Cathy Williams - The Secret Spanish Love-Child

‘Gabriel…this is Luke…’

Gabriel, forced to acknowledge the child, nodded and resettled his gaze on Alex.

‘Mum…can I have some ice cream now? Can I? Susie said I could…’

‘Susie said no such thing, you cheeky little monkey!’

From behind him a tiny round girl emerged, grinning as she slung her bag over her shoulder and she ruffled Luke’s hair, which produced a little frown before he straightened it.

All of this Gabriel noticed in a daze because his brain had seized upon that one word— Mum —and stuck there. He had straightened and was scarcely aware of the enquiring look that Susie directed to Alex before she bustled out of the house.

‘Luke, say hi to Gabriel…’

‘Only if I get some ice cream.’

‘Out of the question, big boy!’ But Alex was laughing as she lifted him up and walked towards Gabriel. He looked like a man who had opened an envelope only to discover a letter bomb inside. Alex, on the other hand, was aware of a spreading sense of relief. This had been an inevitable meeting from the very first moment she had stepped into his office and realised that her past had finally caught up with her. She had made a half-hearted attempt to tell herself that things would be better left alone. That Gabriel was engaged, due to be married to a woman he loved and on the brink of starting his own family. That she would be doing him a favour in keeping this secret to herself. She had quit her job, prepared, in the heat of the moment, to just do a runner and deal with the fallout when it happened later down the road. But, time and again, her thoughts had returned to the glaring, naked, unavoidable truth: Luke deserved to know his father, even if it would forever be in the context of a less than ideal situation.

‘How was playschool? You’re a messy little grub!’ He was twisting in her arms now, curious to find out who the stranger in the house was.

Without the benefit of direct comparison, she was only now waking up to the startling physical similarity between father and son. The same dark hair, although Luke’s was a curly mop…the same dark eyes…and that olive tint that spoke of his Spanish ancestry. Also that smile and the tiny dimples that came with it. Her heart restricted and she felt a fierce, overwhelming, protective love for her son.

‘I’m going to give him a bath and settle him down,’ she said quietly. ‘You can leave if you want to or you can wait for me in the kitchen. I won’t be much longer than half an hour.’

Gabriel could no sooner leave than he could have grown wings and flown through the window. His brain, while taking in everything and already working out a series of consequences, was not functioning at all on another level. He was a father. In what could only be classified as a complete screwup, he was a father, because there was no doubting paternity. Yes, he could make a song and dance about dates and times and then request a DNA test because he was nothing if not suspicious by nature, but the proof of his genetic link to the child was glaringly obvious. He could have been looking at a picture of himself aged four and a half.

He remained frozen to the spot for a few minutes after she had disappeared up the tiny staircase. He was aware of noises drifting down. Very slowly, he made his way to the kitchen and this time, when he inspected his surroundings, it was with renewed interest.

He had a child. And his child was being brought up in conditions that were, if not completely basic, then certainly bordering on it.

He felt the slow build of anger and brought all his formidable willpower into play to stamp on it. From where he was sitting, life as he knew it was over but he would still have to deal with the consequences.

All the paraphernalia of a young child imprinted itself in his head like a tattoo. There was some kind of booster seat gadget attached to one of the kitchen chairs and various plastic utensils on the draining board. He walked across to the fridge and examined the infantile drawings randomly spaced under fruit magnets.

Happy family drawings that ostensibly did not include any father figure.

So there was no guy in her life. When she had talked about her involvement with someone else, she had been referring to her son. Their son. He barely deciphered the strangely proportioned pictures he was staring at or the spidery writing underneath. In his head, his eyes were still locked in unwilling fascination on his son’s.

There were a thousand questions pounding through his head. In short, he couldn’t wait for her to return.

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