We Are Family Page 31

  ‘You’re pregnant,’ her mother hissed. ‘Any damned fool can see it. Do you think I couldn’t hear you this morning? And yesterday. And the day before. Do you think I’m stupid? That I can’t tell what’s wrong with my own daughter?’

  Rachel could feel her tears spilling out on to her cheeks. All she wanted was her mother’s understanding, and realising now that her mother had witnessed her suffering and felt nothing but contempt, rather than any form of compassion, made her feel more desperate than ever.

  Her mother wheeled in closer. ‘Who did this to you? Tell me? Tell me now.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  Her mother reached up and yanked Rachel’s arm, pulling her down so that she fell to her knees by the wheelchair, their faces level. Rachel yelped in pain. She thought her mother was going to slap her, but she seemed to stop herself on the brink of violence and, instead, let out a long sigh. Rachel could tell she was making a supreme effort to compose herself. She heard her mutter a brief prayer.

  There was a long pause. Rachel wiped away her tears, bracing herself for the onslaught of her mother’s wrath. But then her mother smoothed the hair away from her face.

  ‘Oh, my poor baby. I mustn’t be cross. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ she sighed and stroked Rachel’s cheek. Rachel felt something inside her let go. Her mother did love her. She did understand.

  ‘Oh, Mum, I’m so scared.’

  ‘Did he force you into it?’ her mother asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Whoever did this to you.’

  Rachel stiffened and sniffed. ‘It’s not how you think. I love him –’

  ‘Love!’ Her mother’s compassionate tone had vanished. ‘What do you know about love?’

  ‘Plenty,’ Rachel countered, feeling her strength returning. ‘Tony and I . . .’

  She stopped, realising that she’d said his name. She saw her mother’s eyes cloud with a fury she’d never seen before. Rachel willed herself to go on, to tell her mother the truth, but she was too scared.

  ‘Tony? You don’t mean the Glover boy? You mean . . . you mean to tell me he did this to you?’

  Rachel had been kneeling all this time, but now she shifted back to stand up. ‘Not on purpose. It’s not his fault. It was both of us. We love each other.’

  Her mother suddenly struck her in the face with such force as she stood up that Rachel lost her balance and fell back against the range and hit her shoulder hard. She cowered by the cold metal door, too shocked to move. Her mother had never hit her. Rachel’s lip pulsed. Blood splashed on the floor.

  ‘You will get rid of it!’ Her mother didn’t shout, but her voice was deadly.

  ‘No,’ Rachel cried.

  ‘You will never have his child. Do you hear me?’

  ‘No, Mum, no! We’re going to get married –’

  ‘Over my dead body!’ her mother hissed. Then she leant forward lunging so that she could grab Rachel’s shoulder. Her fingers bit into her flesh. ‘How could you do this, Rachel? How could you do this to your father and me? To your family?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Rachel was sobbing so hard, protecting her face from yet more blows, that she hardly registered her mother’s own low wail of pain.

  She couldn’t say how long the silence between them lasted, but when she glanced up, she could see tears on her mother’s cheeks. As their eyes met, she suddenly pulled Rachel into a stranglehold.

  ‘You must never tell anyone about this. Never tell Bill, or that wretched boy. It will be our secret, Rachel, do you understand?’ Rachel could feel something inside her squirming as she caught the gist of what her mother was saying, before she said it. ‘Nobody need ever know. We’ll get rid of it. I’ll arrange it and then it’ll be all over.’

  ‘Mum, no, please, no.’

  Rachel tried to break away, her sobs turning into cold terror. But her mother didn’t hear her. Instead, she held her in a vice-like grip forcing Rachel’s head on to her knee.

  ‘My little girl. There, there. You’re still my little girl. It’s not your fault. It’s all going to be all right now. You’ll see.’

  Rachel bolted for the back door, as soon as her mother had left her to open up the shop. Her only thought had been to get to Tony as fast as possible. She didn’t stop to put on a coat, but ran blindly into the rain.

  Tony was sweeping the water away from the concrete slab outside his hut, when Rachel reached him. She collapsed into his arms, her clothes sticking to her body, her teeth chattering.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he asked, his voice panicked as he grabbed the top of her arms. He looked into her face, tentatively touching her split lip. ‘Who did this to you?’

  ‘She found out,’ Rachel sobbed. ‘She found out.’

  ‘Who? Who found out.’

  ‘Mum.’ Rachel burst into fresh tears, thinking again about her mother striking her. ‘I hate her. I hate her so much! I wish she was dead.’

  ‘She found out about us? How? Who told her?’

  Rachel swiped at her tears. She had to be brave. Only Tony would understand. He had to. He was her last chance. Oh God. What if he left her? What if he didn’t want her? What if he didn’t want the . . . what then?

  She could feel him gripping her shoulders and she forced herself to look up into his face. She had nowhere else to run. He was her last chance.

  ‘Oh, Tony, it’s worse. So much worse than you think.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She found out about the baby.’

  Tony seemed to stop breathing. He didn’t let go of her shoulders.

  ‘Our baby? You mean you’re . . . ?’

  Rachel nodded. She was shaking. ‘She wants me to get rid of it. She told me never to tell you. She hit me. She, she . . .’ Rachel burst into fresh sobs again.

  Tony folded her into his arms, so that her face was buried against his chest. ‘She said that?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, Tony. I didn’t want to tell you like this.’

  ‘Shhh. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. You leave it to me,’ he said. ‘You leave everything to me.’

  Chapter XIX

  Palma, Present Day

  Laurie drove the red hire car into the concrete maze of roads around Palma airport. She’d arrived in a taxi from the villa and had intended to get one back once she’d picked up her father, but she’d changed her mind. It would be foolish not to have transport on today of all days. So this, an outrageously expensive Fiesta, was going to be her getaway vehicle – if it came to that.

  It was only ten in the morning, but it was going to be one of the hottest days of the summer – even by Mallorcan standards – according to the staff in the car-hire office. The sun was already relentless, making her feel dry-throated and nervous as if she were being picked out by a spotlight. She glanced at the temperature gauge on the car and saw that it had already crept passed forty degrees.

  Outside, the palm trees were the only things that seemed to be motionless beneath the ultra bright sky. Everything else, from the pavement to the idling coaches in the car park, vibrated in a mirage of heat. By the airport terminal, Laurie could see gangs of holidaymakers stepping out of the air-conditioned arrivals hall. Like disorientated insects, they seemed to dither and wilt, losing any sense of direction.

  Laurie knew just how they felt, but today she had to remain focused. Dipping past a No Entry sign, she took a short cut and veered across the car park to a stop. She turned off the engine and swore at the heat, fighting against it. She was sweating all over now and her legs felt as if they were melting on to the black seat. Pulling up her straw handbag from the footwell of the passenger seat, she took out her bandanna and wiped her face and neck. The sooner she got inside the better.

  But the cool air inside the terminal didn’t diminish her jittery nerves, as she looked up the flight arrivals information on the TV screen and saw that her father’s flight was due to land in forty minutes. Forty minutes! Forty minutes was nothing. So little time until . . .

  Sudd
enly, the reality of the situation hit her and for a moment Laurie thought she might faint. She grabbed the water bottle out of her bag and took a sip of the lukewarm liquid, but it didn’t quell the anxiety she felt pumping through her. Every instinct told her that she was making a monstrous mistake.

  Behind the glass screen, she could see the busy baggage carousels surrounded by crowds of stressed passengers jostling for their suitcases. The only people who seemed totally unfazed were the official airport staff, who moved around in their uniforms at a nonchalant pace, unperturbed by the hustle and bustle around them and the seemingly urgent overhead announcements in Spanish.

  Laurie felt utterly trapped. There was nowhere to run to. How the hell had she got herself into this mess? What the hell had she been thinking? Her father was coming for a whole week, under the impression that they were going to spend a quiet holiday together. She hadn’t given one hint of the surprise she had in store for him, when she’d spoken to him a few days ago. Instead, she’d listened to him talk about his expensive flight and the fact that this would be his first solo trip abroad since her mother had died, two facts that had made Laurie cringe to her core.

  But now? Now it was a million times worse. Now, not only had Rachel arrived early this morning, full of excitement about being reunited with her brother, but everything had happened with Sam. Laurie had barely spoken to her aunt before she’d left the house. She hadn’t even been able to look her in the eye. Because there was every chance that in a few hours Rachel may just hate her guts.

  And her father would too.

  Laurie wanted to cry. How had she managed to let Rachel persuade her into doing this? Could the timing possibly be worse? Did Rachel really think that Bill would take one look at her and forgive whatever differences there were between them? And even if, by the remotest chance, they did kiss and make up, what would they both say when they found out about Laurie and Sam? Wouldn’t that rip them apart all over again?

  This was all her own fault, Laurie panicked. She should have put Rachel off the idea of a reconciliation right at the start. She shouldn’t have let her get her hopes up. Now she remembered with searing clarity her father’s reaction when Laurie had mentioned his sister. He would never forgive Rachel, because the truth was that he hated her.

  And she knew, standing in the arrivals hall, that once Bill realised the level of Laurie’s deception, he might go through with his implied threat. He might cut her off, too. OK, so her father loved her, she knew that, but she’d also discovered that she knew very little else about him. After all, he was stubborn enough to keep his family a secret for fifty years. And if he was stubborn enough for that, he was stubborn enough to never speak to his only daughter ever again.

  She thought back to their first argument after Rachel had called when she’d been at her father’s house for Sunday lunch. It seemed so long ago. But after all this time, she could finally see why her father had been so angry. He’d made a decision to cut off his family all those years ago and had stuck by it and created a new family of his own. Just as she now wanted to with Sam.

  Sam. Laurie’s stomach lurched at the very thought of him. How would her father, or Rachel, ever understand the kind of all-consuming desperate love she felt for him? Her father wasn’t a passionate kind of person. He’d never lost love the way that she had, once. So how would he begin to understand that she was prepared to risk everything – even her only true family – not to lose it again? And Rachel? Well, Laurie couldn’t even begin to imagine what Rachel was going to say.

  ‘Sam, oh, Sam, where are you?’ she muttered to herself. She hadn’t spoken to him since he’d left her yesterday and she was desperate to hear his voice, desperate for reassurance. But there’d been nothing. No word, even after Laurie’s conversation with Claire. And that was her fault, too, no doubt, because in her anguish, her phone had broken after she’d thrown it against the wall. Now she marvelled at the roller coaster of emotions she’d experienced since that moment.

  If Sam had come to the villa right after her phone call with Claire, Laurie was sure she would have beaten him up. She felt utterly betrayed, racked with jealousy and guilt. She couldn’t shake the image of him naked near Claire. And after everything Roz had said, Laurie was convinced that Sam was going to break her heart all over again.

  But as the night had worn on, her anger had turned into distress. As she thought of Sam back at home with Claire, she’d started to feel sorry for him. She’d tried to put herself in his position and could only imagine that he was having a terrible time. What if he was having to make small talk with people he hated, when he knew Laurie was waiting for him? What if he felt trapped? What if everything Claire was saying was making it worse?

  There were so many what ifs that Laurie’s head felt as if it had been scrambling, like a computer trying to defend itself against a virus. She’d forced herself to stop panicking and get practical. She had to think of her immediate course of action. And that was to prepare to leave – in a hurry, if necessary.

  Which was why she had packed up all her clothes, gathered up her possessions from around the villa and had gone down to the boathouse as soon as dawn had started to break, in order to dismantle the makeshift studio. She had to get away. Whether together with Sam or alone, she would have to leave and start again somewhere else.

  Yet, as Laurie had stacked up the paintings in the dim light of the boathouse, she’d realised that she couldn’t handle the possibility of her move being alone. She loved Sam. She needed him and wanted him. She stroked her hand along the side of the boat, remembering how they’d made love there just the day before, remembering his touch, his smell, the sound of his breathing. And she made a vow there and then to banish her doubts. She knew that having them was just damaging all their chances of being together.

  But still a part of her head nagged her. There was Archie to consider. That’s what Sam had said and it had been at that exact moment that he’d suddenly seemed uncertain. Would Sam really leave him? Would he make that level of sacrifice for her? And more to the point, was it fair to ask him to?

  If she was being hard-hearted, she could convince herself of the facts. Children were resilient. They could bounce back from broken families, couldn’t they? Archie would be fine, after a while. But then, she thought about Archie being alone in Mallorca with his mother and how rejected he’d feel. And then she thought about Sam trying to say goodbye to his son and it made her eyes fill with tears. Archie needed Sam – anyone could see it. In the dawn light, Laurie stood and looked out one last time at the sea. The sky was starting to lighten, the stars above the horizon slowly fading. She watched as the flat sea and sky turned through shades of milky blue to pale oranges. She could smell the promise of a hot day in the air.

  She’d been so happy in the villa, being a recluse and working away at her paintings. But she was ready to go now. The sunrises and sunsets she’d painted seemed now to her to be markers in time rather than a true expression of anything creative. She felt as if she’d been on hold, waiting.

  But now she knew what she’d been waiting for, now that she’d found Sam again, Rachel’s villa had started to feel like a trap and she needed to be free. She needed to be the person she was going to be with Sam and she knew that it was impossible in the context of her family.

  She could feel her need to escape right down in her bones as if there were some internal force egging her on. She was amazed that she’d come such a full turn. All her life she thought she’d wanted a large family and discovering Rachel had seemed to fulfil such a deep-down need in her. But she could see now that all she’d really needed was someone of her own. And a big family was no substitute. In fact, being part of Rachel’s life brought more complications and obligations than she could ever have envisaged and now all she wanted was to get back to her life. With Sam. And with Archie, if that was what it took.

  She’d been such an idiot! There was so much that seemed to have been left unsaid in the hazy passion of the afternoon. S
o much that was so important. She hadn’t told Sam that she’d be prepared to include Archie in their plans. That she would do her best to love him like her own child, if it meant that she and Sam could be together.

  She allowed herself to fantasise, imagining herself kitting Archie out in his little school uniform, walking with him to the local school. She imagined decorating his room for him, making him happy and secure. And she imagined having her own children with Sam. Of making brothers and sisters for Archie.

  Who was she kidding, she thought, snapping back to reality. She’d never even changed a nappy! Her married friends teased her about being hopeless and tongue-tied with their kids. She’d never been asked to be a godparent, or been considered patient enough to babysit once for any of the kids she knew. So how could she possibly expect to step into a mother’s shoes? Claire might have her faults, but compared to Laurie she was a saint. And what’s more, Claire was Archie’s mother. Archie was hers. She wouldn’t want to let him go any more than Sam. Whichever way she looked at it, it was bad.

  As Laurie had come back up to the house, she’d still had no answers, but at least there was resolve in her heart. She loved Sam. That was all that mattered. And if she held on to her faith in him, she was sure she would be able to deal with anything that life threw at them.

  But now, a few hours later, Laurie felt her confidence wavering. Her heart seemed to skip a beat as she looked through the glass in the arrivals hall towards passport control and spotted her father queuing. He was wearing a new straw panama hat and a white shirt, the short sleeves ironed into neat turn-ups. His passport was sticking out of his top pocket and the sunshade part of his glasses was hinged up as he consulted his miniature guide to Mallorca. She knew him well enough to know that he was planning on saying the appropriate phrase to the passport officer.

  To everyone else, he looked like just another holidaymaker, a retired man, but to her, he looked like the most precious person, and she realised now how much she’d missed him. She felt tears stinging her eyes. She was about to hurt him so much. She was about to destroy all his trust in her. Could she really do it?