Motherlove (31 page)

She really needed Ben now. Try again. Try his office once more. There were no parallel worlds, just this one. One world screwed up in an unbelievable knot.

‘Can I speak to Ben, please.'

‘Hang on. Ben! For you.'

His voice, at last. ‘Hi, Ben Norris here.'

She had known. A growing suspicion – her previous visit, those photographs, the faces, that lake. She'd known. Perhaps, secretly, she had known from the moment Roz had mentioned the park. ‘It's me, Kelly,' she said, astonished that the words came out.

‘Kelly! Where are you? I've been trying to reach you. Got your text this morning but I couldn't get through to your mobile.'

‘Battery's out. I couldn't recharge it.'

‘Where are you though? In Lyford? What's going on? I thought—'

‘What are your parent's names?' she interrupted. ‘Their Christian names?'

‘Christian names? Martin and Jacky my step-mum – and Heather my mother. Why?'

Why had she even asked? ‘Your mother's Mrs Parish.'

‘Yes. They both remarried. Why? Kelly, what's up?'

‘Can you come here?'

‘To Lyford? Now? I don't know – No, of course I can come. Something's wrong, isn't it?'

‘Something's wrong. Yes. Something bad.'

‘You're all right? Are you hurt? Is it your mother? Tell me, Kelly.'

‘I'm all right. Upset, but not hurt. Please come. I can't explain this on the phone.'

‘I'm coming,' he said. ‘Give me a couple of hours. I need to get back to my car.'

‘I'll be here. Outside the library. I'll wait.'

And that was all she could do now. Sit and wait.

Ben, in his suit, ran across the square, searching the lunchtime crowds. Kelly raised her hand and he saw her.

She watched him coming, Ben Norris. Pictured that photograph in the
Lyford Herald
. Heather and Martin Norris and their young son Ben, known as Bibs.

Her brother.

‘Kelly!' He hugged her, reassuring himself she was in one piece. ‘I didn't know what to expect. What's going on?'

She stared at him. Lightish brown hair, hazel eyes, just like her. Just like her. Was that what she had seen, in Rick's place? Was that what Ben had seen in her? ‘You had a baby sister who died.'

She felt his flinch of withdrawal, the defences against past pain. ‘What? Yes. She died.'

‘Abigail Laura.'

‘OK, she was called Abigail. What have you been digging up? Because I wish…'

‘I'm Abigail.'

‘What?'

She drew a deep breath. ‘I'm Abigail. I'm your sister. Mum…Roz took me, from the pram in the park.'

‘No!' It wasn't shock or surprise. It was denial, absolute and unconditional.

‘She admitted it. I discovered I wasn't her natural daughter. That was what brought me to Lyford in the first place. I wanted to find the other girl, the one she gave birth to. I thought… Never mind what I thought.'

Kelly took his arm, led him to a bench. He sank down, dazed.

‘I was just trying to help. Mum was ill and – she'd said something about a mix-up in the hospital, labels being switched, two babies accidentally swapped. God knows where she got that idea from. The truth was, she had a baby, she gave it up, and then – then she wanted it back. So she took a baby, from the park, convinced herself it was hers. She admitted it. I've found the whole story in the newspapers. March 1990. It means I'm your sister, Ben. I'm Abigail.'

He was staring at her, drinking in the words, trying to shuffle them into an order that made sense. Still refusing to believe. ‘This is some kind of con? A joke? Do you have any idea what you're saying? Abigail is dead.'

‘No. She was taken. By my – by Roz.'

‘It isn't true.'

What could she say? Keep repeating the facts? This was all too much for him. It was too much for her and it had been creeping up on her gradually all morning. He didn't want to believe. They were lovers. And now she was his sister. How cruel was that?

‘We're still—'

‘No!' He jumped up, away from her touch. ‘You don't understand.'

‘We didn't know we were related. I love you, Ben.'

His eyes met hers, staring into them, wanting to feel what he had felt before, wanting this all to stop, now. ‘You don't understand,' he repeated.

‘We met and fell in love. That hasn't changed, has it? Being brother and sister, it's just—'

‘It isn't that! God! It isn't a matter of incest!' He put his head in his hands, then walked away, stumbling as he went. He reached the first fluttering tree and leaned against it for support.

Kelly rose to follow him, then stopped. There was nothing to do but watch and pray. It couldn't end. No matter what evil, vile trick fate was determined to play on them, it couldn't just end.

He raised his head at last, lowered his hands, straightened himself. Then he marched back.

‘I'm sorry. Kelly. It's not the incest. It's just – you see – if you really are Abigail, you can't understand how much – all these years – how much I've hated you.'

It wasn't what she had expected. It hit her in the solar plexus.

He looked away. Shut his eyes a moment, then sat down beside her, staring down at his feet. ‘You wrecked my whole life and I hated you.'

She needed him to explain, but all she could say was, ‘Sorry.'

He flashed her a brief, bleak smile, before looking down again. ‘I thought you were dead. We all did. Dad was so sure. So certain Mum had killed you.'

‘She didn't.'

‘God! All these years! He was so convinced. Everyone thought it. Everything fell apart. They divorced. Dad kept asking me, “What really happened, son? What did she do? You must have seen something.” But I didn't see anything. I couldn't remember anything. He told me you were dead, and I believed him. I couldn't believe her, you see? Because she didn't want me, she just wanted you. Abigail, Abigail, Abigail. And I thought it was because of me. Something to do with me. My fault.'

‘No!'

‘I thought she blamed me. Maybe she did, I don't know. I just remember Gran telling me, again and again, “Don't you worry, Bibs, whatever anyone tells you, it wasn't your fault.” So I thought it must have been. And all these years I've hated you for causing it all, and I've hated her for messing things up.

‘You know what Dad couldn't forgive? It was the fact that she wouldn't admit it. He could see the guilt in her eyes, but she wouldn't admit it. Kept insisting someone had taken you. So that was what I came to hate. The lie. Her refusal to say what she'd done.

‘I remember—' His eyes were screwed up, recapturing the image. ‘Being in the car with Gran, driving past and seeing my mother standing on a street corner, handing out leaflets. “Have you seen this baby?” Not in the car with me. Standing there while I drove by, asking people about you. Trying to pretend it was all true, that story about you being taken. That was all she did, pretend to look for you. They divorced and she never came to see me.'

‘I'm so sorry, Ben.'

‘They had blue teddy bears on them, those leaflets.' He bit his lip, breathing hard. Then he turned, ready now to look at her again, ready to cope with the knowledge shifting the ground under his feet. ‘She never came to see me. Why? God, you know I think it was him. Dad. He wouldn't let her come. I hadn't thought of that. I only knew she didn't want me, she wanted you and she wouldn't admit that she'd killed you. We didn't have any contact for years. Dad and I moved north, and he started a new family. When I came to find her again, a few years ago – do you know why? I didn't want to make it up with her. I just wanted to plague her into finally admitting what she'd done. Just say it, just once. I wanted to shake her and shake her.'

Kelly looked at her fingers, plaiting them together. ‘She didn't do it,' she said.

‘No.' He covered his face. ‘All these years she was right and we were wrong.'

He was blaming himself. She couldn't have that. ‘None of it was your fault, Ben. You were just a baby yourself. What else could you do but believe what they told you?'

‘I could have believed her.' He was arguing with himself, not with her. ‘I was wrong to hate her. I can't deal with this.'

‘You need time. We all need time.'

‘Yes.' He looked at his hands, then across at hers. He reached out to touch them. ‘My sister. Abigail.'

‘And Kelly.'

‘Which? You can't be both.'

‘Can't I? In that case, I don't know who I am.'

They sat silent for a while.

‘Twenty-two years not being believed,' said Ben at last.

‘Someone believed, surely?' Kelly, ever hopeful. ‘She remarried. Someone had faith in her.'

‘Keith Parish? Yes. He was a campaigner, Keith. Helped her with the leaflets. Enjoyed the challenge. A creep. I remember him at the house. Don't know why she took up with him.' He laughed, bitterly. ‘Yes I do. There wasn't anyone else. In the end he stopped believing too. Got bored with it. He got a job in Bristol and Mum wouldn't leave. She was going to stay in Lyford, prove her case, find her Abigail. I was never sure if she was bad or just mad.'

‘I would be mad, I think.'

‘Yes.' He stood up, his face in his hands. ‘Enough to drive anyone mad. Oh God.'

She reached to touch his hand. ‘Can we go there? To the park. I know we've been there, but it meant nothing to me then.'

‘Funny. It means a hell of a lot to me.'

She was quick to withdraw her suggestion. ‘If it's too painful—'

‘No. Come on.' It was a chance to walk, to expend energy, anything other than stand there drowning.

So they walked. Hand in hand, because she gripped his hand, never wanting to let it go. Knowing that it would never be the same again. There was a barrier between them now. A Perspex barrier that they could see through but never touch.

The park again. An innocuous bit of urban greenery, just like any other. Now it was transfused with significance. Parallel worlds again? Two worlds had brushed together here, and separated and everything was changed. A baby had come here twenty-two years ago, in one universe, and had left in a different one, and here she was again now, and how could all the destruction of that brief collision be undone?

She stared around at the lake, the grass, the trees, waiting for something. But she felt nothing. Nothing but compassion for Ben.

He was taking deep breaths. ‘Sometimes, you know, I think I remember it all, everything that happened. Then I realise I'm just remembering what I've been told. What Dad told me, what Gran told me, what Mum kept trying to tell me. The truth is, I have no memory at all of that day. I was three. I didn't understand anything. I didn't even understand that you'd gone. If only I'd been a bit older, a year or two, maybe I would have seen something, I'd have been able to tell them—'

‘None of it was your fault, Ben. You were—' Kelly stopped in her tracks.

Ahead of them, gripping the railings by the lake, was the woman. Mrs Parish. Ben's mother. Her mother. Heather Norris. The stocky figure stared into the murk of the lake and then turned abruptly to face the trees, expecting – what?

Kelly couldn't go on. It was the next step, wasn't it? Reunion? But she didn't want it. She didn't want to have her whole life washed away, condemned as fake. She didn't want to be claimed by a total stranger. She wanted to run. Except that she was Kelly, and Kelly didn't run away.

Ben had frozen too, staring at his mother with guilt and anguish. ‘Sorry. I should have thought. She would be here. She's always here. My fault.'

‘No.'

‘Yes, it is. When we made contact after all those years – I told you – I really just wanted to confront her, make her acknowledge the truth. But when it came to it, I didn't have the courage to say it outright. She thought I was trying to help her remember some vital clue. She took it into her head that if she retraced our steps some detail would come back to her. I wanted to torment her with this place. Instead she's tormented me with it. I should have known she'd be here.'

Kelly licked her dry lips. ‘I've got to meet her, haven't I?'

Ben stared at her, as reluctant as she was. It had to happen, but it was something neither of them wanted.

Kelly stepped forward.

Ben followed. ‘Mum.'

Heather was frowning, lost in her own thoughts. She didn't hear.

‘Mum,' Ben repeated, his voice strengthening.

Heather turned, face briefly lit by delighted surprise as she focussed on Ben. Then darkened with irritation as she saw Kelly.