Born of Woman (67 page)

Perhaps she could escape with it abroad, as Alice and Edward Fraser had—but then she would lose touch with Lyn completely. So long as she stayed in London, there was always the chance that he might contact her, even turn up at the bedsit. And yet how could Lyn accept the baby, worst of all one fathered by his half-brother?

She licked the last sweet grains of sugar from her lips.

Lyn might be intrigued, despite himself. The child not only had part of him in it, but also part of Susannah. He had known only Susannah's name and memory, but it was those he cherished, somehow—as an ideal and a romance. Susie was the new Susannah—fair, young and beautiful, and now with child. That child fused them all together—Thomas and his sons, Susannah and her namesake, her and Susie, even her and Lyn. The baby's genes and heritage must always remain a secret, even from her husband, but would carry a hidden charge which Lyn might sense somewhere deep within his soul.

‘Mind the floor! It's wet.'

She zig-zagged towards the door across the dry spots. She had to return to Susie before visiting was over. She strode down the corridor, which looked more like a Victorian urinal, with its huge old-fashioned water pipes lumbering across chipped and shiny tiles. It was a relief to enter Maternity and see flowers and windows again.

Susie was lying with her eyes closed, looking peaky and exhausted. Jennifer cut the greetings short. ‘Does Matthew know?' she asked.

‘Know what?'

‘That the baby's his.'

‘Well, I've only known myself an hour or two. I could have hardly told him yet. I'm not really allowed to use the phone at all. They caught me ringing Sparrow and went mad because …'

‘What I meant was did he know
before
—that there was even a chance he could have made you pregnant?'

‘I told you, we didn't dicuss it. Couldn't bear to, really. Now the boys have seen me so enormous, it might have … entered his head, I s'pose. Mind you, he knew I was having it off with Sparrow, and he was even suspicious of that feller at the party—the one I arrived with.'

‘Susie, you didn't sleep with
him
, did you?'

‘No, I bloody didn't! I admit I've told a few fibs, but I swear to you on oath—and God strike me dead if I'm lying to you now—that there was only those three blokes and no one else. Don't you see, Jen, it's just as important to me as it is to you? OK, so I'm giving the kid away, but it still makes a hell of a difference who the father is.'

Jennifer turned away. ‘Yes,' she murmured. ‘It does.'

‘Apart from anything else, now we know it's Matthew's, I think we ought to screw him for some cash—maintenance or something.'

‘
No
.' Jennifer rapped the word out. Money made for power and owner-ship, control and interference.

‘Why not? You were hard enough on Sparrow.'

Jennifer hesitated. ‘Matthew's in enough trouble. There's Edward demanding half of all the profits and …'

‘So you're his champion now, are you? Half an hour ago, you were saying what a brute he was. Anyway, how about the kid? Matthew could give her every last thing she wanted, and yet you're willing to cut her off without a penny.'

‘Don't you see, Susie, it's the child I'm concerned about? I want her to be a love-child—in the proper sense of the word—grow up in love and peace and harmony, not swamped in sordid money hassles or used to pay off scores or stifle guilt or …' Jennifer stopped. It sounded fine, but how could she ensure it?

Susie was kicking at her blankets. ‘What's it to you, in any case? You don't even want the baby now. That's what you came to tell me, wasn't it? I don't know why we're wasting our bloody breath.'

The bell was pealing at the far end of the ward, nurses bustling in to disperse the visitors. Jennifer leant over, laid her hand a moment on Susie's bulge. ‘I do want the baby,' she whispered.

Susie frowned. ‘Even though it's …'

‘Yes.' Somehow she would manage, fob off Matthew, talk Lyn round, scrape a living together.

‘You're sure?'

‘Yes. But are
you
sure? I mean, you wouldn't prefer adoption with a stranger? Someone less … involved?'

Susie grinned. ‘Miss Cow-Face would.'

‘But would
you
?'

‘Out!' said a nurse, sweeping towards them with a thermometer in her hand.

‘
Would
you?' repeated Jennifer, almost desperate now that the nurse's bulk divided them.

Susie pushed up on her elbows, ducked her head round the solid blue-striped hips. ‘I never agree with social workers on principle. OK, Jen, you're on! And by the way …'

‘What?'

‘Where the hell are my bloody matches?'

‘No! Matthew shouted. ‘Get away. Get
off
!'

Edward Ainsley was catching up on him, heavy footsteps hammering through the street, breath hot and clammy on his neck. Matthew tried to put a spurt on, but his legs had turned to cobweb. Edward grabbed him, swung him round, held his face so close to his that the pores of Edward's skin swelled into gaping craters, and his strange Hester-coloured eyes blurred and overflowed.

‘You're wrong!' Matthew gasped. ‘I didn't do it. I never knew that …'

He heard his neck snap off like a flower head, felt his body flop and crumple—a puppet with no strings. He still had arms. He used them—flailing and struggling up between the blankets, fighting off Edward who had now squeezed inside the eiderdown.

He sat up in bed, sweating and shivering at the same time, opened his eyes to darkness. He made a grab at the eiderdown which was entangled round his neck. It felt limp and chilly in his grasp. Edward had escaped. He glanced around the room. Only shadows—the single point of light the red and bloodshot eye of his alarm clock. He couldn't see the hands, but he knew it was three o'clock. It was always three o'clock—that endless nightmare hour when you had neither friend nor hope.

Anne …?' he murmured.

She was often sleepless, too, these days, lying there beside him in the second bed, trying to share his troubles when she knew only a fraction of them. At least it was a comfort to have another human being mopping up the silence and the hours. He groped a hand towards her, touched the cold rumpled sheet, the empty pillow.

‘Anne?' he said again, fumbling for the light-switch.

She wasn't there. Panic switched on inside him, harsher than a light. Supposing she had left him, somehow found out about his dealings, stormed off in disgust? Everyone was leaving him, rats scuttling from a leaky ship. Lyn was still in hiding, and even Jennifer had given him the slip again, penned him a note with no address on it and packed with new-coined lies. Jim Allenby was suspicious and offhand, his other colleagues openly contemptuous. Had Anne decided to turn her back as well? She had been quiet and brooding recently, probably a cover for suspicion and resentment. Matthew sprang out of bed, darted towards the door. She could have packed her bags and gone while he was off his guard and sleeping. He ran downstairs, bare feet slipping on the stair carpet. He might find her yet, collecting up her things or dashing him off a note—a lying note like Jennifer's, giving no address. He charged into the kitchen—empty—checked the chilly rooms around it. All dark and silent. The light startled him when he swtiched it on in the hall and saw someone staring from the mirror—a haggard man with thinning hair, wearing limp and creased pyjamas. No wonder Anne had left him.

He dragged himself back upstairs. Of course she hadn't left him. She was probably with one of the boys, soothing over a nightmare, fetching a glass of … He stopped, steadied himself against the bannister. The boys could be gone, as well. She might have taken all four children with her, arranged a total walk-out. The red whorls on the carpet seemed to be writhing up towards him. He couldn't lose his family. They were part of him, his heritage, his hostage to the future, his bulwark against death or isolation, his ensurance of the Winterton name and line. He had only ever arranged the trust for their sake. He longed for his sons to see him as a generous, princely father, a universal provider who never had to skimp or grudge. He had slaved to give them a decent education, shelter them from over-crowded classrooms or under-trained teachers, or duller, rougher children who might hold them back or teach them farmyard manners. Other men might hoard their money selfishly or squander it on themselves, but all he had ever wanted was a solid standard of living, a decent start in life for those dependent on him.

If he lost those dependents, his strength would leak away. He would be left totally alone to face shame and impending bankruptcy, hounded in the divorce courts, as well as in … No—ridiculous to panic. Three o'clock was a wild irrational hour which made problems breed and swarm, tacked huge looming shadows on to trifles. The boys would be safely asleep. He had tucked them in himself, lectured them about wasting time on Westerns when there was homework to be done.

He crept along to Charles's room—his eldest son, conceived when he still paid tax like any other fool, and life was poorer, stricter, and a lot less complicated. He opened the door a crack. The light from the passage shone on to Charles's fine dark head, the outline of his features almost a carbon copy of his own. He steadied himself on the door frame. He mustn't wake the boy, alarm him with a sudden display of emotion. Boys must grow up tough, prepared for a world in which ruin and disgrace could strike at any moment.

He didn't deserve disgrace. Tax avoidance could be regarded almost as a mission. Men like him, working hard and thanklessly, needed some incentive for their labours. It was their commitment which kept the country solvent, subsidised the layabouts who dodged not tax, but work. His scheme was only the rich man's version of moonlighting, and one which cost him highly. There were fees to pay to accountants and advisers, constant vigilance required, a war of nerves to be fought out.

He closed Charles's door, checked the other bedrooms. All the boys were sleeping peacefully. He stood and listened to their breathing, lightheaded with relief. Anne wouldn't leave her sons. She was as much a part of this house as the beams and joists were, as firmly embedded in his life as the bricks were in the mortar. He stared through the small uncurtained window on the landing. The cold had breathed on it, leaving a film of spangled frost. Outside, the street lamps threw dark distorted shadows on the pavement. The trees were bare, gaunt. Only his ancient cedar, which blocked all the light and sunshine from the south side of the house, still outsmarted winter, its branches heavy with their prickly foliage.

He suddenly remembered what date it was. He had fallen asleep remembering, and then got swamped in nightmare. If things had worked out differently, he wouldn't have gone to bed at all, but still be deep in champagne corks and congratulation. Last night was the projected date of London's most glittering literary party, fanfare for his half a million sales—except the invitations had never been dispatched, nor the
Moet & Chandon
ordered. Certainly he had made a stir—made the headlines, even—secured his leading position in the gossip columns, but flushed with shame, not triumph.

He shivered suddenly, walked to the foot of the stairs which led up to the attic—Susie's attic, used only as a spare room since the girl had been summoned home. Anne had cleared out piles of Susie rubbish—half-eaten chocolate bars, badges with broken pins, lurid paperbacks and dog-eared magazines. Now the room was empty. Or was it? A thin yellow ribbon of light was trailing from the door. Matthew's hands were clammy as they edged along the bannister. He stopped. Had Susie come back to taunt him, appear to him in nightmare, remind him of things he had tried to lock up like a barred and shuttered room?

Pregnant, his sons had told him, and married to some prick of a photographer who drove a Lotus Elan and knew the Queen. Well, if he was anything like that other chap who had brought Susie to the party, the marriage wouldn't last. Twins, the boys had said—confirmed by Mrs Chenies. Vera Chenies should mind her own damned business. All of them had told him different stories. Hugh had said Susie only married in September and the twins weren't due till May, at least. Robert announced that she was as big as a hippopotamus and had already had the babies in a Harrods ambulance. All the boys agreed she had been carted off from the restaurant, more or less giving birth amongst the cakes. If that were so, then she had conceived the twins well before April and that party, and they were nothing to do with him. Nothing to do with her husband, either, since Charles had reported quite distinctly that she had bumped into her photographer only when she went back to Great Yarmouth. Susie had probably had scores of men, all younger and fitter than he was. He booted them down the staircase, kept only Susie there.

He tried to imagine her pregnant—thick golden hair rippling over a curving, swollen stomach. God! He desired her like that. But she could be dangerous, too—start inventing things, accusing him of … Supposing Anne had smelt a rat already? Jennifer might have betrayed him, tipped off his wife about his mistress?

Susie had never been his mistress. You couldn't even use the word ‘affair'—just one brief evening, a fraction of an evening, something which almost hadn't happened. But supposing Susie had distorted the whole episode, blown it up to monster proportions and now be claiming him as the father of those twins, without a shred of evidence? A paternity suit on top of everything else … The very phrase could disgrace and undermine him. And there were other damaging things which might leak out. He had been paying Susie's wages out of the business, calling her his secretary instead of his wife's home-help. It was only a minor tax dodge, and one which many respectable men resorted to, but added to all the other charges, it could land him in the dock. Wherever he looked, some nightmare figure threatened him—Edward and his cold contemptuous lawyer; Lyn always eluding his grasp; the inspector from the Inland Revenue storming the secret strongroom of his tax affairs, and now Susie and her treacherous accusations.