Born of Woman (58 page)

Susie drained her tea. ‘God! Isn't that thing finished yet? You've been doing it for
weeks
. All that hassle just for a mingy pram-rug, when you could buy one in Mothercare for a couple of quid.'

‘Not like this, you couldn't.'

‘Yeah, but a baby's not going to know the difference. If you wrapped it in a dish-cloth, it would be just as happy. Anyway, the social worker told me not to bother with clothes and stuff. She said I don't even need to
see
the kid—well, hardly. They can take it away the day I leave the hospital if that's what I want. And I do want. It goes to foster-parents for the first few weeks, or straight to the adopting couple and
they
buy all the gear. You're wasting our precious money, Jen, stocking up on all those baby things.'

‘It's still best to be prepared. Something might go wrong. There might be a delay, or the adoptive parents may be poor or badly organised or …'

Susie guffawed. ‘Hardly! You have to be a bloody saint before you're allowed to adopt at all. That bod at the adoption agency told me there's such a shortage of babies, Dr Spock himself would have to join the queue.'

‘You ought to be glad they're so strict. They only do it for the baby's sake.'

‘Poor little sod, living with a Super-Mum. It'll probably grow up delinquent just to spite her.'

Jennifer smiled. She, too, felt hostile towards the adoptive parents. They hadn't even been chosen yet, but somewhere they were waiting—that young, fit, kind, reliable couple—ready to snatch the baby the minute it was born. It angered her that even had she been free to adopt the baby herself, it wouldn't have been allowed. She had no proper home, no regular income, no husband living with her, no forms or references, no social worker's stamp. Babies went to conventional couples with the sort of eager loving men who papered walls or pushed the trolley at Safeway's, not tramps and nomads skulking round allotments to escape from imaginary crimes.

She sorted through her box of hexagons. ‘Anyway, even a Super-Mum may not have bothered with patchwork. It's special, in a way—a sort of labour of love. So if you go to all the trouble of making it for someone, it's like—well—telling them they're important, or …'

Susie turned away.

‘What's wrong?'

‘Oh … nothing.' Susie picked up a handful of pieces, crumpled them in her hands. ‘It's just that …
I'
d like to be special for a change. You're so batty about this kid, Jen, I sometimes feel
I
don't count at all. I'm just the mug who's having it, the bloody pea-pod. Would you make
me
a piece of patchwork? Just a little thing?'

‘Oh course I will. I'll make you a whole bedspread, if you like.'

‘Would you, Jen? Honest? It'll take you ages though, judging by the pram-rug.'

‘I've
got
ages.' Jennifer broke off a length of thread. Once the baby was born and handed over, there might be years and years of emptiness—time to make a patchwork cover for the whole aching universe. How could things have changed so much—the Country Woman shut up in a basement without so much as a potted plant, the skilled and stylish super-cook heating baked beans on a gas-ring or sharing fish and chips with Susie out of a newspaper.

Susie herself wouldn't be there for ever. She only stayed now because she was pregnant and dependent and had nowhere else to go. Even Sparrow was proving difficult. He still hung around, hungry for his perks, but he was nervous of her bulge, angry about the baby, frightened she might change her mind and keep it. There were other men, too, prowling in the background. Even seven months pregnant, Susie attracted attention.

Stupid to be self-pitying. A crush of crass admirers didn't make for happiness. In fact, it was almost worse for Susie—having to endure all the ordeal of childbirth with no joy at the end of it. They needed a change, both of them, a treat to cheer them up. She couldn't hide away for ever, simply because Edward Ainsley was roaring through the newspapers and she was frightened of being recognised. She must take a risk, face the world. It was hardly a risk, in any case. No one would equate her with that simpering painted woman who had once charmed all the media with her quaint old-fashioned clothes and her long hair piled on top. Her hair was shorter now, and straggly; she had put on weight from too much stodgy food, didn't bother with make-up, wore Susie's cast-off jeans. She picked up her sewing, stowed it in a drawer. ‘Susie …'

‘Yeah?'

‘Let's go out.'

‘What, now? I've only just warmed up.'

‘No, Saturday. It's my birthday, then, and I think we ought to celebrate. Let's dress up and go somewhere really fancy.'

‘Like dinner at the Ritz, you mean?'

Jennifer grimaced. ‘Not the Ritz.' She could see Rowan Childs again, gold propelling pencil boring a secret tunnel to New Zealand. ‘Even with Matthew's handouts, we can't afford that. Not dinner, anyway. We could have tea there, I suppose.' Cucumber sandwiches and waiters in black coats. No—she couldn't face those waiters a second time. ‘Tell you what—let's have tea at Harrods—a sort of birthday blow-out. They do a special Grand Buffet where you can eat as many cakes as you can cram on to your plate. One of the girls in the office took her mother there and told me all about it. She said it was fantastic. There's even a pianist and …'

Susie jumped up. ‘Great, Jen! I'd love that. D'you know, I've never been to Harrods, not once in my life. I'll even bung on my maternity dress in honour of the place. Got to wear it once, I s' pose.'

Jennifer was also wearing a dress—in honour of Matthew's office. It was six minutes past ten the following morning and she was still dithering outside his door like a small, scared schoolchild summoned by the headmaster to his study. The whole place made her nervous—the hundreds of glossy books, the impatient braying phones, the feeling of being a stranger and a bumpkin among those chic, clever, sophisticated highbrows, whom she imagined staring after her as she climbed the stairs to Matthew. She smoothed her hair, pulled her skirt straight, knocked.

‘Come in.' The voice sounded tired and irritable, changed when Matthew looked up and forced a smile. ‘Ah, Jennifer, at last. Where's Lyn?'

‘He's … er … coming.' Why in God's name had she said that? She had meant to explain that Lyn was still unwell—seriously ill, confined to bed, unable to get up. Perhaps he was. She could see his face in front of her—gaunt, haunted, feverish—except it was Matthew's face, and speaking to her.

‘What d' you mean, he's coming? I haven't time to waste. I'm up to my eyes this morning.'

‘He's . . er … on his way. He'll be here in … half an hour.' Jennifer was so shocked by Matthew's appearance, she was talking gibberish. Her rehearsed and polished lies crumbled into dust as she stared across at him. His face was pinched and grey with tiredness, his suit seemed to sag across his chest, his mouth was one thin line.

‘Half an hour! What's the matter with him? Why can't you arrive together, for heaven's sake? I warned you on the phone, Jennifer, if we don't sit down and thrash this whole thing out, then …' Matthew was pacing up and down, eyes burning in his haggard face. Despite his air of exhaustion, he seemed unable to keep still. Even when he slumped back in his chair again, his fingers were drumming on the desk-top and he kept darting anxious jumpy glances over his shoulder as if he were on the alert for an intruder.

Jennifer was still gibbering. ‘He … er … got delayed. I had to leave before him. He's got quite a long way to come, remember.' From the other end of England, for all she knew, the other side of the Channel. She tried to plan the next lies—for when he
didn't
come: the car was unreliable; he'd been having blackouts and wasn't meant to drive …

Matthew jerked up from his desk again. ‘Yes, it
is
a distance from Bedfordshire.' He gave the county a sarcastic, almost mocking emphasis. ‘I'm surprised you got here yourself.'

Jennifer froze. Had Matthew somehow guessed that …?

He was striding to the door and back. ‘Don't you realise Lyn's up to his neck in this? In fact, from a legal point of view, Edward's quarrel is not with me at all, but with Lyn as joint heir. Edward's solicitors have been trying to track him down for two whole weeks now. Surely you can see that if he hangs around much longer …'

‘But he's coming, Matthew, I told you. There was a slight … problem before we left. The … er … water heater blew up.' Jennifer was trembling. Her own lies frightened her—stupid childish lies which would blow up themselves and scar her.

‘There's always some excuse. Lyn's so damned casual. Just because he's got nothing to do himself, he imagines he can … Ah, that's him now, I expect.' The phone on his desk was shrilling. Matthew picked it up. ‘And if he tries to tell me he's broken down or … Hallo? Yes, Matthew Winterton here. Who? Look, I told you not to bother me again. No, I haven't changed my mind. I made it quite clear last time that … I'm sorry—the answer's no—and if you're going to take that line, I've no alternative but to close this conversation.'

Matthew's hand was shaking as he banged the receiver down. ‘The nerve of these reporters! That was Jasper Prince again. He's phoned me every day for the last ten days. It hurts to be called a liar by a man as … base as that.' Matthew picked up his paper-knife, slashed it against the blotter. ‘Do you realise, Jennifer, he's trying to make out I was perfectly well aware that Edward was alive still, and that I hushed the matter up to grab all the spoils myself? That's downright libellous nonsense. You know yourself I made every enquiry I could, but there wasn't the slightest shred of evidence that Edward had survived. I mean, a child can't simply disappear. He's either dead or … I'm not psychic, am I? Who in God's name would have thought of looking in New Zealand?' Matthew was leaning forward, appealing to Jennifer, pleading with her. ‘You believe me, don't you?'

‘Yes. Yes, of course I do. It's just that …'

‘What?' The word was like a gun-shot.

‘Well … I don't quite see how Jasper tracked him down. I mean, if you'd already tried so hard and come up with nothing at all …'

Matthew hesitated. ‘It was … Rowan Childs. She gave him a vital lead. Remember when we met her at the Ritz, she mentioned Hester's sister?'

Jennifer nodded. She had thought about Ellen several times since then, wondered why there were no letters from her among Hester's private papers. Had the two lost contact?

Matthew was still fiddling with his paper-knife. ‘Ellen Ainsley was the only person in the world who could have helped any of us. She was the only relative left, you see, and …'

Jennifer had a sudden painful image of the bodies of Hester's brothers, bloody in the trenches. All three had been killed before they had a chance to marry, and since both Hester's parents had been only children, there were no descendants at all. ‘But I thought you said she was ill and very old and …' Was Matthew lying himself—each of them trying to fob the other off—he over Edward, she about Lyn?

‘She was. In fact, she's dead now. But she was still alive in the summer. Rowan interviewed her a week before she passed away. That's how she got her lead. Trust Miss Childs to harass a dying woman!'

‘B … but I thought you said Ellen lived abroad—in Delhi?'

‘That's right. She left this country way back in the twenties. I understand she was seeking religion or spiritual enlightenment or something, long before gurus became a Western craze. I suspect myself it was all a substitute for a normal family life. She was very plain, I'm told, and never married.' Matthew grimaced, as if ugliness and spinsterhood were states to be abhorred. ‘Anyway, once I knew she was out of the country, I let the matter rest. I didn't intend flogging all the way to India just to question one sick and crazed old woman who would probably tell me nothing anyway. I was far too busy.' Matthew shuffled through the papers on his desk, as if to demonstrate his work-load.

‘After we met Rowan at the Ritz, I checked on Ellen again—made a few enquiries via a friend of a friend who had relatives in India and didn't mind a spot of detective work. He came back with the news that Miss Ainsley had suffered a stroke in Delhi and died there, just a month or so before. Unfortunately, the information was wrong—though I didn't discover that till later on. Ellen had had a stroke—yes—but not a fatal one. She was left with one arm slighly paralysed and a problem with her blood pressure. Her doctors advised her to return to England, where she would have a milder climate and better nursing care.' Matthew smiled grimly. ‘It appears our English rain does have its benefits.'

Jennifer nodded. So Rowan's rumour was right—though she didn't say so. Matthew hated told-you-so's. She pictured Ellen trying to cope with choppy seas or jet-lag with unsteady legs and a weakened arm. All of Hester's family seemed to have lived harsh or tragic lives.

Matthew was still talking. His voice was calmer now, but his left eyelid was twitching in a continual tiny spasm. He kept rubbing at it, as if he could remove the twitch like a speck of dust. It made her nervous just to watch him. Matthew kept the whole world under his thumb, yet was powerless to control a facial tic. ‘
I
had no idea, of course, that she had came across to England. She was still dead and buried four or five thousand miles away, as far as I was concerned. But Rowan Childs had been making her own enquiries, and had all the back-up of a wealthy newspaper to help her in the task. An outfit like hers has leads and contacts everywhere—including India. I couldn't compete with that. A few probing phone calls to her Delhi office and she was on the track of a still-living Ellen Ainsley who had just arrived in Bristol … Excuse me please.' Matthew's own phone was blaring through his words.