Splintered Lives (29 page)

“Yes, of course, she is now the headmistress; I’ll take you to her.”

Mark follows him to a structure that is used in inclement weather and finds Sahida in a corner office doing some paper work.
                                   

Mark recognizes her immediately with her steady brown eyes and her easy smile.

Mark always had feelings for her, but he was only eighteen, and she was already a teacher, so he kept his feeling to himself.
 
He remembers dancing with her at his party and how he loved to hold her in his adolescent arms.
 
The rose perfume she wore calming his emotions.

“Hey do you remember me?”
 
Mark asks with a twinkle in his eyes.

Sahida sees a sophisticated, handsome man leaning on her doorpost and something clicks in her memory.

“When did I meet you?”
 
She asks.
 
“And where?”

“Here in the village where you and my aunt gave me and my friends, who had just finished our “A” levels, a party before we set out on our trekking adventure.”

“Oh my God it’s Mark.” She exclaims.
 
“I was so sorry to hear of the loss of Sarah and her family, in that awful car crash in France.”

“What are you talking about?”
 
Mark asks with confusion.
 
“Sarah, David and Anne were not in any car accident. It was only Simon who had gone to France, to ski with one of his friends.”

Sahida looks at Mark with astonishment.

“But we were told that Simon’s family had all perished in the fire of the burnt out car.

My father went to pick up Simon but Simon did not know him.
 
He had, and still has, lost his memory.
 
My mother nursed him back to health and taught him the local language in order for him to live here in Nepal.
 
He is so like Taj, our brother, who died in a plane crash, as you remember, and when Simon was here before we helped him with Ben, his friend.
 
That is the reason he had a photograph of him and my father, Taz took it when we had a farewell party for the boys.”

“How did he come to be with you before, when he was here with his friends trekking?
 
I met them on the day of their return to England and neither he nor Ben said anything about being with you.”
 
Mark says with a worried frown on his face.
 

“You know that Ben was hurt on the mountain.
 
How did they explain how they had managed with Ben on crutches?” Sahida asks Mark.

“They said a doctor at the hospital had given them accommodation until it was time to go home and that the doctor’s family had been wonderfully kind to them,” he replies wondering why Simon had not told him the family’s name.

“We have grieved for Simon and Sarah and the whole family has been devastated since the funeral when they thought they were burying Simon.
 
The only reason I have come to look for him is because Sarah met a boy from this school who was working as a steward on a cruise ship in the Caribbean and he mentioned a doctor called Simon attending to his sick father.
 
At first he told Sarah he thought it was Taj and then you explained that it was your nephew, Simon.” Mark continues, feeling sad at the thought of Simon losing his memory.

“Why would you think that Simon had perished in the crash? Sahida asks, and why were we told that his whole family had died?
 
The French hospital contacted my father because of the telephone number on the back of the photograph and there was no other information they had, only the loss of the boy’s whole family.”

 
“The family who took Simon skiing must have been the ones who perished in the crash.
 
Jack’s grandparents informed my relatives of the fatal accident and Sarah, David and Anne as well as my grandparents and David’s dad went to the funeral.
 
I was working in Alaska at the time but I got home soon afterwards to find the whole family devastated.”
 
Mark replies, as the circumstances of the accident became clear to him
  
He wonders why Simon had not been open with him about the Menons, when he saw him and his friends, off from the airport in Kathmandu.

 
“How is Simon?”
 
Mark asks as the information is pieced together between Sahida and himself.

He’s wonderful, he is married to another doctor called Mula and they are awaiting the birth of their first baby.
 
He has still no idea of his other family but he seems to have settled down, they both work here in the new hospital in Pokhara.” Sahida tells him.

Mark feels overloaded by the information given to him by Sahida and he wants to collect his thoughts before he finds Simon.
 
He makes arrangements to meet Sahida, after she has finished work, and she promises to take him to see Simon and Mula.
 
He wanders back to the lodge where he has a lunch and sits thinking of Simon.
 
Simon had not been told of the Menons and he had accepted David as his father from being a small boy.
 
Sarah had given him a good stable upbringing but she had never told him anything about his birth father.
 
He had lived a half a life and now he was living the other half.
 
How must he have felt when he met the Menons, and how must they have felt about him?
 
They had lost their only son who looks so like Simon.
 
It must have been a shock to see him, as well as a joy; for Simon not only looks like Taj he has his gentle calming ways.
 
How will he react to me?
 
Will he eventually recover his memory and remember his family in England?

Chapter 42

Sarah is anxiously waiting for word from Mark but she knows the journey is a long one and then he has to find out where Simon is living.
 
She also begins to feel guilty about her reticence to tell Simon about his other family.
 
The Menons were good people and they made her a part of their family at the time she was working in Pokhara.
 
Sahida was a good friend to her and she knew of the love Taj and Sarah had for each other.
 
She had held on to Simon because he was a part of Taj as she had mourned his loss so relentlessly, but when David came along and Simon loved him as he would any father, she didn’t want to spoil the relationship between the three of them.
 
Simon was partly Hindu and she had starved him of that culture.
 
What if he didn’t want his Western life any longer and she may have lost him forever?
 

Mark had wanted her to tell Simon about his father a long time ago, but she was selfish, and she didn’t want to confuse him after he had accepted David happily as his dad.
 
Why hadn’t the Menons sent word of Simon being there?
 
Why had Sahida told Raj that Simon was her nephew?
 
She must have known he was Taj’s son.
 
He looks so like Taj I know.
 
Her head is reeling with confusion and she goes to lie on Simon’s old bed.
 
She eventually sleeps and is awoken by the ringing of the telephone.
 
David is out in the garden so Sarah gets up to answer it.

Anne rings her mother to say she is going in to labour so Sarah shakes herself out of her guilty sleep and David takes her to Anne’s house, where little Dan is whisked off by his grandfather, whilst Sarah rings the hospital where Dan is working that day in his clinic.
 
He has a room full of patients so Sarah assures him that she will stay with Anne until she is ready to go to the maternity home.
 
Anne is ready very quickly and Sarah takes her.

“Don’t panic, you’ll be fine.”
 
Sarah reassures her.
 
“We’ll be there in no time.”

“Oh mum my pains are coming much quicker, please hurry up.”
 
Anne whispers as she tries to blow out her breaths.

After a frightening journey, Sarah gets Anne to the maternity ward and she is taken straight to the birthing room, Sarah is outside pacing the floor like a new dad.

Sarah rings Dan on her mobile to say Anne is in labour and he assures her that he will be there immediately.
 
She then rings David who promises to keep little Dan amused until he hears from her again with the news of the birth.

 
Anne is trying to be brave by following the instructions of her midwife. She pushes and breathes on command.
  
She eventually produces a lovely little girl who has her father’s eyes and a rosebud mouth like her mother.
 
Sarah is the first to see the baby, as Dan has not yet arrived.
 
Anne is brought to the maternity ward and the baby is put in to her arms.
 
Dan arrives with a bouquet of white roses and a proud look in his eyes.

“Darling, how are you?”
 
When he sees the baby his eyes dim and he goes to the bedside to hug his wife and the new baby.

 
Sarah leaves the ward with another loving look at her daughter and her granddaughter and rings David to tell him the news.
 
David says that he will bring the little boy to meet his sister.
 
David arrives with his grandson and he leaves him with his mum and dad and his new baby sister.
 
David and Sarah sit outside the ward and hold hands as they are so grateful that Anne and the baby are fine and their daughter needs to be with her own family to concentrate on the bonding of little Dan and his new sister.
 
They peep through the ward door and decide that they will leave them for a little while to go to the café for a cup of tea.
 
When they return to the ward Dan has his son on his knee and the baby’s little hand is gripping her brother’s finger and little Dan is grinning with happiness as he looks across at his sister.

David taps quietly on the door and says.
 
“We’ll leave you to have some time to yourselves, are you going back to work Dan?”

“No, I’m having some time off.
 
The practice has arranged for a locum and I’ll be home to help Anne with both of our children until she feels stronger.” Dan replies.

 
“That’s great, but if you need anything you know where we are so don’t hesitate to ask.” David says with a wink for Anne and a proud smile for all of them.
 
Sarah waves as they leave the ward and they go home together, proud grandparents again.
 
Charlie is waiting for them to tell him the news and he grins when he hears he has become the great grandfather of a little girl.
 

When Charlie has gone, Sarah tells David the thoughts she has been having about Simon, whether she should have told him about Taj when he was old enough to understand.
 
The guilty feelings she is now having are about his other grandparents.
 
They were as devastated as she was at the death of their son and she had kept the birth of Simon a secret from them.
 
Now they know of him, are they keeping him there with them?
 
How did it happen that they found him and why does he not contact us, if he is alive?”
 

“We will get to know the answers to your questions when we hear from Mark.” David reassures her.
 
“I’m sure there will be a logical explanation.
 
He would not mean to hurt us.
 
He has always been a thoughtful loving son to both of us.

Come on, let’s walk around the lake, it will make us feel better about Simon and we can give thanks for the little girl born today.”

“I’ll just get my boots because the ground looks a bit muddy.” Sarah replies.

The walk refreshes them as they notice the lovely features of the landscape and the wildlife.
 
They arrive back home tired but happier, the walks are feeling longer now that they are older, but they are still healthy and young at heart.
 
Charlie who has had a manual job is still very fit and he can keep up with the younger members of his family.

“I’m going to ring Mark.”
 
Sarah tells David when they get home.
 
“The walk has given me the resolve to try to get some answers. Mark is the only one who can give them to us.”

She rings Mark’s mobile but she can’t make a connection.

“It will be difficult to get a signal in the mountains.”
 
David tells her.
 
“He will have to get to a land phone before he can contact us.
 
I know because when I was working in remote areas when I was a civil engineer I had difficulty ringing home.
 
I had to wait until I was in a decent hotel with a landline before I could get in touch with my parents or friends.”