Liz Fielding - The Bride's Baby

‘I guess the big question is-does it beat the elephant?’

‘Too right!’ She drew up her legs, wrapping her arms around them. ‘The photographer could use one of those things where you stick your head through the hole-’

‘A bride and groom one.’

‘-for all the guests to have their photographs taken.’

She couldn’t stop grinning. ‘We’ll decorate the marquee with ribbons and coloured lights instead of flowers. And set up sideshow stalls for the food.’ She looked at him. ‘Bangers and mash?’

He grinned back. ‘Fish and chips. Hot dogs.’

‘Candyfloss! And little individual cakes.’ She’d intended to go for something incredibly tasteful, but nothing about this fantasy was going to be tasteful. It was going to be fun. With a capital F. ‘I’ll talk to the confectioner first thing. I want each one decorated with a fairground motif.’

Tom watched as, swept up in the sheer fun of it, she clapped her hands over her mouth like a child wanting to hold it in, savour every minute of it.

‘You like it?’ he asked.

‘Like it!’ She turned and, anger forgotten, she flung her arms around him, hugging him in her excitement. ‘You’re brilliant. I don’t suppose you’re looking for a job?’ Then, before he could answer, ‘Sorry, sorry…Genius billionaire. Why would you want to work for me? Damn, I wish it wasn’t all such a rush.’

‘Is it even possible in the time?’

‘Oh, yes.’

He must have looked doubtful because she said, ‘Piece of cake. Honestly.’

Of course it was. The Steam Museum had been created by Lord Hillyer. All she had to do was ask and it would be hers for the day.

‘Now I know what I want it’ll all just fall into place, although I could have done with Josie to sort out the marquee. That’s going to be the biggest job.’

‘If it helps, you’ve got me.’

They were on her bed and she had her arms around him and he was telling her what was in his heart, but only he knew that. Only he would ever know that she’d got him-totally, completely, in ways that had nothing to do with sex but everything to do with a word that he didn’t even begin to understand, but knew with every fibre of his being that this was it. The real deal.

Giving without hope of ever receiving back.

Sylvie’s mother would have understood. Would know how he was feeling.

Sylvie…Sylvie was nearly there. Maybe his true gift to her would be to help her make that final leap…

‘You’d be willing to help?’ she asked, leaning back, a tiny frown puckering her brow.

He shrugged, pulled a face. ‘You said it. The sooner you’re done, the sooner you’re out of here.’

‘That’s it?’ She drew back as if his answer shocked her. As if she’d expected something more.

But that was it.

More was beyond him.

‘I want my house back and, to get it, I’m prepared to put all my resources at your disposal,’ he said with all the carelessness he could muster.

Maybe just one thing more…

‘There’s just one condition.’ Then, as the colour flooded into her cheeks, he said, ‘No!’

Yes…

‘No,’ he repeated. ‘All I want from you is that you write to your father.’

‘No…’ The word came out as a whisper.

‘Yes! Ask him to share the day with you. Let him into your little girl’s life.’

‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘Why do you care about him?’

More and more and more…

‘Because…Because I know what it’s like to have letters returned unopened. Because one day when I was four years old people came and took my mother away. I hung on to her and that was the only time I saw her cry. As she pulled away, leaving me to the waiting social workers. “I’ll be all right,” she said. “I have to go. These people will look after you until I come home…”’ Then, helplessly, ‘You said you’d have my story.’

‘Where was your father, Tom?’

‘Dead. She’d killed him. A battered woman who’d finally struck back, using the first thing that came to hand. A kitchen knife.’ Then, more urgently, because this was what he had to do to make sure she understood, ‘They took her away, put me in care. I didn’t understand. I wrote to her, begging her to come and get me. Week after week. And week after week the letters just came back…’

She said nothing, just held him, as if she could make it all better. And maybe she had. Her need had dragged the story out of him. Had made him say the words. Had made him see that it wasn’t his fault that his mother had died too.

‘I’m sure she thought it was for the best that I forgot her, moved on, found a new family.’

‘But you didn’t.’

‘She was my mother, Sylvie. She might not have been the greatest mother in the world, but she was the only one I ever wanted.’

Sylvie thought her heart might break at the thought of a little boy writing his desperate letters, having them returned unopened. Understood his empathy for her own father.

‘What happened to her, Tom?’

‘She never stood trial. By the time her case eventually came up she was beyond the law, in some dark place in her mind. She should have been in hospital, not prison. Maybe there she’d have got help instead of taking her own life.’

She reached out a hand to him. Almost, but not quite, touched his cheek. Then said, ‘Are you sure you haven’t been visiting with the Duchamp ghosts?’

He’d had no way of knowing how she’d react to the fact that he was the son of a wife-batterer, a husband-killer. A suggestion that he’d been communing with her ancestors hadn’t even made the list and, at something of a loss, he said, ‘Why would you think that?’

‘Because I asked my mother what she’d do. I already knew the answer. Have always known it. Maybe she thought it was time to get someone else on my case…’

And finally her fingers came into contact with his cheek, as if by touching him she was reaching through him to her mother. And, just as they had on the evening when the connection between them had become physical, silent tears were pouring down her cheeks, but this time there was no one to interrupt them and she didn’t push him away, but let him draw her close, hold her while he said, over and over, ‘Don’t cry, Sylvie,’ even as his own tears soaked into her hair. ‘Please don’t cry.’

And eventually, when she quieted, drew back, it was she who wiped his cheeks with her fingers.

Comforted him.

‘It’ll be all right,’ she said, holding his face between her hands. Kissing his cheek. ‘I promise you, it’ll be all right.’

‘You’ll write to him? Now?’

‘It won’t wait until morning?’

‘What would your mother say?’

She sniffed and, laughing, swung herself from the bed to grab a tissue. ‘Okay, okay, I’ll do it.’ Then, ‘I’ll have to fetch my bag; I left it downstairs.’

She crossed to the door, then, halfway through it, she paused and looked back. ‘Tom?’

He waited.

‘Don’t make the same mistake your mother did.’ She was cradling the life growing within her in a protective gesture. It was the most powerful instinct on earth. The drive of the mother to protect her young. His mother had done that. Had protected him from his father. Had protected him from herself…

‘You’re more than your genes,’ she said when he didn’t respond. ‘You’ve forged your own character. It’s strong and true and, I promise you, you’re the kind of father any little girl would want.’

There was an urgency in her voice. A touch of desperation. As if she knew that her own baby wouldn’t be that lucky…

He couldn’t help her. If it had been in his power he would have stopped the world and spun it back to give them both a second chance to get things right. But he couldn’t help either of them.