Don't Let Me Go (13 page)

Charlotte almost gasped with surprise as all her tension vanished. ‘That’s a fantastic idea,’ she gushed. ‘She’ll love it, I know she will. Oh Bob, it’s so lovely of you to think of it. You’ll have to give it to her yourself, of course . . .’

‘Oh now, I don’t know about that,’ he interrupted. ‘We don’t want to frighten her off the poor little beast before she gets a chance to know him – or her. Which do you think? Male or female?’

Already caught up with the idea, Charlotte pondered. ‘I guess we should decide on a breed first,’ she replied. ‘Or maybe we should rescue a mutt. I think that would appeal to her quite a lot, if she thought the puppy wouldn’t have a home without her.’

Bob’s eyes twinkled. ‘I was hoping you’d say something like that,’ he told her, ‘because there’s a dear, gentle dog at the settlement whose puppies are about ready to leave her, and the owner’s saying if he doesn’t find homes for them all he’ll just drown them.’

‘Oh God, no, we can’t let him do that,’ Charlotte protested. ‘I mean, I don’t suppose we can take them all . . . How many are there?’

‘Five, and don’t worry, I’ll rustle up enough takers, but I thought we could keep one for Chloe. The mother’s part-Lab part-springer, I’m told, and the father is probably a neighbour’s Border collie. Last time I saw them the pups were mostly black, apart from one which is a kind of caramel colour. She’s very sweet, not at all manic like the rest, in fact she seemed quite timid, which was what made me think of Chloe.’

‘She sounds perfect,’ Charlotte swooned. ‘Can you take a photo of her when you’re over there and bring it for us to see?’

‘Sure I can. What, you’re thinking we should let Chloe decide for herself? That’s not a bad idea.’

‘No, I think it should be a surprise, from you, it’s just that I’d like to see her myself. How are we going to stop the owner from doing anything drastic between now and the birthday?’

‘Oh, don’t worry. I’m intending to bring them back to town with me later and leave them over at Jessie Green’s kennels until their new owners are ready for them.’

Charlotte couldn’t have felt more excited. ‘Which means I can go and have a peek before we take her home,’ she smiled. Having been desperate for a puppy when she was small, she could hardly believe now that she hadn’t come up with this idea for Chloe herself.

Clearly thrilled with how well his suggestion had gone down, Bob held out a hand to shake, then laughed delightedly when Charlotte got up to give him a hug. ‘You’re a genius,’ she told him, ‘and you really must be the one to give her the dog. She won’t reject it, I promise you, she’s too mad about animals for that, and it could prove exactly what’s needed to help her stop associating you with her father. She’ll associate you with the puppy instead.’

As some of the light faded from Bob’s smile, Charlotte immediately regretted the mention of Chloe’s father. ‘I’m sorry this has been so difficult,’ she said, hardly able to imagine how ghastly it must be to be mistaken for a paedophile.

‘You think I’m thinking about myself?’ he objected. ‘No, no. I’m thinking about her and everything she’s been through. I’d give anything, everything I own, to be able to make it all go away, to erase it completely from her memory so she’d never be affected by it again.’

Moved by his passion, Charlotte said softly, ‘I know you would. I would too, if I could, but all we can do is love her and make her feel as safe as we can – I guess without trying to smother her, which I know I’m guilty of at times.’

‘That’s understandable,’ he assured her. ‘Anyone would do the same in your shoes, so you’ve nothing to chastise yourself for, or to feel guilty about.’

There was such meaning in his final words that Charlotte felt herself colouring, and looked down at her cup. She and Bob had never actually discussed what had happened during the weeks before she’d brought Chloe here. He knew all about it, of course, so he couldn’t be in any doubt that guilt was a constant presence in her mind, but what he actually thought of what she’d done her mother had never told her, nor had Charlotte asked.

‘I know you’re finding it hard to settle,’ he said gently, ‘but it’s going to take time, not only to get used to your new environment, which you’re already doing very well at, but to put the past behind you.’

Charlotte’s eyes came up to his. ‘Do you think it’s ever possible to do that?’ she asked, genuinely wanting to know.

‘What I think,’ he said, wrapping her hand in both of his, ‘is that we find a place for it under all the other rubbish we carry about in our heads and then we leave it there and try never to bring it up again. I know that’s much easier said than done, especially while it’s all still fresh in our minds, but over time you’ll find that things can take on new perspectives and meanings that we’re simply not capable of seeing when we’re in the thick of it all.’

Charlotte’s gaze drifted past the tourists, out across the terrace to the garden as she allowed herself to recall, albeit briefly, the night that had changed her and Chloe’s lives for ever. The panic, the fear, the blood . . . Dear God, the blood! What had happened during those terrifying minutes seemed so disjointed and unreal now that it might have belonged to another lifetime. And yet the stark, unrelenting horror of it remained as clear in her mind as the feel of Chloe’s limbs around her body as she’d run from the house. ‘Do you think what I did was wrong?’ she asked hoarsely.

Waiting for her to look at him again, he said, ‘You did what you had to do at the time. If you hadn’t . . . Well, there’s no point going into that because it’s history and you’re here now and this is where you’re going to stay. Both of you, for as long as you want to, or perhaps I should say for as long as you can put up with us.’

The wryness of his tone made Charlotte smile, but she felt sure he was referring to how impatient, even difficult she could sometimes be with her mother. Never with him, of course, but she didn’t have the same kind of issues with him. ‘I don’t ever want you to think that I’m not grateful for . . .’ Her voice faded as he raised a hand.

‘I don’t need your gratitude,’ he told her frankly. ‘I’m doing it for Anna, because I love her, and for you and Chloe, because you’re members of my family who I happen to be growing to love too. However, I don’t mind admitting that it saddens me to see how hard you’re finding it to be with your mother. She won’t thank me for telling you this, but I’m going to anyway; she’s been very hurt by some of the things you’ve said, and she’s constantly struggling to find a way to reach you. It would please me a lot, Charlotte, if you tried to help her to do that, instead of always rebuffing her.’

Embarrassed by the reprimand, but in a way glad of it too, Charlotte said, ‘I hope you understand that I don’t mean to hurt her, it’s just that . . . well, the words seem to come out of their own accord and sometimes it’s like I want to hug her, but then I end up saying things that just push her away.’

He smiled, as though appreciating her honesty. ‘Can I tell you what I think?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘Please do.’

‘What I think is that you’re afraid to trust her, which isn’t surprising given your history. That’s not to say you don’t want to, because I’m sure you do, but something inside just won’t let you. There are those who’d say – Shelley would be one – that it’s the small child inside you that’s taking control. What I’ll say is that Anna was your mother for the first three years of your life, always there, loving you, caring for you, being the centre of your world, but then she left you and though you know and understand why she did it, you’re afraid now that she’s going to let you down again.’

Though Charlotte didn’t deny it, she wasn’t sure that was the extent of it either. In fact she knew it wasn’t. ‘Would it shock you,’ she said, ‘if I told you I want to keep punishing her?’ Embarrassed by the admission, she gave a scornful laugh. ‘Listen to me. I’m a grown woman, with a child of my own, and a degree that should help me understand the workings of my own mind. You’d think by now I’d be over what happened all those years ago, but clearly something in me isn’t, because even sitting here talking to you like this, I feel so angry with her, so wretched, so resentful even. I find myself thinking of all the time she’s spent with you and your children . . . I didn’t even realise that was an issue until the other day. It just came out of me. I even accused her of using Rick and Shelley to replace me and Hugo. Did she tell you that?’

He nodded silently, still holding her gaze.

‘It’s not as if I don’t care for Rick and Shelley because I do, a lot,’ she continued. ‘I want to be a part of your family, more than anything, and most of the time I can feel it happening. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, all these horrible, negative feelings come over me and I just want to lash out . . .’

‘And who better to lash out at than your mother?’

Charlotte looked at him helplessly.

‘We’ve all done it,’ he told her, ‘and not many of us are proud of it after. Luckily, because they’re our mothers they generally forgive us, and believe me, Anna’s no different. She’ll forgive you anything, but that’s not really the point here, is it? What we have to do is persuade you, or that small person inside you, to forgive her for the past, and you know there’s only one way of achieving that.’

With a groan Charlotte said, ‘Counselling. Of course, but you have to understand why it’s not a good idea, at least not yet.’

‘I do, but I’d like you to think about it some more before you rule it out completely, for both your sakes. Anna’s not going to be able to forgive herself until you lead the way, and frankly, she’s suffered enough for a crime that wasn’t hers. You both have. OK, I know you’re going to say she could have come to find you long before she did, but as far as she knew you were happy with your adoptive parents. She didn’t want to do anything to spoil that, and I daresay a part of her was afraid that if she tried to find a place in your life you’d reject her. You were with good people who’d provided you with a home and protected you at no small risk to themselves, given that the man who’d massacred your family, your mother’s first husband, was still on the loose. As you know, he remained on the loose for many years and so remained a threat to you until he was finally shot and killed in Africa by men of his own type. When we received that news it was one of the most joyous and yet difficult days for Anna. His death freed her to come and find you, there were no obstacles now, but what if you didn’t want her? She wasn’t even sure if you knew about her. She had no idea what the rector and his wife had told you, and if you didn’t know about Gavril Albescu and what he’d done to your real family, would it be fair to tell you?

‘Believe me, she’d always agonised over these questions, but once he’d gone the agony got strangely worse. She truly didn’t know what to do for the best, yet she couldn’t do nothing, which was why, in the end, she contacted the old lady, her father’s stepsister . . .’

‘Helen,’ Charlotte provided.

He nodded. ‘Your mother had no idea if your great-aunt was in touch with you, at that point her call was no more than a first step towards finding out anything she could, whatever it might be. When she heard that you’d once written to the old lady asking if she had any news of her . . .’ He broke into a smile. ‘I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anyone sob so hard with joy, and hope, and I guess still quite a lot of trepidation. But the important thing was you did know about her, and had even asked your great-aunt to let you know if she was ever in touch.’

Tilting his silvery head to one side, he looked intently into her eyes. ‘I’m telling you all this to try and help you understand that you were never forgotten, and certainly never unwanted. Nor abandoned, at least not in her heart. At the time of the massacre she was too badly injured to be able to protect you herself, and by the time she was released from hospital almost a year had gone by. You, of all people, know how a small child can develop in that time, forming new attachments and even accepting a new name, which by then you had.’

Charlotte’s eyes went down as she thought of Chloe and how different she was now to the little girl of a few months ago.

‘You called yourself,
thought
of yourself as Alex,’ he told her. ‘You had an older sister who you’d become very attached to, and you were being taken care of by a woman you called Mummy.’

Almost flinching as she thought of how hard that must have been for her mother, Charlotte looked away.

‘In spite of everything,’ he continued, ‘your mother would never have left you there if it hadn’t been for Gavril Albescu’s threats. The trouble was, he’d shown her in the most brutal of ways what he was capable of doing and she couldn’t take the risk of him striking again, particularly as you were his main target.’

Charlotte’s eyes returned briefly to his before she looked down at her hands again.

‘You know all this, of course,’ he said. ‘You’ve been over it with your mother several times, and no doubt many more times in your own mind. And now, here we are, discussing it again. There’s no harm in that, in fact it’s a good thing, because contrary to what I said just now about burying the past, this is something that needs to come out, be understood and accepted so that you can put it back again and move on. What happened to Chloe is completely different. Nothing good could ever come of her seeing her father again, or of being made to relive what he put her through. Later, perhaps, she will need help, indeed we can be sure of it, but not right now. Now is about you and your mother and how you can properly find your way back to each other, so that you can feel able to trust her again, and she can believe that she is truly forgiven.’

Taking a deep breath, Charlotte sat back in her chair and blew it out slowly. In spite of having expected something like this when she came here today, she apparently hadn’t been at all prepared for it. In fact, she felt so shaken that she had no idea what to say now, apart from offering a promise to try harder.

‘And here she is, right on cue,’ he smiled as his mobile vibrated. ‘Your mother, but I’ll let it go to messages.’

‘You don’t have to,’ she told him.