The Accidental Mother (14 page)

Cal winked at Sophie. “It’s sort of like learning another language,” he’d said. “Once you let yourself go enough to get hold of the accent, you’ll be fine.”

“Well,” Sophie had replied. “Fortunately I’m only on a short trip, so all I need is a phrase book. Anyway, where did you get all those toys from?” She’d asked, full of gratitude and admiration for her PA.

“I told you,” he’d said. “They’re mine. From when I was a kid.”

And Sophie had decided she believed him.

It was in the middle of this gradual buildup of routine that Tess arrived one evening at the flat.

Sophie squinted at her as she held the front door open. “I’m sure I know you,” she said sarcastically. “Oh yes! That’s it. You’re the one who told me I wasn’t alone and that I could expect regular visits.”

“Well, you weren’t,” Tess said, bustling into the flat. “I’ve called you every day, and every day you’ve said that things have been going well. I’ve had this awful neglect case to deal with. And sometimes there aren’t enough of us to go around. We have to prioritize.”

Sophie shrugged. Tess did phone her every day, it was true, and she supposed that she had only herself to blame that her tiredness and slowly decreasing powers of communication had led her to tell Tess what the social worker wanted to hear in order to get her off the phone and allow Sophie to go to sleep in front of the TV. But then again, as over two weeks had passed since the girls arrived and all three of them were still alive, she supposed she hadn’t actually been lying. It gave her an unexpected sense of achievement and satisfaction. All this moaning from parents about how hard it was to bring up children was a load of overblown self-pity in Sophie’s eyes. All you needed was a routine and a freezer full of chicken nuggets.

“How’s it really been?” Tess asked her once she had a mug of tea in her hands.

“It’s really been really hard,” Sophie said. “My job’s been the worst part. But I think I’m on top of that mainly. I even landed a new client this week. It was quite funny, because Izzy had just felt-tipped some stripes on my linen skirt, but I had to go into the meeting anyway, and the woman asked me where I got it—she said she thought it was fabulous! It’s ruined, of course. I’ve added it to the bill. And I suppose I haven’t been sleeping well or eating the way I used to, and my skin’s gone—”

“How has it been for the girls?” Tess interrupted her, and Sophie remembered belatedly that she wasn’t the most important person in her life anymore.

She thought for a moment. “Okay,” she said. “I mean, I get the feeling that most of the time they are living in a sort of suspended animation, waiting for when they know exactly what’s going to happen to them, waiting for when they can
feel
what
has
happened to them. I guess we’re all like that,” she said, realizing that was the way she felt too.

“I’ve had them for over two weeks now,” she continued. “Have you found Louis yet?”

Tess dropped her gaze to look at her bangles. “No,” she said evenly. “But we’ve only been looking for a month, remember. We know he went to the States right after leaving here. It’s the red tape, you see, dealing with government bodies overseas. It makes everything so slow.” She looked back up at Sophie. “But I know we set a time limit on this. I’ve found a foster home that will take them together. They could go tomorrow if you like.”

It was a pivotal moment. A moment when Sophie could have let all her worries go and passed the buck, passed the children on to someone else. But she remembered the look on Bella’s face that morning at Alice Hardy’s too clearly, and she remembered that flash feeling that had burned across her chest too. She just couldn’t do it, even though a large percentage of her still wanted to. She couldn’t do it to the girls, who had been through too much already and still had so much more to face. And although she wasn’t conscious of the thought, Sophie couldn’t do it to herself. Slowly the instinct and intuition that she claimed never to have had was awakening. And that small, sleepy part of her dimly sensed that she needed the children just as much as they needed her.

“They can stay with me,” she said.

Tess looked genuinely surprised. “Really?” she asked.

“Yes. Like you said, there’s still a good chance Louis might turn up, and I just don’t think it would be right to move them again now. We’ve got a routine and everything.”

“But if it’s affecting your job…,” Tess said uncertainly.

“I’m coping,” Sophie replied firmly. She had always liked a challenge.

And among all the distractions, obstacles, and challenges that had suddenly sprung up on a previously tranquil horizon, Jake positioned himself firmly in the middle.

He had called Sophie the morning after they had had the perfectly nice kiss.

“I’ve got to tell you,” he’d said. “I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss.”

“Lovely,” Sophie had said, for want of anything else to say.

“It was lovely, wasn’t it?” Jake had laughed. “That’s such an English word,
lovely.
”

“I think you’ll find most of the words you speak are English,” Sophie had said.

Jake had laughed again. He had a sweetly unself-conscious laugh, like that of a sort of delighted little boy, which didn’t quite match his suited and booted hard body. “When can I see you again?” he’d asked.

Sophie had thought. “Well, we’ve got to meet next week to sign off on the last batch of invoices for your party…”

“So lunch after that?” Jake had asked. “I know you’ll have the kids, but we could all go maybe?”

“Jake, I don’t know,” she’d said. She didn’t want any misunderstandings between them. “Remember what I said before about waiting awhile? There’s so much on at the moment. I just—I can’t really see you in that way. I haven’t got any time or space to think about you, to really know what I’m feeling. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

Jake had paused for a moment. “Well,” he’d said. “I knew exactly how I felt about you before you even uttered one word, but I guess that maybe that’s the difference between us. You’re an instant smash hit, while I’m the type who grows on people. Look, why don’t you just let me be your friend? You need a friend right now.”

“I do,” Sophie had conceded.

“So I’ll bring over some wine and Chinese tonight,” Jake had said. “No strings, okay?”

“Okay. And Jake, thank you. I really appreciate all this.”

“Of course you do,” he told her. “And that’s why, sooner or later, one way or another, you’re going to fall in love with me.”

Jake had come that night and twice again since, sitting and talking over work and children with Sophie until she’d yawned extravagantly and he’d taken the hint. She’d enjoyed his company and the way he looked at her, but never once had she felt the urge to throw caution out the window and let him kiss her again.

“I will,” she kept telling herself. “When the time is right. It’s just that the time isn’t right yet.”

C
lutching the piece of paper that might hold all their futures on it, Sophie went from her bedroom to the living room to check on the girls. They were lying on the floor with two of Cal’s Barbies, which he had graciously allowed them to bring home, acting out some kind of intense drama, which—from what Sophie could glean—was based on a recent episode of
Coronation Street.

“All right?” she asked them casually.

They ignored her, which was usually a good sign—when it didn’t mean they were in the midst of extreme naughtiness. This morning Sophie didn’t care either way.

“I’m just going to tidy the bedroom up,” she lied. “So don’t go swallowing any choking hazards, okay?”

There was no response again except for the high-pitched chatter of Barbie Ken Barlow telling Barbie Deirdre he’d never trust her again.

Sitting on her bed, Sophie looked at the numbers.

She wondered if it might be an idea to actually tidy up her bedroom before phoning, but then she made herself look her reflection right in the eye. “You have to do this,” she said. “There is no alternative.”

She dialed the number and heard a series of clicks on the line before the long foreign ring tone sounded.

Sophie put down the phone.

“What am I
thinking
?” she said out loud and with some relief. “They’ll speak Spanish, or Peruvian or Inca or something. I need a phrase book at least, or…” An idea popped into her head. “I’ll phone Cal.”

Sophie had done the bedroom and changed the sheets by the time Cal arrived.

He looked her up and down as she opened the door still in her pajamas. “You should just dread you hair and be done with it,” he said.

Sophie said nothing because she knew he was seriously pissed off with her for dragging him out of the bed of an Italian chap called Mauro, who apparently not only was drop-dead gorgeous but also made the best spaghetti carbonara in the whole of London.

“You never eat food unless it comes in the form of a canapé,” Sophie had reminded him half an hour earlier as she tried to persuade him to give up his Saturday morning for her. “You don’t even like pasta.”

Cal had bitched and sniped at her via his cell phone for most of his trip over, but Sophie had taken it all on the chin because, after all, he was right. He
didn’t
have to come over to her flat and help her on a Saturday morning. It
was
above and beyond the call of duty. She
would
have to grovel to him for weeks, take him to lunch and sign him off for as many Friday afternoons as he wanted for six months.

“Hello, girls,” Cal said to Bella and Izzy as he passed the living room. They were now lying in front of the TV, but miraculously they didn’t appear to be watching it, perhaps because what was on was some undetermined sport. Bella was drawing yet another mermaid-strewn coastal scene with her new set of felt-tips, and Izzy was feeding her new baby doll.

“Come on, baby,” Izzy said, sounding rather impatient. “Let’s have some nice chips for tea on the kitchen floor and then we’ll watch TV all day!”

Cal raised an eyebrow at Sophie. “And to think they are all saying you’re a natural with the kids at work,” he said tartly.

“Yes well.” Sophie coughed. “It’s a learning curve. So, anyway, follow me to the bedroom.”

Cal followed her with a derisive snort. “That’s exactly what Mauro said to me,” he said mournfully as she closed the door behind her. “So come on then, tell me what this is all about. Although why you couldn’t tell me on the phone, I don’t know.”

“Because your cell phone signal wasn’t very good and I didn’t want to have to shout out what this was all about in case
walls have ears,
if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t,” Cal said sharply. “So speak English. You’re being annoying.”

“I know,” Sophie said. “I’m sorry. I had to call you over because of your language skills. I had to think for a moment if Spanish was one of them, but then I remembered in your interview when you told me you’d been traveling all around the world and that you’d worked in Barcelona for a year for a law firm and spoke fluent Spanish.”

Cal pursed his lips and looked out the window. “Yes, I do recollect that,” he said, carefully.

“Well, Louis Gregory is in Lima, so I need you to call and speak Spanish to whoever picks up the phone so we can get hold of him, okay?”

Cal bit his lip. “And you don’t speak Spanish at all?” he asked.

“Nope,” Sophie reaffirmed with a nod, her hands on her hips. “You know me!”

“So you’d have no idea what the Spanish person or indeed
I
was saying, for example?” he doubled-checked, crossing his arms over his lucky shag shirt, a pale blue one shot through with subtle silver pinstripes.

“Not a sausage,” Sophie said, honestly.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Cal said. He took the piece of paper with the number on it from Sophie, sat on the edge of the bed, and looked at it.

“This is important, isn’t it?” he said, with an edge of reluctance.

“Just a bit!” Sophie said, laughing nervously. “Like the lives of three people depend on its outcome!” She put a hand on his shoulder. “That’s why I really do appreciate you coming over, Cal. You’re totally saving my life here, even if you are pretending to be all flippant about it. You really are wonderful, you know.”

Cal nodded. “I’m sorry, Sophie,” he said, unable to look at her. “I lied on my CV. I lied in the interview. I didn’t go around the world. I went skiing in Aspen for two weeks once, and I didn’t work for a year in Barcelona for a law firm. I stayed there for a month with an old boyfriend and worked in an English bar until we broke up. I can’t speak fluent Spanish. I can barely speak tourist Spanish. I can’t actually speak fluent anything. When you ask me to tell you what to say to overseas clients, I look it up on the Internet. There’s this amazing site that gives you pronunciations and everything.” He dropped his head and braced himself, although he didn’t know why. He should have known by now that she was terrible at losing her temper—doing so required far too much abandon.

Sophie just stared at him. She didn’t know what to be more cross about, the fact that he’d lied his way through his job interview, the fact that she had fallen for it, or the fact that he was about as much use to her now in practical terms as he was as a lover. And then she remembered, at least he was here. He had come, and he had told her the truth when it mattered.

“Bastard,” she said, but in general rather than directed straight at Cal. “Look, you must remember some basic phrases if you lived there for a month, and we did that Spanish fashion label a couple of months back. You must remember something from then?”

Cal shrugged. “I guess so,” he said uncertainly before catching Sophie’s look of anxiety. “Oh, what the hell? Okay, I’ll do it.”

“Well, go on then,” Sophie said, nodding at the phone, as unaware that she was twisting her fingers as she watched him.

“But what’s the time difference?” he said. “There might not be anybody there.”

Sophie sighed and sat down on the edge of her bed beside him. “I don’t know,” she said. “I forgot to look that bit up. It’s five hours to New York, isn’t it, and it’s at least as far away as that.” She looked at her watch. “So assuming it’s about the same, it’s just gone eleven now, so it’s either four o’clock in the afternoon there or…six o’clock in the morning. I think it’s six o’clock in the morning. Maybe earlier….” Sophie sighed. “There’ll be no one there, will there? I was really psyched up for this too.”

Cal looked at her profile, her chin dropping to her chest. “What the hell, let’s do it now anyway. You never know, we might be lucky,” he said. He dialed the number, and they waited. The passing seconds seemed to stretch on for hours.

“Ah, hello…Um,
Buenos dias
I mean.” There was a pause, during which Cal nodded at Sophie and winked. “
Arrepentido
about the, er—
hora.
It’s an emergency a…
urgencia?
” Sophie gave him a worried look. His Spanish sounded all made up to her, and the faint voice of the person on the other end of the line sounded less than thrilled to be talking to Cal at six o’clock in the morning. But he pressed on, smiling as he spoke, as if his charm might somehow work long-distance too. “
Me llamo Cal,
and I am trying to speak, um,
hablar?
To Louis Gregory.
Louis Gregory, por favor
?
Urgencia.
” Sophie heard the faint rattle of a voice on the other end of the line. “
Sí…Sí…Sí. Gracias!
”

“What are they saying?” she whispered.

“Not the foggiest,” Cal said happily. “But hopefully they’ve gone to get someone who can speak English. I think they got the emergency bit,” he said proudly. “I learned that after my boyfriend broke his ankle coming off a moped and I had to call an ambulance.” Cal listened intently to the echoes on the line. “If I’m not very much mistaken, somebody in Lima likes listening to Justin Timberlake in the small hours of the morning—and who can blame them?”

They waited for what seemed like an age, and then Cal looked at Sophie as he heard the clatter of a receiver being picked up.

“Oh, hello,” he said after a pause. “Right then, hang on a moment.” He held out the receiver to Sophie, who stared at it in horror.

“But, Cal, I can’t speak Spanish,” she said.

“You don’t have to,” Cal said. “It’s him. It’s Louis Gregory.”

“So,” Cal said urgently, as Sophie put the phone down. “What did he say, how’d he react, did he cry?”

Sophie shook her head and replayed the conversation she had just had, because it had happened so quickly she wasn’t exactly sure if she understood it.

“Listen, babe, do you know what time it is? You’ve woken the whole place up! Look, before you say anything, I meant to call you, but I’ve just been up to my eyes in it…” This had thrown Sophie. She had not expected Louis to be expecting a call from another Englishwoman whose male secretary put the call through with the world’s worst Spanish in the early hours of the morning—or indeed another English-speaking woman at any time, full stop. She’d thought that perhaps Cal had made a mistake and it wasn’t Louis at all.

“This is Louis Gregory, right? Formally of St. Ives, Cornwall?” There’d been a short silence, and Sophie almost physically felt Louis tense up.

“Yes?” he’d said, and he laughed, probably a nervous reaction Sophie decided in retrospect, but one that had made her feel even more nervous.

“Hello, it’s Sophie, Sophie Mills? Do you remember me?” There’d been an echo on the line, and after Sophie had finished each word, she’d heard it repeated in her ear, her voice sounding thin and girlish and not at all like a voice delivering serious news. “Sophie Mills, I was at your wedding. Carrie’s friend. Carrie Stiles’s friend—I was a friend of your wife.” The echo had continued for another beat, and suddenly Sophie had been able to sense the change in him, thousands of miles away. She could picture him sitting up a little straighter, the smile fading from his face as moment by moment he realized what her call meant. It meant something bad had happened.

“Where are the girls, are they hurt? Is one of them hurt? What’s happened?” he’d said quickly, and Sophie had found herself stumbling to reassure him—this absentee father and wife leaver whom neither girl seemed to know existed—that both of his children were okay.

“They’re okay, they’re here with me,” she’d said quickly. “They are not hurt.” She had heard him breathe out a sigh and almost felt it in the shell of her ear.

He’d taken a deep breath. “What’s happened, Sophie?” he had asked, but Sophie somehow had known the question was a formality. Somehow, she’d realized that he already knew the answer, so she’d just told him outright.

“Carrie is dead,” she’d said.

“Carrie is dead,” the line had echoed, and Sophie had breathed in sharply, as if she was hearing the news for the first time too. But then her fledgling intuition had faltered. She had been bracing herself for an emotional outburst, questions, tears even. But there had been nothing—just silence. Sophie had remembered how she’d first reacted when she’d first heard, how she still felt—as if her heart was a thousand miles away—so she’d gone on filling the void with details. “It was a car accident, almost seven months ago.” Still Louis had said nothing. “She was killed outright. The girls went to live with her mother and then Mrs. Stiles couldn’t cope and called in Social Services about a month ago. They were sorting out the house and found a will. I was in the will, as guardian. So the girls came here.” She had taken a breath. “Social Services have been looking for you for the last month, but they had all the red tape to get through, so I hired a private detective to find you and she did.” This time it had been Sophie’s nervous, inappropriate laughter that had echoed on a second’s delay in her ears. “Look, Louis, I know you haven’t seen them in a long time, maybe you don’t want to but—”

“I’ll be on the next flight I can get on,” he said out of the silence.

Sophie had been taken aback by the sound of his voice, hardened with urgency.