A Dark Dividing (37 page)

‘You do think she’s dangerous?’

‘Not really. And I’ve wanted to move house since Joe died, you know that. But I can’t do it until after the twins have the separation. And since that’s something that will probably churn the publicity up all over again—’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m wondering if I could ask Martin Brannan about the possibility of having the twins’ separation carried out somewhere abroad. Quietly and anonymously.’

‘You’re frightened,’ said Isobel, almost accusingly.

‘No. No, I’m not really,’ said Mel.

But she was frightened, of course. Every time she remembered that hunger in Roz’s eyes, and every time she remembered Roz’s words—‘It could almost be said that you owe me a child, Melissa…’—she was increasingly aware of a compulsion to lock the twins away somewhere safe, out of reach of those cold avid eyes.

She began to check the twins’ pram at too-frequent intervals, and she took to getting up in the middle of the night to make sure that doors were bolted and windows locked. Several times in the week after Roz’s visit, driving home from the supermarket with the twins bundled into anonymous shawls and bonnets, she took absurdly circuitous routes in case she was being followed. This was ridiculous and neurotic, of course: Roz did not possess a car, and Mel did not think she could even drive. But then, once back in the house, she found herself going into all the rooms. This was the most neurotic thing of all, because Roz could certainly not get into the house. And yet, and yet…

You owe me a child, Melissa… And there had been those nights when she had seen Roz standing in the street outside, watching the house…

She spent the next Sunday at Isobel’s flat, enjoying Isobel’s careless lavish hospitality, and the pleasant untidiness of Isobel’s big flat which consisted of the upper half of a big old Victorian house. Several of Isobel’s colleagues turned up towards the end of the afternoon—Mel thought one of the men was shaping up to be Isobel’s latest lover. Good for Isobel. Wine was opened on the grounds that the sun was already well over the yard-arm, and Mel ended up staying longer than she had intended. The twins slept happily in Isobel’s bedroom, and it was nice to be with ordinary people again.

It was dark by the time she got home, but the time-switches that Joe had so diligently installed had all kicked in, so that there were lights on in the downstairs rooms. The house looked friendly and welcoming, and Mel was relaxed from the company and the cheerfulness. She stopped the car on the drive and got out to open the garage door, leaving the engine running, the twins safely inside. She had just got the garage door open and she was turning back to drive the car in, when a shadow fell across her and she spun round to see Roz standing close behind her.

‘You’ve been out somewhere,’ said Roz, without any preamble. ‘You’ve been with nice people and you’ve enjoyed yourself. I can see that you have.’

‘Yes.’ Dear God, thought Mel, what is she going to do? She glanced across to the car, wondering if she could get to the twins and get them safely inside. But Roz was between her and the car, and there was a glitter in her eyes that was quite frightening.

‘You’ve got so much, haven’t you?’ Roz was saying. ‘Friends and a nice house to live in—and you had a husband. And even when he died you had everyone’s sympathy. Poor Melissa, people said. Such a tragedy—we’ll have to help her through this. Nobody said, Poor Roz, though. Nobody helped me.’

Mel was hearing the dangerous note in Roz’s voice very clearly by this time, and so in as gentle a voice as she could manage, she said, ‘That must have been a dreadful time for you.’

‘It was. I had to keep everything secret—losing the baby—everything. I told them at the hospital I had stomach flu—they believed me, of course. Good old Roz, nothing in the least questionable about her life, never had a boyfriend, even.’ She half-turned her head to look at the twins and Mel tensed her muscles to spring forward, but Roz turned back and the moment was gone.

She said, ‘Roz, I’m truly sorry about it all. Weren’t there any friends you could talk to—?’

‘There wasn’t anyone. There never has been anyone. It’s easy for you to talk glibly about friends. It’s easy for you to pretend to be sorry, as well. You’ve come out of Joe’s death very nicely, I should think. Insurances and pensions—Joe was the sort of responsible man who would make sure his family was looked after. You might be a tragic widow, Melissa, but I’ll bet you’re a well-off tragic widow.’

‘I’m not really—’

‘I think you are. It’s all a matter of luck, isn’t it? Some people get it all. And even though the twins were born as they were, there’s no joining of any vital organs, so they can be operated on and they’ll be very nearly perfect. What a lot of luck you’ve had, Melissa.’ Again there was the swift darting glance towards the twins, and again Mel had to fight down the impulse to run forward and snatch the twins up. Unthinkable to involve them in any kind of struggle. And Roz looked so wild and sounded so unstable, Mel was afraid of triggering a much more dangerous situation.

And then a car came swinging around the curve of the road—one of the neighbours returning home—and the headlights picked out the two of them, and Roz blinked at the glare, and seemed to suddenly realize where she was. Mel saw that the wild glare had faded from her eyes.

But Roz said, ‘Remember everything I’ve said, Melissa. Remember that I was cheated of what should have been mine.’

A child…

‘Remember I’ll be watching you, Melissa,’ said Roz.

‘You’ve been watching me for quite a while, haven’t you?’

Incredibly Roz smiled. ‘Yes, I have. Did you know I was around?’

‘Yes. I saw you a few times. Sometimes I just knew you were there.’

‘Good. I wanted you to know. And I’m going on watching you, Mel. And watching the twins. I’m waiting until after the operation that will divide them.’

She turned and went back down the drive and along the road.

Mel sat in the warm comfortable sitting-room of Isobel’s flat and tried to stop shaking.

‘She means it,’ she said. ‘She really does. Once the twins have had the operation to separate them, she’ll try to take one of them. She won’t care which one—she just thinks she’s owed a child—she thinks I owe her a child, because she thinks she was cheated.’

‘But that’s the maddest thing in the world.’

‘I know. But if you had seen her and heard her—I’ve got to get out of her reach as soon as I can. Sell the house and move away, and just—well, vanish.’

‘Isn’t that a bit drastic?’

‘I’ve intended to do it ever since Joe’s death. You know that. I’ve even thought of changing my name so that there wouldn’t be any more media attention in the future. I’d only be bringing it forward a bit.’

‘Well, don’t move away from me, will you?’

‘No, of course not. I can’t imagine how I’d have got through any of this without you. But listen, I think I’m going to talk to Martin Brannan. He might be bound by all kinds of medical rulings, but I think I can trust him and one thing he might do is arrange for Roz to have some help. Psychiatric help, I mean.’

‘That’s very generous of you.’

‘It isn’t really. I’m frightened to death of her if you want the truth, but I’m eaten up with pity for her as well.’

Isobel seemed to study Mel very intently for a moment. Then she said, ‘Fair enough. Let’s work out exactly how you’re going to vanish.’

‘You’ll help me?’ Mel had not expected this.

‘Of course I will. I’m Sonia’s fairy godmother anyway, remember?’

‘If you help with this you’d be giving her one hell of a christening present.’

‘Yes, I know. Much better than a prick in a lonely turret,’ said Isobel deadpan, and despite herself, Mel laughed.

Martin Brannan, discreetly invited to a modest lunch on the other side of town, listened carefully to Mel’s story. ‘This is a tricky one,’ he said at last. ‘I agree with you that Roz needs help, but until or unless she does anything that’s a danger to anyone—including herself—I don’t think we can force any kind of treatment on her. I’ll make some discreet inquiries about that, though. You’re convinced that Roz really means to snatch one of the twins?’

‘I’m sure she does.’

‘It’s not unknown after a miscarriage, of course,’ he said, and Mel was deeply thankful that he appeared to accept her judgement, and that he seemed to take it for granted that he would help her. It ought to have felt peculiar to be with him like this in the relaxed friendliness of the small wine bar, but it did not.

‘Where will you disappear to? When the operation’s over, I mean?’

‘I don’t know yet. I’ll probably just stick a pin in a map. The house can be sold—I’ll give my solicitor the keys and ask him to instruct a firm of agents. I can get a furnished house for a few months and once a sale goes through I expect I can buy something. Probably I’ll change my name by deed-poll. This has got to be long-term, I think. It would only take one reporter with a good memory to do a tacky follow-up story sometime in the future, and the whole thing would blow up all over again. I don’t just mean Roz, I mean all the media intrusion.’

‘You’ll be all right for money?’

There was no reason to feel suddenly embarrassed by this. For God’s sake, thought Mel, he’s had his hands inside my body more times than I can count! She said, a bit brusquely, ‘Yes, perfectly all right, thank you.’

‘I’d like to know where you go,’ he said. ‘Write to me, will you? I’ll give you my home address. Or phone me?’

‘Yes. Yes, I’ll do that.’ She would probably replay that part of the conversation several times when she was on her own. Like an impressionable teenager, said her mind jeeringly.

Martin said, ‘First things first, then. The twins’ operation. What are we doing about that?’

‘That’s the part where I need your help most of all. Is there any way it can be done secretly?’

Martin appeared to think about this for a moment, and then he said, ‘Would you be prepared to take them abroad?’

‘I’d take them to Alpha Centauri if it meant they were safe.’

Between them, Mel, Isobel and Martin worked out a plan. ‘It’s feeling a bit James Bond-ish or Le Carré,’ Isobel said at one point. ‘But I don’t think we’re overreacting. We’ve got to assume that Roz is watching all the time.’