‘Scary business, this having babies lark,’ Callum said with a knowing laugh. He’d got out the whisky, which Claire didn’t think was a terribly good idea seeing as Maggie and Rain were arriving in time for an early breakfast. Maggie had decided to leave at an ungodly hour to avoid the traffic.
‘I think it would be scarier not having them.’ Jason took the tumbler, swirling the liquid in the glass, thinking how grateful he was that he would soon be a dad.
Claire declined the whisky, sticking to tea. It was a mild night and the French doors were open. Insects darted about in the border between light and dark, while Claire breathed in the sea breeze. The evening had been a success despite the phone message. Several glasses of wine, a good meal and her thankfully waning headache had all served to make her conclude that the call was most likely a cruel prank.
‘We didn’t get to see much of Marcus tonight,’ Jason said.
‘Perfectly normal,’ Claire replied. ‘Once he hit thirteen, it was as if anyone outside his circle of friends didn’t exist.’ She laughed. ‘And he’s hard-wired into his phone.’
Callum muttered something about his son being a recluse as he settled down in the armchair with his drink. Claire knew he’d had a hard week. ‘Personally, I don’t see the appeal of all that social media stuff,’ he went on, laying back his head. ‘Give me a newspaper or a dog to walk and I’m happy.’
‘You’re just easy to please,’ Claire said. ‘Or getting old.’ She patted his leg. Things had become so routine between them over the years that she only realised how much she loved all that when reminded of the simple things. She hoped he felt the same – contented, grateful, happy.
‘Just so you know, I won’t be around much next week. I have my clinics and operating schedule as normal.’
‘I understand.’ But Claire couldn’t help the pang of regret wondering if Callum somehow felt sidelined. He’d not been part of their group when they were younger. ‘When Maggie and Rain arrive in the morning, we’ll have a lazy catch-up breakfast, then see what they feel like doing.’
‘What kind of a name is Rain?’ Callum said.
‘A typical Maggie name,’ Jason replied, smiling fondly.
‘I was at medical school. I don’t really know her.’
Claire thought how strange and impossible it would have seemed to her thirteen-year-old self to be dating a twenty-three-year-old man. Only when they met again in her late teens did the ten-year age difference suddenly seem less unacceptable. And Callum kept himself fit, running several times a week and always eating healthily. Plus, she couldn’t have wished for a better father. He was as happy in the operating theatre as he was rolling about on the floor with his daughter or setting up her doll’s house. They were content. The four of them. A family.
Why then, Claire wondered, did her stomach twist in knots when Jason asked about Nick’s arrival?
‘Is he bringing his wife?’ Callum asked.
‘I’m not actually sure.’ She forced herself to sound casual, making a mental note to iron the sundress she’d bought earlier in the week. It had been on display in the boutique window on Monday morning and by lunchtime it was in a bag under her desk.
It was the truth – she didn’t know if Nick was coming alone or with his family. Like the first, her second conversation with him had been curtailed. While he’d quickly agreed to the reunion, they hadn’t had the time to discuss much about his life. All she knew was that he’d sounded a little tired, a little sad, and very grateful for the chance to take a break.
‘I’m off to bed now. I need to get up early for Maggie.’ She kissed her brother on the cheek and gave Callum a quick wave, indicating she’d say good night properly when he came up.
In the bathroom she removed her make-up, smoothing out the fine lines, wondering if Nick would think she’d aged much since he’d last seen her. She woke later when Callum finally got into bed beside her, but pretended to be asleep. She felt his warm breath on her neck as he kissed her, sensed the roughness of his stubble and smelt the sour tang of whisky mixed with toothpaste as he draped a hopeful arm across her waist.
Quietly, before sleep took over again, she opened the safekeeping box in her mind and locked up thoughts about the message, stashing them away along with everything else she kept secret in there.
Chapter Twelve
When Lenni was five years old, she fell off a cliff. One moment she was scampering over the springy grass, her hair blowing in the onshore breeze and her little skirt flapping around her skinny legs, and the next moment she’d completely disappeared. They’d only looked away for a moment.
‘Where did she go?’ Patrick said, gripping onto Shona while frantically glancing around. He was trying to sound calm, but his insides had ignited.
‘She was chasing gulls,’ Shona replied, also scanning around for their daughter. Her hand slowly went up to her mouth as Patrick tore off towards the edge of the cliff, calling Lenni’s name. She’d been drilled about going too close to the edge and they’d only stopped a moment to check the dog’s paw because he’d been limping. When they looked up, Lenni had gone.
‘Lenni…’ Shona screamed. ‘El–ea–nor, where are you?’ Her heart thrashed inside her chest as she ran to join her husband. He was standing frozen at the cliff edge with his hands clawing at his head.
‘Get help!’ he yelled back at Shona. ‘She’s gone over.’
Shona could hardly bear to look down. Even if she’d survived the drop, she’d have landed on craggy rocks. Through narrowed eyes, Shona forced herself to lean over and look. She saw her little girl lying on her back in the only patch of soft sand within the expanse of barnacle-encrusted rocks. She was staring up at them, giggling.
‘I was chasing the gulls,’ she said with a croaky voice, but then her laughs turned to bubbling cries and she held out her arms to be picked up.
Somehow, Patrick scrambled down the rocks, dropping more than climbing. ‘Lenni, oh my darling baby, what have you done?’ He leapt over the rocks to get to the oasis of sand. He hurled himself onto his knees and ran his hands over her body. ‘Does it hurt anywhere? Can you move your legs?’ Then he saw the blood streaming from her head.
Lenni squinted up at her mother on the clifftop. She gave a little wave through her waning sobs, half sitting up. ‘I’m OK, Daddy,’ she said, allowing herself to be scooped up and cuddled, the blood dripping from behind her ear. ‘I wanted to fly like the seagulls.’
‘But you can’t fly, darling. You don’t have wings.’
Patrick realised that he was also crying. He buried his face in his daughter’s sandy hair, breathing in the scent of her. It was the sweetest smell in the world, but he needed to get her to hospital. Meantime, Shona was running along the clifftop, scrambling down the shingle track to the beach. She was standing at the point where the rocks met the expanse of sand beyond.
‘Bring her to me, Pat,’ she called out, watching, barely able to breathe as he carried their precious little girl to her. When they finally reached her side, she took hold of Lenni, cradling her tight.
‘I’m OK, Mummy. It was that bird’s fault.’ Lenni coughed and winced.
‘We need to get her to hospital,’ Patrick said, carrying her back to the house and the car.
Later, after Lenni had been given stitches in the zigzag gash behind her ear, they came home with a clean bill of health but a whole load of guilt for having taken their eyes off their daughter. Lenni was becoming more and more accident-prone, more fanciful and absent-minded, and far less aware of dangers than they thought normal. She was so different to Claire and Jason. Just last week Shona had found Lenni about to push a screwdriver into the plug socket because she was pretending to be a handyman. Days before that she was playing hospitals with her dolls and a packet of aspirin. She was about to crunch all the tablets up. So that evening Shona and Patrick made a pact. She would always be supervised by an adult.
* * *