The Godmother (40 page)

“I promise you, she didn't mention it. In fact, she's concerned about you, as we all are. She knows about Helen and Neil, obviously. So please don't worry about a silly argument.” She looked down at Tommy. “What's happened kind of puts everything into perspective.”

She was right about that.

We stowed the twins safely in their matching bouncy chairs, ready for take-off. Thankfully, I was no longer confounded by the NASA-style harnesses you had to strap them in and out of twenty times a day. Next job was to make their bottles. Seven scoops in seven fluid ounces. Repeat. Quick shake, repeat, and hey presto—meal for two.

“How are these little ones?” asked Francesca, playing with them while I stood behind the vast stainless-steel kitchen island.

“They're getting a bit fussy, actually. I think they know Helen isn't coming back. It breaks my heart just to think about it. Tommy is much happier now on goat's milk, though, he's not been sick since, but he's more needy. He likes to be cuddled all the time. And Bobby just keeps looking around like he's lost something. You know when you go into a room to get something, then forget what it is, so you look around trying to remember what it is you've forgotten? That's exactly the expression on Bobby's face. And it's weird, because sometimes he looks just like Helen. Helen without the skin coloring. They're actually very cute, you've never felt anything so soft as their ridiculous cheeks.”

Francesca looked at me strangely.

“What?”

“Listen to you.”

I felt foolish. It must have registered on my face.

“No. It's nice. Just, maybe you should be careful.”

“Of what?”

“Falling too much in love.”

“With the twins? That's not going to happen. Between you and me,” I said lowering my voice, “I never even liked them.”

“That was then.”

I handed a bottle to Francesca, and we sat on the sofa with one baby each. “Rose does this most of the time, but I don't want her getting too tired, she must be in her fifties by now.”

“Where is Rose?”

“We have a little system going. She does the mornings, I do the afternoons and then she comes back to help me with bath-time. It's working pretty well.” I glanced at my watch, I never knew what it was going to say. I seemed to have lost my sense of time and place. Sometimes hours flashed by in minutes with the twins, other times they ticked past excruciatingly slowly. “We make a right pair, she and I.”

“Tessa…”

I stared down at Bobby. His big eyes looked up at me. I smiled at him as he sucked hungrily. “I like being here, Fran. The twins keep me busy. This terrible, terrible thing has happened, but bang on eleven o'clock those boys need feeding. You've got no choice but to go on. It's a blessed relief. I hate it when they go to bed. Too much thinking time. Except there's washing to do and
bottles to sterilize and sheets to change. I'm sort of hoping that if I keep on going through the motions, eventually the motions will feel real again.” They were being fussy, they didn't like being put down, they needed to know I was close by. Me. Not Rose. Me. They smiled at me whenever I looked their way. I couldn't get enough of those wide, wet, gummy mouths grinning at me, so I looked their way a lot. They were terrible time-wasters. Francesca was right, of course, I'd fallen—hook, line and sinker. It had taken three days. Sasha had been right too. Being a parent didn't have to begin with birth.

“I think Tommy is getting teeth,” I said, apropos of nothing. “Two, right at the bottom.”

“Tessa, what's going to happen to the twins, where are they going to go?”

A happy home
.

“I don't know. Helen left it up to me to decide.”

“You need to make that decision then. They can't stay in limbo.”

Why not? I was rather liking this limbo. Nothing hurt as much when I was with them. “No decisions will be made until after the funeral.”

“On Thursday, right? The 28th.”

“I don't know. Marguerite is organizing it.”

“It is. I read the announcement in the paper. Don't worry, we'll be there.”

“What announcement?”

“The Times
. Yesterday. Both of them are being buried up the hill at St. John's.”

I swore, then apologized to the twins, who looked at me quizzically. “The body hasn't even been released yet,” I whispered.

“I'm pretty sure that's what it said.” She lifted Tommy over her shoulder to wind him.

“Actually, he's better if you just sit him on your knee and lean him forward,” I said. Francesca smiled at me. “Marguerite wants the boys, of course; she's already staked a claim. Whatever I decide, there will be a fight because they aren't going to that witch. She hasn't even had the decency to tell me about the funeral, which, by the way, Helen didn't want, and to be buried with him…” I growled. Bobby's face creased in concern. “Sorry, hon, shh, not you…”

“You know what I think?”

That I'd make a perfect mother? I looked at Francesca expectantly.

“I think that you should consider Claudia and Al. Claudia is their god
mother too, isn't she? They've been trying to have a family for years, they're set up for it. They have a lovely house and Claudia would be a spectacular mother, and Al, well, you can't fault Al. They want children, and those babies need parents. They'd make such a happy family.”

All you'd have to do was find them a happy home
.

She said home, not family.

“Claudia seems to have moved on from that…” I wasn't convincing myself and, by the look on Francesca's face, I wasn't convincing her either. Nine years of trying for children could not compete with a couple of weeks in a Singapore spa, however good the salt scrub was.

“Just think about it. If you are going to have a battle with Helen's mother then you will need to present her with a realistic alternative.”

Meaning I'm not a realistic alternative?

Meaning “Oh.”

I felt tears welling up again.

“I'm sorry,” said Francesca, “I didn't come over here to make you cry.” It wasn't her. It was everything. She took my hand. “You're obviously doing a grand job here, but, darling, do you really want to take this on permanently?”

I shrugged.

“Are you sure that's what the twins need?”

I tried to tell her that I hadn't been thinking I would take them, but it would have been a lie. Why shouldn't I look after them? We'd make an odd family, but I knew now that odd families worked just as well, if not better. I couldn't think of anything to say.

Francesca went on. “After all they've been through, what they're going to need is some serious stability. Tessa, this is a very big decision and, you're going to hate me for this, but you have a tendency to be a bit whimsical when it comes to commitment.”

But I'd changed, couldn't she see I'd changed?

“And don't you have your own life to sort out? Like going back to work?”

I sighed. Going back to work didn't seem like such an appealing prospect at that moment. I was getting used to having other things fill my day. I kissed Bobby on his round, fat cheek and he giggled. “No one knows what's going to happen,” I said. That was true, at least.

Francesca didn't stay for very long after that. I was quite relieved after she left; I felt her beady eye on me every time I did anything for the boys. Rose was much less judgmental. I stopped cleaning the bottle and leaned against the sink. What was I doing? What on earth was I doing? I had to get out of there. I had to have time to think, away from all these distractions.

As soon as Rose walked back through the door I told her I had to get home. She assured me she could handle putting the boys to bed on her own that evening. She'd done it every weekend since they'd been born, they would be in good hands. I'd been at Helen's for four days. I'd locked myself away for four days. I needed to go home. I needed some space. I needed to regroup and get some perspective. I needed time to think about what Francesca had said: if I was to fight Marguerite successfully, I needed a plausible alternative. I would love those boys until my dying day, but was that enough for a court of law? If I wasn't good enough in the eyes of my friends, would I be good enough in the eyes of the law? Was anyone?

Another memory came back to me. This time it was my own voice.
He has a problem with drugs, and a problem with booze. What court in the land would give a parent like that the twins?
Well, I didn't have a problem with drugs and drink, but I wasn't squeaky-clean either. As for Helen…My words must have felt like daggers in her side. I'd only wanted to reassure her.

I put the key in my own front door for the first time in an age, closed it behind me and threw myself down on the sofa. I stared up at the ceiling. Had my reassuring words pushed her over the edge? Was this my doing?
What court in the land would give a parent like that the twins?
None, she'd replied. I could not imagine how desperate and alone she must have felt at that point. It was me…I had pushed her over the edge. I had to think very carefully about what I did next.

A couple of hours later I called the solicitor. “It's Tessa King,” I said to the receptionist. I waited for the call to be put through.

“Hi, Tessa, I was just leaving,” said Helen's solicitor.

Where'd the day gone? I'd been up since dawn. “Apparently there was an announcement in the paper about a funeral. Do you know anything about this?”

“Yes.”

“I don't understand. What about the post mortem?”

“It was all done yesterday. I think Marguerite put some pressure on them to move quickly, but it was just routine.”

“What did they find?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“No. What were you expecting them to find?”

“It makes no sense,” I said, not answering his question.

“No, it doesn't. What they're saying, though no one will know for sure, is that she fell asleep at the wheel. Neil was drunk, but everyone knew that, so Helen would have had to drive. It was a long way home, no one to chat to, sadly it happens all the time. The insurance will be paid out.”

“Insurance?”

“Helen's life insurance. The boys aren't going to have to worry about money.”

“The boys were never going to have to worry about money.”

“Helen had funds, yes, but everything is wrapped up in Hong Kong businesses. She had capital. Not cash.”

I didn't really care about the details. “So she hadn't been drinking, or…” What was I going to say?

“It was an accident, Tessa. Nothing more. At least the boys will be OK. Neil didn't have any money. If it had been drunk-driving, the insurance company wouldn't have paid out.”

I was stunned. I'd been so sure. The pills, the bottles…Had she stopped? Was she sober? Had she really fallen asleep at the wheel and driven into a tree, or had she, in a moment of madness, driven into a tree? Worse still, had she been in control enough to sober up in order to be able to drive into a tree? This had to stop. I was sending myself mad. I would never know the answer, and perhaps it was better not to.

“What about the funeral?”

“I'm sorry. Marguerite got her way, as expected.”

Yeah, this had Marguerite written all over it.

“Have you decided what you're going to do about the twins?”

“I'm working on it,” I said.

“Well, now you know how quickly Marguerite can move, you ought to hurry up.”

“It's all right for her, I've been changing nappies for days. My hands have gone all scaly from the amount of Carex I've washed in…”

Why was I telling this man about my hands? Bloody Marguerite was more conniving than I thought. Of course she'd been happy to leave the twins with me, she'd known full well I wouldn't have a moment to myself.

“Knowing Marguerite, she'll make her move as soon as the funeral is over,” said the solicitor.

“The 28th,” I said. “When is that?” I couldn't remember what month it was. I glanced out of the window, across to Battersea Park; the leaves were turning golden brown. It was nearly the end of October. In two short months my life had been shaken like a snow globe and the flakes were far from settled. No wonder I didn't know what day of the week it was.

“Three days,” said the solicitor.

Three days. I had three days to find a happy home.

It was pointless, I knew, but I fired off another email into outer space in the hope that Al and Claudia would pick up my distress signals. I couldn't fight this battle without troops, but my troops were gadding about on an elephant somewhere, finally having fun. Was it fair of me to summon them home? No. But I needed them. They were the only ones who could back me up. It was six in the evening but the conversation with the solicitor had finished me off. I went to my bedroom, lay on the bed and fell fast asleep.

I awoke from a nightmare, sweating, fully clothed and completely disorientated, to the sound of my doorbell buzzing. My arm was numb from sleeping on it. My watch had left an imprint on my face. It was dark outside. The doorbell buzzed again, followed by a knock. I couldn't think of one good reason why someone would be knocking at my door at two o'clock in the morning. Not one. I sat up and put my feet on the ground. The knocking came again. Firm and insistent. Phone calls in the middle of the night are bad enough, but messages delivered face to face are far worse. I only knew one person who was in a situation that might require such a message. Something had gone wrong with Cora. I could not push myself off the bed. I couldn't take any more. I peeled my eyepatch off my face.

Knock, knock, knock. Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

“Coming,” I whispered. “I'm coming.”