Not Your Child

Chapter 1

1

GEMMA

Sometimes, now, I think about how differently everything would have turned out if I hadn’t been at work that day – the day I got the message from the stranger on Instagram. I was only going into the office for two days a week, working from home on the other three, so it was unfortunate that it was a bit public when I fell apart.

‘What’s wrong, Gemma?’ my line manager, Mike, asked. He was an older guy, in his fifties, and tended not to have an awful lot of understanding when it came to anyone displaying emotions. To be fair, I usually tried to act as professionally as possible and not give him, or anyone else, the excuse to blame anything I did, or said, on the fact that I’m a woman, let alone the mother of a two-year-old trying to juggle all the usual commitments. But I shouldn’t really have been having sneaky looks at Instagram while I was working. Everyone did it, but if one of the directors had happened to come in at that moment, it would have been my emotional breakdown, not my social media habit, that would have looked unprofessional.

‘Nothing,’ I managed to reply. ‘I’m… OK, just… got to… pop outside for a minute…’

I jumped up from my chair so fast, I knocked a pile of files off my desk and had to stop to pick them up, wiping the tears from my eyes as I did, knowing the other three people in our open-plan office were staring at me and beginning to look concerned.

I flew out of the door, down the corridor to the toilets, almost choking on my shock and dismay as I ran, and locked myself in one of the cubicles where I gave way to what I admit must have been pretty horrific howls of anguish. It wasn’t until I’d managed to control myself enough to be merely sobbing, rather than sounding like an animal being tortured, that I heard someone on the other side of the door asking in a sympathetic voice:

‘Are you all right in there? Is there anything I can do?’

I took some deep breaths to try to pull myself together, and managed to squeak some kind of response about being fine. I didn’t recognise this person’s voice, but I knew I had to get back to the office before my own colleagues turned up too and someone possibly started battering the door down.

There was silence outside my cubicle, so after taking a few more deep breaths I unlocked the door, went straight to the nearest sink and splashed my face with lots of cold water. When I looked up, dripping, the woman – I knew as soon as she began to speak that she was the one who’d called out to me – was standing against a sink a bit further along.

‘I thought I’d better wait,’ she said. Just that. No questions, no more attempt to intervene.

‘Thank you. I’ll be all right now,’ I told her, just wanting her to go, so I could try to do something about the state of my face, and try to get myself together. I wasn’t all right at all, I didn’t know if I ever would be, but I needed to make some attempt at pretence, at least until I got home.

‘What time do you normally take your lunch break?’ the woman asked, not taking the hint and clearing off. ‘If you can take it now, you probably should. It’ll give you a chance to… redo your make-up. And so on.’

‘I’d have to let them know. My colleagues. I’ll have to go back and tell them – but I can’t?—’

‘Got your phone on you? Call one of them. Say you’re having lunch. It doesn’t matter what they think.’ She paused, tilting her head to one side, looking at me, making me feel uncomfortable. Then she shrugged and added: ‘I’m just about to take my own break. Come on, wipe the make-up off.’ She dived into a huge canvas rucksack-style handbag, rummaged around and produced some wet wipes. ‘Then we’ll go for lunch?—’

‘I can’t eat!’ I wailed, beginning to well up again.

‘Just a coffee, then,’ she said quickly. ‘We’ll sit outside in the shade somewhere to give your eyes a chance to settle down. Don’t put the make-up back on yet. If at all.’

I looked in the mirror. Black mascara streaked down both cheeks. Red eyes, surrounded by splodges of black. I grabbed her proffered wet wipes and got to work, thanking her, wondering how the hell I was ever going to look presentable again, let alone feel like living.

I didn’t even know the woman, didn’t recognise her, had no idea whereabouts in the company she worked. But something about her matter-of-fact manner made me do exactly what she suggested: I called Mike’s extension, told him I was taking my lunch break, ignored the tone of his response, and with my head lowered in case anyone else saw me, I followed my rescuer out of the building and round the corner to a little pub in a back street.

‘There’s a beer garden at the back. Secluded. And nobody from work comes here anyway,’ she said, ordering herself a vegan wrap and decaf black coffee, and a cappuccino for me which I doubted I’d be able to swallow for the lump in my throat.

We went out into the beer garden, which was almost deserted, and sat at a table under an umbrella.

‘OK?’ she said.

‘Not really,’ I admitted. ‘But thank you.’ Trying to summon some kind of general social politeness, I added, ‘Sorry. I don’t know your name.’

‘Crystal,’ she said. ‘I work in the design studio. You?’

‘I’m Gemma. I’m… just… in accounts.’

‘No just about it, is there? Every company needs people looking after their accounts.’

‘Not as much as they need people designing their range in the first place.’

She smiled and shrugged.

I looked at her properly for the first time. I hadn’t taken in her appearance at all, as I’d been too conscious of my own, but now I realised it was easy to guess she was a designer. She was probably around my own age – mid-thirties – but she wore her dark hair long and loose, with streaks of purple in it. She had massive jangly earrings, a nose ring, several tattoos on her arms which were almost covered up by the number of bracelets she wore, and her dress… well, I’d have called it a kaftan. We must have looked a strange pair – her in her hippy garb and me in my smart business suit, white shirt, black shoes… hair that had started off tied back in a neat ponytail but was now coming loose, and a face swollen from crying.

Our coffees and her food were brought to the table and for a while we sat in silence while she ate. I sipped my cappuccino, which made me feel sick, and tried to stop thinking about Jack. What he’d done to me. How I was going to live the rest of my life without him.

When Crystal finished eating, she sat back, wiped her mouth, and just looked at me for a moment before saying, ‘I’m not going to ask. It’s none of my business, obviously. But I’m a good listener, so if you need someone to pour it all out to – someone who doesn’t know you, so isn’t going to try to give you any advice that you don’t want – well, feel free. Otherwise, I’m quite happy just sitting here relaxing while you try to calm yourself down. OK?’

I nodded, thanked her again. I sat for a little longer sipping the cappuccino that I didn’t want, staring at the table, and suddenly I just couldn’t stand it any more – not saying anything, not having been allowed to say anything.

‘He didn’t even have the guts to tell me himself!’ I blurted out. ‘I’ve been driving myself mad, waiting to hear from him: emailing him, getting no reply; trying to call him but his number’s out of service – I’ve been so worried about him, and all this time the bastard has been shacked up with someone else, and his brother – who I’ve never even met – is the only one who had the decency to tell me! And even he just chose to disappear, delete himself, after he’d delivered the news – great, eh? Probably embarrassed. So what the hell am I supposed to do? I was supposed to be going out there with him, starting a new life?—’

‘Out there?’ she asked quietly.

‘Australia! He went out there to his family, and I was going to join him, with Poppy – our little girl – when he’d found a home for us. Then he just stopped communicating. Dropped off the internet – his email’s not working, his phone’s not working, all his social media’s closed down, and I have no address for his parents; all I know is they live in the Sydney area. Do you know how many people live in the Sydney area?’

‘No,’ Crystal admitted.

‘Nor do I. But a lot, obviously. And he’s been gone for four months. Four months ! And for half that time, I’ve had no idea what’s happened to him. He might have drowned on Bondi Beach or been eaten by a shark for all I knew. I went to the police. Do you know what they said?’

‘No.’

‘They said he was an adult, he’d gone there of his own free will and he was within his rights to deliberately stop all communication. He’s left me and his child ! How could he, how could he do that to me? To not even tell me, not even have the guts?—’

‘So his brother didn’t even tell you where he was?’

‘No! Look, this is it.’ I reached for my phone. ‘This is what his private message on Instagram says. Let me read it to you, you’ll never believe it, honestly, it’s unbelievable: Dear Gemma. I found you on here because I wanted to tell you, Jack is with someone else. I know he’s changed his number and email. He doesn’t know I’m messaging you but I think it’s only right you should be told. He’s got no intention of sending for you or the kiddie or seeing you ever again. He’s my brother but I think he’s a disgrace and our parents won’t talk to him. Sorry to tell you but you’ll have to forget him. I can’t tell you where he lives or give you any info. Don’t try to contact him, you’ll never find him. Or me. Sorry. Ryan. ’

I stopped, swallowing back more tears, not wanting to start bawling my eyes out all over again.

‘Forget him?’ I managed to say eventually. ‘I’m bringing up his daughter ! How can he do this?’

Crystal got up, came to stand beside me, put her arm round me and stroked my hair as if I was her friend, as if she knew me.

‘What a terrible way to find out,’ she said gently. ‘You poor thing.’

‘We were supposed to get married!’ I squawked. ‘When I got to Australia – we were going to get married and have another baby.’

‘What a good thing you didn’t,’ is all she said.

And I knew she was right, I knew I’d probably agree with her eventually, when the shock of it all had died down a bit. But right at that moment, I couldn’t even begin to get there. Quite honestly, if it wasn’t for the thought of my daughter, I could have just given up, gone home, laid down on my bed and stayed there forever.

But I had to carry on. For Poppy.