No Safe Haven: A gripping, twisty tale of loyalty and survival, page 18
I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to escape from Max .
Cattleford
40
‘Harri,’ I said gently, ‘maybe you’ve had enough.’
She put down her wine glass and eyed me warily, as if she thought I was about to get up and run away like her sister. She’d started drinking soon after Jessica left, and having polished off most of a bottle she was looking worse for wear.
‘Drinking yourself into a stupor isn’t going to change anything. Talk to me. Tell me what was going on earlier. Why is Jessica so desperate to leave this house?’
‘Probably to get away from her bitch sister,’ Harriet said and gave a hollow laugh.
‘That wasn’t the only thing though, was it?’ I said. In all honesty, knowing what Harriet was plotting for my baby I had zero sympathy for her. But until I had somewhere else to go, I needed to keep up the pretence of being her friend and carrying on with our “plan”. I didn’t want to alert her to my suspicions and trigger her to do anything desperate.
‘Jessica will be back soon enough,’ Harriet said. ‘Tyler will get fed up with her. Her so called boyfriends always do.’ She reached for her wine glass and I didn’t stop her. Let her drink herself into oblivion if that’s what she wanted. She clearly cared little enough for me or her sister. But she did support Jessica all these years. Even after what Jessica did, she helped with Reef. She was there for her.
Reef. Maybe that’s what it was all about. Perhaps being close to Reef was really all she wanted, and she put up with Jessica as part of the package.
‘Maybe this time it will be different,’ I said. ‘Maybe Tyler really is right for her.’ Not that I’d been especially taken with him when I’d met him briefly, though he had been friendly enough and Reef liked him.
‘Tyler isn’t right for her. She will come back, you mark my words. I’m the only person who really understands her.’
I shook my head. The pair of them were impossible. They couldn’t live with or without each other.
Abruptly, Harriet put the wine glass down and sat up straight. ‘What am I doing?’ she said. ‘Poppy, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be doing this in front of you, getting drunk and whingeing on.’
‘It’s not like the baby can see,’ I said.
She looked at me intently, her gaze surprisingly sharp and lucid considering how much wine she’d put away. ‘I’ll do a good job,’ Harriet said. ‘With the baby, if you do end up having to go away for a bit.’ Her face brightened. ‘You know what, I’m being stupid. The baby is all that matters.’ She picked the near empty wine bottle up and got to her feet. ‘I’m getting rid of the rest of this.’
I smiled uncomfortably. The baby is all that matters. Coming from her, those words could not have been any less reassuring.
…
‘Harri, what is all this?’ I asked her when she arrived back from Bits and Bobbins a couple of days after Jessica left us.
Her face broke into a smile. ‘Oh, it arrived!’ she said, ‘I’m so glad. I thought it might have got delayed – it’s mayhem down the road, some cows got out from Willow Farm and they were all over the street.’
‘Cows?’
‘Yes,’ she said, her hands clutching at the small pile of cardboard boxes. ‘A section of fence was broken and the whole lot of them made a run for it.’
She carried the boxes through to the kitchen and started cutting tape with a pair of kitchen scissors. Eventually, an overnight bag emerged, along with an array of other bits and bobs – toiletries, maternity pads and breast pads and a pack of newborn nappies.
‘So you can pack your hospital bag,’ Harriet said enthusiastically.
For a moment I stared at the heap of items in stunned silence. This is actually real. I really am having a baby. I put my hand on my bump and tried to calm down. Why had Harriet done this? This was my job. To do it herself, when I was the one giving birth – it left me lost for words.
‘I just feel bad for you stuck here all the time, and I thought getting this ready would give you something to do.’
‘It won’t take me very long to pack a bag.’
‘No, I know that.’ Concern crept into her voice. ‘I– I’m sorry. Did I overstep the mark?’
I looked around at her. There was nothing other than kindness in her face, but Reef’s words kept echoing in my head.
Auntie Harri was reading about getting a baby passport.
For a moment I was overwhelmed by the desire to confront her and just get it over with. Let her admit what she was trying to do and we could stop this ridiculous pretence. She’d bought a hospital bag because she was excited for me to give birth to the baby she wanted to steal. That’s all I was to her – a walking incubator. She didn’t care about me, and she didn’t care about Jessica. I felt a pang. Her marriage with Ben had ended horribly, and to find out the husband you so badly wanted to start a family with was having a baby with your own sister was bound to have affected her deeply. But that didn’t change what she was planning. And it was unforgiveable.
‘It’s okay,’ I lied. ‘It needs sorting out and I must admit I hadn’t started thinking about it.’
‘I know you’re worried,’ Harriet said. ‘It’s okay if you feel daunted or overwhelmed, doing it on your own. Not that you are on your own, of course, you’ve got me, but I just mean–’
‘I know what you mean. But for most of Dominic’s life I was a single mum and I made it through. I suppose for all of this baby’s life I will be a single mum.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘I can’t ever risk having a relationship again.’ I laughed without much humour. ‘And you think Jessica has poor taste in men.’
‘Well, me and her were both wrong about Ben.’
I was about to try and ask again about whether Ben might be interested in getting to know Reef, but Harriet quickly changed the subject. ‘What do you want for dinner?’ she asked, as she went over to the fridge to investigate its contents. She started muttering about needing to go and do a big shop, and my eyes rested on the smiling baby on the front of the pack of newborn nappies. I would find a way out of this mess. No matter what it took, I’d keep Dominic and my baby safe. Nothing else mattered.
…
‘Jessica?’ I said, as I answered the door. Her face was streaked with tears as she stepped inside, Reef trudging along behind her, and I was lost for words at the tragic state of them. Could things really have gone so wrong, so quickly?
Harriet immediately appeared in the kitchen doorway, and Reef ran across to her and threw himself into her arms.
‘Congratulations, you were right,’ Jessica snapped at Harriet while she pulled off her bright yellow raincoat and threw it towards the banister, but it missed and fell on the floor. ‘He doesn’t love me, and he doesn’t want me.’
‘Jess, I’m not happy to hear that–’
Jessica waved her sister’s words away with an angry swipe of her hand, before shoving her suitcase towards the bottom of the stairs so that she could step further inside. ‘Yes you are. Another one of Jessica’s daft fantasies.’
‘Here, Reef,’ I said, holding out my hand. ‘Why don’t I put the TV on for you?’ He eyed me uncertainly, and I gave him a smile. ‘It’s okay,’ I said.
Eventually he broke free from Harriet and came into the lounge with me. ‘Mummy says we’re not living with Tyler,’ he said. ‘They shouted a lot and then we left.’ He screwed his face up and said with feeling, ‘We were only there for literally three nights! Or a week maybe. Mummy said we’d stay forever.’
‘You were there for four nights,’ I told him. ‘I know it must be confusing, but you can go back to school tomorrow and see all of your friends. That will be nice.’
He threw himself onto the sofa, and I put the TV on. ‘I expect Mummy or Auntie Harri will be in in a minute,’ I told him, ‘will you be okay for a second?’
He nodded moodily, and I rejoined the sisters, closing the door softly behind me. Hopefully Harriet and Jessica would keep their voices down, or take their argument somewhere else, because Reef didn’t look in a good way to me.
‘Just tell me exactly what happened,’ Harriet said calmly. Jessica started crying again, so I encouraged them both into the kitchen to be further from Reef’s hearing.
‘Tyler said he thought I’d only go and stay with him for a week or so – he didn’t think I was serious about us starting a new life together. But that’s what we’d been talking about. He’d said it was what he wanted!’
‘I knew he was dodgy,’ Harriet muttered.
‘I’m an idiot!’ Jessica cried, ‘I’m a complete idiot. Why do I ever believe what anyone tells me?’
She fled upstairs, and Harriet disappeared into the living room. The low murmur of her and Reef talking drifted out to me, and with little else to do I made my way upstairs to check on Jessica.
‘He lied to me,’ she said, as I stepped inside her room. She’d closed her curtains, even though it was still light outside, and she was sitting on the colourful rag rug covering the floorboards in her room, leaning back against her bed. ‘We’d made all these plans, and it wasn’t real.’
‘Maybe it was when he said it,’ I tried to reassure her.
‘You mean, he wanted to be with me until he spent a few days with me?’ she said. ‘You think I’m that awful to be around–’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘I’d prefer to think he was just lying,’ she said. ‘Like Ben.’
I shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. ‘Jess, listen, about Ben–’
She turned her head and gave me a warning look, which I ignored. ‘I know I’m not exactly a good advertisement for what happens when you bring dads back into kid’s lives,’ I continued, ‘but maybe it would be good to get in touch with him. Let Reef get to know him, maybe it will give you and Harriet a bit of space to move on from things and build bridges.’
‘By bringing back the very person who caused the problem?’
I sighed, and Jessica buried her face in her knees. I wished I could sit beside her and put my arms around her, but I was getting to the stage where if I sat down on the floor I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get back up again.
‘I don’t know how I can get up tomorrow and act like everything is normal,’ she said. ‘And… I’ve left everything in such chaos; the sewing room, all my appointments, I’ve been so distracted I let myself get way behind. I didn’t think I’d ever come back here, so I didn’t think it mattered. And Reef’s school… oh my God, Reef’s school–’
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I think Harriet has been cancelling your dress fittings and appointments each day, and we can make a start on getting your sewing room tidy once Reef is in bed – then you won’t have to face a mess tomorrow. And the school, well, had you officially told them that Reef was leaving?’
She shook her head.
‘Well, then, the worst it’ll be is that you get a bit of a ticking off for taking Reef out of school again. It will be all right.’
She let out a sob and buried her face in her hands again. ‘I am sorry, Jess,’ I said softly. ‘I know it probably doesn’t help to hear me say it, but it’s his loss. If he can’t see how wonderful you and Reef are, he doesn’t deserve you anyway.’
She lifted her head a little. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘At least I know you’re not secretly glad.’
‘Harriet isn’t glad,’ I said gently, though I wasn’t too sure myself how Harriet felt about anything. ‘I think she would have liked to be proved wrong.’
‘You don’t believe that any more than I do,’ she said.
41
Harriet’s face pinched as she switched on the light in the conservatory to be confronted with the disorganisation within. I hadn’t set foot in Jessica’s sewing room for a while, and my heart sank at the thought of trying to tidy up the chaos the room had got into. And doing it with Harriet certainly wasn’t appealing. I didn’t want to spend any longer with her than I possibly had to. ‘You don’t have to help with this,’ she said. ‘You should try and get some sleep.’
‘I don’t think I’ll be getting to sleep any time soon,’ I said. ‘And I told Jessica we’d try and clear up for her – she’s really worried about how far behind she’s got with everything. I think if she walks in here tomorrow and it looks like this she might walk straight out again and give up.’
Harriet rolled her eyes as she pushed the sleeves of her black jumper up to her elbows. ‘She should have thought about that before she let things get in such a state. I don’t know what she thought was going to happen. You can’t just walk out on your own business and leave someone else to pick up the pieces.’
‘She hasn’t really been thinking, I guess.’ I surveyed the room again. ‘How do we tackle this, though? I have no idea what’s going on in here.’ Fabric and half-finished garments were piled haphazardly, and open boxes of various sewing supplies were strewn about.
‘She has a system, of sorts,’ Harriet said, moving the ironing board out of the way to get to the table. ‘You start putting things back in these boxes and I–’
‘It’s all right, I can help.’ Jessica’s voice in the doorway startled us, but when I turned to her she gave a weak smile. ‘I’m a little better now,’ she said.
‘We’ll all do it together,’ Harriet said, ‘and we’ll try and see where you are with some of these clients. I’ve been having to phone people and cancel appointments this week–’
‘I’m sorry, Harri,’ Jessica said shakily. ‘I should have been doing that… it all just got on top of me.’
She slumped down onto the rattan armchair and I put my hand on her shoulder. ‘You don’t have to help us,’ I said, ‘me and Harri can do it.’
‘No, I – pass me my diary,’ she said to Harriet, ‘I’ll try and figure this out.’
Harriet passed her a large flowery book along with a pen that had a pink pom-pom on the end, while I sat down at Jessica’s work table and turned towards her. ‘Are you really feeling better?’ I asked her.
She shrugged. ‘I’ve realised you’re right,’ she said, astonishingly dismissive all of a sudden. ‘He doesn’t deserve me, and I’m not going to waste any more time crying over him.’
‘I should hope not,’ Harriet agreed, as she busily started picking up scraps of fabric from the table and floor. ‘And I have to say, although I did want you to be happy – even if you don’t believe me when I say that – I did miss you when you weren’t here. And Reef, of course.’
‘I think perhaps I didn’t really love Tyler,’ Jessica said, with that surprising indifference again, as she traced her finger through the diary before snapping it shut. ‘No appointments for a couple of days,’ she said. ‘It’ll give me a chance to catch up on some of the dresses I got behind on.’
My phone rang, and I answered quickly when I saw Dominic’s name on the screen. ‘Mum?’ he said, ‘you still haven’t said whether you will meet Max! The audit starts next Monday.’
‘Dom,’ I said patiently, as the two sisters turned to me, no doubt curious what new drama could emerge in my life. ‘I cannot see Max.’
‘But you could get caught!’
I pressed my eyes closed for a second. Yes, I could. If this audit was even real. It was an incredibly convenient way for Max to get Dominic to badger me for a meeting.
‘Mum, Max is…’ he took a breath. ‘He’s really upset that you won’t speak to him. And it’s making life hard for me as well. I keep making excuses for you, but you won’t even tell me what’s going on. Sometimes… sometimes I wonder why I’m covering for you when you don’t even trust me enough to tell me the truth.’
‘It’s not that I don’t trust you,’ I said desperately, reeling at switching straight from dealing with Jessica’s meltdown to handling Dominic’s. ‘I’m waiting for the right time.’
‘What does that mean? I need to know now!’
I sighed helplessly, while Jessica and Harriet’s eyes filled with questions. ‘Dom, is Max upsetting you?’ I asked eventually.
‘No! You’re upsetting me. I know you don’t want to see him, but he says speaking to you one more time will give him closure. He said you left so suddenly that he feels like he can’t make sense of what happened.’
I rubbed at my forehead with my hand. Harriet had gone back to half-heartedly picking up the fabric scraps, while Jessica toyed with a fat pincushion on the edge of the table, rearranging the pins into neat lines organised by their brightly coloured heads.
‘I’m going to change my surname this week,’ Dominic said. ‘I can’t have my name reminding me of Liam any more.’
‘To Dorsett?’ I asked him. ‘Like Max?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, but there was a challenge in the way he said the word, as if he wanted me to give him a reason not to, and I seized on it.
‘I am going to explain everything to you,’ I said, and Harriet gave me a warning look. ‘I know my behaviour is hard to understand but there is a reason for it.’
‘No there isn’t!’ Dominic said. ‘You just don’t trust me. Max says you don’t trust anybody–’
‘I don’t care what Max says,’ I snapped. ‘Me and you, Dom, we’re a team. We always have been, haven’t we? Whatever I do, I do it because I’m trying to do the best thing for both of us. I know I made a lot of mistakes after Liam left and I’m sorry for what I put you through. You should never have had to go through what you did. I wasn’t thinking straight back then, but you can trust me now.’
‘Except you don’t trust me. Please, just agree to meet Max. For me. I don’t want you getting in trouble over the fraud for the sake of not wanting to speak to him.’
