Not Your Child

Chapter 54

54

GEMMA

I was fuming, pacing Crystal’s living room, listening to her clinking mugs and stirring tea, as if it was more important to have a bloody cup of tea than to have this conversation. I stood at her fireplace, waiting, counting the minutes, wanting this all to be over so I could go back to collect Poppy from nursery and put Crystal and all the lies or excuses she was going to come up with, out of my mind, hopefully forever. But then I saw it again – the photo of Poppy – she’d put it back on her fireplace.

Again, I picked it up and stared at it, and I knew immediately that I’d been right the first time: it had been taken here, in this flat. She’d been sitting on this rug. Poppy had been here – Crystal had brought her to her own flat without telling me. I should have known I was right by the guilty way she’d reacted when I saw the photo the first time, but as usual, I’d made excuses for her, convinced myself it was me that was wrong. Well, that was over; it was never going to happen again.

I turned to look at her as she carried the mugs of tea in, and to my amazement, as I held up the photo, challenging her to explain it to me, she simply sighed, nodded, sat down as if she was exhausted, and said she was going to explain.

‘But first,’ she went on, in a shaky voice, ‘I need to tell you about the so-called child abandonment.’

‘So-called?’ I retorted. ‘The article stated quite clearly that you were arrested?—’

‘But never charged. Did you notice that? I was never charged, Gemma, because I wasn’t guilty. But I did have a breakdown. I was hurtling towards one anyway. Everything in my life was unbearable at the time, and the accusation, the very idea that I’d ever have left my daughter alone in the flat – that and not being able to prove my innocence – sent me completely over the edge.’

I wanted to say I was sorry to hear it, but I couldn’t. I just wanted the rest of her explanation.

‘So how come Evie was found on her own, then? Where were you?’

‘With my dying mother.’

I blinked, swallowed, fought against the instinct to sympathise.

‘Evie’s father was supposed to be looking after her,’ she went on, and the way she pronounced word father told me everything I needed to know regarding how she felt about him.

‘So why wasn’t he arrested, rather than you?’

‘He was, after I’d given my side of the story. But of course, he denied ever agreeing to stay with her. And he had an alibi. His brother lied to the police, saying he’d been with him, that it had been a special occasion and he’d always agreed to spend the evening with him so it just wasn’t possible – he said – that he’d ever have promised to stay with Evie that night.’ She closed her eyes and sighed. ‘But he had done. He was at home; he was there when I left to go to sit with my mum. I’d never have gone and left her otherwise. Never!’

There were tears in her eyes now. Against my will, I found myself believing her.

‘So was he – your ex – was he convicted, or?—’

‘No, of course not, he was too believable. His brother stood by him. So in the end, neither of us were convicted. There were no witnesses and no way they could prove whether either of us were lying or not. But they couldn’t trust either of us, either. And by then I was in hospital, having a breakdown. So?—’

‘So that’s why Evie was taken into foster care.’

‘Yes.’ She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘It was only supposed to be a temporary solution. Social services were going to monitor me when I came out of hospital, keep a check on me to make sure I was a fit mother – the shame of that would have been bad enough without everything else. But then my mum died. She’d been ill for almost a year and I’d been trying to care for her as well as looking after Evie, but because of being in hospital, I couldn’t be with her when she died, and… well, everything in my head just escalated. I ended up staying in hospital for a lot longer than planned. And they weren’t sure, when I came out, whether I’d be able to cope with having Evie back, even under supervision. To be honest, I probably would have struggled, at first.’ Crystal sighed. ‘But the nearest registered foster carer they’d been able to find, with a vacancy, was in the Isle of Wight. Donna’s lovely, she’s always done her best to help, telling Evie all about me, telling her that I loved her but couldn’t look after her when I was ill. But… over the months and years that she’s lived there, despite me visiting her as often as possible, I’ve become a stranger to her. I’d get so upset when I saw her cowering from me, hiding her face, that she just got more and more frightened. The social workers suggested reducing the visits to once a month, as we were both getting so upset. I started to think I’d never get her back.’

‘But now?’ Despite my determination to get to the bottom of everything Crystal hadn’t told me, I would have had to be heartless not to be moved by her account of how she’d virtually lost her daughter.

She smiled. ‘Now, I have so much more hope. Evie suddenly seems to have turned a corner; she was so different with me when I went on the extra visit this month. I really am daring to hope she’ll eventually come back home. I know it can’t be rushed, but, well, the social worker’s keen now for us to move things forward while Evie seems so willing. Donna’s bringing her to visit me next week, and if that’s a success, we’ll gradually do it more regularly, and eventually they’ll let me have an overnight stay, with Evie on her own.’

‘I’m really pleased for you,’ I said. But then I paused, frowning to myself. Was I allowing her to distract me, to gain my sympathy with all this talk about her daughter? ‘I still don’t really understand, though,’ I went on. ‘Didn’t your ex fight to keep custody of Evie? Surely he’d have wanted?—’

‘Huh!’ she said. ‘No, he didn’t. He showed his true colours. He didn’t want her at all. He had other interests, by then.’

I swallowed, struggling to take this in. I couldn’t help but feel another pang of sympathy, remembering how we originally bonded because this, presumably, was the ex who walked out on Crystal, just as Jack had walked out on me. I really wanted to move the conversation on, to demand answers to the question of the framed photograph I was still holding – but I sensed we were leading up to it and that I needed to let Crystal tell her story at her own pace.

‘So… he didn’t even want his own daughter,’ I summed up, ‘and meanwhile he completely got away with leaving her – a two-year-old child – at home at night on her own, and going out on the razz with his brother? That’s obscene.’

‘He wasn’t with his brother that night. That was a lie, and his brother lied, too, to protect him.’ There was a silence; she looked up at me, and there was something in her eyes, something that told me her next words were going to be shocking. ‘He was with you, Gemma.’

‘What?’ I stared at her. It was so preposterous, I actually started to laugh. Had she completely lost the plot now?

‘What the hell are you talking about? With me ? I don’t even know your ex, I can’t even remember what you said his name was!’

‘I told you his name was Simon. But I lied.’ She looked down, closing her eyes for a moment as if she needed strength to go on. ‘And you did know him. His name was Jack.’

I felt like I’d been smacked in the face; like all my breath had been sucked from my lungs. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t even gasp.

‘I’m sorry. Are you OK?’ Crystal asked, sounding anxious. ‘I knew it would be a shock. I didn’t want to tell you – I’ve tried not to tell you, but I knew it would probably come out eventually and, well, to be honest, you need to know. To understand.’

‘Jack?’ I managed to say. It came out as a squeak of pain. ‘You don’t mean… my Jack? How? What? I don’t understand. Are you saying?—’

‘I’m saying, we were both betrayed by the same guy. The same Jack has fucked up both our lives.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me? For God’s sake, Crystal, all this time, all these months I’ve trusted you, I’ve confided in you, told you everything, and you’ve kept this from me? You were with Jack, before I met him? You had his child – oh my God, Evie is his child, his daughter?’ I shook my head, trying to take it all in. ‘So, what, he started seeing me while he was still with you? I didn’t know, I swear he didn’t tell me, not about you, not about Evie or the… the allegations of leaving her on her own. I never knew he was still in a relationship – I’d never have?—’

‘I know, I know that, I knew it as soon as I met you.’ She’d moved to sit next to me now and had her arm around me. We were both crying. It was awful – horrible, unimaginable. I didn’t want to believe it, and yet… I knew, I knew instinctively that it was true. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she went on. ‘It was him – everything that’s happened is his fault. He left me to move in with you, just when I needed him most of all, when I was at my lowest possible ebb. I’d just come out of the psychiatric hospital, my daughter was in foster care, my mum was gone, my brother was refusing to see me or even speak to me because he’d heard what had happened and he believed Jack’s lies, believed I’d left my own child, his niece, on her own. And Jack just turned his back on me, packed his bags and… left.’

‘Moved in with me,’ I said, shakily. ‘Oh my God. If I’d known, if I’d had the slightest inkling?—’

‘Of course you’d have run a mile. I wish you had, for your sake, for Poppy’s sake.’

I wiped my eyes, blew my nose. Anger was beginning to take over from the shock.

‘Did you know?’ I asked. ‘When you found me bawling in the loos at work that day, did you know it was me, that I was the one Jack had left you for?’

‘No, I didn’t. I just wanted to help. I could see you’d been through something similar to my own experience. I genuinely just wanted to give you some support.’

‘It feels… so unreal.’ I stared at her, still trying to get my head around it. I’d forgotten, somewhere in the last few minutes, that I’d gone there, to Crystal’s flat, because I was furious with her and never wanted to see her again. Suddenly we were just two women who’d been treated like crap by the same guy. ‘Such a coincidence.’

‘Not really. He was a manager at our company, after all, wasn’t he? He got me my job there when I first met him. Then he left, of course, after he started seeing you.’

‘Yes, of course – that was when he started his new job – I’d only just started seeing him. He’d chatted me up at somebody’s leaving party.’

‘While I was at home with our little girl.’ She managed a smile. ‘I’ve never blamed you; I knew what he was like, by then. I guessed he’d have kept his new girlfriend in the dark about me, about our daughter. He’s a liar and a coward.’

I nodded. I could hardly argue with that. ‘So when did you realise… who I was?’

‘I did wonder, when you told me his name. But I knew for sure as soon as I saw a photo of Poppy.’ She got up and picked up the framed photo from where I’d let it fall onto the sofa next to me. There were tears in her eyes again as she held it up to me. ‘The likeness is absolutely incredible.’

‘What do you mean?’ I started – but then, instantly, I understood. I took a deep breath. ‘This isn’t Poppy, is it?’

‘It’s Evie. She was about two and a half in this picture – about the same age as Poppy was when I first met you. It was taken just before everything went wrong.’ She looked at me, her voice shaking as she continued, ‘It’s the last picture I took of her here, in her home.’

‘Oh, Crystal.’ I pulled her back down beside me and hugged her. ‘I wish you’d told me all this – why on earth didn’t you?’

‘I thought you’d run a mile. That you’d think I was… stalking you, or something. Planning to get revenge. Or worse, that you’d think I was trying to steal Poppy, because she’s so… so like Evie. That I’d try to steal your daughter because mine had been taken from me.’

I dropped my head. ‘But I have thought that! Can’t you see, all this secrecy has actually been what’s made me so unsure of you, so suspicious.’

‘But I didn’t think you’d trust me once you knew I’d been suspected of abandoning my child – of having my own daughter taken into care. I know how it sounds – I knew perfectly well what people thought about me at the time. That’s why I came off social media – I was being bombarded with hateful messages.’

‘That must have been awful for you. But the fact is, I didn’t trust you because of not knowing about all this!’ I said. ‘I couldn’t understand, I knew there must be something you weren’t telling me, but now – now I know?—’

‘We can still be friends?’ Her voice was so hopeful, I just wanted to cry again. I felt like I needed a week at home, on my own, just to absorb everything, to calm down and to make sense of it all. ‘We can go back and start again? We’re… almost like sisters, in a way, aren’t we? That’s what I felt, from the outset, like we’ve got this connection?—’

‘A despicable, lying connection called Jack.’ I looked at her suddenly, another thought just occurring to me. ‘Do you get any child support from him?’

She shook her head. ‘Before I met you, my priority was still trying to get him to admit that it was him who’d left Evie on her own, to clear my name and take some responsibility. He was supposed to be paying child maintenance to the foster carer, but he was trying to dodge that. Eventually even his brother started telling him he ought to have a conscience – I suspect, now, that this would have been after you’d had Poppy. I think even for Ryan, him going on to have another child, without doing anything to support his first one, was more than he could stand by him for.’

‘Ryan. The same brother who messaged me from Australia to warn me Jack was with someone else – but who’s still, apparently, ended up going on the run with him and the rest of their lousy family.’

‘Yes. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear Jack had gone to Australia. I knew Ryan had already gone by then, to join their parents, and I guessed Jack would follow – to get away from everything that was hanging over him. He’d do anything to avoid his responsibilities. He knew there was a court case coming up, he’d have had to pay years of back-payments in maintenance?—’

‘But there was never any mention, never anything that made me suspect he was running away from anything – surely I’d have known if he was trying to avoid a court case, paying maintenance, anything like that – he never said, he never acted as if he was going away because he was in some kind of trouble.’ I shook my head, bewildered. ‘It was all about starting an exciting new life. I was supposed to be going out to Australia to join him!’

She looked at me, with something like pity in her eyes. ‘That’s just what he told you.’

I nodded, feeling the last shreds of my own innocence falling away. Jack didn’t go to make a new start for us, at all. He was running away – from Crystal, from Evie, and from me and Poppy too. Even from my parents, who he’d surely have guessed would have skinned him alive rather than let him hurt me or their granddaughter. But Jack didn’t care about any of us, in the end.

‘I’m even more pleased now, that he’s been found,’ I said. ‘I’ll ask my dad to get his private detective on the case for you – for Evie – as well as for me.’

‘I don’t suppose your dad will want to do that.’ She sighed. ‘I know it’s my own fault – I’ve got off to a bad start with them, but your parents don’t like me, do they?’

‘They will. When I explain.’ I looked at my watch and jumped to my feet. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve asked the nursery to keep Poppy for an extra hour and it’s already been nearly that.’

‘Are you OK to drive?’ she asked anxiously. ‘I know this has all been a horrible shock. I’m so sorry, you’re right, I should have told you about it all, much sooner, but there never seemed to be a right time.’

‘I’m all right.’ I’d have to be. I had to behave normally for my daughter. ‘And… I understand. At least, I think I will, when I’ve had time to absorb it all.’

I looked at the picture of Evie again, shaking my head. The likeness really was incredible.

‘They’ve both taken after Jack,’ I said, and the regret in my voice was so obvious that Crystal actually laughed. ‘The same beautiful red hair, the same eyes?—’

‘Well, about the only good thing about him is that he’s a good-looking bastard.’ She paused, then added softly, ‘And I suppose you realise: our daughters are half-sisters.’

‘Half-sisters – yes, of course,’ I mused. ‘What does that make us, I wonder?’

She gave a little snort of laughter. ‘A pair of idiots?’

And despite everything, ridiculously – I found myself laughing back.