“Yes, Laura, the au pair. She’d been left here, looking after the baby, all by herself.” Alex turns back to Kiara. “You were a few hours old, and they’d already left you with the teenage help. I said to Laura, get them to ring me, we’ll talk. But they never rang. I had a little cottage here in the village then—I’d been trying to sell it, but when I found out Ruth was pregnant with you, I thought it could be a good base for us in the early days. I set up a nursery there, got everything ready. The midwife and I took you back there. But of course that evening I heard what Ruth had done.”
Edwin lets go of my hand, and I think he’s wiping away tears, but then he lurches forward and snarls at Alex across the coffee table: “What she’d donebecause of you.”
Alex gives him an agonized look. “No, no. I never wanted that.”
Kiara hunches over, burying her face in her hands. Alex looks from her shaking shoulders to Edwin, and the battle to keep control of his emotions rages on his face.
“I still thought Dominic would ring,” he says eventually. “Once the shock of Ruth’s death had worn off, I took you back to Leeds the next day, Kiara. I didn’t speak to anyone in the village, we just left. Dominic knew my number in Leeds. Formonths, every time the phone rang, I thought it was going to be him. But it never was. I thought—he must have found out you weren’t his. He must have decided he didn’t want you. So I sold the cottage in the village. I never talked to anyone about any of it. I never mentioned the name Summerbourne again.”
My throat hurts. I take a deep breath. “What else happened? I don’t understand. If Kiara was the baby Ruth had that day, then—” I look at Danny. “Who are we?”
Alex really scrutinizes me then. My hair, my face, my body. He barely looks at Danny. It’s odd. An expression passes across his face fleetingly, a widening of his pupils and a flaring of his nostrils. He looks away, and then he shakes his head.
“I really am sorry if the things I did affected you,” he says, his eyes still averted. “I would help you if I could. But I honestly—I’m sorry—I have absolutely no idea who you are.”
24
Laura
July 1992
THE DAY AFTERI confirmed Alex’s suspicion that the baby was his, he delivered a letter to Summerbourne. I hid behind the kitchen door, holding my breath, as he pushed it through the letter box. Once his car had roared off down the lane, I carried the envelope up to Ruth, and she made no attempt to hide its contents.
Dear Ruth,
I appreciate this has not worked out the way we might have chosen, but I am delighted about the baby, and I fully intend to play an active role as his or her father. Please can we arrange to meet, to discuss how we are going to sort out visits in the early days, and a longer term shared custody plan, etc.? I am happy to meet with both you and Dominic together if you prefer. Ifeel confident we can come to an amicable arrangement.
With all best wishes,
Alex
She stared into the distance for a long time, and then tore the paper into tiny pieces and burned them in the fireplace.
Two more letters came that week, and he rang the house every day. After a while, neither Ruth nor I would answer the phone, and then on the Friday we had an anxious Vera arrive in a taxi unexpectedly, concerned because she had been unable to make contact. Ruth gave her lunch and sent her away again, adamant that she didn’t want visitors in the house.
Vera squeezed my hands just before she climbed into the taxi. “Ring me. Anytime. Day or night. And look after her. Please.” I nodded.
Alex stayed away over the weekend. Dominic came home with a trunk load of disposable nappies and a bassinet for the day nursery, as well as a home birth kit in a canvas bag. Ruth kissed him when he carried them in. He took Edwin out all day on the Saturday, and gave no indication that he was aware of Alex’s return to the village.
“What’s the matter with her now?” he asked me while he peeled potatoes for Sunday lunch.
“Just tired, I think.” I made a sandwich and retreated to my annex, leaving them to it.
Michael had warned us a heat wave was coming, and sure enough, the air was already heavy and warm when we woke up on the Monday morning. Dominic had left at six o’clock for London, and by nine o’clock Ruth and I were sitting in theshade on the patio, watching Edwin play in his paddling pool on the lawn. Ruth was still in her nightshirt, and she pressed her hand to her bump and groaned.
“I was quite enjoying being able to drink tea again, but I think the caffeine’s woken it up,” she said. “Ouch.”
She didn’t show any reaction to the sound of a car pulling up on the drive, and I followed her example and ignored the doorbell. We kept our eyes fixed on Edwin, straining our ears for the sound of an engine starting up again.
But Alex was determined that day. He must have climbed over the wall by the stable block. We whipped our heads round when he appeared from that direction, and he strode up the path toward us. His lips were pressed into a smile, but his fingers were curled.
Ruth rose and pointed at him. “Get out. Get away from my house.”
Edwin stood in his pool, dripping, staring from one to the other.
“We need to talk,” Alex said. His tone was calm, but the tension in his face suggested this took effort.
Ruth turned toward me. “Phone the police, Laura. Tell them someone’s broken into my property.”
