Folly's Child Page 17

  ‘We have everything,’ Stuart said impatiently and added as the waiter moved away: ‘Let’s eat and get out of here. For Christ’s sake, Sally, did you have to spoil a good meal?’

  ‘I’m sorry …’ She lifted her fork, played with the rice and knew she would not be able to swallow a single mouthful. ‘I had to tell you. I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer.’

  He tipped his dish of chips onto the mound of curry and rice, without replying. His face was like stone.

  ‘Stuart – say something please!’ she begged.

  He glared at her resentfully. ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘I don’t know …’ she said helplessly. ‘ I never expected you’d be like this …’

  ‘Oh – you thought I’d jump for joy, I suppose. Sorry to disappoint you. But I don’t know why you’re telling me anyway. It’s not mine, is it?’

  ‘Stuart!’ She stopped forking rice, staring at him in horror. ‘ What are you talking about? Of course it’s yours!’

  He snorted, a sound conveying disgust and disbelief. ‘For goodness sake eat. Everyone is looking at you.’

  Her face burned, embarrassment compounding her misery.

  She tried to eat, but could not. Her stomach simply refused to accept food. She glanced at Stuart. He was like an angry stranger. She knew now why she had been afraid to tell him. She had known deep down he would take it like this. She had caught glimpses of the cold, unrelenting persona beneath the jovial charming exterior. Strangely it had formed part of the attraction, knowing there was a deeper side to him, and if it was also a little dark then perhaps that made it all the more exciting. She loved him. She could handle it – or so she had thought. Now suddenly she was not so sure.

  He finished his meal in silence while Sally forced down a few mouthfuls.

  ‘Aren’t you going to eat that?’ was all he said.

  Sally shook her head. He rolled his eyes, waved to the waiter and settled the bill. Then he propelled Sally along the street to where his car was parked. She hunched into the passenger seat. Stuart sat staring straight ahead. In the amber glow of the street lamps his profile looked hard, arrogant and uncompromising.

  ‘Stuart – please …’ she begged.

  He half-turned. ‘You’ll get rid of it, of course.’

  Her stomach fell away. ‘No!’ she said, shocked.

  ‘Well what are you going to do then?’

  ‘What am going to do? Surely this should be a joint decision.’ He stared stonily. ‘Stuart – you don’t really believe what you said in there do you? That the baby isn’t yours? How could you even suggest such a thing?’

  ‘I know I was careful.’

  Suddenly she was angry. ‘Obviously not careful enough. How dare you accuse me of letting someone else …’

  ‘Well, how do I know you haven’t?’

  ‘How? Surely you know me better than that. I love you. We’re going to be married. This will just mean bringing it forward a bit. I know it’s not how we planned it but we would have had a family eventually wouldn’t we? It’ll just be sooner than we intended.’

  ‘Like hell.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Christ, Sally, I don’t intend to start off like this. Saddled with a kid.’

  ‘But we haven’t any choice now. You must see that.’

  ‘We’ve every choice. Get rid of it. Have an abortion.’

  ‘What are you saying? I couldn’t do that! Kill my own child – our child? Anyway I wouldn’t know how to go about it. It’s illegal.’

  ‘There are ways.’

  ‘No I couldn’t!’

  ‘Well if you’re squeamish, get it adopted then.’

  ‘No!’ This was a nightmare, it had to be. In a minute she’d wake up. ‘ Please, Stuart, stop this. Let’s get married. We’ll manage. Other people do.’

  ‘I’m not other people. If you think I’m going to tie myself down with a wife and an unwanted kid you’ve got the wrong bloke. There are too many things I want to do first.’ He started the car. ‘If you’re stupid enough to get yourself pregnant, Sally, that’s your problem. Leave me out of it.’

  She couldn’t answer. She was trembling so much no words would come. He pulled the car into the kerb outside her flat but did not switch off the engine.

  ‘Aren’t you coming in?’ she asked, hating herself for sounding so meek, so pleading, but unable to help it. In all her life she could never before remember feeling as lonely and panic-stricken as she did now, and illogically she clung to the belief that if only they could sit down and talk about it then everything could still come right.

  ‘Please … just for a little while …’ she begged. But Stuart only revved the engine impatiently by way of reply.

  ‘Not tonight. I think I’m going to get drunk. I’ll make some enquiries about abortions and I’ll phone you.’

  ‘Well thanks, Stuart. Thanks a lot!’ She slammed out of the car, her eyes burning with angry tears. Even now she was desperately still hoping he would change his mind and follow her. He did not. The car roared away and she was left alone on windswept pavement.

  ‘Honey, maybe it would be wise for you to have that abortion,’ Laura-Jo said. She brought a cup of coffee across to the table where Sally was sitting, her head in her hands. Her pleasant face was anxious. Since Sally had confided in her a week ago she had been able to think of little else. Men! They really could be the most unbelievable swine. She felt responsible too. After all it had been at her party that Sally had met him.

  ‘I won’t have an abortion,’ Sally said stubbornly. ‘I don’t want to be messed up by some back street quack.’

  ‘There are other places. It would cost you, but wouldn’t your sister lend you the money? Nobody need ever know. A few days in a clinic and they’ll call it appendicitis or something.’

  Sally shook her head. ‘It’s not just that. I’ve discovered morals I didn’t know I had. I can’t murder my own baby.’

  ‘It’s not a baby yet.’

  ‘To me it is. It’s alive. I can feel it – here.’ She pressed her hands to her midriff. ‘ I know it’s only a flutter yet but I can feel it. I couldn’t live with myself, knowing I’d killed it.’

  ‘Oh honey!’ Laura-Jo pulled out a chair and sat down beside Sally. ‘What are you going to do then?’

  ‘I don’t know. I keep hoping Stuart will change his mind.’

  ‘You’d still have him – after this?’ Laura-Jo asked.

  Sally nodded. Tears squeezed out of the corners of her eyes.

  ‘I still love him. Oh, call me crazy if you like but he’s not really like this.’

  ‘You could have fooled me.’

  ‘He’s just shocked. Maybe when he gets used to the idea …’ Laura-Jo sighed. She didn’t want to tell Sally that she had spoken to Stuart herself, trying to make him shoulder his responsibilities, and had been told in no uncertain terms to mind her own business. Stuart wasn’t about to change his mind, she was sure. She glanced at Sally, at her white drawn face and the huge dark circles under her eyes. She looked as though she was going through hell.

  ‘Well if you won’t have the abortion while there’s still time then you’d better start looking after yourself, otherwise goodness knows what will happen to you – and the baby. I guess we’d better get some advice for you, Sally. You are going to need all the help you can get.’

  The months dragged by, each as nightmarish and unreal as the one before. Sally continued to work as long as she was able, hiding her growing girth beneath flowing cotton dresses although she was well into her sixth month before she had a recognisable bulge. She managed to avoid going home. Her mother and father did not know as yet and she didn’t want them to. Laura-Jo arranged for Sally to see a social worker and reluctantly she agreed – after all she had to be practical. Hiding away and pretending nothing was happening would not make it go away.

  The social worker was bland, middle-aged and matter-of-fact with untidy greying hair.

&nb
sp; ‘Is there no possibility of you marrying the man?’ she asked;

  ‘None,’ Sally said. No one had heard of Stuart for weeks. Sally had seen him a few times after that first dreadful evening when she had broken the news to him but he had been just as unhelpful. He had supplied Sally with an address where she might get an abortion and become abusive when she had refused, point blank. Now word was that he had gone abroad and Sally had come to realise that whatever there had been between them, it was all over. She was on her own.

  ‘So – do you intend to keep the baby or have it adopted?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, let’s discuss it. Either way there will be problems. Bringing up a child on your own won’t be easy – I’m sure you know that. But adoption is no easy answer either. There are plenty of couples only too anxious to take an illegitimate child and give it a good home and it might be the best solution for your baby’s sake. But don’t imagine for a moment giving it up would be easy. Maternal ties are very strong.’

  ‘I don’t think I have any choice, do I?’ Sally said.

  ‘Wouldn’t your family support you?’

  ‘I don’t want to go home.’ Sally did not tell her that her parents were in blissful ignorance of her situation.

  ‘In that case I think the best solution will be to book you into a Mother and Baby Home. You can stay there with your child for at least the first six weeks. You will be with other girls in the same situation as yourself and it will give you the chance to see how you feel when Baby is actually here. It’s best not to make any firm decision until then.’

  Six weeks with the baby! I’ll never be able to give it up if I have to spend six weeks with it, Sally thought and realised that without being aware of it, she must have already made up her mind.

  ‘I don’t want to do that either,’ she said. ‘A Mother and Baby Home sounds like an institution. I’d rather just decide now. Can’t it be adopted at birth without me ever seeing it?’

  ‘We are not in agreement with that practice,’ the social worker said sternly. ‘ That way lies certain trouble. You would be burdened with guilt at denying your child the most basic love – I’ve seen too many girls in and out of mental hospitals for years as a result of it. Whatever you decide I feel the only course is for you to mother your child for at least two weeks.’

  Sally nodded numbly. ‘Very well. But I’d like it to be adopted as soon as possible.’

  The social worker looked disapproving. Don’t say I haven’t warned you, her expression seemed to say.

  ‘I’ll take some details and pass them on to an adoption agency. Do you have any preference as to religion?’ Sally looked blank and she went on impatiently: ‘What religion would you like your baby to be brought up to? What is your persuasion?’

  ‘Church of England’, said Sally, who had not been inside a place of worship for at least ten years.

  ‘Very well. I’ll put you in touch with the Church of England Adoption Society,’ the social worker said. ‘They will point out the pitfalls just as I have.’

  She pushed her empty coffee cup back across her cluttered desk and smiled impersonally. Sally realised the interview was at an end.

  The baby was born in May and the moment Sally saw him she knew that whatever the difficulties she could simply never part with him.

  She lay in her hospital bed, exhausted by the long hours of labour, sore beyond belief from her stitches and with breasts already throbbing and taut although she had been given an injection to stop the milk coming in, and ached for the nurses to bring him to her again. He was so sweet with his moist little head dented from pressure during the birth, wide blue eyes and a button nose. Who ever had said babies were red, wrinkled and ugly? Sally wondered. Mark certainly wasn’t. He was perfect and she adored him.

  Mark. In spite of deciding on adoption she had chosen names because not to give a baby a name seemed like depriving it of individuality – Mark for a boy, Sarah for a girl. She had felt a moment’s dismay when they told her she had a boy for the adoption society had a couple lined up and waiting for her if the baby had been a girl. Then the relief had come rushing in. There would be no pressure. She would have borne a girl for that unknown couple. A boy was hers and hers alone. Lying strung up like a chicken with her legs in stirrups while the doctor worked to ‘tidy her up’ as they called the stitching process, she had experienced a moment’s triumph and for the first time she was actually glad that Stuart had left her. She didn’t want to share her baby with anyone, not even him. Certainly not him!’

  Next day Laura-Jo came to visit her laden with flowers, chocolates and grapes. She had peeped in to the nursery on her way to the ward and seen Mark.

  ‘He’s gorgeous!’ she enthused.

  ‘I know,’ Sally said smugly. ‘Don’t you think he’s the most beautiful baby in the nursery? And they say he’s very good. Even when the others bawl he refuses to join in.’

  ‘You’re never going to part with him,’ Laura-Jo said.

  ‘No,’ Sally agreed. ‘I know. In fact I can’t imagine how I ever came to consider it.’

  Laura-Jo grinned. She too had fallen in love with Mark.

  ‘In that case we’re all going to have to rally round and help you, aren’t we?’ she said.

  It wouldn’t be easy, Sally knew. The first euphoria quickly wore off and the problems came crowding in. Her parents had to be told – presenting them with a fait accompli was much worse than preparing them, but when they emerged from the first stages of shell-shock they begged Sally to come home so that they could help Sally bring him up. Sally refused. Now more than ever she needed to be independent. She persuaded the landlord to let her keep on the bedsit for the time being at any rate until Mark needed space to run around, and arranged for a baby minder. Laura-Jo and her friends took on the roles of honorary aunts and spoiled Mark dreadfully but Sally, exhausted from broken nights and long working days, knew that the ultimate responsibility was hers and hers alone. She would have no real social life, no time to herself, no money to spare for years and years. There would probably be no boyfriends – except the ones who thought an unmarried mother must be an easy target. Perhaps there would never be anyone willing to take her on with someone else’s baby. She faced that thought and shrugged her shoulders. So be it. She did not care. Men had brought her nothing but misery. They were a sorry selfish bunch of bastards. Now she had Mark and he was all she wanted. She was going to be a very, very good mother to him.

  Sometimes when Sally thought she was on the very point of exhaustion a small triumphant thought came to cheer her.

  At least I beat you to something, Paula! At least I beat you to something!

  PART THREE

  The Present

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Tom O’Neill arrived at the police headquarters exactly two minutes early for his appointment. He was shown into a sunny office where the light streamed in bars through the Venetian blinds and the police chief rose from behind his paper-strewn desk, holding out his hand.

  ‘Good day, Mr O’Neill. Robert Gascoyne. What can I do for you?’

  Tom shook the outstretched hand.

  ‘I’m grateful to you for sparing me your time. As I told you on the telephone I am working for the British and Cosmopolitan Insurance Company. They paid out on the lives of both Greg Martin and his companion, Paula Varna, when his yacht blew up in 1967 and naturally they are anxious to ascertain whether in fact they were the victims of fraud. According to what we read in the newspapers this may well have been the case. A woman has made a report to you, I understand, to the effect that Greg Martin, at any rate, is very much alive. A Maria Vincenti from Darling Point as far as I remember.’

  ‘Maria Vincenti. Yes. Won’t you sit down, Mr O’Neill?’

  The police chief, Robert Gascoyne, was big, bronzed and with an indifferent manner. He had been born and raised in the flat farmland around Echuka, Victoria, but he had lived in and around Sydney for the past thirty years and the laid-b
ack attitude of the Sydneysiders had rubbed off onto his naturally taciturn manner just as the year-round sunshine had tanned his skin. Besides this a career in the New South Wales police service had made him cynical; now, approaching retirement, he longed only to be free to spend more time on his boat, fishing, with nothing but the seabirds and a few cans of Fosters or Castelmaine XXXX for company. People – you could keep them. He’d had enough dealings with the shits of this world in the last thirty years to last him a lifetime. Bums, hoodlums, petty crooks and murderers, he’d dealt with them all. He knew a loser when he saw one – and the Italian woman who had come to him with a far-fetched story about the supposedly re-incarnated Greg Martin was a loser, even if she did live in luxury and was supposed to be the heiress to a family textile fortune back home in Italy. Worse, she was a lush. Gasgoyne had no respect at all for people who couldn’t hold their drink.

  ‘I understand she claims to have been living with Greg Martin for the last twenty years,’ Tom said, settling his file on the desk.

  ‘So she says’, the police chief agreed non-committally.

  Tom’s eyes sharpened. ‘You don’t believe her?’

  ‘If I believed every story I’d been told in my career I wouldn’t be sitting where I am today,’ the police chief returned, unsmiling. ‘Look at it this way. There is always a certain amount of glamour attachéd to a story like this and there will always be crooks and cranks searching for some kind of notoriety. How many times, for instance, has someone come up with a sighting of Lord Lucan? As for Mrs Vincenti, or Trafford, as she has been calling herself, she is hardly the most reliable of witnesses. You haven’t met her, I take it?’ Tom shook his head. ‘ Well, when you do you’ll see what I mean. She has money, yes, and plenty of it. She’s been used to attention all her life, one way and another, and now she isn’t getting it. She drinks like a fish. Besides all that she is clearly a woman with a grudge – against Michael Trafford, her common law husband. Have you any idea the lengths a woman scorned will go to, Mr O’Neill? Believe you me she would not be the first lady to try to land a man in one hell of a lot of hot water for the sake of revenge.’