Second Chances (42 page)

‘Where was she?’

‘Sitting in her cupboard! She’s no idea how she got there.’ Bianka gets up and stands with her back to the stove, watching me. ‘You know, it seems . . .’

I’m looking for teabags. ‘Mm?’

There’s a melancholy smile on the cupid’s-bow lips. ‘Well, you know, it just kind of strikes me as a bit of a coincidence. You’ve got Sacha, who’s freaking about things on the balcony, and in the very same night you’ve got poor little Finn tumbling off it.’ I freeze with my hand in the teabag jar. ‘And then I noticed . . . I’m sorry, Martha . . . I noticed that her balcony door wasn’t quite shut.’

I close my eyes for several seconds. Finally I make tea in two mugs, add milk and give one to Bianka. ‘What would you do, if you were me?’

‘I’d tell her. I wouldn’t leave her with a hellish half-memory. She needs to face it head-on, or she’ll relapse again.’

‘She says she’s finished with it.’

‘Ever heard that before?’

I’m silenced.

‘She means it,’ says Bianka unhappily. ‘She really does. But she’s no longer in control. I’ve worked out her pattern: binge, crash, sleep, recover, binge. Every time she uses, she needs more and the crash is worse. All she can think about is that initial buzz, but all she’s achieving is a deeper and deeper hell when she’s coming down. I think they call it “chasing the dragon”.’

‘Chasing the dragon,’ I muse. ‘Chasing that beautiful moment.’

‘It sounds a lot more romantic than it is.’

‘Do you think you could forgive her, Bianka, if you were me?’

‘Forgive her?’ Bianka looks incredulous. ‘Of course! You know it wasn’t really Sacha on that balcony. She
worships
her little brothers. Her mind’s been hijacked. But when it comes to forgiving herself . . . ooh, that’s going to be harder. Much, much harder. I just hope she doesn’t try to harm herself.’

It’s still dark outside, but I catch the sleepy trill of a stirring bird. Another dawn. Another day to be faced. I dump my mug in the sink. ‘I’ll head out to the hospital. Kit’s planning to bring Sacha and Charlie later. D’you think she’ll make it, or has she totally crashed?’

‘I’ll get her into the car somehow. She needs to see Finn. Martha, please forgive her.’

I sigh. ‘If you’d been there, on the balcony . . .’

‘All the same, forgive her.’

‘And you, Bianka? She’s treated you so badly. Why are you here, sleeping on her floor?’

Bianka looks into her mug, swirling the tea. ‘I was hiding in the instrument storeroom when Sacha auditioned for the orchestra. I couldn’t face life that day, so I’d gone to ground. Then suddenly there was this sound . . . this beautiful sound. I’d never heard anything like it before. It wasn’t just a schoolgirl playing. It was someone who knew and understood everything I’d ever felt. All the loneliness. All the grief. I sat on the floor, jammed between two cellos with tears pouring down my cheeks.’ They’re pouring down now, but Bianka lifts her head and smiles at me. ‘That’s the moment when I fell in love.’

It’s after seven by the time I arrive at ICU. One of the nurses is just going off duty, and she lets me in.

‘You’re early,’ she remarks, with friendly disapproval.

‘How’s Finn?’

‘He’s a little trooper. Actually, you’re not his first visitor today. You’ve been pipped at the post.’

Perplexed, I stop in my tracks. ‘But it’s family only. And there’s no other family who could visit.’

‘Sure about that?’

‘Quite sure.’

She raises her eyebrows. ‘Finn’s grandpa is here.’

‘He can’t be. It’s physically impossible.’

‘Well, he is.’

‘No, really. Finn only has one grandpa, and he lives in England, and I don’t think he even knows about the accident.’

‘Really? Well, you’d better go and see.’

I sprint onto the ward. There’s someone in the chair, a compact figure with his back to me. Lined hands are cradling Finn’s. He must have heard my footsteps because he turns around.

It’s like a miracle. I stop dead, staring into the face I know so well, the dark grey curls and keen eyes. Then he gets up and holds his arms out wide.

Why do our hearts finally overflow when we see someone we love? What is that about? I throw myself against him, and howl.

Thirty-eight

We sit side by side, Dad’s arm around my shoulder. I feel dazed.

‘Lay your hands on his chest,’ says Dad. ‘You’ll feel your energy flow into him.’

I do what he says, and he’s right: I have a sense that my life is somehow sustaining Finn. Wacky, my dad, but wise.

‘I don’t understand how you can be here,’ I say. ‘I think I must be dreaming, because this just isn’t possible. I mean, it’s only been thirty hours or so since the accident—that was midnight on Monday here, and it’s now Wednesday morning. I hadn’t even told you yet, and it takes thirty hours to get here from England. You
are
a witch doctor!’

‘Well, it’s a bit of a long story. And a strange one.’

‘Go on, then.’

Dad sits back in the chair, stretching his legs. ‘Very late on Sunday night, I had a visit from someone you don’t much like. Someone you once said does
not
figure in Sacha’s future. Who d’you think?’

‘That leaves a pretty wide field. I’m narrow-minded and judgemental, according to Sacha.’

‘Well . . . maybe you’re not the most tolerant woman on the planet.’

‘Get
on
with it!’

‘My visitor was Ivan Jones, also known as Ivan Gnome. He said he didn’t know where else to turn. He’d been on Facebook and Sacha was online. Hang on just a minute.’ Dad has an overnight bag beside the chair. He rummages in it and finds an A4 sheet. ‘This conversation starts with Ivan writing
hiya hows nz
. See? Ignore the grammar and spelling, it’s hair-raising. The next line is Sacha, and so on.’

I read with growing nausea.

hiya hows nz

not gd

nt gd ?????????

na :/

aw sorry . . . wts up

in a house with ppl off their heads just lyng in sht think im going crzy

why u goin crazy

someones coming after me

??? whaaa

im freaking

u better go home

cant

why cant

ripped off my family

where r u

theyre coming for me fk

where r u!!!!!!!!!!

theyre coming

have you got your fone

yea

fn yr mum

think I wl die

fn ur mum plz !!!!!!!!

Sacha is offline.

‘Dear Lord,’ I breathe.

‘As you can imagine, Ivan didn’t like the sound of it. He tried ringing your place. No answer. So he got in his car and drove straight around to me—he’d been before, with Sacha. I didn’t like the sound of it either. I am aware that teenagers can be a little hysterical, but all the same . . . So I called you. No answer. Why don’t you have an answer machine?’

‘Never got round to it after we moved here. Kit reckons if it’s important the person will call back.’

‘Hmm. Well, I found Capeview’s website and rang them, to be told that you were on leave. They wouldn’t give me your mobile number. Actually, they weren’t helpful at all.’

‘Hang on. This would have been when?’

‘About midnight on Sunday in the UK, so . . . um, Monday lunchtime here.’

Monday. I was driving around Napier on my own, searching.

Dad looks sheepish. ‘Call me a busybody but I couldn’t just do nothing! Anyway, I was bored, felt like an escapade. I’ve been looking for an excuse to come and see you. So I packed a bag, nipped down to Heathrow and grabbed the first flight I could. Via Kuala Lumpur. By crikey—it’s a long way, isn’t it?’

‘Dad, you’re crazy.’

‘I know. By the time I’d got myself out of Auckland airport, it was too late to ring you people. I was feeling pretty good; had this idea I might surprise you. So I hired a car and drove to Napier—actually, that was gruelling. It took hours longer than I’d thought from the map. My car’s a hairdryer on wheels, needed cardiac massage to get across the hills, but there were no hotels open so I just kept going. I phoned your place when I reached Napier. About six.’

‘Six? You must have just missed me.’

‘I had,’ he agrees. ‘A girl answered. The friend.’

‘Bianka?’

‘That’s the one. Nice girl. I asked straightaway if Sacha was all right, and she said yes, she’s asleep upstairs. So I felt like a silly old fool! Then she told me about Finn. So—’ he spreads his arms—‘here I am.’

I shake my head in admiration. ‘You’ve been travelling for two days! You must feel like death.’

‘Not too bad. I slept on the flights, and I’ve been taking some remedies.’

I hand back the bit of paper. ‘She took his advice,’ I say. ‘She phoned me.’

‘You see? Gnomes have their uses, after all.’ Dad shoves the paper back in his bag and clasps my hands in his. ‘Now. What on earth is all this about?’

I tell him everything. Well. Actually, no. Not quite everything. On the subject of Sacha’s addiction, stealing and paranoia, I’m completely candid. It takes a lot to rattle my dad, but he’s rattled.

Yet when it comes to a starry night on a balcony, I tell my kind, wise father a pack of lies. I’m all too good at it by now.

He sits for a long time with his hand on Finn’s chest. Then he says something quite extraordinary. ‘I know who Sacha’s father is, of course.’

‘You don’t.’ I’m sure of it. He can’t possibly know—couldn’t have known, all these years, and kept the secret. ‘You certainly don’t.’

‘You had to balance the needs of an unborn person—Sacha—against that of others. At the time I’m sure it seemed the honourable course to take.’

I gape at him, feeling the telltale flush spread up my neck.

‘I’ve pondered on it many times over the years,’ he says. ‘I’ve watched that little curly-haired delight of yours grow up into someone very special, and I’ve thought how proud he would be. Sometimes I’ve thought he has a right to know.’

‘I’d rather not discuss this,’ I say stiffly.

‘But of course it’s become more and more impossible—so many people’s happiness at stake. Six people, since Theo was born.’

‘I said I’d rather not—’

‘It was a choice of evils. An unenviable choice. In the end, you chose to leave Sacha permanently fatherless. So she lost out. Have you lost out too, Martha, or did you prefer having that treasure all to yourself?’

I lean forward to stroke Finn’s arm. Shame burns my face.

We were close friends, Philip and I, when we were young; the sort of mates who go out drinking and cry on one another’s shoulders. One weekend Lou came to stay and I introduced them. She raved for days about his roguish smile, and he cornered me to talk about her lovely legs. It was a wild romance, and I wasn’t jealous; well, not very. That summer Lou booked a holiday in Ibiza with a couple of girlfriends. Philip didn’t want her to go, and they had a bust-up. She told him if he wasn’t going to trust her, he could take a hike. So he took a hike, then came round to moan about it to me. He was petulant and lost, which is a pretty irresistible combination. We downed a bottle of scrumpy cider and one thing led to another.

Of course, the two of them made it up on the phone. By the time Louisa flew home, Philip and I were stretched on a rack of guilt. We had a pact: there would be (a) no repetition—ever; and (b) no confession—ever, under any circumstances. The event was expunged from history. Poor Philip was so overcome with remorse that he bought a whopping antique ring and proposed to Louisa in the Gatwick arrivals hall, to the cheers of about three hundred people all holding up signs saying things like aquila tours and hertz. She was in heaven. The two of them toured their families, showing off the ring and booking the church. Even Mum approved of Philip. When Lou asked me to be her bridesmaid she thanked me—
thanked
me!—for bringing him into her life. She said she’d never been so happy.

One morning as I lay in bed looking up at a crack in the ceiling, it hit me. Don’t ask me how. I just knew, with a sick certainty, that I wasn’t alone. It took me a fortnight to take the test, and another month to decide what to do about it. I fibbed about the due date, invented a one-night stand and fronted up at Lou’s wedding in a maternity smock. I was my sister’s bridesmaid, and pregnant with the groom’s child. Not my most glorious moment.

Just once, very early on, Philip asked if the baby could possibly be his. I slapped his shoulder and told him not to be so bloody arrogant—how fertile did he think he was? I spun a complicated story about a tall chap called Simon who’d swung in and out of my life without leaving a forwarding address.

‘Well,’ said Philip, relieved. ‘You know Louisa and I love you. If there’s ever anything we can do . . .’

By the time my perfect daughter was born, people had stopped mentioning the father. He’d become a mythical creature. They wrote
Unknown
on the birth certificate. Sacha was mine. All mine.

‘I know you very well, Martha,’ says Dad. ‘I was in the maternity unit when Lou and Philip came to visit. Everyone else was fixated on the new baby, but I was watching you. And I admired you, because I knew you were doing it for your sister.’

‘
I
didn’t admire me.’

‘It also occurs to me that this might be one of the reasons you decided to emigrate. At any rate, a significant factor? Sacha was becoming more and more persistent. She’d started asking everyone, making wild guesses and stirring up old memories. I might not be the only person to have suspicions.’

‘Dad,’ I say faintly. ‘Is there anything you
don’t
know about me?’

‘Twelve thousand miles is a long way to run.’

I sigh, looking at Finn. ‘Not far enough.’

We’re in the cafeteria when Kura Pohatu finds us. The white tresses are swirled into a regal bun today. I’m pretty offhand, but she seems thick-skinned. Has to be, I imagine.

When I introduce her to Dad, the social worker looks genuinely delighted. ‘Will you stay in New Zealand for long, Mr Norris?’

‘That depends,’ he counters, pulling out a chair for her. ‘Martha’s told me all about your concerns. I think they’re misplaced, but I applaud you for doing your job so thoroughly.’