46
On the Rocks
The message was terse, but it at least confirmed we’d been right, for she wouldn’t have suggested a meeting if she wasn’t my natural mother. And tomorrow she would reveal how she came to abandon me at that godforsaken spot.
I shivered. I was sure this would be a one-off meeting, because I’d reluctantly forced her hand by my persistence, and I was certain she wasn’t going to fall on my neck like a character in a Victorian novel, crying, ‘At last, dear child, I can hold you in my arms!’
I set the alarm for a ridiculous hour of the morning and intended going to bed early, though I wasn’t sure just how much sleep I would get that night.
But what I didn’t bargain for was Nile texting me to say we needed to talk and he’d collect me on the way to the pub in ten minutes. It never seemed to enter his head that I might be doing something else.
I replied that there was nothing left to say and reminded him I had to be up early to bake fresh scones and cakes, but he just said we needn’t stay long, and stopped answering my messages.
It was easier to go than argue the toss on the doorstep, but I might have known he’d guess I had something on my mind other than the events of last night, not to mention the sudden revelation that I had a family of my own …
I avoided the dangerous ground of the first and focused on the latter. ‘Sheila’s taken to ringing and asking me how her new daughter is today!’ I told him brightly. ‘She’s so kind – I mean, lots of women wouldn’t be very happy to discover their husband had an illegitimate child.’
‘You’ve already said that twice tonight, by which I deduce you’ve got something else on your mind,’ he said shrewdly. ‘Let me take a stab in the dark: has Dr Collins got in touch with you?’
He knew me too well …
I didn’t reply, but my face must have given me away, because he said, ‘I see she has – so you’d better tell me about it!’
‘Oh, all right, but it’s a secret because she warned me not to tell anyone else.’
I got out my phone and showed him the message.
‘Why there and at such a godforsaken time of the morning?’ he demanded.
‘I suppose because it’s where it all began for me – and at dawn it will be totally deserted. I’m sure this will be the only time she ever talks to me about it and she doesn’t want anyone to witness the meeting.’
‘I don’t like the idea of you going alone. I’d better come with you.’
‘You can’t! She won’t talk to me if you do, she says so.’
‘Then I’ll drive you there, but stay in the car,’ he suggested.
‘There’s only the one place to park nearby and she might spot you – and then it would scupper what’s probably my only opportunity to find out her side of the story.’
‘We could go early and I’d duck down when she arrives, so she won’t know I’m there,’ he persisted stubbornly.
‘No, I want to go alone, and anyway, I don’t know what you’re worried about. She’s hardly going to push me over the edge in case anyone finds out her guilty secret, is she? I mean, we’re not in the Victorian era now; she isn’t going to be ostracized by everyone for being a scarlet woman.’
‘People might not be that understanding about the way she abandoned you, though. And I suspect her privacy and professional status are important to her.’
‘You’ve been reading too many old murder mysteries: don’t think I haven’t noticed that the bookshelves in your flat are filled with them.’
‘So is my Kindle,’ he admitted. ‘My guilty secret is out.’
‘At least that one is fairly harmless. Have you got any worse ones you want to confess?’
‘No, that’s as bad as it gets – and you’re trying to change the subject again. I still don’t think you should meet her entirely alone, because she won’t be pleasant to deal with. I don’t suppose she wants her stepfather to hear of it even now, either – Bel’s been talking to the surgery receptionist again and she says he’s very frail.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that aspect. She must have hidden the pregnancy from her parents, so it would be a shock to him. Not that I intend spreading the information about, and I’m sure Emily Rhymer won’t,’ I added. ‘That just leaves the family and we know they won’t talk, either.’
‘But Liz Collins doesn’t know that.’
‘I’ll make it clear to her that her secret’s safe.’
He still didn’t like my going alone, but he finally capitulated, though with conditions.
‘I’m going home for the night, so you can ring me as soon as you’ve had the meeting tomorrow morning and I’ll practically be on the spot,’ he said. ‘I can be there in minutes, if you need me.’
‘That’s the first I’ve heard of you going out to Oldstone tonight, and it’s going to be a bit late when you get there, isn’t it?’ I said suspiciously.
‘It’s never too late to play trains with Teddy,’ he said innocently. ‘It’s my turn to be the Fat Controller.’
I tossed and turned all night and then got up in the dark, shivering with cold and nerves, and set off over the moors for the rendezvous.
I only hoped Nile hadn’t gone home to Oldstone last night because he intended setting out even earlier and lurking around the meeting place, but I relaxed when I arrived and there was no sign of him.
Dawn had only just started to seep upwards on the horizon when I parked on the short, sheep-nibbled turf near the weathered picnic tables, but Dr Collins’ familiar hatchback was already there. It was empty and there was no sign of her, so she must have walked up the hill in the dark.
I zipped up my coat and set off after her and I don’t think I’ve ever felt more alone.
I found her by the upright stone, standing a little back from the edge and looking out at the rapidly greying moors. She turned when a pebble rattled under my feet.
‘You’ve come,’ she stated in a flat voice and there was no softening of her usual cold and severe expression. ‘So, what’s all this circumstantial evidence?’ she demanded, straight to the point. ‘And who have you told your story to?’
‘I haven’t told it to anyone,’ I said. ‘Sheila Giddings knew you’d gone out with Paul and we worked out the dates – it all seemed to fit. Besides, you were seen as you drove home after leaving me here.’
I shivered again – not from the icy blast of the November breeze, but from an internal chill sparked by that remote, passionless voice.
‘I knew that Rhymer woman was suspicious, but I didn’t think she’d broadcast it about.’
‘She didn’t – she won’t,’ I assured her. ‘But I’d already talked to her and knew she was holding something back – so when I asked her directly if she suspected you, she said she did. And it’s true, isn’t it? I only want to know,’ I pleaded.
‘My affair with Paul Giddings – if you could call it that – was nothing but a brief folly. I learned my lesson,’ she said harshly. ‘So, the Giddings woman knows about it and Emily Rhymer; who else?’
‘Look, apart from Emily Rhymer, who won’t tell anyone, we’re keeping it all in the family. I’ve no interest in exposing you – that’s not what this is about. I’d just like to understand how and why you came to leave me here and then that’s it.’
‘I was sure Emily Rhymer had recognized my car, but I put some doubts in her mind later,’ she said, then turned to look over the moors again. ‘It was a colder night than this when I brought you out here. It was early March and there was a stiff frost on the grass.’
‘I don’t know how you managed it. Weren’t you only about seventeen or eighteen?’
‘Seventeen. I’d just passed my driving test and Father had bought me a car. I knew these roads well and it was a bright night,’ she explained, as though it was all very logical and I was very stupid.
‘But … I meant that you couldn’t have been in a fit state for driving?’
‘I’d had a great shock, but my faculties were working perfectly well, though I fear my overwhelming feelings of horror and revulsion at your arrival prevented me from checking that you really were dead, instead of presuming it.’
‘Horror and revulsion?’ I repeated, feeling sick.
‘I believe those to have been my predominant emotions,’ she told me precisely. ‘And an urgent desire to expunge the evidence of what had happened, so that Father never found out. Being only my stepfather, I felt sure he would have immediately disowned me.’
‘But did your mother know—’ I began.
‘My mother was a weak, hysterical, stupid woman, only concerned with concealing what had happened,’ she said, and I thought I caught the slightest trace of a dark bitterness there, the first hint of emotion she’d shown. ‘Once she’d died, I thought no one else would ever find out the truth.’
Somewhere below the Oldstone, there was a sudden rattle of pebbles.
‘Who’s there?’ she asked sharply. ‘Did you bring someone with you, after all?’
‘No,’ I assured her, going right to the edge of the lip of rock and leaning over to peer down, one hand on the Oldstone to steady myself. ‘It’s just a sheep, and I don’t think it’s likely to gossip.’
She came up behind me and her hand suddenly closed on my shoulder in a strong, bony grip. For a moment I was frozen to the spot, with the mad idea that she might be about to give me a push and so get rid of the evidence once and for all …
Then she said prosaically, ‘Come away from the edge. I have an irrational fear of heights and you are too close.’
By the time I’d turned she was already putting some distance between us and wiping her hand on her coat, as if contact with another human being, even one so closely related to her, was contaminating.
‘It’s very odd to have found my mother, yet for there to be no emotional connection between us at all,’ I said.
‘Oh – emotional connection!’ she snapped, as if they were dirty words, then added harshly, ‘I was such a little fool back then. I thought Paul and I were so in love … until one day I went home earlier than I was expected and found him in bed with my mother.’
‘Y-your mother? Oh, how horrible for you – I’m so sorry!’ I stammered, stunned. ‘I can see that—’
‘You see nothing!’ she said savagely. ‘Afterwards he wrote a letter saying it had all been a bit Mrs Robinson, but he shouldn’t have let my mother seduce him and he was ashamed of what he’d done. I burned it … and after that, I only spoke to my mother when it was absolutely necessary – till the night she gave birth to you.’
My knees gave and I sat down suddenly on one of the fallen stones. ‘Your mother gave birth to me? You mean … I’m your half-sister?’
‘I suppose so,’ she said indifferently. ‘But you can imagine my feelings when I heard a noise in the middle of the night and walked into her room – and there you were on the bed, a horrible sight. I knew immediately you had to be Paul’s, because my stepfather couldn’t have children.’
My mind, at first struggling to accept all this, began to work again: it made sense. ‘Hence the shock and revulsion,’ I said slowly.
‘My mother had originally trained as a nurse, so she should have realized she was pregnant and done something about it,’ she said callously. ‘So there you were, puny and a mess. I didn’t look too closely and only found out later you had a harelip. You gave one cry and that was it, so we assumed you were dead.’
‘And decided to get rid of me?’
‘Of course. My mother was terrified that Father would find out and so was I. It was sheer luck he happened to be away on a three-month trip. She threatened to tell him it was mine, if I didn’t get rid of it – you – but I could see it had to be done in any case. And then the Oldstone just popped into my head.’
‘Because it was so remote, so there was little chance of anyone finding me?’
‘Of course: there you were, dead, as we both thought, so we needed to get rid of the evidence,’ she said logically. ‘I didn’t think there’d be anything to find by spring when the hikers were about again. The bedside rug was messed anyway, so I rolled you in that and drove out here with you.’
‘Then pushed me into the nearest hole and left me?’
Like a bit of rubbish after a picnic, I thought.
She frowned. ‘I must have left a piece of the rug sticking out.’
‘Yes, that’s what the farmer who discovered me said,’ I agreed.
‘Well, that’s that,’ she said more briskly, as if she’d just broken some bad news to one of her patients. ‘Perhaps you understand now why I wanted you to drop the whole business and of course I still prefer that Father never finds out.’
‘But – did my mother never mention me again?’
‘Not really. When it turned out that you were alive, we were glad you’d been found, but we never spoke of it after that.’
Seeing this might be my only opportunity, and she was preparing to leave, I asked quickly: ‘What was she like?’
‘Like? Oh, a very stupid, neurotic woman,’ she said dispassionately, ‘though crafty enough to get Father to marry her. You have her green eyes and red hair, though she always bleached hers, because she hated it.’
That seemed to be it.
‘Thank you for telling me the truth – and I understand now why you don’t want anything further to do with me. I’ll respect that and it won’t get out, I’m sure of it.’
‘If we meet again, it will be as strangers: this conversation never happened,’ she warned me.
I nodded numbly and she turned and strode off down the hill towards her car.
I waited until she was a good distance away, then went back to the edge of the overhanging rock and called down: ‘You can come up now, Mr Sheep!’ Then I sat down on the stone again and waited, staring out across the beautiful, cruel moors.
A few moments later I heard the scrunch of Nile’s feet on the stony path and then his arms closed around me. I turned thankfully into his warm embrace, my emotions chilled to the bone.
‘Where did you hide the car?’ I asked.
‘In Henry’s car park. Then I hiked over before you got here. I was sitting down there so long I’d become part of the landscape.’
‘You heard everything?’
‘Every word.’ He pulled me to my feet and held me close.
‘Now you’ve got to the end of that particular rocky road, can you be happy with the family who do want you?’ he asked.
I nodded mutely.
‘And can you concentrate on something else for a while? Because I really want you to be Alice Giddings and I’ve been trying to find a way of telling you.’
‘But I already am … sort of,’ I said, staring up at him.
‘But you’d be one by name, if you married me. And I’ve wanted to ask you for ages, only I thought I should give you more time … and I wasn’t sure how you felt about me.’
‘Are you serious? I thought you were just asking me to have an affair with you the other night, a sort of trial run.’
He held me away slightly and looked down at me. ‘I don’t know why you always seem to think the worst of me. I was trying to propose!’
‘It didn’t sound like that,’ I said defensively.
‘I haven’t had any practice,’ he said drily. ‘All my life I’ve been waiting for you: the one woman I know will never let me down, just as I will never fail you. I really do love you, Alice, and everyone can see it except you!’
‘You’d better mean that, because I’m not settling for anything else,’ I warned him, though my heart was doing that thump and flutter thing again.
‘I’ve something here that might help persuade you,’ he said, reaching into his pocket and then sliding a familiar big yellow diamond on to my finger.
I stared down at it: even in the half-light of dawn it sparkled with a fire of its own. ‘I was the special client you thought would like it?’ I said. ‘All that time ago, you knew you wanted to marry me?’
‘You’re a very special client, but a bit of a tricky customer – and yes, as soon as Violet said it would make a perfect engagement ring, bells, whistles and sirens went off in my head and I realized you were the one I’d been waiting for all my life,’ he said.
I sighed happily. ‘It was such a perfect afternoon I wanted it to go on for ever – and I realized how easy it would be to fall in love with you.’
‘And did you?’
For answer, I wound my arms around his neck and kissed him, and by the time our lips reluctantly parted, the sky had gone a Technicolor pink, as if a rosy lightbulb had been switched on by a romantic lighting technician.
‘Pink sky in morning, shepherd’s warning,’ I murmured dreamily.
‘I’ll take that kiss as a “yes, I love you madly, Nile”. Let’s do it again – we need more practice,’ he suggested, but just then the harsh cry of some bird broke the moment.
‘Oh, God – the time!’ I exclaimed. ‘I have to get back and bake fat rascals before the teashop opens.’
‘Speaking of fat rascals, look who’s here,’ Nile said drily, looking over my shoulder, and I turned to see George Godet trudging up towards us, his two dogs slinking at his heels.
‘What is it about the Godets and Blackdog Moor? Do you haunt it like Heathcliff looking for Cathy?’ I demanded, when he was within earshot.
‘Cathy who?’ asked George.