Like One of the Family (59 page)

Jane agreed. At the clinic, she had seen women who had been raped, or battered by their partners, and knew only too well that Sheena was exhibiting the classic symptoms of listlessness and depression, as well as a general feeling of worthlessness.

While she was willing to try anything that might help Sheena to recover from her ordeal, she was firmly of the opinion that Sheena would not even begin to get better until she was back home again. Jane had telephoned one of the top women psychiatrists specialising in treating rape survivors. ‘Get her home and into therapy as soon as you can,' she advised.

In the meantime Jane decided to do as Antonio suggested, although she did not for a minute think that Sheena would be willing to go along with the idea. When she tentatively broached the subject, she found to her relief and surprise that her daughter actually seemed to welcome the chance to confront her attacker.

‘Please let me go, Mummy,' Sheena pleaded. ‘I'm not afraid.'

‘Are you quite sure, darling?' Jane looked anxiously into her eyes.

‘Yes,' Sheena said, meeting her gaze steadily. ‘I'm quite sure.'

On the appointed day Jane and Antonio drove to the hospital to pick up Sheena. So early in the morning there was only the hospital porter in the foyer and a maid with her hair in a kerchief was washing out the front step. After a quick glance at Antonio and Jane, the porter waved them on and went back to his newspaper.

When Jane popped her head round the door of Sheena's room, she found her daughter sitting in a chair, already dressed and ready for the journey. Nurse Lewis, who was at the hand-basin arranging Sheena's washcloth and soap, greeted Jane warmly.

‘All set, darling?' Jane hugged her daughter. ‘Sure you still want to go ahead with it?'

Sheena nodded. ‘Quite sure, Mummy. Please don't fuss.' She was subdued but determined.

Jane said no more.

Sheena was quiet and withdrawn on the journey and sat slumped in the back of the Mercedes
.
Whenever Jane anxiously turned round to speak to her, she had to call her daughter to attention before she answered. Antonio gave all his concentration to his driving, and after a time, Jane relapsed into silence herself.

The nearer they got to Marbella the more nervous Jane became. All too soon it seemed they were parking in the hospital grounds.

Jane leaned into the back and patted Sheena's knee. ‘This is it, darling.' She got out of the car and waited while Antonio went round to open the rear door. He extended his hand to Sheena.

‘Valentía,'
he murmured. After a moment, Sheena accepted his hand and climbed out.

She stood looking about her in a slightly dazed fashion then, with a grim set to her jaw, walked quickly ahead of them as if anxious to get the whole thing over.

A doctor, accompanied by two police officials and a hospital orderly, brought them to the room where Miguel lay.

When Sheena hung back at the door, Jane glanced at her pale face and moved nearer. After a moment Sheena gathered herself together and, straightening her shoulders, stepped into the room. With an anxious look at Antonio, Jane followed.

Miguel lay encased from neck to toe in a plaster cast, seeming already to have passed into a kind of limbo between life and death. As Sheena stepped close to the bed his lids lifted and recognition flared in the pale eyes before the eyelids dropped over them again. At the sight of those flat eyes regarding her, Sheena took an involuntary step backwards. She recovered herself and said in a clear, hard voice, ‘This is the man who abducted me.'

Within seconds they were walking out of the room and back down the corridor. When they were almost at the hospital entrance Sheena suddenly sagged. Jane swiftly reached out her arms to hold her daughter close and saw that she was weeping, her face contorted in silent agony.

There was less than a week left before Terry flew back to join his squadron. The situation between them was much as it had been since he rejoined them in the apartment. Terry spent most of the day in the town with his new friends and came back late at night when they were all in bed. Fernando still called to the apartment each day to bring Claire to visit Sheena at the hospital but had so far exercised great restraint on the subject of their marriage. He was usually quiet on these journeys and had fallen into the habit of sighing a lot.

Having made the supreme effort and confronted her attacker, Sheena seemed to relapse into herself. True, for a day or two after the trip to Marbella there was a slight improvement in her spirits, so her therapist told Jane. However, following on that she had begun to have nightmares again and spoke of voices continually exhorting her to harm herself. Jane was more than ever convinced that she must get Sheena home without delay. When Claire worriedly reported this to Fernando on their way to the hospital next day, he nodded soberly.

‘I am very sorry to hear it,' he said, and fell back to sighing again. They drove the rest of the way in silence.

‘I will call back for you in one hour,' Fernando told her mournfully at the hospital entrance.

‘You don't have to,' Claire protested. ‘Really! I can walk.'

‘I will be here,' Fernando said bleakly, and only gave her the briefest of nods when she waved and turned away. How serious he has become, she thought, becoming serious herself in turn. Today she had intended breaking the news to Sheena that she would not be going back home with her. Now she wondered if this was wise. Claire sighed and bit her lip, wishing she knew what to do.

Sheena was stretched out in a secluded part of the hospital garden and she sat up as Claire crossed the grass. She was dressed in shorts and bikini top and her skin was turning brown from hours of sunning, surely a hopeful sign that she was on the mend. Claire wished she could believe it.

‘I've been longing for you to come,' Sheena confessed, slipping her arm through Claire's. Together, they strolled in the shade of the bougainvillaea tree.

As she listened to her friend's feverish chatter Claire was glad to see that Sheena could at least speak again.

‘It will be good to get away from Spain,' Sheena sighed. ‘I never thought I'd be glad to leave the sun, but now I feel as though I can't get home quick enough.' She did not mention all the tests she had been given, but Claire knew about them from Jane. They would have the results of most of them in another few days, Jane had said, but it would be at least six months before they would know the result of her AIDs test. Hopefully then Sheena would get the all clear.

‘What about you, Claire?' Sheena said when Claire was silent. ‘Will you be sorry to leave Spain?'

‘Sheena, let's sit down a minute,' Claire suggested, leading the way to the stone bench. Then she said in a rush, ‘Actually, I'm not going back to college. I've decided to stay on in Spain.'

Sheena stared and for the first time a spark of animation showed in her gaze. ‘But why, Claire? What will you do?'

‘Jane has agreed to let me stay at the apartment,' Claire told her. ‘I'm going to try for a year's leave of absence from college.' She shrugged. ‘If I don't get it... well, I'm staying anyway.'

‘But you're brilliant at your work,' Sheena protested. ‘What a terrible waste of your year at college.' She paused and said doubtfully, ‘Though if you really hate it I suppose there's no point in staying on.'

Hate it! One of the saddest aspects of her pregnancy was the interruption of her studies.

‘It doesn't have to be a wasted year,' she said, hating the need for secrecy, but how could she confide in one twin and not the other. ‘I'll learn Spanish. I can always take it as another subject for my BA.'

Sheena said wistfully. ‘You make me feel such a failure.'

Claire shook her head, distressed. ‘Don't say that. I'm just a slogger, Sheena If you had put even a tenth of the effort into schoolwork that you put into your painting you would have passed me out years ago.'

‘I never had the slightest interest in studying,' Sheena admitted. ‘Remember how I was always copying your homework.' She gave the ghost of a giggle. ‘You used look so anguished... too nice to tell me to feck off.'

Claire felt surprise that she had been so transparent.

‘Have you thought how you'll live?'

‘Waitressing, giving English lessons. I don't know. I haven't really worked it out. I only know I'm not going back.' She was surprised at how determined she felt.

Sheena digested this for a moment. ‘What will your mother say?'

Annette wouldn't care, Claire thought. She would be just as glad to be saved the trouble and expense. Despite the three letters and two postcards she had sent her mother, she had received only one communication from her in all the time she was in Spain. Claire had been amazed at the tone of her letter full of acrimony and self-pity and vilifying Jane for asking Teresa Murray instead of herself to accompany them to Spain. As regards her father Claire felt great regret. He would be disappointed and might even raise objections to her opting out of college.

‘Fernando must be thrilled.' Sheena's face clouded. ‘Once I thought maybe Alejandro and I...' She swallowed and made an effort to smile. ‘You and Fernando,' she said. ‘Wow! I suppose I knew all along. It's obvious he's crazy about you.'

Claire got up to go, both relieved and saddened that Sheena thought Fernando was the reason she was staying on in Spain.

That same afternoon Terry swam out to sea in a hard overarm crawl. The cold green water was refreshing and the exercise welcome after weeks of inactivity. By the time he swam back to the shore and touched bottom, every muscle ached and the newly healed wound in his neck was throbbing.

He limped up the beach and rubbed himself dry, then zipped on his shorts and climbed the steps to the road. He went into a cafe overlooking the sea and ordered coffee and a ham roll. Terry stood at the counter enjoying the snack then reached in the pocket of his shorts for a coin. He paid the barman and set off briskly to the hospital.

Every afternoon Terry visited Sheena for an hour or two, striving to make the most of his last few days in Spain, and sometimes again in the evening. He felt very protective towards Sheena and was just as worried as his mother about her hearing voices. There had been a guy from his unit who went off his head that way. Terry wondered if his twin would talk about it to him, but so far she had never said a word and he felt reluctant to be the one to bring it up. But again like Jane, he was prepared to do anything that might help her. For the first time ever though, he and Sheena had begun to speak of their childhood and, with this openness between them, were discovering a new delight in each other. Only once did they touch on the family tragedy that had shadowed all their lives, and from the little Sheena revealed about that troubled time, it was clear she was in ignorance of the true state of affairs. When she sighed and said, ‘Wasn't Daddy wonderful? If only he hadn't died,' Terry had not disillusioned her. Let her keep her unsullied memories, he thought.

He strolled through the hospital garden and was glad to find Sheena stretched in the sun. ‘You'll soon be the colour of mahogany,' he joked, bending to kiss her. Although never physically demonstrative towards his twin, of late, Terry was making a big effort to be affectionate. She was so touchingly vulnerable since her ordeal that he felt she couldn't get enough reassurance that she was loved.

Sheena acknowledged his remark with an unhappy smile. Her tan was another of the things she had lost pleasure and confidence in. She was reminded too much of her sexual fling with Alejandro, which had led on to the horrors with Miguel. Now she loved the sun only for the total relaxation she experienced when exposed to its healing rays.

‘You've just missed Claire,' she said, changing the subject. ‘She was here until a few minutes ago. Fernando was picking her up.'

‘Oh yeah.' Terry affected indifference. Sheena often wondered what had gone wrong between her twin and Claire. They had seemed so mad about each other.

‘Did she tell you that she's not going back home?' Sheena could not hide her amazement. ‘She's opting out of college and staying on in Spain. Fancy! Brainy old Claire. Who would ever have imagined it?'

Terry frowned. ‘Claire never tells me anything,' he said gruffly. ‘She hardly speaks to me anymore.'

Sheena gazed at him. ‘Do you still care for her?' she asked curiously.

Terry stood up abruptly and walked a little way up the path, without answering. He was stunned by what his twin had told him. Claire staying on in Spain! It seemed to confirm all his fears that she had fallen for the Spaniard.

When Claire had come hurrying out of the hospital she had almost bumped into Terry. She had seen him coming in the distance, striding towards her on the opposite side of the street, and quickly climbed into the car beside Fernando.

Fernando was silent on the drive back to the apartment, but Claire guessed what was on his mind. As soon as he had parked the car and switched off the ignition, he laid his hand on her arm and said with quiet intensity.

‘
El amor de mi vida
, I can wait no longer. You must give me your answer now.'

Claire looked shyly down at Fernando's strong wrist and finely tapered fingers. Now that the time had come she felt breathless and confused and not at all immune to the magnificence of the man.

‘You must know that I'm very fond of you,' she began. ‘You have been kind beyond anything I ever expected. I honestly believe if we married you would do everything to make me happy, and it's much more than I deserve.'

She saw his face lighten at her words and felt happy for him because in that instant she had decided to marry him. All too clearly Claire saw that she and Terry had lost their chance of happiness. Even if she were capable of it there was no way Terry could ever put the past behind them. He had clearly demonstrated that what had happened with Eddie would always overshadow their lives. But with Fernando she could begin again. He would love her unconditionally and provide for her child. Claire gave a shaky laugh, overcome by the ease of it.