A Sister’s Gift (36 page)

‘Now she’s pregnant. There’s a real baby involved. It’s still got to be about the baby, hasn’t it, Hol? Now you go back out there after her and get our baby back.’

‘No!’ I flare at him. I can’t. I won’t. I don’t want her near me. I don’t want her around me, ever again. ‘She betrayed me, Richard. That’s the worst thing she could possibly have done.’

‘So you keep saying. You could still have our baby, though.’

‘Could I?’ I yell, and then, lowering my voice for his ears only, ‘Do you know she even hinted she’d abort the child?’ I see him
shudder. ‘She said it, Rich. The day after she came back from Lucy Lundy’s party.’ I recall her words now, spoken at a time when I’d had no idea what she’d really meant by them. ‘She must have known already that she was expecting. She said, she didn’t know if she was up for it, if it became a reality, if she could really go through with it…’I choke.’ I should never have trusted her, Rich. You said it yourself, she’s like a weathercock, always changing and swinging round to another point of view depending on what suits at the moment. I wish I’d never trusted her…’ Even that doolally Duncan guy, he was right about her all along, I realise suddenly. He knew her better than I did, my own sister. He warned me that she’d use me and then change her mind as it pleased her and I ignored him, but God knows he was so right…

‘She has done you wrong, I know. But don’t forget what we’ve sacrificed to get this far.’

I stare at my husband now, perplexed, because he doesn’t seem to understand there can be no going back from this, there is nothing to retrieve, not even my baby.

‘I have sacrificed my marriage vows,’ he reminds me. ‘I sacrificed the peace and the love that was between us. And yes -seeing as you seem so determined to know how I’m really feeling about all this – I miss her too. Not the way I miss you. I miss the gentle and innocent relationship I used to have with my sister-in-law. That’s gone now. I accept that. I accepted it the day I agreed to go along with your plans even against my better judgement. So you don’t need to worry that I’m hankering after Scarlett. I’m not. I never was. This mess we all find ourselves in now, it was always for you, it was always because I loved you that I went along with it, don’t you see? For your baby. Are you prepared to have made the sacrifice for nothing?’

I shake my head even though deep inside there is some growing urge that wants to say ‘Yes, OK, I will do it.’ I will swallow my pride as he says, I will trust his judgement on this.

‘I want to,’ I shake my head again, slowly. ‘But this is all so much bigger than that.’

I see his body language change. He drops my wrist and sits back, his arms folded across his chest now, and observes me through half-closed lids.

‘I have always thought it must be, Hol. Why else would you have been prepared to go so far, to risk so much? It had to be
her
, didn’t it? There’s been a reason all along why you wanted her to be your surrogate and no one else…’

‘I never wanted to blame her.’ I look at him, desperately.

‘Blame her for
what
, darling?’ He takes my wrist again, stroking it gently.

For everything,
for everything
, I think. And yet – was it really all her fault that I lost my chance of ever having my own baby? Because none of it would ever have happened if only I had learned how to swim.

‘Richard, I’ll go back and look for her, even though I don’t want to. There are some things I’ve never told you,’ I confess. ‘But…this isn’t the best time to go into any of that because, like you say, once she’s gone we’ll never get hold of her again.’ I swallow down my feelings about what she’s done and stand up unsteadily while Rich settles the bill, wondering how soon we can get back to the cottage, wondering how I am going to cope with seeing him and her together now that I know all those things I was never meant to know…

But when we get back, before we even open the bottom gate, I know, I can tell from the sorrowful noise that Ruffles is making, that she’s gone. Her clothes are all still there, her toiletries, her jacket, all her things, everything except her shoes and her handbag but I know, deep in the surest part of me, that she’s already gone and this time my sister won’t be coming back.

I tighten my hold on my canvas handbag as a group of young South Americans surge past and through the airport doors, jostling me. Crap. One of them bumped into my bag on purpose there. I’m sure he did. I frown at his retreating back. Did he take anything?

I’ve got to calm down. I’ve got all my money and papers and stuff here in my bag in front of me, where I can see it. Everything at Caracas International seems so frenetic today. It feels so much busier than I remember it. All the hustle and bustle that seemed so exciting the first time I got here – it just feels like too much today. I must be tired, that’s why. I’m worn out. I didn’t get much sleep on the flight over. There was a woman with her toddler who cried the entire time, I remember. Its high-pitched whine sawed into my nerves like an electric drill; I wondered why she didn’t throttle it.

Then I looked at the woman and saw her dark hair falling forward over her face that was full of love and concern and she reminded me so much of Hollie I wanted to cry.

I take a sip of water from my plastic bottle and immediately the unbearable pressure on my bladder reminds me that I need to visit the bathroom again. I’m turning into an incontinent old woman, I swear, and all for what?

I didn’t want things to turn out this way. I’d do anything to take those words back. He’s hers, just like he was always meant
to be and the funny thing is…I don’t even think I’m in love with him any more. I can’t explain it, but it’s as if the scales have dropped from my eyes. Like I was living some kind of illusion, only imagining that I wanted and desired him when all along I didn’t. Because now I’m away from Florence Cottage and the spell that place always casts over me, I can see I don’t really miss Rich. Not in that way.

I’ve never understood Hollie, not really. Maybe that’s the problem. I’ve never felt that she understood me either.

I rummage inside my canvas bag again to check everything’s still there – my money, my passport, my camera, my printout of the email from Eve that I received the day I left England. My fingers close over it, protectively. I already know what it says off by heart.

The news that Eve wasn’t upset about me coming back to Brazil unexpectedly pregnant has come as a huge relief. It’ll cast a whole different light, she says – but she doesn’t imply that it’ll make things impossible. We can work around it, maybe? I was worried she might say it would be a complete no-go. Because of the nature of the job, the dangers involved. I didn’t think about it when I was in England but ever since I knew I was returning, the possibility of that has been on my mind.

But to hear that I’ve been shortlisted for the Klausmann Award after all that’s happened is nothing short of a bolt out of the blue.

I’m thirsty again. Despite the fact that it’ll mean another trip
to the loo, I’ve got to have a drink. The water in this bottle is warm already. Well, it would be. I’ve been standing out here for over an hour already. Eve’s late, she said she’d pick me up. Did she get the time wrong? I haven’t been able to call anyone. My mobile is still searching for a connection.

Eve’s been fantastic though, I remind myself. Without her, at this moment I really don’t know what I’d be doing. She’s rallied round me and I mustn’t complain.

‘Get yourself on the next flight out of here,’ she said the minute I told her about my dilemma. That is, I told her about the pregnancy. I told her that Hollie had chucked me out. It didn’t seem appropriate to go into any more detail than that. ‘That’s…that’s wonderful news! And don’t you worry about a thing,’ she’d reassured me. ‘We’ll get it sorted.’ I’d been so
relieved
. Just knowing that I still had people who were prepared to stand by me meant the world just at that moment, more than she’ll ever know.

Still, won’t be long now. Things are working out, that’s what matters. Eve has even sorted out the problem with the mysterious ‘allegations’, I know that much. She’d heard about them, she told me. But she doesn’t seem worried in the slightest. ‘You leave it all to me,’ she’d said, when I rang her last week. ‘I’ll speak to Gillian Defoe and let’s see if I can’t persuade her that this is all a storm in a teacup.’

After all that time I spent worrying about it all, too! I should have just gotten in touch with Eve in the first place and explained it all. She’s a miracle worker, Eve. There’s nothing she can’t do.

‘Ha-
lloooo
!’

I turn, hearing her voice at last.

‘Oh my goodness!’ I’m dragged into an eau-de-cologne-drenched embrace. ‘No baby bump, yet?’ She pats my tummy fondly and looks me up and down as if I were a brood mare.

‘Not yet.’ She can’t imagine I’m actually pleased about this, can she? ‘It’s so good to be back,’ I breathe. ‘I’ve missed South America more than I ever missed England, that’s for sure.
And there’s been so much going on here while I’ve been away…’ I watch her snatch up my luggage as if it held nothing more than tissue paper and manoeuvre both it and me towards the taxi stand.

‘It was really kind of you to come out to fetch me, Eve,’ I begin.

‘Coach isn’t till two p.m., lovey, so we’ve time for a drink and freshen-up first.
Of course
I came out to get you. I could hardly let you make the trek out to us all by yourself, could I? Especially now you’re carrying your little bundle of joy.’

‘I never had you down as someone who’d go dotty about kids,’ I smile.

‘Oh, not generally,’ she assures me. ‘But this kid is somewhat different, you’ll agree?’

Because it’s mine? I smile at her, fondly. That’s the best thing about having great friends. They love everything you do and everything about you, just because you’re you. She’s probably thinking I’ll ask her to be godmother or something. Bugger it. Perhaps I should have explained a bit more over the phone?

‘So – how’s the new boss?’ I venture once we’re ensconced in the taxi. Eve knows a little place ten minutes’ drive away from here where the atmosphere will be quieter and calmer and she promises they’ll have something I can eat.

‘Ah.’ Eve pulls a face that leaves very little to my imagination. ‘Let’s just say she’s more of a tough cookie than I first took her to be. She’s made a lot more fuss over protocols and procedures than anyone I’ve known before. She’s a penpusher, frankly. I don’t believe she has a clue what she’s doing. But she wields a lot of power over our little outfit so at the moment we have to kowtow.’

‘I spoke to her,’ I remember now. ‘She rang me up a few weeks back. She told me not to come back till I could be certain that the job was secure and that she was looking into the allegations against me. Eve, what the hell was all that about, anyway?
Who’d put in a complaint?’ I turn to look at my friend and colleague and she sobers up a bit.

‘Oh yes,’ she frowns slightly. ‘Gillian Defoe looked into that. Apparently there were some allegations of cheating put in against you by a fellow called Duncan…’ She searches for his second name and I feel myself tense. I already know full well who he is. ‘…Bright,’ she finishes. ‘Duncan Bright. But he never provided any proof. He emailed Gillian recently to say that someone else – close to you, but unnamed – would be providing the evidence to support his allegation, as he hadn’t been directly involved himself. That’s all I know.’

So it’s not finished yet. Maybe he wasn’t just making idle threats to Lucy when he said he’d get his own back on me, after all…

But only Duncan and I ever knew about our plan to help me cheat and I pulled out of it before we ever went through with it. I asked Hol to send off
my
thesis. Not the one Duncan and I cooked up.

I freeze, a horrid thought immobilising me for a moment. She didn’t send off Duncan’s by mistake, did she? If she did, that could come back to haunt me. Then an even worse thought occurs; the two of them couldn’t be colluding with each other to get their revenge on me? They’d both have reason to. I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand, recalling that day he turned up at Florence Cottage and Hollie had to get rid of him. She’d been really weird after he left, I remember now. They couldn’t have been plotting to…?

No, no…I rack my brains but the answer, like a guardian angel to the rescue, is at hand – she handed me Duncan’s thesis back. I binned it. So she must have sent off
my
one. Besides, when Duncan came to the cottage, she didn’t know at that point that I’d betrayed her. It’s all such a tangle. I cheated on Hollie, yes, but I never did cheat with the thesis…

‘Don’t look so put out, m’dear. It’ll all be sorted, I’m sure.
You’re in the ascendant at the moment anyway – the Klausmann, remember?’

‘I know,’ I breathe. Eve is right. It isn’t like me to get so het up. I’ll sail through it like I always do. ‘It’s amazing. I feel very chuffed about that. You know, when I first applied for this job, I’ll be open with you, I didn’t think I stood the first chance of getting it – not on the basis of the thesis I’d submitted.’

‘Didn’t you?’ Eve smiles. ‘You’re too modest. It was judged to be an exceptional and original piece of work by the PlanetLove board, backed up by my testimony of your abilities and work here of course. Anyway, as for those mysterious “allegations,” Gillian is sure to pursue the matter till the bitter end.’ I flinch, but Eve continues brightly, ‘That’s good, don’t you see? Once you’re vindicated it will never be brought up again.’

‘I guess,’ I sigh half-heartedly.

‘Between you and me, she’s got one of her own people up for the award, and having your piece out of the running would have made things easier for them, no doubt,’ she mutters darkly. ‘D’you know, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if she cooked the whole thing up herself.’