nearly eight years for the memories of her to begin to fade enough to let somebody else into his life.  That somebody else had been Patty, who to date had no idea that Beth had ever existed, and not even the first inkling that she, Patty, would always be second best.

The baby slept on his chest, sucking his thumb.  Liam stood up, laid his son in his cot, and covered him with the quilt lovingly stitched by Patty.  He put on the night-light and went downstairs to his study, switched on the computer, and searched on the Internet for Iain Treacher’s email address at The Londoner Standard.  The message he sent informed the journalist that he was once engaged to Doctor Beth Nichols, there was a strong possibility that he could be Amy’s father, and that he had no idea where Beth or her parents were now living.  Just for completeness he wrote a letter to Beth, care of Iain Treacher at the Londoner Standard, and mailed it that evening.

Iain Treacher, already sniffing out a front-page story, did not take very long to reply. By the time Liam had returned home from work the next day there was a message informing him to prepare for a trip to the UK.

The time had come to tell Patty; there was no way around it.  Iain Treacher had contacted the hospital where Beth had stayed, and had asked the ward manager to contact Beth’s parents at the ad
dress in Norfolk they had provided.  He had forwarded Liam’s letter to the ward manager to send on. Liam had given permission for his email address to be handed over to Beth’s mother and father, and Sally Nichols had replied to the erstwhile son in law she had not seen since the early days of Beth’s abduction.  Iain wanted a front-page story and was prepared to pay for it.  Liam had informed him that any money must go to Beth if she was prepared to cooperate.

On receiving Sally’s email two days later, Liam waited until later that evening when he and Patty were cuddled together in bed:

“I’m going to have to take a week off work and fly to the UK, baby.”  He kissed the top of her head and closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable response.

“Why?”  Patty lifted herself up on one elbow and looked down at him.

“There’s something I need to show you.”  He reached over and opened his bedside cabinet, taking out the newspaper:

“Have a read of page two.”  He lay back down on the pillow while she read, all the time watching her face for any change of expression.

Patty read the article and folded up the newspaper:

“I don’t understand.  Who is this Doctor Beth Nichols?  Do you know her then?”  She lay back down and moved closer to Liam, placing one arm across his chest and one leg across his thighs.

“I was engaged to her many years ago, but I thought she was dead.  I have to find out if I am the father of her daughter.”

Patty stiffened beside him and she sat up again. 

“My God!  You never told me this!”

“I only just told you because I thought she was dead. I never knew she’d been abducted and kept prisoner.”

“How could you not tell me?  Am I so unimportant? Well what about Toby and me?  Can we come with you?”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Do you still love her?”  Tears were already starting to fill Patty’s eyes, and Liam hugged her.

“You are my partner now.  I stopped thinking about Beth when I met you.  We have a beautiful son together. I just have to find out if I have a daughter or not as well.  I hope you understand.” 

The constant drain on his emotions over the past few days had left Liam feeling washed out and exhausted.  He switched off the bedside lamp as Patty turned over on her side away from him.  He cuddled up to her back and slipped an arm around her waist.

“I’m so sorry, baby.  I really thought she was dead.  This is the first news I’ve had about her in nearly ten years.”

“You should have told me.”

“I know.  I’m sorry.  I just thought it was all over and I pushed it to the back of my mind.”

“Will you come back to us?”

“Of course.  There’s no question of that.  If I have a daughter I just need to see her and get to know her.”

“We’ll be waiting for you, Toby and me.”

“I know, baby.  I know.”

Liam also knew that Iain Treacher would be waiting for him at Heathrow airport.  He supposed the man was probably on the case now; booking his flight and hotel rooms for both of them and the inevitable photographer while he and Patty slept into the small hours.  There was no going back now.

Patty was unusually silent at breakfast the next day as she spooned cereal into Toby’s mouth.  After breakfast Liam checked his emails and came back into the kitchen.

“I just have to go downtown and see a couple of patients at the clinic, then I’ll return at lunchtime to pack.  There’s a flight leaving at 8 o’clock tonight.  Iain Treacher has booked me on it.”

“When will you be back?”

“My flight comes in at 3.30 on Saturday afternoon.  Why don’t you and Toby come down and meet me?  We can show Toby the planes; he’ll love it.”

“Yes I’d like that.”

“Ok.  See you soon then.  Can you order me a taxi for about four o’clock baby, eh?”  He kissed her and brushed the top of his son’s russet curls with his lips.  The baby stopped chewing momentarily to flash him a big smile showing a few pearly white teeth caked in cereal.

“Yes. Reluctantly.”  Patty gave him a thin smile as he turned towards the front door.