Liz Fielding: Secret Baby, Surprise Parents

Not that it had stopped her from having the same foolish fantasies. Or, ultimately, making the same mistake.

Maybe he read all that in her face—she was too tired to keep her feelings under wraps—because he stood up, took a step back, placed the baby feeder he was holding on the table beside her.

‘It was about to fall,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want it to wake you. Elspeth warned me not to disturb you when she let me in.’

Too late for that. Years too late.

‘Has she gone?’

He nodded. ‘She said to tell you that she’ll call in the morning.’

‘She’s been wonderful. She’s stayed here, manned the phones, organised food for after the funeral. But she’s grieving, too. She needs to rest.’ Not that Josh looked particularly great. He might have had the luxury of a first-class sleeping berth to take the edge off the long flight to London, but there was a greyness about his skin and his eyes were like stones. ‘How are you?’

‘I’ll think about that later.’

‘When you’re back in Sydney?’ she asked, reminding herself that this, like all his visits, was only a break from his real life.

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said. ‘Not until everything is settled.’

‘Everything?’

‘I’m Michael’s executor. I have to arrange for probate, settle his estate.’

‘A week should do it,’ she retaliated, and immediately regretted it. He had to be hurting, whether he was showing it or not. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t! Don’t apologise to me.’ He looked up, took another deep breath. ‘You and Phoebe were so close. She was like a mother to you.’

‘A lot better than the real thing.’

‘Yes.’ He looked at her, and for a moment she thought he was going to say something she’d find hard to forgive. In the end he just said, ‘Have you managed to contact your mother? Let her know what happened?’

She shook her head.

Her mother turned up occasionally, stayed for a week or two before drifting off again, a constant wanderer. Phoebe had bought her a mobile phone, but she had refused to take it and there was never anything as substantial as an address.

‘There was a card from somewhere in India a couple of months ago. Whether she’s still there…’ She shook her head. ‘Elspeth rang the consulate and she left messages with everyone who might be in contact with her, but she’s even harder to get hold of than you.’

‘I’m sorry, Grace. I flew back to Sydney from Nepal so I missed any messages you left at the office.’

‘Nepal?’ Then she remembered. ‘Everest. What on earth were you doing there?’

‘Making a pilgrimage.’

And if she felt lost, he looked it.

‘I was going to call Michael, tell him I was looking at the sun setting on the mountain, but my hands were so cold that I dropped the phone.’ He pushed his hands deep into his pockets as if, even now, he needed to warm them. ‘We once planned to take that trip together.’

‘Did you? I never knew that.’

He shrugged. ‘It was when our parents first split. Before he met Phoebe.’

She frowned. ‘She wouldn’t have stopped him going.’

‘Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to leave her, even for a month. She was everything he ever wanted.’

While he’d had nothing, Grace thought. At least her mother did, occasionally, put in an appearance. It was disruptive, unsettling, but it was better than the nothingness that Josh had been left with when his parents had chosen to follow their own desires.

‘Michael would have been happy to know that you finally made your dream trip,’ she told him.

‘Yes, he would. He wanted everyone to be happy. While I suspect all I wanted to do was make him feel bad…’

‘No…’ Her hand was on his arm before she could even think about it, but he stared at the floor as if unable to meet her gaze. ‘Why would he feel bad? You were there. You were thinking of him.’ Then, ‘Did it match the vision?’

‘The mountains were beyond anything I could describe, Grace. They made everything else seem so small, so unimportant. I wanted to tell him that. Tell him…’

‘He knows, Josh,’ she said, swallowing down the ache in her throat. ‘He knows.’

‘You think?’ Josh forced himself to look up, face her. ‘I should have been here. I can’t bear the thought of you having to go through all this on your own….’

‘I wasn’t on my own. Everyone helped. Toby was wonderful.’

Toby.

Josh felt his guts twist at the name.

Toby Makepeace. Her ideal man. Reliable. Solid. Always here.

‘Michael’s partners took care of all the arrangements for the funeral. And once your father arrived and took charge—’

‘He’s here?’

‘He flew back straight after the funeral. There was some big debate at the European Parliament that he couldn’t miss.’

About to make some comment about his father’s priorities, he thought better of it. Who was he to criticise?

‘And my mother? Has she raced back to the toy boy in Japan?’

‘She’s staying with friends in London.’

‘Waiting for the will to be read,’ he said heavily.

‘Josh!’ Then, ‘She said she’d come back when you got here. I sent her a text.’

‘I refer to the answer I gave earlier.’ Then he shook his head. His issues with his family were solely his concern. ‘I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.’ He pushed his parents from his mind and said, ‘Thank you for sticking with it, Grace. Not just leaving a message with the Sydney office.’

‘I wanted to tell you myself, although if I’d realised how long it would take…’

‘It must have felt like a year.’

‘A lifetime.’ Then, quickly, ‘Your staff were terrific, by the way. Will you thank them for me? If I’d thought about it, I’d have anticipated resistance to handing out contact numbers to someone they don’t know.’

‘Of course they know you,’ he said. ‘Do you think I don’t talk about you all?’ Then, almost as if he were embarrassed by this brief outburst, ‘Besides, they have an any time, anywhere list.’

‘And I’m on that?’

‘We both know that the only time you’d ever call me would be with news I had to hear.’

Once Grace would have laughed at that.

If only he knew how many times she’d picked up the phone, her hand on the fast dial number, not to speak to him, but simply to hear his voice. How she’d longed to go back to the way it had once been, when they had been friends…teased one another…told one another everything.

Almost everything.

‘Grace—’

‘I’m going to miss Michael so much,’ she said quickly. Taking a step back from the memory of a night that had changed everything. When she’d thrown all that away. ‘There wasn’t a kinder, sweeter—’

‘Don’t.’ He closed his eyes for a moment, then, gathering himself, he opened them and looked straight at her. ‘Don’t put him on a pedestal, Grace. Michael wasn’t perfect. He had his faults like the rest of us.’

Grace was too angry to answer him. Even now he wouldn’t let go of whatever had been driving him…

Instead, she held Posie close as she got to her feet, supporting her head with her hand. Then, when she didn’t stir, she laid her in the crib beside her chair.

For a moment her tiny arms and legs waved as if searching for her warmth and her face creased up, as if she was about to cry. Grace laid her hand on her tummy until, reassured by the contact, the baby finally relaxed.

Once she was settled, Grace crossed to the kettle, turned it on, not because she wanted something to drink, but because anything was better than doing nothing.

‘Your flat is ready for you,’ she said, glancing at him. ‘The bed’s made up and you’ll find the basics in your fridge. It’s too late to do anything today and I’m sure you need to catch up on your sleep.’