No Child of Mine (42 page)

Her heart was pounding, her mind reeling so chaotically that she was finding it impossible to think straight.

Who was her mother now, where was she, what news did her aunt have? If it was good ... Alex almost took a step back as though to avoid the hope. What would good news be? That her mother wanted to meet? She could hardly begin to imagine where, how, when that might happen, or what might come of it. What did her mother look like now, what sort of person was she? The only pictures Alex had seen she’d found online, taken before the tragedy when Angela Nicholls was still in her twenties. She would be fifty now.
Her mother, the young girl in the pictures with shiny blonde hair and bright, laughing eyes – eyes that had had no way of seeing the future – was fifty
. Was she still Angela Nicholls? Almost certainly not, or the rector would have been able to find her.

She must have another family, a husband, children, grandchildren even.

Did they know about the child who’d been given up for adoption? The little girl who’d grown up apart from her mother, deprived of the family that should have been hers?

Her great-aunt’s news might be bad. Perhaps she had somehow learned that her mother was in trouble, sick, even dead. Millie had planted the idea, and now it was seeming to take root again. What was she going to do if her mother had died? She couldn’t grieve for someone she didn’t know, and yet if it was what her aunt wanted to tell her, she knew already she was going to be devastated. Her mother had never been real, but the dream of her, the hope of something bringing them together one day had never gone away, in spite of how hard she’d tried to banish it.

And now it was back and coming at her so forcefully, so hungrily that it might engulf her.

She turned to look at the phone. Would she be able to handle her mother’s death on top of everything else she seemed to be losing? The answer was, she wouldn’t know until she faced it, and it might not be that,
so just call, Alex, just pick up the phone and find out
.

After dialling the number again she allowed it to connect, and started to feel a little queasy as the same slightly stern, but thready voice that she’d heard on the machine said, ‘Hello?’

‘Hello, it’s Alex Lake here,’ Alex told her, hoping she sounded friendly and not defensive. ‘I’ve just picked up your message.’

‘Aha. I was beginning to wonder if something had happened to you,’ came the reply.

‘No, I’m fine, just ... I’m out quite a lot. You said you had news ...’

‘Yes, and I hope it’s going to be welcome. I know it would have been once, but times change, so do people.’

Please just tell me
, Alex was silently urging, while at the same time dreading going any further.

‘Your mother’s been in touch with me ...’

Alex lost her breath, to a sob. So she wasn’t dead, and until this moment she’d had no idea how much those words might mean to her. Their impact was so huge, so shattering that she barely heard what her great-aunt said next.

‘She would have rung you herself,’ Helen Drake was saying, ‘but she thought ... She felt it would be easier for you if you had some time to think about whether or not you wanted to hear from her. So she’s asked me to act as the go-between.’

‘Where ... Where is she?’ Alex heard herself asking.

‘I’m afraid she didn’t tell me and I didn’t think ... Silly of me, but this is the first I’ve heard of her myself in almost thirty years, so I was quite taken aback.’

Easily able to believe that, Alex said, ‘Is she ... Is she all right?’

Sounding surprised, Helen Drake replied, ‘I imagine so. She sounded it. I’m afraid I can’t remember if I asked.’

Alex was trying to think what to say next. There was so much going round in her mind, questions, images, fears, hopes, that she couldn’t seem to pluck any words from the chaos. ‘When will you speak to her again?’ she finally managed.

‘Well, I expect it’ll be soon, because she sounded quite keen to know if you’ll see her.’

Her mother wanted to make contact, to see her, even. Not only that, she was giving her the option to say no if she wanted to
. Alex wasn’t going to do that, no matter what the consequences might be. ‘Maybe I could call her,’ she said. ‘Do you have a number?’

Helen Drake made a tutting sound. ‘I know I’ve written it down somewhere, but I can’t seem to find it. I’m sure she’ll ring again though. If she does, am I to tell her that you’d like to hear from her?’

‘Yes, yes please,’ Alex replied, hoping, praying that Helen Drake’s loss of the number wouldn’t lead her mother to think she didn’t want to see her. ‘If you find it before she rings will you call me back?’

‘Of course. I’m sure it’s here somewhere – unless I wrote it on an envelope that found its way into the bin.’

Imagining the old lady’s house full of clutter and randomly jotted numbers with no names attached, Alex felt her heart sinking. ‘Thanks for ringing,’ she said bleakly, ‘and if you do speak to her again will you tell her ...’ Tell her what? She didn’t know what she wanted to say, so she simply added, ‘I guess ... I hope I’ll get the chance to tell her myself.’

Chapter Seventeen

THE FOLLOWING MORNING
, unable to let Millie leave without saying goodbye to her, Alex changed the message on her answering machine to include her mobile number, just in case her great-aunt, or her mother rang, and drove off to the care home. She was so preoccupied by the possibility of receiving a call and how wonderful it might be if she did connect with her mother, that she hadn’t yet allowed the dread of not hearing anything to exert its grip.

During the night she’d been riddled with vivid, nonsensical dreams about people she didn’t know and places she’d never been. Some of them were alarming, waking her with a start, but whatever her subconscious had conjured managed to dart away before she could grasp it. At one point she’d seen the woman with a child under her arm dashing down a staircase in panic, but if it was a hidden memory rising to the surface she couldn’t connect it to reality or to anything she’d been told. Her mother hadn’t returned for her after the killings, she knew that, so maybe it was a flashback to something that had happened before that time. Perhaps it had nothing to do with her mother at all.

She could hardly believe that she might soon find out.

Her mother wanted to be in touch
.

Please, Helen Drake, find that number
.

The worst of her dreams had been of Ottilie screaming and sobbing as she was violated in the worst imaginable way. She’d had similar nightmares about other children in her care and woken up in a state, wanting to run to them right away. Last night the dreams had felt so disturbingly, horrifyingly real that she’d been too afraid to try and go
back to sleep in case they returned, so she’d lain awake, tossing and turning, until it was time to get up.

Now, having finally managed to push those dreadful images from her mind, she was so full of questions for herself, and her mother, that one had barely formed before another was taking its place. She’d get to ask them all, she felt sure of it, because God, fate, the Universe, wouldn’t be so cruel as to let nothing come of this, it just wouldn’t. She was going to see her mother, talk to her, find out who she was now, and maybe even become a part of her life.
She might actually have a family of her own
. Though she knew she could be setting herself up for the most crushing of falls, what else was she to do? Think the worst? No, she wasn’t going to allow herself to do that. Something had to go right for her at last, and she had to believe it would be this if only because right now there seemed little else to hope for.

On arriving at Millie’s care home, she was just pulling into a parking space when her mobile rang, and almost gasping at the giant leap in her heart she clicked on her Bluetooth with a tentative ‘Hello?’

‘Hey, it’s me,’ Gabby cried. ‘Are you OK? I thought you’d have rung me back by now. Did you get my message last night, about the house?’

Swallowing a mix of guilt, disappointment and relief, Alex said, ‘Yes, I did, but something happened ... I had a call ... Oh God, Gabby, you’re not going to believe this, but you remember my Great-aunt Helen who lives in Wales?’

Sounding baffled, Gabby said, ‘Sort of. I mean, we never met her, did we? Why? Is she dead, or something? Is that why you didn’t ring?’

‘No, she’s not dead, she’s very much alive and apparently – wait for this – she’s only heard from my mother and
my mother wants to be in touch with me
. Isn’t that fantastic? I can hardly get my head around it, coming out of the blue like this. Remember how we used to make up stories about who and where she might be? Well, it seems I could be about to find out.’

Gabby didn’t respond.

‘Are you still there?’ Alex asked, unprepared for Gabby to be anything but thrilled for her.

‘Yeah, I’m here, and I’m a bit ... Well, I guess a bit shocked and kind of ... sad, I suppose.’

Alex was even more taken aback. ‘What do you mean, sad?’ she demanded, hardly able to cope with her own misgivings without trying to deal with Gabby’s too.

‘Well, I’ve always thought of us as having the same mother really ... I mean, obviously I knew you were adopted, but all those stories we made up about your other mother, I never imagined any of them ever coming true.’

‘I don’t know if they will,’ Alex told her, ‘because I’ve still got no idea who or where she is, and I won’t have until I’ve spoken to her. Helen Drake has lost the number, so I’m counting on my mother ringing her again.’

‘And you’re going to see her if she does?’

Trying to swallow her irritation while hardly able to believe the question, Alex said, ‘Of course. Why on earth would you think I wouldn’t?’

‘I don’t know, out of loyalty to Mum and Dad, I suppose.’

Alex’s head spun. ‘But she’s my
mother
, Gabby.’

‘I know, I know, or at least you’re presuming she is, but what if it’s all a hoax? Have you thought about how you are going to feel then?’

‘Why would it be a hoax? My aunt seems convinced it’s her, and what the heck would anyone gain from pretending to be my mother?’

‘There are some really strange people out there, you know, and even if this woman does turn out to be for real, you’ve got no idea what she might be like.’

‘Which is why I want to meet her, to find out. Gabby, you’re being really negative about this and I thought ... Well, I thought you’d be pleased for me.’

‘I will be if it turns out all right, but until we know more I have to admit, I’m more worried than pleased. And I guess a bit jealous, if I’m being honest, because it could end up meaning that you have a mother and I don’t, which’ll be really weird.’

Used to Gabby making things about herself, Alex said, ‘But you’ll still be my sister. Nothing’s ever going to change
that, and you never know, you might get along with her so you’ll feel ... Well, not that she’s your mother too, but that we can be like family anyway.’
She was getting way ahead of herself here
.

Unsurprisingly, Gabby fell silent again, and feeling sorry now that she’d even brought the subject up, Alex said, ‘I’m afraid I have to go. I’m at the care home to say goodbye to Millie. We can talk later, if you like. Well, we’ll have to, about the house and things ...’

‘Is it going to be all right for you and Jason to move out before completion?’

Stopping as she opened the car door, Alex tried to think what to say, but couldn’t get her mind to move beyond the truth. ‘Jason and I aren’t together any more,’ she announced, wondering how she could make it sound so matter-of fact when even the words hurt. ‘He’s gone back to his wife.’

Gabby gasped. ‘You’re kidding me,’ she cried. ‘When?’

‘About three weeks ago. I didn’t say anything before because I didn’t want to talk about it, and I suppose I was, you know, kind of hoping he might come back.’

‘Will he? Of course he will.’

Thinking of the text she’d received yesterday, Alex said, ‘Even if he wants to, and I’m not sure he does, it’s already too late.’ It was a truth that was as painful to realise as it was already proving to live with.

‘Oh no, really? Are you sure about that?’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘Oh Alex, I’m sorry. Are you terribly upset?’

Seeing no reason to go into it, Alex said, ‘I’ll get over it. What matters to me now is hearing from my mother, and obviously finding somewhere to live. And please don’t worry about me still being in the house when the sale completes, I promise I’ll have found somewhere by then.’

Gabby sighed heavily. ‘I’m feeling really mean about making you move,’ she declared, ‘especially now you’ve told me about Jason.’

‘It had to happen at some point, I always knew that, and you’re doing what you have to for the kids.’

‘Yes, but I wish it wasn’t happening quite so fast now. On the other hand, I suppose we’re lucky to have a buyer
who’s willing to pay such a good price in this market. Tell me, what are you going to do if you find out your mother’s been with your father all this time?’

Feeling the dread of it jarring her insides, Alex said, ‘I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it, but I don’t think it’s very likely, really, do you, considering what he did?’

‘I don’t know. You’re the one who always said she might be with him, I just went along with it because you seemed so sure. Anyway, if she does ring ...’

‘Not if, when.’ She had to stay positive.

‘OK, when she rings, you’ll let me know, won’t you?’

‘Of course.’

After a moment, Gabby said, ‘I hope she turns out to be everything you want her to be. It would be too awful if she wasn’t.’

With that small effort at moral support still echoing in her ears Alex rang off, and dropping her earpiece into a pocket she took herself into the care home. When she got to Millie’s room it was to find her already dressed and drooping tiredly in her wheelchair, her sparse white hair neatly combed behind her ears and her knotted hands folded over the handbag on her lap. ‘Is she OK?’ she whispered to the nurse who was with her.