The Hidden Girl (22 page)

Hannah continued home, wondering if she’d ever befriend her new neighbours. Is that what happened in the countryside: you compromised? Made friends with whoever lived near you? It would certainly make friendships simpler here, rather than the endless promise in the city of meeting like-minded people.

It was on her way back in the dusk that Hannah saw a distant figure through the hedge, in a field, carrying a sack.

Despite the failing light she recognized the silhouette against the darkening sky. The long arms and legs, and the sloping middle.

She checked her watch and felt guilty when she saw the time.

Elvie must be helping Madeleine, too. That was a long day for her.

When Hannah arrived home a few minutes later, her step quickened as she saw their old grey estate car parked by the front door.

‘Hello!’ she said.

‘Hi,’ came a call from behind her.

Will was on the lawn. He’d found an outside light on the garage and was checking out Elvie’s work.

‘Bloody hell. Was this the people next door?’

Hannah was so pleased to see him that she ran across the lawn and hugged him.

‘It’s amazing, isn’t it?’

‘Are we paying them for it?’

‘I don’t know. People keep doing stuff for us, and I’m not sure what the deal is. Who cares? We’ll find the money. And come and see this amazing stuff I found.’

She led Will up to their bedroom and pushed him ahead, to see the paintings.

‘Where did you find those?’

‘In the attic. Olive did them.’ Hannah followed behind him. ‘Oh, that’s weird.’

‘What?’

‘Honestly, don’t laugh, but sometimes I think there’s a ghost in this house.’

On the mantelpiece one of the three paintings was turned towards the wall. ‘Or maybe I’m so tired I’m going insane.’

She turned it round. The little Egyptian boy regarded her with his big brown eyes, full of distrust.

That Monday evening, after they ate, Will carried the rest of the book boxes up to the loft. They agreed that he would return to London on Tuesday morning and sleep in the studio to finish ‘Carrie’, then return on Wednesday afternoon to help Hannah finish the preparations for Barbara’s visit on Thursday.

‘How’s the track going?’ Hannah asked, as they laid dust-sheets in the sitting room.

‘Yeah. Good.’

‘Really? Because you seemed weird that night you got back when Dax was here. I thought something had gone wrong.’

He turned away. ‘No.’

‘What? Something’s up, I can tell.’

Will sighed. ‘Han, you just said you didn’t want to talk about anything that’s not to do with Barbara. Yes? Then let’s do that.’

‘OK,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Now you’re freaking me out. Tell me it’s not about money? Are we going to be OK with the mortgage?’

‘Yes,’ Will said, reaching up with the roller. ‘Right, come on – I need to be into bed by one, if I’m catching the train.’

She waited for him to make eye contact to reassure her, and he didn’t. She picked up the tin of duck-egg-blue emulsion for the walls and told herself this was not the time to worry about it.

Will left at quarter to seven the next morning, when it was still dark, trying not to wake Hannah.

His guilt gnawed at him, as he drove away. Another day without telling her about Clare. The longer he left it, the worse it was going to be. Yet he knew, also, that Hannah would never forgive him for upsetting her when Barbara was coming.

He hit the lane and accelerated, promising himself that this was the last time he did something to fuck up his life. Ahead he saw a big bloke dressed in black carrying a sack on his shoulder, up the lane in the dark. The sack looked heavy.

As he drove past, he wound down the window and realized too late that he was mistaken.

A surly-looking woman stared down at him.

‘That looks heavy. Can I give you a lift?’

The woman glared as if she wanted to punch his lights out, and kept on walking.

‘So that’s a “No” then,’ he muttered, putting up the window.

He accelerated past the cottages and farm and drove off out of Tornley, his mind returning to what he’d done in London.

He had another tough conversation to deal with today, too. Clare hadn’t been at work yesterday. This morning, however, when Will arrived at Smart Yak from the train station, he heard a metal grinding noise from her studio. Unusually, Matt was late, so Will took advantage and knocked.

Clare opened the door.

‘Hi,’ she said, not looking surprised. ‘How are you?’

‘Um, well. How are you?’

‘OK. Do you want to come in?’

Clare’s studio was much smaller than his. She leant against her desk and motioned to the chair.

‘Cheers.’

‘So . . .’ she said, making an awkward face.

‘So . . . Clare, I just wanted to apologize. About the other night. I was completely wasted, and it – it shouldn’t have happened.’

She dipped her head on one side. ‘That’s OK. Are you all right? You look tired.’

‘Yeah. You know, there’s been a lot going on. With everything. Not that that’s an excuse . . .’

She held out her hand. Unsure, he took it. She shook it. The light had returned to her smile. ‘Friends?’

He felt relief. ‘Thanks. I didn’t know if you’d be—’

‘Listen, it’s fine. And you know where I am, if you want to talk.’

She stood up, and he took the cue to do the same.

‘OK – well, thanks.’

He walked into the corridor, to see Matt walking towards them up the corridor.

He and Matt spent the rest of the day on ‘Carrie’, Will focusing intently on each element of the track, tightening up the flabby hi-hat and compressing the strings.

Matt said little. The atmosphere in the room was tense. This had to be nipped in the bud.

At lunchtime Will swung round. ‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing.’ Matt jerked back to life.

‘Matt, mate, you need to focus. What goes on in here is work. It’s got nothing to do with what goes on outside. I know you think that—’

Matt leant forward. His face was white. ‘Emma’s pregnant.’

Will stopped. ‘Who’s pregnant?’

‘Emma. My girlfriend.’

Will racked his brains. Matt had mentioned an Emma, but not in a way he’d thought was serious. Hadn’t they met at a gig? A few months ago.

‘The one who’s at uni?’

Matt nodded.

Will stared. Matt was twenty-two – fourteen years younger than Will – and going to be a father – by accident, by the look on his face. You couldn’t get much more ironic than that.

‘Oh, mate,’ he said slapping Matt’s back. ‘So is it congratulations?’

Matt’s shoulders slumped. ‘Not sure about that.’

He looked lost, like a teenager himself. Will remembered how he’d been at that age. Trying to be a man and failing, most days.

Will thought for a moment. ‘Right. Come on,’ he said, grabbing his coat. ‘You look like you need a drink.’

Great boss he was – this had clearly been going on for days for Matt, and he’d been so caught up in his own mess that he hadn’t even seen it.

They left Smart Yak, crossed the busy road and entered the King’s Head. Will ordered a whisky for Matt and an orange juice for himself.

‘There you go.’

Matt knocked it back in one, clearly in shock.

‘So what happened?’ Will asked.

‘I don’t know. Neither of us does.’

Will tried not to think about the two years of test tubes and injections and broken eggs, and wanking in a hospital room, and the thousands of pounds he and Hannah had spent on a pregnancy that never happened.

An accident. You had to laugh.

Matt sighed. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I like Emma – really like her – but she’s nineteen. And I just got this job with you. And, you know, I live in a shared house with a student, a trainee accountant and a lap-dancer.’

Will smiled. ‘Mate, you’ll be fine. At least you are working. When I was your age, I was living in a squat in Camberwell, playing gigs in dodgy pubs for twenty quid a night.’

Matt sighed. ‘Her parents have gone nuts. She was going to New York in the summer, to do a placement with her dad’s law firm, and now . . . we’ve got to decide what to do.’

What to do
. The implication of the words hung in the air.

He glanced at Will anxiously. ‘Sorry, that must sound bad, with you waiting to . . .’

Will held up a hand. ‘Listen – it sounds like you need time to sort it out. So take a couple of days. I’ll finish up. You saved us time sorting those strings, so we’re good.’

‘No!’ Matt protested.

‘It’s not a decision you want to rush, mate.’

Matt rubbed his cheeks, putting colour back into the pallor. ‘What would you do?’

‘If I was in your situation?’

Will recalled being twenty-two. If he’d known back then it was his only chance to have a biological child, he’d probably have taken it. But then he’d never have met Hannah, or found his career. He’d probably be back home, separated from a girl he didn’t love, doing some shit job, hardly seeing the kid anyway.

A sudden sense of peace descended on Will about the way his life had worked out. His childhood had been shit – any way you looked at it. Now he had a chance to make it right, for a child going through the same thing. And Hannah, with her good heart, would be able to be everything to that child that his mum hadn’t been able to be for him.

For the first time since last summer, Will felt renewed optimism.

He shook his head. ‘I can’t answer that for you, mate. We’ve all got to find our own way.’

Hannah spent all day Tuesday painting the sitting room, counting down the hours till she could throw the bloody roller in the bin.

Determined to pace herself this week, she stopped at four-thirty to have a break before she started the evening shift. Upstairs, changing out of her painting clothes, she noticed the three photo albums on the floor, and brought them downstairs while she had a coffee and a sandwich.

The third album was the most interesting, with reference to what Laurie had said about her and Will visiting Tornley Hall as children. She guessed the images were from the 1970s. The photos were in colour. Olive and Peter were older now, perhaps in their fifties. Olive’s hair was dark grey, and Peter’s white. Their clothes had not changed much, as if they’d committed themselves to a particular sartorial style early on and had stuck to it. Olive wore tweed skirts, cardigans and walking shoes; Peter dark suit-trousers and shirts and a jacket or cardigan. He had put on weight as he aged, and his hair was combed over.

Hannah flicked through the album. Would the photos jog Laurie’s memory?

Tornley Hall was definitely less grand in these later photos, as if money had become less plentiful. The Twenties and Forties photos had featured wisteria draped around the front door and pots of well-tended shrubs. In the Seventies the paintwork was shabby, and a few weeds were discernible under the front window.

Hannah sat back, looking around. Where were the photo albums of the Horseborrows’ travels? It would be fascinating to see if they contained images of the exotic locations from Peter and Olive’s travel books, and from Olive’s paintings.

Hannah pulled on her coat to go for a walk. A crunch of gravel outside took her to the upstairs window. Elvie was walking behind the garage to the farm. She wore a man-sized red T-shirt with ‘Mortrens’ Flowers’ on the back.

Grateful though she was to Elvie, Hannah knew she must have entered through the wall-gate into their garden and passed by their kitchen window. As with Dax, she and Will would have to lay down gentle boundaries, without causing offence.

This was their house now.

Hannah recalled the other keys in the scullery. Maybe one fitted the wall-gate. She could start by locking it maybe, to make a polite point.

For her break, Hannah decided to see if she could find Graysea Bay again by foot.

First she fetched a carrot for the donkey, then she set off, trying to remember the route Dax had taken.

The air was even warmer than yesterday, and more infused with the smells of spring. She saw small buds on the cherry tree by the gate.

It was such a nice day as she walked up the lane past their garden that she allowed herself to imagine being here, teaching a child the names of the wild flowers, as Mum had done with her in Kent. She imagined the child on a bike, with Will and her walking behind.

And then, from nowhere, it came: the memory of that terrible moment three years ago.

The doctor’s office. She could still remember the scent of something antiseptic covering the cloying smell of desperation. Sitting there, trying to shut out phrases she couldn’t bear to hear: ‘eggs not fertilizing’, ‘chromosome issues’, ‘less than a five-per-cent chance it will work next time’. Stumbling out into the street afterwards.

Then, to her confusion, the horror of seeing Will check his watch.

‘What are you doing? Why are you doing that?’ she shrieked in a hormone-induced rage.

‘I told you. I’ve got to see a client. At two.’

She knew Will was miserable, too, but right then she didn’t care.

‘Go on then,’ she said bitterly, even though she knew he had to take the job to pay for the IVF. Will stood there, helpless.

‘Han, I’m sorry – but I told you I’d have to go straight after. I’m already late.’ He tried to touch her, but she jerked back crossly. ‘How are you going to get home?’ he tried. ‘Are you going to be all right?’

‘Yeah, I’m going to be great,’ she spat. ‘I mean, I can’t have kids, but you know . . .’

He reached out again. ‘Han, listen, it’s not just you—’

She hit his hand away. ‘Yes, it
is,
Will. It is. It
is
me. You have no bloody idea.’ She flung her hand in the air. ‘Go on. I’ll see you later.’ With that, she marched away, across Euston Road and up to Regent’s Park. Then the tears came. Floods of tears. She saw pedestrians glance at her, but she didn’t care. This was the worst thing that had ever happened to her in her life. It was over. After all these years of trying, she now knew that that child would never exist. Last week there had still been a chance. Now it had gone forever.
Result: negative
. And a suggestion from the doctor that IVF was very unlikely to ever work for them.