‘So you think that Monica came to England, had a baby, somehow discovered where I worked and left it for me, is that it?’ She began to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. ‘Is that supposed to make up for what she did? I lost a baby with you, things with us ended, she swooped in and took you for herself and now she has a sudden attack of conscience? Wants to give me a baby to make up for it?’
‘Nadia—’
‘No!’ The sound of merriment floated out of the marquee and taunted her as the evening cooled and the air made her shiver as her fury at the unjustness of the past turned to tears threatening to spill.
‘Is it really that far-fetched that she’s had the baby and left it because she’s not in her right mind?’ Archie asked.
‘Yes!’
‘You didn’t hear the way she’s been talking about you lately: the longing to make contact, the regret, not to mention the guilt. She was always sorry for what she did. So was I. But you didn’t want to hear it.’
‘Damn right I didn’t.’
‘She was going on and on about not having you around when Giles was born, how she wished you could have been, how she didn’t want our second baby to miss out on family. I’ve not seen her this bad in years. When I got to England, I phoned round all the hospitals to find out whether she’d ended up at any of them and that might be why she hadn’t got in touch but I foundnothing to help me. I then began to wonder whether, if her head is in a really bad place, she may not have given her real name at a hospital. And then today, Giles put the television on and the appeal was showing and I saw you.’ He smiled. ‘I saw you and felt like these twenty years faded away.’
‘They haven’t faded, Archie; I’ve made a new life.’
‘Without me, without your sister.’
‘I had to. We were together, you and I, before we lost the baby. I thought we could make a go of things and even though we split up, despite the fact we’d decided we worked better as friends, it didn’t make it easier when my sister took you for herself.’
He let the moment settle before he asked, ‘Have they any clues as to who left the baby?’
‘In the few hours since you saw the television appeal again today?’ She sounded patronising but this was all so much to cope with. ‘No, Archie, they haven’t.’
Lena couldn’t be her sister’s baby, could she?
No, it was ridiculous.
She pushed away the very real feeling of what it had been like to hold Lena, to feel the weight of her in her arms, the softness of her hair against her cheek, the way the baby had looked up at her as she took the bottle.
Had it been her own past that had made her feel an attachment? Or was Lena a part of their family?
The appeal had given her away. She hadn’t given it a moment’s thought. She’d never been on social media with her maiden name, so her sister, if she’d ever been looking, wouldn’t have found it easy to trace her. Her romance with Jock Sutton had happened so quickly and not under the gaze of her sister that Monica wouldn’t have known much about him, let alone how to find him. Nadia had met Jock in Switzerland shortly after her mother died from a sudden stroke. He was there fora conference and extended holiday and a few weeks later she packed her bags to return to England with him. To start over. She wondered sometimes whether having a different surname, no longer being Nadia Fischer, had pushed her into thinking marriage was a good idea, a way to disappear into thin air and leave all the hurt behind.
Her urge to get away from Archie and Monica, even though she wasn’t even here, felt as strong now as it had been back then when she left Switzerland. ‘Archie, I’m sorry you had a wasted journey coming here this evening, but I haven’t heard anything from Monica. I suggest you call the police if you think the baby is yours. I can’t help you.’
Monica had taken so much from her over time, including Archie, and with issues between the sisters that felt insurmountable, the clean break was the only thing that had kept Nadia sane. Nadia had left Switzerland twenty years agowith Jock, ten years her senior, and come to Dorset where he lived and worked as a surgeon. She’d found a job as a nurse at the same hospital but things hadn’t been good for very long. The marriage had been short-lived, a mistake in the first place which ended with an unplanned pregnancy that almost took her life. They’d called it quits and it was soon after their separation that Nadia found a different family, with The Skylarks.
She began to walk away. The only thing to stop her was Giles running over and tugging at her hand. ‘Am I allowed to run around the big tent?’
The skin-on-skin contact was something she felt hard to ignore.
But she couldn’t get attached. She wouldn’t.
‘I want to stretch my legs,’ he said. ‘Dad is always telling me to do that.’
She felt the defences she’d put up melt away. ‘I’m afraid it’s not safe to run around, not for you or anyone else who might come outside, especially in the dark.’
‘How do you know my daddy?’
Talk about a segue.
Archie had walked over too and all three of them stood beneath the moonlight, halfway between the bench and the party that carried on around them. ‘It’s a long story, Giles,’ he said.
Nadia felt sorry for this little boy, this interesting, energetic nephew. And she felt another remarkable sense of loss when he looked up at her with innocent eyes.
She wasn’t sure what made her do it. If Giles hadn’t stopped her, she’d have been back in the marquee by now.
