image I’ve carried in my head’s been out of date. You were a little girl. Miranda just a tiny baby. The only thing that’s seemed important to me these last weeks has been knowing what you both looked like now. That’s why I asked Rennie Duke to find you, that and to try and make some sort of peace with you. Now here you are, I’ve seen you. As to making peace, I hope we can do that. I’m grateful to you for coming. I can understand how hard it’s been for you to decide to do it. Mir—Nicola is another sort of problem. I can’t ask her to come here. I can’t see her myself. I want you to be my eyes, Fran. Also, I want the Wildes to know that I’m not going to be around much longer, so if they have still been worrying that I might change my mind one day and claim Miranda back, well, I’m not going to, am I? All I need is for you to make my farewells for me. There’s no need to go into details.’
‘But if I start asking questions about these people’s whereabouts, someone’s bound to get suspicious. I mean, what excuse can I give?’ Surely she could see how awkward it would all be.
‘When you find the Wildes,’ she repeated obstinately, ignoring my objection, ‘just tell them I haven’t got long. I don’t want to go without telling them how grateful I am for all they did for me. Tell them, Eva wanted to send her love. That’s all. Miranda needn’t be brought into it. They’ll understand.’
No, they wouldn’t. They’d be petrified. Even if I didn’t mention Miranda – Nicola – they’d guess what all this was about. A secret they’d been burying for nearly thirteen years and which they’d believed was known only to three people, themselves and my mother, was known to a fourth – me. I hated it. I hated every part of it. I hated the deception being forced on me and long practised on someone who was my half-sister. I hated the deception my mother and the Wildes had been practising on themselves for the past thirteen years. Of course, it had seemed easy at the time. My mother tells the neighbour who’s been caring for Miranda that the baby’s gone into care. Miles away, a young couple with a baby move into a house somewhere, perhaps on a new housing estate. No one questions them. They can produce the necessary birth certificate which will get the child into school, get her a passport, get her any legal document she needs. Relatives living a long distance away, who knew the Wildes’ baby was poorly and in intensive care, are told that the baby is now well enough to go home. Do they question that? Of course not. They’d be overjoyed.
But they were all wrong about no one ever finding out. It was there in the maternity hospital records, if anyone cared to check. Mrs Flora Wilde gave birth to a baby which died a couple of months later without ever leaving the hospital. But then, who was going to check? I was. I was checking on them. This was the part I hated most of all.
I replied as gently as I could because it was obvious how much she was counting on me and the extent to which she had persuaded herself it would be as simple as she’d explained it. ‘Suppose I don’t find her?’
‘But you will,’ she said simply. ‘I’ve got a sort of sixth sense about it, Fran.’
Great. A thought struck me. ‘Why didn’t you ask Clarence – Rennie Duke to find her? He found me.’
She looked a little embarrassed, avoiding my eye. ‘It’s not the sort of information I’d put in Rennie’s hands. Not even a bit of it, not even if I left out the child and just told him I wanted to contact the Wildes. He’s – too thorough. Can’t we just leave it at that? He’s been a good friend to me, he found you. But that was a different matter. It didn’t involve other people. Rennie, well, he might be tempted.’
I understood well enough. I remembered him telling me of his childhood playground blackmail schemes. Because that was what I was prepared to believe
‘But if I start asking questions about these people’s whereabouts, someone’s bound to get suspicious. I mean, what excuse can I give?’ Surely she could see how awkward it would all be.
‘When you find the Wildes,’ she repeated obstinately, ignoring my objection, ‘just tell them I haven’t got long. I don’t want to go without telling them how grateful I am for all they did for me. Tell them, Eva wanted to send her love. That’s all. Miranda needn’t be brought into it. They’ll understand.’
No, they wouldn’t. They’d be petrified. Even if I didn’t mention Miranda – Nicola – they’d guess what all this was about. A secret they’d been burying for nearly thirteen years and which they’d believed was known only to three people, themselves and my mother, was known to a fourth – me. I hated it. I hated every part of it. I hated the deception being forced on me and long practised on someone who was my half-sister. I hated the deception my mother and the Wildes had been practising on themselves for the past thirteen years. Of course, it had seemed easy at the time. My mother tells the neighbour who’s been caring for Miranda that the baby’s gone into care. Miles away, a young couple with a baby move into a house somewhere, perhaps on a new housing estate. No one questions them. They can produce the necessary birth certificate which will get the child into school, get her a passport, get her any legal document she needs. Relatives living a long distance away, who knew the Wildes’ baby was poorly and in intensive care, are told that the baby is now well enough to go home. Do they question that? Of course not. They’d be overjoyed.
But they were all wrong about no one ever finding out. It was there in the maternity hospital records, if anyone cared to check. Mrs Flora Wilde gave birth to a baby which died a couple of months later without ever leaving the hospital. But then, who was going to check? I was. I was checking on them. This was the part I hated most of all.
I replied as gently as I could because it was obvious how much she was counting on me and the extent to which she had persuaded herself it would be as simple as she’d explained it. ‘Suppose I don’t find her?’
‘But you will,’ she said simply. ‘I’ve got a sort of sixth sense about it, Fran.’
Great. A thought struck me. ‘Why didn’t you ask Clarence – Rennie Duke to find her? He found me.’
She looked a little embarrassed, avoiding my eye. ‘It’s not the sort of information I’d put in Rennie’s hands. Not even a bit of it, not even if I left out the child and just told him I wanted to contact the Wildes. He’s – too thorough. Can’t we just leave it at that? He’s been a good friend to me, he found you. But that was a different matter. It didn’t involve other people. Rennie, well, he might be tempted.’
I understood well enough. I remembered him telling me of his childhood playground blackmail schemes. Because that was what I was prepared to believe
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