Liz Fielding: A Secret, A Safari, A Second Chance

Had he waited, holding his breath, waiting for the call from one of the less glossy gossip mags asking for a comment on the story they were about to run?

My Night of Sex... Sex in the Sand... Abandoned After a Night of Sex...

There had been stories in the past and, even if some of them were pure fiction and others heavily embellished to make better headlines, he had clearly made the most of his youthful fame. There were still photographs of him with beautiful women, but these days no one was talking, and neither would she. Not even when, weeks later, after her finals were over, she’d had time to realise what was happening to her body and two pink lines had changed her life for ever.

She hadn’t talked and she couldn’t call Kit.

The news had been full of the start of the single-handed round-the-world yacht race, or maybe that was all she had been noticing because Kit was the skipper that every camera had been watching, the man already making the headlines after rumours that his entry had caused a rift with his family.

Calling him on the satellite link would have been a very public way to inform him that he was about to become a father. While the headlines would have cheered a newspaper man’s heart and set Twitter alight, the trolls would have been out in force. She would have been mobbed by the press, her poor grandmother would have been under siege, and she would have had to go into hiding.

It had given her plenty of time to think. Time for her heart to stop when, two months into the race, his radio had gone silent after a storm. She’d hugged her belly protectively during the ten long days before he’d been spotted by search aircraft.

The photographs had shown that his damaged mast had been lashed back into place and the pundits had speculated with sickening detail how he must have climbed in heavy seas to repair it.

Worse, he’d signalled that his communication equipment had been smashed in the storm that hit his mast, but he was okay and was continuing with the race.

He’d finally limped home after more than four months in third place. A great feat of sailing, according to the yachting community.

Eve hadn’t cared about the sailing or the press, she’d just been furious that he would recklessly endanger himself for a piece of silverware to stick on the mantelpiece.

Had he no feelings for his family and what they must have gone through?

She knew all about recklessness. Her mother had taken risks and died; she would protect the precious little girl growing inside her from that kind of pain.

* * *

‘Kit? Where are you?’

‘Sorry, sis. The ferry was late but we should be with you in about thirty minutes.’

‘We could delay the start—’

‘No, dinner won’t wait so go ahead with the presentations. Lucy can speak after dinner before the serious bidding. How was Dad this evening?’

‘Furious. Frustrated at not being able to remember stuff. To walk properly. To say what he’s thinking.’

‘That’s probably a blessing.’

Laura laughed. ‘Undoubtedly, but he’s improving every day, even if the words aren’t in any dictionary, so stand back to have your ears blasted.’

* * *

‘Your grandmother and I used to come here all the time when we were growing up,’ Martha said. ‘Christmas parties, birthday treats, sailing. I missed her so much when she went off on her travels after college.’

‘I didn’t know Nana travelled. Where did she go?’

‘Spain, France, Italy, Ireland. There are photographs. You’ll find them as you sort through the cottage. Bring them over and I’ll tell you who everyone is.’ She sighed. ‘The itchy-feet gene runs deep in your family. Your mother was away to Africa on some research trip the moment the ink was dry on her degree, met your father and never really came home again.’

‘Nana wasn’t...’

‘Welcoming? Easy to live with?’ Martha finished for her. ‘She was such fun as a girl, but she was never the same after your grandfather died. We tried to involve her, but we didn’t understand so much about depression back then and we were all so busy with our own families.’ She shook her head. ‘But that’s not what kept your mother on the move. That’s who she was. I’ve never been further than Boston, which is why she asked me to be your godmother. She wanted someone grounded in your life.’

Eve struggled for something to say but Martha rescued her.

‘I thought you were going to follow in your parents’ footsteps, Eve. I seem to recall that you were studying zoology?’

‘I was.’ She had dreamed of returning to Africa, to the scent of hot earth when the rains came, the thunder of hoofbeats as a million wildebeest migrated across the plains, velvet-black skies filled with stars. ‘When I discovered I was pregnant I realised that fieldwork wasn’t going to be an option, at least not for me, so I forgot about my Masters and I took a teaching diploma.’

‘Pregnancy didn’t slow your mother down.’

‘She wasn’t alone, not until Dad left her, but I’d never send Hannah to boarding school.’

Martha reached out and took her hand. ‘Her death was such a tragedy. I hope your little girl gives you some comfort.’

‘She is a gift, Martha. My joy.’

‘Well, let’s hope this visit will be as blessed,’ Martha said, innocently.

Eve realised that she’d underestimated her godmother’s capacity for mental arithmetic, but she’d been away on a fishing trip when Eve had met Kit that summer. Martha might have put her swift departure together with Hannah’s birthday and come up with a theory about where and when, but that was all it was. There was no way she could be certain that Hannah had been conceived on the island.

‘People are beginning to sit down,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘Shall we go and find our table?’

Martha knew everyone at their table, mostly couples of her own generation who greeted her warmly before quietening to listen to Barbara Merchant welcome them and introduce the auction.

She had the same colouring as Kit, Eve thought; the same sun-streaked hair, the same vivid blue eyes. Lost in memories of that night, she heard little of her introduction to the cause for which the auction was being held.

‘Let’s go and check out the trips,’ Martha said, when she was done.

Monitors showed film of the trips on offer at Merchant resorts and some of their partners, in fabulous locations.

There was whale watching off the west coast, trips to Europe—vineyards in France, culture in Italy, golfing and fishing in Scotland—but it was the last one, the wildlife safari, that brought a gasp to Eve’s lips.

The Nymba Safari Lodge had been built high amongst the trees with viewing platforms where you could watch animals in a landscape that was painfully familiar. There was a glimpse of a giraffe at sunset, forelegs spreadeagled as it drank at the oxbow lake. There was the dusty green bark of fever trees, a family of warthogs snuffling through the grass.

‘Eve?’

‘Nymba... It was our home,’ she said. ‘It’s where we lived...’

The cover of the brochure for the safari trip had a photograph of a mama elephant, trunk curled protectively around her calf, and Eve picked it up, instinctively hugging it to her.

Nymba...

It was what her mother had called their boma . The word meant home and for just a moment she could hear her mother’s voice as she’d given her a hug before putting a small grey velvet elephant in her arms and sending her off to school.

‘This little elephant’s trunk is my arm, Evie. Hold onto it when you’re lost...put it around you when you need a hug...’

She wished she could wind the clock back to those last few weeks with her.