A Sister’s Gift (21 page)

He stops, rubbing his hands together; evidently he’s left the
house so quickly he didn’t have time to put on any gloves.

‘She isn’t?’ I catch a fleeting glimpse of sadness in the compassion that fills his face now. ‘I heard you two talking – I was half asleep. Then I heard the door go and I knew you’d taken Ruff out but when you didn’t come back…I was worried maybe something had upset you…’He takes in a deep breath. ‘I’m so sorry, darling.’

‘Have you spoken to her?’

He shakes his head.

‘I came straight out to find you, hon.’ He hugs me close to him and a sob catches in my throat.

‘I only found out this morning – she’d just got in from Lucy’s party – they all took pregnancy tests there, apparently, and that’s when she found out.’ My words are all gushing out in a tangled rush. ‘I don’t understand how it didn’t work, Rich. It
should
have worked. I never thought that would be an issue for us because Scarlett is so young and he says she’s healthy and we’ve done everything right and she’s got good vital
chi

‘Vital chi,’ he repeats softly, though I can’t imagine it means very much to him. ‘Will she stay on for a third month? Can we try again?’

‘Oh!’ I give a high-pitched laugh. ‘She’s going stir-crazy, Rich. She doesn’t want to stay. She keeps getting all these phone calls from Brazil. She feels she has a responsibility to the people she left out there, she’s dying to get back…’

‘Let her go, then.’

Let her go? I stare at him, wide-eyed. He’s stating the obvious, of course, and it’s what I already know but when I hear him saying it, the reality of it sounds very different. Scarlett’s going away. She’s packing even as we speak.

My sister
is
leaving. And she’s taking my dream with me. But what if…’If you think outside of the box,’ Scarlett’s fond of saying, ‘there’s usually a way through.’ I’m used to thinking
in
boxes, that’s my trouble.

But what if…what if we could persuade her to stay on like Rich has just said, for just one more month? It might happen. Should I be prepared to give up now?

What if we were to look at the whole thing again, but differently? I feel my breath coming in quick gasps, but my thoughts are running even faster than my heartbeat at the moment. What if the fact that Scarlett wants to go back to South America just means that the whole situation has become a lot more urgent than it was, but not impossible?

Perhaps it just means we have to move faster; take decisive action. Perhaps it means – like Mr Huang – that we have to be prepared to make sacrifices?

‘Just imagine; this must be what it’s like when people have a toddler in tow,’ Rich says after a bit, bending down to cajole Ruffles who has just caught up with us. Ruffles is standing there panting, as if he’s just run a marathon, though he’s been taking his own sweet time. ‘You have to take things at the pace of the slowest one.’

‘I guess.’

‘Honey, if your sister needs to go back to the Amazon we should let her. You can’t keep her here. You shouldn’t. She’ll be glad to be gone and I think maybe…so might you be.’

‘Why on earth do you say that?’

‘What you were saying recently about us never having any private space to ourselves any more,’ he reminds me. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, that,’ I give a nonchalant laugh. ‘I only said it because the cottage does seem a little overcrowded at the moment.’

‘Just imagine how much more overcrowded it will be with a baby and all the paraphernalia that goes along with it…’

‘That would be entirely different,’ I say fiercely. ‘Look, Scarlett’s here because we asked her to stay, I know. I’m not being ungrateful, I just…’

I just almost wish now she had never come back. I wish I
hadn’t asked her to get involved. I wish Mr Huang hadn’t made the suggestion that he did, and make it all seem so perfectly innocuous and innocent and
natural
. I wish I had not fallen in love with adorable little Daisy-Lou and been so envious of her happy parents before I realised what means they used to come by her.

It’s not as if they would be
making love
or anything like that. Mrs Huang did it, after all, and she’s a perfectly lovely, ordinary lady.

I don’t want to do this. I bite my lip, turning my face away from Rich even though he can’t read my thoughts. I’ve said in the past that I’d do anything, haven’t I? Why not this? I have to look at it logically, objectively and impartially. It would be…it would be intercourse for the purpose of having a child. A means to an end. That’s all.

It’s not as if they feel anything for one another. She looks on him like an older brother, I know. They would both be doing it as a favour to me and only me. So what am I so worried about? Am I really so petty and unsure of my own marriage that I’d be jealous of my own sister…? I look at Richard helplessly.

‘You just…?’Richard has stopped and pulls me by my arm to one side so we’re leaning up against the stone balustrades opposite the narrow pier. We’ve walked nearly the entire length of the Esplanade now and in a moment we’re going to have to turn round and walk back to Florence Cottage. We should, because my fingers are frozen right through to my bones out here, my teeth are chattering. It’s barely dawn yet. The dog has done what he came out here to do and Rich and I have both got to get on and get ready for work this morning. But I don’t want to go back home.

‘Oh, Rich! I just…’I hang my head and he pulls me to him. His dark coat is wet with melting snowflakes. When he leans his head closer to mine he smells familiar and sweet and warm. Underneath that smart coat I know he is wearing only a pair of
scruffy old jeans and a pyjama top that he hastily threw on so he could join me because I’d bolted through the door. Oh Rich, I can’t bear it. I feel his kisses on the top of my head, reassuring and loving.

I know that he loves me. He wants me to be happy. He would do anything I ask of him. But dare I ask him this?

‘Let her go, sweetheart. We’ll find another way.’

My breathing is coming very shallowly now, my eyes closed tight, my nose buried into his coat.

‘We
cannot
find another way,’ I wail. There is no other way. I have been waiting for so long, too long…I have tried too many ways and now here for the first time, I feel I’ve come the closest that I ever really have. It must be Scarlett. I feel it in my bones. There is no one else that will do. The baby that she’ll have will have our ancestors’ blood in its veins, and so it will be truly mine. He’s got to be made to understand this.

‘There might be another way,’ I start. ‘But it would still involve using Scarlett.’ I rub my face now, lifting myself away from his shoulder to look into his eyes. I suddenly feel so hot and flushed. I lift my face to the sky to feel the ice dropping onto my skin.

‘She’s going to leave us, Hollie. She’s got to go back. She won’t agree to stay on any longer, we’ve already established that.’

‘She might be persuaded,’ I croak. ‘There’s something she wants, and if I…if I agree to give it to her, then I know she’ll agree to stay on. It’s
you
who won’t agree to it.’ I start to cough as the phlegm builds up in my throat.

‘You look a very strange colour, love.’ He’s frowning at me, concern building in his eyes, and he takes the edge of my scarf and gently wipes at my face now, my eyes streaming. ‘Perhaps it’s the cold that’s getting to you? The upset. Will you let me take you home?’

‘No!’ I look at him desperately. My chance is slipping away, can’t he see it? Receding like a paper boat tossed out on a fast spring tide, faster than I can ever hope to retrieve it. ‘I don’t
want to go home before I’ve asked you what I’ve got to. And I know…’ I lower my eyes from the grey snow-laden sky to look at him miserably ‘…I already know that you will never agree.’

‘Why won’t I agree?’

‘You won’t.’

He laughs. It’s a short, puzzled laugh. He takes hold of my hands in my wet gloves and he gives them a little shake, as much to say – this is me here, Hollie. When have you ever asked me for anything and I’ve denied you?

‘OK. Just tell me.’

I wish I could but my voice seems to have abandoned me right now.

‘It’s to do with the mysterious Mr Huang, am I right?’

Mr Huang. How does he know? A shock goes right through me when Richard mentions his name. I give a little nod.

‘Something to do with me needing acupuncture?’ he ventures.

‘No.’

‘Ah. You want me to drink some Chinese herbal concoction then? What is it? Powdered scorpion legs in an ampoule of rice wine?’

‘No! Stop making a joke of it, Richard! This isn’t funny. It’s not in the slightest bit funny. It’s how Mr Huang and his wife managed to get their baby and he swears it will work for us…’ I trail off, because I hate, hate,
hate
the idea and if he catches a whiff of my reluctance that’ll only compound his own. I’ve got to make out like there is nothing I want more in the world than for this to happen.

‘Richard. I really want you to agree.’

‘To what?’

‘To…you making my sister…’ I cannot say her name ‘…pregnant. The natural way.’

Richard takes a step back, frowns. ‘I don’t think I’ve understood you right, Hol.’

‘You have. I want you to sleep with her.’

‘No.’ He shakes his head, decisively, but his eyes are hooded now. ‘I won’t do that. You were right. I find it hard to believe you’re seriously suggesting this, Hollie.’ He sounds hurt, horrified even.

‘It’s the only way.’

‘Then it’s the
wrong
way.’

‘How can that be true?’ I reason now. ‘If it gets us what we want…’

‘But at what cost? You do realise the implications of doing that would be horrendous. It’s wrong.
No.’

‘There needn’t be any implications, Rich. It would just be a one-off act done for the purpose and never mentioned again. We’re all adults, aren’t we?’ I can’t believe I’m saying this. Devil’s advocate, that’s me. Because how will I feel if he turns around at last and agrees with me?

I don’t want to have to ask him to do this. I don’t. But I can’t let go of my dream right now – all the signs are there, that if we just persevere, if we just hang on a little longer, this will all come right.

He winces, turns his face away from me to hide his anger and his disappointment. For the first time I feel the discomfort of someone who has crossed an invisible line.

For a moment we both stare out over the freezing river. It is fast-moving and choppy this morning. It is still barely light and the orange glow from the streetlamps skims and jumps off the surface.

‘You don’t need to worry that this might harm
us
. We’ll last forever, won’t we, Rich? No matter what.’

‘I always thought we would. I loved you the moment I saw you, Hollie. Cheesy though I realise that sounds, it happens to be true. I’ve never wanted any other woman. I’ve never desired anyone else. What you’re asking me to do now goes against every…’

‘Only so we can have a family of our own, Rich! So I can have your baby. It would be a functional thing. A purposeful thing, that’s all.’

‘A purposeful thing.’ Richard turns to take me in now. ‘You think that? You think it would have no knock-on effect between you and your sister, let alone between you and me if I did this? Like some sort of stud, for you?’

I swallow hard.

‘I love you, Hollie. I love you more than anything or anyone else but don’t push it. There is nothing made in this world that can’t be broken, don’t you know that?’

‘That isn’t what you told me before,’ I challenge.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Last month – when you forgot our anniversary – when you came back from Trieste, remember? You told me then that you’d love me forever. And…and you’ve also had to consider taking steps that you never thought you’d take, just to protect the interests of your father’s business, haven’t you?’

‘My
business too,’ he says quietly. ‘And that’s different.’

‘I’m just saying, Rich, sometimes when things are precious to us, we consider doing anything we have to, even things outside of our comfort zone – like you taking your father’s business abroad, for instance. You were prepared to go that extra mile to try and salvage what you could.’

‘My father has worked for forty years to build that business up. It’s been his whole life,’ Rich retorts. ‘Any son would have done the same, tried to help out if his parent’s business was going to the wall…’

‘Except I didn’t see Jay going out there with you, did I?’

Rich frowns. ‘He didn’t need to, Hollie. Because I went.’

‘And because Jay has no interest whatsoever in running the company abroad, right? But you’ll do whatever you have to -whatever it takes – to keep that dream alive for your dad.’ I grab hold of his arm now, trying to persuade him. ‘I want you to do this thing for me, Richard. I want to keep my dream alive too and this is the only way I can think how.’ My dream which is rapidly turning into a nightmare. I put my hand up to brush away the strands of hair that keep whipping across my face and I can barely feel my fingers inside my cold wet gloves any more.

‘Why, Hol?’ My husband grabs hold of both my shoulders now. He leans his head in towards mine until our foreheads
touch. ‘I know that you’ve dreamed of this baby ever since we were first married. But why do you want it so much? Why so much that…’ his voice breaks ‘…that you’re blinded to anything and everything that may come as a consequence?
Why so much?’

I look at him, dumbfounded for a moment, because the answer is, I really do not know. All I know is that it does matter. It’s as if I began digging for treasure once, a very long time ago, and I’ve spent all these years digging the same hole and I’ve not found my treasure yet. But the conviction that there must be treasure at the bottom has never faded. There’s still a part of me that believes that if I keep on going long enough, I will find what I’m looking for.

‘I don’t think this is healthy. I know how much you want this baby but it’s got to the stage where…’

‘Please…’ I pull his face closer to mine for a moment, whispering desperately in his ear. ‘Don’t say no. Just please don’t say no.’