Chapter 23
Maeve’s brain was whirling with so many thoughts there was barely room left to formulate questions of her own. It felt like desperately trying to cram an entire wardrobe’s worth of clothes into a child’s haversack.
It couldn’t be.
Could it?
But no, how was it possible?
Also, who was Hannah?
Had Lizzie discovered she liked doing it? Had she tried it once, then found it addictive? Had she carried on searching out childless couples on random game shows around the world?
Was this like that Long Lost Family show on TV where relatives were reunited, and had Lizzie been in on it from the start? But how? And why? Plus, who would do that anyway?
And again, who was Hannah?
Maeve had never abandoned work before, but right now she didn’t trust herself to be in charge of vacuum cleaners, knives and bleach. Leaving her cleaning basket in the office, she scribbled a note for Nella saying sorry but she felt a bit ill and would finish the properties later.
Then she made her way home across the fields, the dew-laden grass swishing around her bare feet and her flip-flops making their rhythmic flapping sound with each step, in time with the voice in her brain chanting, Who is Hannah?
Letting herself into the house, Maeve called out, ‘Dad? Dad!’ but was greeted instead by Teddy, who came hurtling through from the kitchen and threw himself at her as if she were returning from the Hundred Years War. Leaping into her arms, he licked her face and made the high-pitched whiffly noises that signalled You’re back! At last! I’ve missed you so much !
‘I know, I missed you too,’ Maeve said to humour him, because it had only been forty minutes. But today especially, she understood how a brief moment in time could feel like an eternity.
Upstairs, the shower was running. She took Teddy out into the back garden to pass the time until her dad appeared downstairs. Then she sat on the doorstep and typed Lizzie Rafferty secret donation IVF into her phone’s search engine.
Nothing came up.
Five minutes later, the shower upstairs was switched off. Maeve threw Teddy’s favourite tennis ball to the far end of the garden and watched him race to fetch it, then happily bring it back to her so she could throw it over and over again. Did he ever wonder why, if she wanted the ball so much, she was forever chucking it away? Did he think she was maybe a bit forgetful and just feel sorry for her?
‘What’s going on?’ Matthew appeared behind her, dressed in jeans and a plain grey sweatshirt, his dark hair wet from the shower. ‘Why are you back so early? Are you feeling OK?’
There it was, the hint of anxiety that never completely went away. He loved her, so he worried about her. Once you’d lost someone close to you, the low-level fear never went away; it remained a constant.
‘Nothing’s wrong. I just overheard something unbelievable. And also confusing.’ Maeve patted the space on the step beside her, and after a moment he sat down. After her mother had died, this had become the place they most often came to when they spoke about her, with Maeve on the left and her dad on the right, her right hand and his left one instinctively clasped together.
‘Is this about your mum?’
‘Kind of. It’s about all of us.’ She tilted her head to study him and gauge his reaction. ‘Dad, the name Hannah . . . Does that mean anything to you?’
He was looking straight ahead. ‘In what way?’
‘Any way at all.’
‘There are lots of people called Hannah.’
‘I know. I just wondered if . . . if I was ever called Hannah.’ It sounded ridiculous now she’d said it.
He hesitated, then slowly nodded. ‘Yes, you were.’
‘I was ?’ So, not ridiculous after all. Surprised but at the same time relieved – because of what this meant – Maeve said, ‘But why did you change it? It isn’t even my middle name. What happened?’
‘Who told you?’
‘You tell me first. Then it’s my turn.’ She almost wanted to delay the moment, to keep hugging the astonishing news to herself for a little while longer because it was so wonderful.
‘You were born on the Monday evening.’ He gave her hand a squeeze. ‘We had a few names lined up and were waiting to see which one suited you best. Once you arrived, we both agreed we should call you Hannah. But later that night, a child was brought into the hospital with terrible injuries from an accident. Her parents’ car had been hit by a lorry. She was in a desperate state. And while the surgeons were trying to save her, the mother was in the little patch of garden outside the maternity ward, sobbing and calling out her daughter’s name. Obviously she was inconsolable. No one could help her. We just felt so sorry for the whole family.’ Matthew paused and shook his head. ‘It was devastating. Finally someone came out and led her away. A few seconds after that, we heard her inside the building. Just one scream. And that was when we knew her daughter hadn’t survived.’
‘That’s so awful.’ Maeve pictured the scene in her mind. She had already guessed the rest. ‘And her name was Hannah.’
He nodded. ‘She was three years old. Those poor parents . . . it was the most terrible tragedy. We knew we couldn’t call you Hannah after that. We needed to change it. We decided to call you Maeve instead.’ Another squeeze of her hand accompanied a brief smile. ‘We took you home from the hospital two days later. And no one apart from the staff on the maternity ward ever knew you’d had a different name for the first ten hours of your life.’
Teddy trotted up with his tennis ball in his mouth, tail wagging in the hope of more throwing-and-retrieving. Instead Maeve pulled him onto her lap for a cuddle. ‘Well, someone else knew.’
‘Who told you? Come on, I’m interested now.’
‘You’re going to like this.’ The reveal was now just minutes away. Smoothing Teddy’s furry ears, Maeve said, ‘But you’re also going to kind of not like it.’
‘Is this a riddle? A clue?’
‘Where’s the photo album of me when I was tiny?’
‘You know where it is. Upstairs in my room, in the bottom drawer of the wardrobe.’
She did know. Passing Teddy over and jumping to her feet, she ran up the staircase and collected the album, then returned to the back doorstep and rested it across her lap.
‘ This photo . . . was I still Hannah when it was taken?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. You’d been born a couple of hours earlier. We asked the midwife to take some pictures of the three of us. I’d bought a Polaroid camera specially for the occasion.’
If a photograph could encapsulate pure joy, this one did it in spades. Personally, Maeve thought she’d looked better, but the beaming smiles on the faces of her parents as they showed their newborn baby off to the camera would take some beating. ‘And is this the same one you sent to the TV company, so they could forward it to your anonymous donor?’
‘Pretty much. The midwife took three, one after the other. We couldn’t stop smiling the whole time. Then we wrote a letter to Mr Anonymous and posted it off with one of the Polaroids. It sounds daft, but we wanted to send it straight away. We just couldn’t wait to let him know you’d been born.’ Evidently still intrigued, he said, ‘One of Esme’s daughters works at the hospital, doesn’t she? This feels like something Esme could be involved with. Is that how you heard the name Hannah?’
Maeve was bursting with excitement, her heart thudding at double speed. She said, ‘Actually, I heard it from the person you sent the letter to. And that photo.’
He turned to look directly at her. ‘Sorry, what ?’
She nodded. ‘Told you it was incredible.’
‘But . . .’ He was frowning. ‘How? What have you been doing ?’
‘I didn’t do anything. Nothing at all. I just found out by chance. Out of interest, why did you call them he ? What made you think it was a man?’
‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘Your mum always thought it was a woman. But I felt as if it could be a man . . . maybe some rich banker type who’d spent all his life working sixteen hour days and never had kids of his own.’ He paused, then said, ‘Which of us was right?’
‘Not you.’
He smiled. ‘I’d even wondered if it could have been George Michael. There you go, then. Your mum always did know best.’ Another thought struck him. ‘Why did you say I’m not going to like it when I find out who it is?’
Maeve’s grin broadened. ‘OK, one clue. They’re right here in this village.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ He looked stunned. ‘It was someone who knew us all along? But who could have afforded to do something like that? Oh my God, are you going to tell me it’s Constance Peverell?’ His eyes widened in disbelief. ‘If it’s her, I’ll—’
‘It’s not her,’ Maeve blurted out, because that really would be a surreal situation; the only person Constance Peverell showered with money was her beloved younger son, Tristan. If you were ever brave enough to ask her to make a donation to charity, you’d be lucky to come away with fifty pee.
‘That’s a relief. Does that mean it was a group effort? Did someone organise a collection? If they did, I bet it was Esme.’
He was right; it was exactly the kind of thing kind-hearted Esme Addis would come up with. Maeve said, ‘Except it wasn’t her either. Anyway, you like Esme.’
Another shrug. ‘There isn’t anyone I dislike. I give up.’
‘There is one person.’
‘Who?’ He looked outraged at the idea.
‘You had a falling-out with her four weeks ago,’ Maeve prompted. ‘Then another one yesterday.’
‘Come on. Are you serious ?’ He was shaking his head now. ‘It can’t be her.’
‘It is.’
‘Lizzie Rafferty? Is this a joke?’
‘No joke.’
‘And she told you? She actually tracked you down and came all the way over here to tell you herself?’
‘No! That’s what’s so crazy,’ said Maeve. ‘I don’t think she has any idea it’s me.’