The Lie of You: I Will Have What Is Mine (20 page)

She was reading a book and rocking her baby to get him to sleep. She was a thin little thing with a pointed, wistful face and shadows under her eyes and she looked about eighteen or nineteen. Her sharp shoulders protruded from a purple strappy top. She was engrossed in her book, which I saw was
The Beach
. It had a plastic wrapper on it, as if borrowed from a library. Her fingernails were bitten and every now and then she chewed on the corner of her thumbnail.

I ordered a pot of tea and treacle tart with custard and took out a jar of parsnip and carrot for Billy. I spooned it into his mouth. He was hungry and ate it all so I gave him a second one of puréed apple. The young mum closed her book with a sigh and drank from her can of Diet Coke. Her baby was very bonny with a mass of dark curls and was nicely dressed in a red T-shirt and striped dungarees. His eyes were getting heavy as she rocked his buggy gently from side to side. My treacle tart arrived and I ate it hungrily, letting the warm sweetness melt in my mouth. It was comforting and I wanted to cry. I gave Billy a rusk to suck on. Her baby had gone to sleep and our eyes met.

‘How old is he?’ she asked, nodding at Billy.

‘Ten months. And yours?’

‘He’s just had his first birthday.’

‘He’s gorgeous.’

‘Best thing that ever happened to me.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Rory – Rory, Peter, Patrick. The Peter and Patrick are from his granddads and I chose Rory. What’s yours called?’

‘Billy.’

‘He’s very blond.’

‘Yes, and I think he’ll stay blond.’

‘And you’re so dark.’

‘I know. His dad is very blond. He doesn’t take after me at all.’

‘Rory’s the image of his dad too.’

We both gazed at her baby. Rory had plump rosy cheeks and thick dark lashes.

‘You visiting...?’

‘Yes, my aunt lives here. What’s it like living here with a small baby?’

‘It’s OK really. There’s a drop-in place for mums and kids. They look after the babies so we can have a coffee and a break.’

‘Sounds good...’

‘It’s all right. I go there most mornings. They have DVDs and books you can borrow.’

She put her novel in her bag and stood up to go. ‘Been nice meeting you...’

‘And you. I’m Kathy.’

‘Tina,’ she said.

Later I walked back slowly to Jennie’s house. Talking to Tina had helped me forget my misery for a while. Now it had come back full force. Markus and Heja had been lovers. Then I saw that Jennie’s car was parked in the road in front of her house and I nearly cried with relief. I could tell her everything. I needed her support and her special brand of warm good sense so much.

AUGUST

My body always lets me down. I had been feeling fine for several weeks and then on Wednesday I started to feel sick and shaky. I went into work but left early. It was evening and I was lying on the sofa wrapped in the kimono Robert had given me. I was about to go to bed when the phone rang. It was Markus. He said he would be over in fifteen minutes. He sounded tense. I did not understand it. He was supposed to be in Cornwall with her all week. What had happened? I opened the door to him in my kimono.

‘Come in. I’ve made you some coffee how you like it,’ I said.

‘You look very white. Are you OK?’

‘I think I may have flu. I’m a bit shaky.’

I poured coffee into a large cup and pushed it across the bar towards him.

‘Aren’t you having any?’ he asked.

‘I don’t drink it any more. Markus, you look really tired. What’s wrong?’

‘I just drove back from Cornwall.’

‘Why?’

He took a photograph out of his pocket and slid it over the bar towards me. I looked down at it. I could feel my face get hot. I picked it up and gazed at it for a long time. Then I turned it over and read my words.
You will find this one day and remember how happy we were.

‘I haven’t seen this in ten years. It was that summer at Aland.’

‘I know. Kathy found it in my diving bag. Where did you put it?’

‘It was under your name label. You were supposed to find it after that row. It must have been there all this time. You look so young.’

‘So do you.’

I turned away from him with the cafetière and took my time rinsing it under the tap. My hands were shaking. I knew that I looked ill and old and that he was contrasting me with the young Heja in the photograph.

‘Heja, I
can’t
go on seeing you.’

‘Why not...? Because of a photograph?’

‘I’m so sorry. I have Billy now.’

‘I would
never
come between you and Billy.’

‘This has to end now, tonight,’ he said.

I waited for a moment and then I said it. ‘Kathy still sees her ex.’

He sat up and pulled his shoulders back as though he was about to face an enemy.

‘What are you saying?’

‘Just that: she still sees her ex. I saw them hugging in Reception at work a few weeks ago. Why shouldn’t we still see each other?’

He looked so lost, so unhappy but he did not respond to what I had just told him. And what I couldn’t tell him was that I had also seen her ex in their flat, holding Billy. If I had said that he would have known I was watching the flat. He stood up now.

‘I’ve made my choice, Heja. It was wrong. I’m so sorry; I’ve made my choice.’

‘You chose me too, Markus.’

I longed to press my body against his so that we could comfort each other. He turned and walked out of my flat without another word and the door clicked shut behind him. And I know Markus. When he has made a decision he sticks to it.

I was so shaky I had to lie down again. That photograph, I had forgotten all about it. And now she had found it and she finally knew about us. He had left me again; a second rejection; another unbearable blow.

I remembered how Markus had left me before. We had had one of our rows, a bad one this time about a woman in his office. We made up eventually, as we always did, and we went to bed and made love. I assumed things were all right between us again. Markus thought otherwise. He left me. He left Helsinki. He wrote me a letter, which I got three days later. He had written that he loved me still, he would always love me but he could not go on with the endless cycle of jealous rows followed by reconciliations. We seemed incapable of having a calm, happy life together, he said. The relationship was hurting both of us. He had to end it. He was leaving Finland. He could not tell me where he was going.

It was a brutal rejection. I was at the height of my fame. I had money and a beautiful apartment and I was completely bereft. I made frantic enquiries about him, using my many contacts in the media. I could find no trace of where he had gone; just that he had definitely left Finland. He could have gone anywhere.

Then about three weeks into this torment I noticed that my period had not come. I put it down to the agonizing stress I was going through over Markus. I woke a few mornings later feeling queasy. I bought a pregnancy test and I tested my urine and it confirmed that I was pregnant. As I looked at the positive test I felt the most profound joy of my life. I was carrying our child. Everything would be all right now. Markus would hear of my pregnancy somehow. It would become news in a few months anyway when I started to show my bump. There would be coverage on TV and in the papers. Somehow he would hear about it and he would come back to me and we would have a new beginning. What a precious moment to get pregnant.

For the next two months I hugged my secret to myself. The world looked a different and kinder and more hopeful place. Everything in my life shifted in focus. I had a strong sense of purpose that made me feel fulfilled. Now I was glad of all the money I had earned and the position I had reached in my career. Markus and I and our child would have a good life. I started to think about where we should live. I knew Markus would want us to live by the sea. I registered with some property companies. I longed to find him and tell him the news. I wanted him to be the first person to know about the pregnancy but could not see how I could make that happen.

And then, when I was nearly three and a half months pregnant, I started to feel really ill. I was getting bad dizzy spells and days of feeling very sick. I started to feel afraid about the welfare of my baby. My doctor was worried and he kept taking blood tests. He was our family doctor and I had known him for years. Then that day came when he called me and said I needed to come to the surgery as soon as I could and perhaps I should come with a friend. The moment he said that I knew the news was bad. And when I saw his face all my fears were confirmed.

‘Sit down, Heja,’ he said quietly.

‘Is my baby OK?’

‘We’ve had the results back and it’s not good.’

‘Tell me! Is my baby OK?’

‘Heja, I’m so sorry to tell you that you have a genetic disease.’

‘I don’t understand...’

‘The illness that’s in your family...’

I couldn’t take it in.

‘Your great-aunt Tanya...’

‘You’re saying I’ve got what Tanya had?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

I started to tremble violently. My mind was racing. I remembered that day in the garden: the brilliant sunshine; the feathery grasses; hearing her cry; and her funeral.

‘They couldn’t save her...’

He looked rather white. ‘We can do much to help you, Heja.’

‘I’m twenty-eight and you’re telling me I have a terminal disease?’

‘You have the same disease.’

‘She was dead at forty-seven,’ I shrieked at him.

‘This must be the most terrible shock. Can I call your parents?’

‘No! Don’t you dare!’

I was still trembling violently. ‘But my baby’s OK?’

He didn’t want to tell me but he had to. My baby was not viable. Those were the words he used, ‘not viable’. I would have to terminate my pregnancy as soon as possible as I was already four months pregnant.

And I remembered what Tanya had said to me that day in the garden: ‘Don’t be afraid, Heja. Sometimes tears are good. They make new life grow.’

Make new life grow? I had thought I was carrying new life in my body but I was carrying her death gene. It had been there inside me from the beginning: from the day I was born; from that day in the garden; from the day I met Markus; and today. It meant our baby had to be aborted. I had to agree to the termination that afternoon in the doctor’s surgery. No one to help me; no one I could tell. He pleaded with me to call my parents so that I would have someone with me when I woke up from the general anaesthetic. He said it was a very difficult moment. I refused. He gave me strong tranquillizers to deaden the horror of that day and the days that followed.

Why didn’t I tell Markus this evening, when he was standing in my flat, saying he would not see me again? He needed to know that Billy was not the first baby he had made. He needed to know about our poor little aborted baby.

People thought I had everything – the looks, the fame, the money, the handsome boyfriend. I had nothing. All I had was the death gene working in me, waiting to claim me.

AUGUST

‘I’ve been a complete and utter fool,’ I said.

Jennie was walking round the kitchen with Billy propped against her shoulder. She was rubbing his back with gentle circular movements and she stopped by me now and gave me a sympathetic pat.

‘Stop beating yourself up...’

‘There I was thinking Markus’s great secret was his politics and all the time his great secret was Heja!’

‘He’s asleep. I’m going to put him down, and then I’ll make us some tea.’

I’d spent a bad night in Jennie’s back bedroom and I wondered if she’d heard me pacing up and down. The floorboards were bare, except for a rug, and they creaked when you walked on them. If she had heard me she didn’t say anything about it. I had finally made myself lie down and got to sleep as the light was turning the curtains pale. Jennie had taken Billy when he’d woken up and she’d let me sleep on. Things felt a bit more bearable when I finally got up. There was no word from Markus.

Jennie came back into the kitchen, filled the kettle and sat down at the table.

‘I was going over it all last night,’ she said. ‘It’s no coincidence, her turning up at your magazine. When did she first show up?’

‘I was pregnant, maybe five or six months pregnant. I remember because when we interviewed her she kept looking at my bump.’

‘Oh, dear...’

‘And I gave her the job! In fact, there was another candidate I liked better, a man who had all the right experience. She was my second choice. Philip Parr wanted to appoint her. I remember we had a bit of a tussle about it and I gave in.’

Jennie filled the teapot and brought it to the table.

‘Can you remember the first time you told Markus about her?’

‘I’ve been trying to remember that. He wasn’t living with me then; it was just before he moved in. He’d come over for supper and I told him we’d employed a Finnish journalist that day, and I told him her name, Heja Vanheinen.’

‘How did he react?’

‘I don’t remember him saying much at all. He certainly didn’t mention that he knew her! We were absorbed with my pregnancy, and getting on so well. Ages later I asked him if he knew she’d been a TV presenter in Helsinki, and he said, yes, she was much admired, and that was it. He shut the conversation right down. And I put that down to his not wanting to talk about his life in Finland, not that he’d been involved with her!’

‘I don’t think Markus had anything to do with this, I mean with her coming to your magazine. It was probably a huge shock to him.’

‘Then why didn’t he tell me about her the moment I mentioned her name? Can’t he see what a huge betrayal it was not to tell me?’

Jennie poured us each a mug of tea and put some lemon biscuits on a plate in front of me. The tea was richly brown and strong, how she always made it.

‘And he left Finland seven years ago. She hasn’t been in London very long so it doesn’t make sense. Why has she come now?’