A Proper Family Christmas (11 page)

‘Wow.’

It was a genuine, kind ‘wow’. Annabel was relieved.

‘Everything is as it should be, apparently. They think I’m about three and a half months along, which means the baby should be with us in January.’

‘That’s great.’

Izzy was still holding one of the scan pictures and peering at it intently. At least, that’s what Annabel thought at first. When she looked at her daughter again, she realised that Izzy was staring at the picture because she didn’t want to look at her mum. She was trying not to cry.

‘Oh Izzy! Sweetheart. What’s the matter? Don’t be sad!’

‘I’m not sad, Mum. I promise. I’m really happy. I’m crying because I’m glad that you’re having a baby. It will give you something to focus on, something to do when …’

When I’m gone.
That was the end of the sentence. Izzy didn’t say it. Annabel wished she hadn’t heard it. Even if it was only in her head.

‘There will be plenty for you to do too!’ said Annabel, as brightly as she could manage. ‘Don’t think you’re going to get out of changing nappies.’

Izzy forced a smile.

‘I’d change nappies,’ she said.

‘Good. Hopefully your father will be persuaded this time round as well.’

‘Didn’t he change my nappies?’ Izzy asked.

‘If I shouted loud enough. He’d pretend he hadn’t noticed it needed doing. You could be smelling like a sewer and he’d swear you were fresh as a daisy.’

‘Mum, that’s gross,’ Izzy laughed.

The dark moment had passed just as the dialysis machine beeped to let them know that the cycle had finished. Annabel kept Izzy company while a nurse got her unhooked.

When they got back to the Great House, Annabel wanted to talk to Richard about her conversation with her daughter but at the same time, she didn’t want to repeat it out loud at all. Izzy didn’t think she was going to make it. How had she come to that conclusion? Had they not been positive enough in her presence? Was she really worried that when the baby came, they would forget all about her and start again with a new, perfect child? What on earth could Annabel do to convince her otherwise?

What on earth could she do, full stop?

In the darkness of the night, Annabel’s mind turned the problem over and over, looking for a possible solution. She couldn’t donate a kidney until the baby was born. And the baby was going to be born. That determined heartbeat seen on the scan had put paid to any thought of abortion. Meanwhile, Richard couldn’t donate full stop. And Sarah, who had diabetes, was ruled out before she started, just like Richard. Who could they turn to instead?

Annabel made a mental list of the usual suspects. And then she made a list of the unusual ones. The ones who didn’t have real names. At least, not to Annabel. Would she ever have the courage to ask them?

When they next saw Dr Devon she commiserated with them over being unable to donate to Izzy themselves. Richard was still angry. Though it had been explained to him a hundred times, he still couldn’t understand how it was possible that he couldn’t give his daughter one of his organs.

‘So that’s it,’ said Richard. ‘We just have to wait for a donor to appear from nowhere? We have to wait for someone to die or for some stranger to decide on a whim to get tested and then we have to wait for them to be a match?’

‘There could be someone testing on someone else’s behalf right now,’ said Dr Devon.

Dr Devon had explained the principle of paired donations, in which people who wanted to donate to loved ones but were not a good enough match were able to do a sort of swap with other people on the register.

‘It happens more often than you think,’ Dr Devon insisted.

‘It can’t happen quickly enough,’ Richard sighed. ‘Why do we have to wait for a match at all? Why can’t we go down the plasmapheresis route?’

Dr Devon ran through the issues once more. Izzy was still very young and Dr Devon hoped to find her a kidney that would last for as long as possible. Maybe twenty or twenty-five years. There was no particular reason why Izzy wouldn’t find an excellent match relatively quickly. That was better than rushing ahead with a ‘good enough’ match and subjecting Izzy to yet more procedures so that she wouldn’t reject a kidney that probably wouldn’t work out for as long anyway.

‘There isn’t quite the urgency you imagine,’ Dr Devon said.

Richard was not in the least bit comforted by that. Like Annabel, as a result of his education and his wealth, he was used to being able to get what he wanted quickly. The Buchanans were ill equipped to understand why they couldn’t just buy their way out of the situation.

Annabel couldn’t bear it. Her wonderful husband laid so low. Her daughter on dialysis, with no hope of any improvement. And it was all her fault. If she weren’t pregnant. If she hadn’t let Izzy go to SummerBox. She had to do something to make it right. She took a deep breath.

‘There is one other option,’ she said.

Richard and Dr Devon both looked at her with interest.

‘I may have some, er, some other relatives who might agree to be tested.’

‘Then why the fuck haven’t they been tested already?’ Richard asked. ‘Who are you thinking of, Annabel? Who? Your mum can’t because of her diabetes. You haven’t got any cousins. Who else is there?’

‘Oh God.’ Annabel buried her face in her hands and spoke the rest through her fingers. ‘Richard, I can’t believe I’m going to have to tell you this in a doctor’s office.’

‘I can step outside if you like,’ said Dr Devon.

‘No. No, it’s fine,’ said Annabel. If anything, she thought, Dr Devon’s presence would force Richard to react reasonably. Because she knew she should have told him earlier. He would have every right to go berserk. It beggared belief that she would have kept something so important secret from him for so long. She took her hands away from her face and tried to compose herself. ‘Richard, the thing is, Mum – Sarah … Forget about the diabetes. She was never going to be a good match anyway because she and Dad are not my actual birth parents. They couldn’t have children. I’m adopted.’

Richard just stared.

‘I don’t know why I didn’t tell you before,’ Annabel cried out.

‘Oh, God. Annabel.’

Richard’s face crumpled through confusion to compassion. And back to confusion.

‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘I didn’t want to. I didn’t think I’d ever need to!’

‘You
didn’t want to
? What else have you kept from me?’

It was a reasonable question and she could only hope he believed her when she assured him that she had told him everything else. Everything. He was her best friend. There was nothing she hadn’t shared with him. Nothing except the biggest thing of all.

‘Please forgive me,’ she begged him. ‘Please.’

Placing a box of tissues in the middle of her desk, Dr Devon left the room as discreetly as she was able.

‘I was just so ashamed about it!’ Annabel wailed.

‘But why, darling, why? It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You were a tiny baby. I mean, you
were
a baby at the time, weren’t you? How did it happen?’

‘I was a baby,’ Annabel confirmed. ‘I was about six weeks old. I think my birth parents were teenagers. They couldn’t cope. Mum and Dad had been trying for a baby for years with no success and when they finally decided to adopt, I came along just a couple of months later. Oh Richard. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think it was relevant. Not any more. I didn’t think it would ever be important. I promise I never set out to intentionally deceive you.’

Richard shook his head.

‘But why? Why? I would have understood.’

‘I know you would. But I just didn’t want to have to explain the whole situation. It would have changed things.’

‘How?’

‘I didn’t want you to look at Mum and Dad differently. I didn’t want you to look at me differently. I didn’t want you to think I was anyone other than Annabel Cartwright!’

‘I’d never have guessed,’ said Richard. ‘You looked so much like your dad. The ears. The beard …’

Annabel swatted him. But that one flippant comment let her know that it was OK. All those years she had subconsciously worried that if he knew the truth, Richard would reject her. But now he knew, and here he was, still with her. Still joking. Still the love of her life. He pulled her towards him and rested his forehead on hers. They both started to cry uncontrollably now.

‘Annabel, I don’t care if you’re the secret love child of Saddam Hussein and Cilla Black. You’ll always be my darling and I love you. It’s going to be all right.’

How many times had he had to say that since Izzy took that bloody ecstasy?

‘But you have to get in touch with your biological family,’ said Richard. ‘We have to track them down.’

‘I don’t know how to do it,’ said Annabel through her tears.

‘We’ll hire a detective if we have to.’

‘They might not want to get involved if we do find them.’

‘Maybe not. But Annabel, this is the best chance we have right now. In any case, they’re not just your family. They’re Izzy’s family too. What right do you have to keep them from her?’

‘I’ve got to talk to Mum about it.’

‘Of course, but ultimately you have no choice. They might do it. They might donate. This is good news, my love. It’s good news.’

He was right. Pandora’s Box had to be opened for the tiny grain of hope that might be found inside it.

Sarah was still staying at the Great House, helping Annabel and Richard to keep on top of things while Izzy was in hospital. After they’d brought Dr Devon up to speed with this new development, they drove straight home to talk to her. Sarah Cartwright was a pragmatic woman. She wasn’t given to jealousy or hysterics. She was kind and open-hearted and generous to a fault. She always put the happiness and well-being of others before her own. For all those qualities, Annabel had often wished that more than paperwork related them.

Of course Sarah was not going to say ‘no’ to Annabel tracking down her birth family, though they’d never really discussed the possibility while Annabel was living at home. They certainly hadn’t discussed it since, apart from the day that Izzy was born, when Sarah commented privately as to how proud Annabel’s birth mother would have been to see her beautiful granddaughter.

‘I understand,’ she said at once when Richard and Annabel explained the situation. ‘There is absolutely no question that it is the right thing to do.’

‘But what about your feelings, Mum?’

‘The only feelings that matter right now are the love I have for you and Izzy. If your birth family can help Izzy recover then I shall owe them twice over.’

‘Twice?’

‘Yes. Because having you changed my life.’

Annabel started to cry again. Even though she felt as though she didn’t have another tear in her body.

‘I’m frightened,’ she said to her mother.

Sarah enfolded Annabel in a hug. To Richard, it seemed that Annabel was expressing her fears about Izzy, but Annabel was sure Sarah knew what she really meant.

Though she hadn’t told her husband, Annabel had never been indifferent to the fact that she was not her parents’ natural child. The question of who she really was had haunted her ever since she first properly understood that there had been another mummy, before the one who read her bedtime stories and made her hot chocolate exactly the way she liked it.

For years she had told herself that she was not going to track down her birth family out of respect to the people who had raised her. It was easy to become a mother or father – all that took was an unprotected shag – but being Mum and Dad was another thing altogether. Sarah and Humfrey had raised Annabel with such kindness, care and love. That was what parenting was really about.

However, it wasn’t only her parents that Annabel was trying to protect. She was trying to protect herself. When she was very small, she sometimes fantasised about being the secret daughter of a prince and a princess. As she got older, she of course realised that the story of her birth was unlikely to be quite such a fairy tale. Princes and princesses and other good, respectable people did not give their children up for adoption.

Annabel had been angry then. Who were the feckless people who couldn’t cope with a single child? What kind of animals were they?

Having Izzy had not mellowed Annabel’s feelings towards the woman who gave her up but intensified her fear of hearing the real story. Now that she had her own daughter to protect, she didn’t want to uncover a past other than the one she had created for herself.

Annabel wanted to
be
the person she had
become
. She wanted her bloodline to stretch back across battlefields. She wanted her private education and all the rest of the privileges she’d enjoyed to be her real birthright. She did not want to feel that she had come by her elegance, education and polish somehow fraudulently. She was Annabel Buchanan, née Annabel Cartwright, and she had never wanted to be anyone else. But she was also Izzy’s mother and Izzy’s health came before everything.

‘I’ll do it,’ she told Richard that night. ‘I’ll get in touch with my birth mother.’

Richard wrapped his arms round her. Perhaps one day he would be angry that Annabel had kept such an enormous secret from him but for now it was clear that he was relieved to hear it. They had another chance.

Annabel and Richard set to work on tracking down Annabel’s birth family the very next day. However, because Annabel was born before 1975, it wasn’t a simple matter of asking to see her original birth certificate and searching the electoral register for a match. It turned out that Annabel had to see a social worker first. Thankfully, she didn’t have to wait long. As though some heavenly power was on the case with them, the children’s services department at the County Council had an empty slot for a preliminary ‘schedule two’ appointment that very week.

Richard went with her, though Annabel protested that she didn’t need him to be there. Not for the first half-hour-long meeting, at which they wouldn’t show her anything anyway. They’d just discuss her motivation for finding out more and dish out some advice.