Don't Let Me Go (39 page)

‘Right here,’ Charlotte assured him, passing over the mug Gabby poured. ‘Are you having one, Maggie?’ she shouted.

‘On my way,’ Maggie called back.

‘OK, well here’s to you, Charlotte,’ Martin declared when they were all holding a drink and a biscuit. ‘Let’s hope this can all be sorted out to everyone’s satisfaction.’

Almost amused by how matter-of-fact he’d made it sound, Charlotte smiled her thanks as she tapped her cup against his. The fact that she was a tangle of nerves inside wasn’t something she had to share, especially not with the children around.

‘So what happens next?’ Martin asked, going to perch on the arm of the sofa. ‘How long do you have this place for?’

‘Six months, with a further six-month option,’ Charlotte replied, ‘but I hope to God it’ll all be over long before that.’ Or did she, if it being over meant she’d be in prison?

And where would Chloe be by then?

She missed what Martin said next, but her heart flipped as Maggie said, ‘We’ll be able to ask my brother when he gets here.’

‘Is he coming today?’ Charlotte asked, aware of Gabby watching her.

Maggie shrugged. ‘I thought he said he’d be back at the weekend, but I haven’t heard from him yet, so maybe his plans have changed. I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Is that my phone ringing, or yours?’ she asked Gabby.

‘Not mine,’ Gabby replied.

‘Or mine,’ Martin added.

‘Then I guess it’s mine,’ Maggie chuckled. ‘You never know, it could be him,’ and helping herself to another biscuit she went off to the kitchen to find out.

‘We need to get you a mobile,’ Gabby said to Charlotte.

‘And a computer,’ Charlotte added. ‘I have to start working on my statement and I’m not sure I could do it by hand.’

‘What happened to your old computer?’ Martin asked.

Picturing the raiding of the bach, while feeling the pull of the place, Charlotte said, ‘Apparently the police took it, so I guess it’s been sent over here by now. I can’t imagine them letting me have it back any time soon.’

‘It’s Ron,’ Maggie announced, bringing her mobile into the room. ‘Who wants fish and chips for lunch?’

‘Me, me,’ the twins instantly cheered.

‘Heaven,’ Gabby swooned.

With raised eyebrows, Martin said, ‘Count me in. You too, Charlotte. You’re looking way too thin for my liking, and I’d rather just be your brother-in-law than your doctor.’

‘I’m up for it,’ she assured him.

‘We’ve got takers all round,’ Maggie said into the phone. ‘Bring a couple of sausages and fishcakes in case the children prefer them.’

‘We do,’ Phoebe informed her.

As Charlotte’s eyes met Gabby’s they both smiled at the memory of how they’d preferred sausages and fishcakes when they were small, and coming to link her arm Gabby said, ‘If I can get away tomorrow would you like me to come and help you get started on the statement?’

Touched by the offer, Charlotte replied, ‘That’s lovely of you, but there’s no rush and the kids’ll want you at home tomorrow.’

‘You know, you can always come down to us. I wish you would, I’m afraid you might feel a bit lonely here on your own once we’ve all gone.’

Suspecting it was exactly how she’d feel, Charlotte said, ‘I’m afraid my ankle bracelet won’t let me go that far, but don’t worry, this flat is such a step up from where I was at the beginning of the week that I’m sure I’ll cope.’

Gabby seemed mystified, until remembering she gave a little gasp. ‘I’m so glad you’re not in that terrible place any more,’ she murmured. ‘I hardly got a wink of sleep worrying about you.’

‘What terrible place?’ Phoebe piped up.

Pretending to go all witchy on her, Charlotte said, ‘It was a haunted castle with gremlins and ghosts and things that go bump in the night.’

Jackson’s eyes rounded with glee. ‘Cool,’ he pronounced. ‘Can we go there too?’

Laughing as she went to put her cup on the table, Charlotte said, ‘Believe me, Jacks, you definitely wouldn’t want to, but if you like, you can come shopping later to help me choose a computer.’ It would have to be after she’d reported to the police station, but that was fine.

‘I will, I will,’ Phoebe cried, jumping up and down.

‘You both can, if Mummy and Daddy will allow it.’ It was only as the words came out of her mouth that she realised why she couldn’t take them with her. If someone decided to accost her with their opinion on what she’d done, the way they had in the supermarket earlier, the twins really shouldn’t be subjected to it.

‘You’re an utter disgrace,’ an old man had spat at her. ‘We pays our taxes for the likes of you to do the right thing by our kids, not to go running off with them. I hope they makes an example of you, and sends you down for the maximum they can, or we’re going to have everyone thinking they can make off with a kid any time they like.’

‘Hear, hear,’ the woman behind him had chipped in. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, that’s what I say.’

Knowing she couldn’t put the twins through anything like that, Charlotte told them, ‘Actually, I’d quite like to buy a TV as well and I probably won’t have time to do both, so maybe you could go and help Mummy and Daddy choose one for me, while I do all the boring stuff with the computer.’

‘Yeah! Yeah!’ they cheered. ‘We’re really good at TVs, aren’t we, Jacks?’ Phoebe toasted. ‘We chose the one in our playroom and Daddy’s always saying it’s better than his.’ How easy it was to distract them, and how good they’d be for Chloe.

‘OK, order’s in,’ Maggie declared, coming back from the kitchen, ‘and I’ve just . . .’ She jumped as a loud buzzer went off somewhere over her head. ‘What on earth was that?’ she demanded, looking up for the offending ringer.

Laughing, Charlotte said, ‘I’m guessing the doorbell?’

Rolling her eyes, Maggie said, ‘I thought for a minute we were on fire. Is there an entryphone, or do we have to go down and answer it?’

‘I think I spotted something by the front door,’ Martin announced. ‘I’ll go and check.’

Going to the window to find out if the front door was visible from here, Charlotte found it wasn’t, but she had no difficulty seeing the carousel Chloe had loved across the street, or the donkeys she’d occasionally ridden up and down the sands.

‘There is an entryphone,’ Martin informed them, coming back into the room, ‘and unless it was someone having me on, a great big bunch of flowers is on its way up.’

Gabby’s eyes immediately shone. ‘I wonder who they’re from?’ she cried, all intrigue.

‘You!’ Phoebe and Jackson shouted. ‘We ordered them yesterday,’ Phoebe informed Charlotte, ‘and I helped choose them.’

Shaking his head in dismay, Martin made to give them both the chop before going back down the hall to open the door.

‘We don’t have any vases yet,’ Maggie pointed out, ‘but M&S is only round the corner, so I can easily run out and get one.’

‘They should already be in one,’ Gabby assured her, glancing curiously at Charlotte. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

Charlotte quickly smiled. ‘Of course,’ she lied. ‘Just a bit overwhelmed, I suppose,’
and absolutely furious with myself for even thinking they might have been from Anthony.
What the hell was the matter with her? She had to get a grip. ‘We can put them in the fireplace,’ she suggested, ‘to brighten it up.’

‘Actually, that reminds me,’ Gabby said, reaching for her bag, ‘I brought a few photos for you to put up, if you want to. I thought it might make it seem a bit homelier if you had some familiar faces around.’ Digging out a small parcel she handed it to Charlotte, and came to look as Charlotte went through the contents. ‘They’re mostly of the twins,’ she confessed, ‘but there’s one there of us two, and oh yes, I thought you’d like this one of you and Millie.’

‘Who’s Millie?’ Phoebe wanted to know.

‘She’s an old lady who used to live next door to us when we were growing up,’ Gabby explained. ‘Auntie Lotte was always her favourite.’

As Charlotte gazed at the photo a whole slew of memories were flipping across her heart like old postcards, many of which were of the last time she’d seen dear Millie, at a care home, here in Kesterly.

‘Do you ever hear from her family?’ Gabby asked. ‘Is she still in York?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Charlotte replied. ‘I’ll have to try and find out.’ She was thinking of the day the ambulance had driven off with Millie, who’d thought she was going to Mexico, and how certain she’d felt then that she’d never see Millie again.

She hoped and prayed that she was wrong about that, not only because she’d always felt so attached to Millie and would truly love to see her, but because she’d started to have the same feelings about Chloe, that she might never see her again.

By eight o’clock that night Charlotte was back at the flat, surrounded by her purchases of the day. The windows were open, letting in the sound of gulls and Saturday night revelry and cars with drivers who had somewhere to go. Maggie and Ron had offered to take her for a drink, or stay and keep her company a while longer, but she’d already put on them enough these last few days. She would have to get used to being on her own, and when better to start than now?

Since she couldn’t be connected to the Internet or a landline until Monday, she was using the mobile Gabby had registered in her own name, given that she, Charlotte, hadn’t been at her address long enough to qualify for a contract, to call her mother.

‘I feel as though I’m starting all over again,’ she was saying, after giving Anna an account of what she’d been doing that day, ‘except this is only temporary, or that’s what I keep telling myself anyway.’

‘It is,’ Anna assured her. ‘You’ll be back here before you know it, and Chloe will be with you, you just wait and see.’

Clinging to the words in spite of knowing that her mother was no more certain of that than she was, Charlotte said, ‘Gabby gave me some photos today. They’re lovely, but there’s one of Chloe I’d love to have. It’s one you took, do you remember, with us both wearing the daisy chains we’d made?’

‘Of course I remember. I’ll email it as soon as we’ve finished talking. I’ll send a few others as well; I just hope it’s not going to upset you too much to see them.’

‘It probably will, but I’d like to have them anyway. It feels wrong to have nothing of her here at all.’

‘I’m sure. Have you heard anything about her yet?’

‘No, not really. Tommy kind of lets me know she’s all right, but he wouldn’t want to tell me if she wasn’t, so I’m not sure how reliable that is. He didn’t mention anything about it being her birthday yesterday, and I can’t decide whether it would be a good or a bad thing if no one picked up on it. I guess it depends on who she’s with, but she won’t have forgotten all her plans for the day and it just about breaks my heart to think of her wondering why none of it’s happening.’

‘Mine too,’ Anna murmured. ‘If only we could send her a card, or a little message of some kind, but maybe that would make things harder for her?’

‘It would probably confuse her, and as none of us knows how this is going to turn out . . .’ There it was again, the feeling she was never going to see Chloe again, and she just couldn’t bear it.

‘Do you think she’s somewhere nearby?’ Anna asked.

‘Probably not,’ Charlotte answered, pushing past the choking knot of dread as she wandered to the window. ‘She’ll still be under Kesterly Social Services, but they’ll almost certainly have put her with someone outside the area. They have to in order to avoid the risk of us running into each other.’ How wretched it was to think of anyone striving to keep them apart; that it was the system, inexorable and impregnable, was hardly bearable at all.

‘Are you still there?’ Anna asked.

‘Yes, I’m here.’ She was gazing down at the carousel and the Pumpkin playgroup a few metres behind it. Her memories were like ghosts riding the golden carriages and double-decker buses, drifting in and out of the nursery, getting into her car and driving away with Chloe tucked safely into the seat behind her. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’

‘That you’re sounding quite low. Is there anyone you can invite over to keep you company for the evening?’

‘I’m fine,’ Charlotte assured her. ‘I’ve a lot of sorting out to do, setting up of TVs and things. What’s the weather like over there?’

Sighing, Anna said, ‘Right now it’s howling a masterful gale, as Bob likes to put it. He’s just gone down to the beach to make sure the boats are secure, then we’re popping into Kerikeri to run a few errands.’

Seeing herself and Chloe as ghosts again, going about their day in Kerikeri, collecting Fly Buys at the supermarket, choosing a book at Paper Plus, ordering a fluffy at the Fishbone, Charlotte asked, ‘How’s Rick? Is he back for the weekend?’

‘Actually no, he’s stayed in Auckland to work on some big presentation his agency’s involved in. I’m afraid he and Bob are still pretty tense with each other. Bob keeps saying he doesn’t have a problem with Rick being gay, but Rick knows his father’s disappointed and so it makes him defensive. They’ll get over it. Shelley says they need their heads banging together and I’m inclined to agree.’

How uncomplicated it all sounded when compared to what she was facing, but it wasn’t a contest and she felt sorry that Rick and Bob were going through a tricky time. ‘Please send everyone my love,’ she said. ‘I miss you all so much.’

‘Oh darling, we miss you too. Rick and Shelley will want to have your new number, so I hope it’s OK if I pass it on?’

‘Of course. I’d love to hear from them. I should be able to Skype from Monday, if Virgin manage to get me connected. It’s a lovely flat, Mum, even nicer than the one we saw upstairs. I’ll be able to use my new laptop to take you on a little tour.’

‘That’ll be lovely, I only wish I could be there in person. Bob’s due to speak to Don Thackeray again on Monday to find out if there’s any more news about me being able to come. If it goes on much longer like this Bob’s saying he’ll take the risk and fly over on his own. He thinks they’ll be less interested in him, given that he wasn’t in England when we decided to bring Chloe to New Zealand.’

‘Oh no, please tell him not to chance it.’

‘I’ll try, but he’s determined that you don’t go through a trial without at least one of us there, and so am I. How are things with the lawyers? When are you due to see them again?’