Czytaj książkę: «Where I Found You»

1

With a history that spanned more than a century, Victoria Park had changed surprisingly little in the intervening years. The original geometric design, which incorporated manicured lawns, intersecting pathways and ornate flowerbeds had been faithfully preserved within its sandstone walls. It couldn’t compare to the unrestrained Cheshire countryside that circled the town of Sedgefield, but what the park did offer was a consistent link from one generation to the next.

There had, of course, been some changes over the years. The trees lining the main avenue had matured, dirt paths had been paved, cobbles had been replaced by concrete, and the bowling green, bandstand and children’s playground had all undergone various cycles of disrepair and rejuvenation. But for the most part the park’s gentle evolution had gone unnoticed.

In one particular corner, on the north side of the ornamental lake, the passage of time had been noticed least of all. It was here you would find a single wrought iron bench nestled between a steep embankment and the water’s edge. It was one of the park’s originals although it was true to say that visitors were more likely to remember the view they had taken in, the conversations they had shared or the thoughts they had explored rather than the unremarkable seat they had settled back upon.

There was, however, one person who had noticed the bench. She knew each curve of its intricate iron frame and every wooded knot buried beneath the layers of chipped paint. But then Maggie Carter knew Victoria Park better than most. She had grown up in Sedgefield and now lived close enough to hear the creak of the park’s gates from her doorstep. It called to her and she rarely resisted, even in the depths of winter when the wind gathered momentum across the playing fields and sucked the air out of her lungs.

The main avenue which sliced the park in half led directly to Sedgefield High Street where Maggie worked, but given a choice she preferred to meander along its circuitous twisting paths. Only occasionally, if the weather was too awful, was she forced to forgo her usual detour to the lake. Thankfully, today was not one of those days.

Harvey sniffed the air as they made their way through a small coppice where, overhead, branches scraped nervously against each other in the breeze. April was being kind and the sun was shining but its fragile warmth was fractured by the shade of the denuded trees. Maggie hunched her shoulders against the sudden cold. Her short dark hair suited her slight frame and gave her face an elfin look but provided no buffer against the chill.

Their pace quickened and the Labrador’s paws squelched beneath the slimy mulch, swollen from an early morning drizzle. The dog was powerful enough to lift her off her feet but he matched his mistress’s pace perfectly. Rapid footfalls approaching from the opposite direction suggested that they weren’t the only ones eager to escape the spindly shadows.

‘Hi, Maggie,’ Alice called. ‘Off to the lake by any chance?’

Maggie and Harvey came to a stop to say hello to one of the regulars at the beauty salon where she worked. ‘You can join me for lunch if you like,’ Maggie offered, lifting a bag. The air filled with tantalising hints of garlic and sundried tomatoes before the breeze carried them away.

‘Thanks, but I’m out for a slap-up meal later so I’d better save myself.’

‘Ah yes, how could I forget? Happy birthday!’

‘Thanks, Maggie. It’s a lot of fuss about nothing but my family do love to celebrate.’

‘You can’t fool me. I know you’re the one who’s the party animal.’

‘Haven’t you heard? Sixty is the new forty,’ Alice replied with a gentle laugh that quickly degenerated into a coughing fit. The telltale smell of smoke suggested she hadn’t long put out a cigarette.

‘I thought you’d given up,’ Maggie said, although she wasn’t surprised. A forty-year habit was going to be a tough one to break.

‘I’m cutting down,’ Alice replied guiltily.

‘Next time you’re having your hair done you should make an appointment to see me too. I might be able to find something to ease your chest.’

An aromatherapist by trade, Maggie ran her own business from a local beauty salon. Sedgefield was a small town and although the High Street was busy, setting up had been quite a gamble. She only worked part-time but in the last eight years she had built up a loyal clientele, which more than justified her efforts, although Alice was yet to be one of them.

‘The problem is I have a one-track mind when I walk into that place,’ Alice continued. ‘There’s always some new hair colour I want to try and it’ll be even more tempting now I get a pensioners’ discount. My granddaughter wants me to have blue highlights next time!’

‘The discount applies to my treatments too,’ Maggie reminded her. ‘And I’ll be in all afternoon if you’re passing.’

‘Thanks, Maggie, I might just do that,’ Alice said without conviction.

They said their goodbyes and Maggie hurried towards the warm embrace of the sun. She was a familiar face in the park and there followed a rash of hellos on the way to the lake but no more delays.

Lunchtime was quiet during the working week and although Maggie enjoyed the weekend hustle and bustle she was happy to sit and soak up the peace and quiet which was broken only occasionally by the disgruntled quack of a duck looking for food. Memories flooded her mind, as she knew they would. She and her favourite bench shared a long history. Her mum had brought her to this spot often and one of Maggie’s earliest memories was trying to clamber up on to the bench by herself, using its green-painted slats for purchase and pretending not to notice when her mum helped her make that final push.

Harvey, meanwhile, was more interested in the present and pushed his head against her hand. When she began to knead his neck, digging her fingers deep into his vanilla fur, the dog let out a low groan of pleasure followed by a frustrated whine.

‘OK, I get the message,’ she said and began to unpack their picnic. She filled two feeding bowls for Harvey and he duly ignored the water, opting for the dried food which he devoured eagerly as Maggie set about her own lunch.

Halfway through Maggie’s second sandwich, Harvey’s tail began to thump against her leg. She could hear little feet galloping along the path towards them, the source of Harvey’s growing excitement.

‘Harvey! Good boy,’ Josh cried as he wrapped himself around the dog, almost knocking Maggie’s lunch box off her knee.

The three-year-old’s mum arrived huffing and puffing half a minute later. ‘I’ve told you before, don’t go running off like that,’ she said before muttering, ‘bloody kids,’ under her breath.

‘I see he’s still keeping you on your toes,’ Maggie said, trying to keep the mood light. Lorna was another regular to the salon and although they weren’t exactly friends Maggie knew the young mum well enough to know that she would launch into a string of complaints about motherhood given half the chance. It was an encounter she could do without right now.

‘Can I feed the ducks?’ the little boy asked.

Lorna groaned. ‘I forgot the bread. We’ll feed them tomorrow.’

Maggie sensed all attention being drawn to her half-eaten sandwich and she tore off the crust. ‘Here, give them this, Josh.’

‘Say thank you,’ Lorna told him as he snatched the bread from Maggie’s hand.

‘Thank you, Maggie.’

The chorus of quacks grew in intensity as the little boy approached the water’s edge and Lorna collapsed onto the bench with a loud sigh. ‘We’re not interrupting you, are we?’

Maggie swallowed up the remnants of her sandwich in one mouthful before replying. ‘No, it’s OK. I have to head off to work now anyway.’

‘That’s a shame,’ Lorna said. ‘I could do with some adult conversation for a change.’

Maggie ignored the subtle hint to stay and began packing up her things. ‘Maybe next time.’

‘Actually, I’m glad I caught you. There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask.’ Lorna spoke urgently but then paused to lower her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’

Maggie froze, too stunned to reply. Josh’s laughter cut into the silence.

‘It’s just that I saw you with Mel the other day and …’

‘Oh.’

‘So? Are you?’

To date, only a handful of trusted friends had been told the news but Maggie was having her three-month scan the next day and she had already promised James they would announce the news then so there seemed little point in denying it if Lorna had spotted her with the midwife. ‘I’m due in October,’ she said.

‘Really? I am surprised, I mean, I didn’t even think you could.’

‘I know, James and I have been married for less than a year but I’m thirty-two and I don’t want to leave it much longer.’ Maggie was deliberately misunderstanding Lorna’s comment.

‘No, I didn’t mean that,’ Lorna said but refused to explain further. Instead, she gave Harvey a heavy pat on the back. He was resting his head on Maggie’s lap as if he knew his mistress needed the moral support.

‘Oh, you mean because I’m visually impaired?’ She wasn’t sure how she managed to keep her tone light although Lorna’s tactless response was no more than she expected from her less-informed acquaintances. It was the reason she had been more than happy to keep her pregnancy a secret for as long as possible.

‘You have to admit that it’s going to be difficult. I bet social services will be watching you like a hawk.’

Maggie began stroking Harvey, her fingers following the broad contours of his nose and head. She could feel his eyelashes flutter against her palm. He was watching her. ‘Mel is amazingly supportive and yes, there will be challenges – but nothing I can’t handle. I simply have to find different solutions to the same problems faced by any new mother,’ she said with a confidence she didn’t feel. It was only the occasional squeal from Josh as he teased the ducks that kept her spirits buoyed, reminding her that motherhood had its rewards.

Despite having planned to start a family, Maggie had been shell-shocked when she found out she was pregnant. She had been fast approaching thirty before she and James met, by which point the hope of being a wife and mother had dimmed in much the same way as her vision had when she was six years old and had suffered a severe bout of measles, which had left her with only a vague sense of light and shade and no sense of colour. James’s appearance had brought a new kind of light into her world and it hadn’t taken them long to realise that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. They had moved into the house opposite Victoria Park just over a year ago, by which point they were already planning a baby as well as their wedding. But then another guiding light in Maggie’s life had been snuffed out. Her mum had died.

When Maggie had lost her sight, Joan had been the one to encourage her daughter to develop her other senses to the point where she found her residual sense of vision almost distracting and often wore sunglasses to filter it out. Together they had found new and innovative ways for Maggie to absorb the beauty of the world around her. Her sense of hearing could pinpoint her position whether from the echo of her voice off a wall, the hum of traffic from the road or a tree shivering in the breeze. Her sense of touch, be it from the tips of her fingers to the tips of her toes, could build up a picture of the world within her grasp and the ground beneath her feet. Taste added texture and depth to the food she ate or the skin she kissed, but it was her sense of smell that had been one of the most exciting voyages of discovery. Joan used an array of spices, fruits and flowers to bring the colour back into Maggie’s world, dabbing natural scents onto everyday objects to give her daughter the means to visualise her unseen world. It was almost inevitable that Maggie would one day make her living from her obsession with aromas.

But it wasn’t only the practicalities of life that Joan had helped with; she had instilled a sense of worth in her daughter which gave Maggie the confidence to face any challenges life could throw at her, so much so that she and James hadn’t even discussed whether or not they should reconsider their plans to become parents after her mum had died and had let nature take its course.

It was only now, as she sensed the news of her pregnancy being picked up on the breeze and released into the world, that Maggie felt the full force of the loneliness and isolation she had been feeling. She had James, of course, and she had close friends; her closest being Jenny who was her honorary sister and a new mother herself. Only … she didn’t have the one person who would have been there, not only to tell her that she could do this but to dare anyone to suggest otherwise.

Maggie still had her dad but Stan had moved to Spain to be mollycoddled by his sister. Everyone agreed it was the best thing for him after losing his wife but his daughter would need to choose the right time to tell him the news – as tempting as it was, she didn’t want him catching the next flight home. Even his presence wouldn’t be enough to fill the gaping hole in his daughter’s life, a hole that had allowed self-doubt to creep in.

‘I imagine James will have his work cut out,’ Lorna said, seemingly determined to erode her confidence further. ‘Is he happy about it?’

Maggie was about to answer but a noise caught her attention. She was turning urgently towards the lake even before she realised it was the sound of feet sloshing about in water. ‘Is Josh all right?’ she asked but the sound of the little boy’s cry for help was answer enough and the splashing grew thunderous.

Lorna launched herself to her feet and Maggie quickly released Harvey from his leash. She could hear his claws scraping against the concrete slipway as he ran to the little boy’s aid. Josh’s wails intensified as Lorna dragged him out of the water and read him the riot act.

‘At least he’s safe,’ Maggie offered when Lorna returned with a dripping and sobbing Josh in her arms. The smell of stagnant water and bird droppings was strong enough to burn the back of her nostrils and Harvey, who had returned to Maggie’s side, summed up his own feelings with a wet sneeze.

Lorna muttered a mixture of apologies and goodbyes as she manhandled her son to his feet and proceeded to drag the snivelling child away. Once tranquillity had returned, Harvey rested his head on Maggie’s lap to resume his vigil. He licked her hand, which she had placed protectively over her stomach. No longer in a hurry to get to work, she imagined what might have happened if it had been her child and not Josh wandering into the water. What if she had been on her own and there had been no one to pull him to safety? How would she have coped? What had she been thinking getting pregnant in the first place?

‘I’m scared, Mum,’ she said as loud as she dared. ‘I’m so scared.’

The only response was the gentle lapping at the water’s edge. She found herself wondering how deep the lake was and, for a fleeting moment, she imagined plunging into a dark abyss. Her stomach lurched and her hand reached out next to her, hoping for some kind of ethereal resistance but her mum wasn’t there. There was no one left who would understand how she felt, but why should they? These feelings of insecurity were new to her, too. Had she become a victim of her own overconfidence?

It was Harvey who eventually led Maggie away from the lake but as she climbed the steep path towards the main avenue she couldn’t leave behind the growing sense of dread as easily as she could the lingering smell of Josh’s unfortunate dip in the lake. Maggie caught her breath once she reached the top of the slope where she suddenly detected the faintest scent of lilac. It was a synthetic fragrance and stopped her in her tracks. There were no sounds to suggest anyone near but Maggie felt someone watching her.

‘Hello? Is anyone there?’

The only response was the gentle waft of Harvey’s tail but their greetings went unanswered.

Elsa watched a family of ducks cutting through the glassy stillness of the lake, leaving a sleek trail of ripples to sparkle in the sunshine. Despite their gentle progress, she felt unnerved and began rubbing her forehead as she scanned the water for the more elegant outline of the swans. She was still searching when a young woman appeared like a spectre in front of her but Elsa’s attention wouldn’t be drawn from the lake and the now-empty bench.

Tucked away in the curved embrace of an embankment, the bench was surrounded by tall rhododendron bushes that looked a little careworn after winter’s worst although fresh green buds could be seen peeking through the dark evergreen foliage. In contrast, the flowerbeds had already enjoyed the first blooms of spring and countless purple and yellow crocuses sparkled invitingly.

It was only when Elsa began to make her way down the slope that she realised how exhausted she felt. She spent most days on her feet at the greengrocer’s and the hard graft was made harder still by the burden she carried. She tried not to think about the baby. It was bad enough having aching legs – she didn’t need to be reminded of her aching heart too.

Her sense of unease increased as she approached the bench. It was a different colour and she expected the dark brown paint to be wet to the touch but it was bone dry and already flaking. Elsa sat down and, closing her eyes, inhaled deeply. Her body melded into the familiar curve of the seat and her growing tension began to dissipate. She pushed out her stomach and stretched her spine.

When she opened her eyes again, Elsa felt calmer and her thoughts cleared. She lifted up her legs to check her feet. They were even more swollen than she had feared and she let them drop back down with a thud. She was only twenty-two but she felt older, her youth eroded by the harsh realities of life. Spreading her fingers she discovered yet more joints that ached – and she felt no emotional connection to the simple gold wedding ring on the third finger of her left hand. But why should she? It wasn’t hers. She had borrowed it from Mrs Jackson who had told her she would make better use of it than an old, lonely widow.

Elsa hadn’t known a soul when she had arrived in Sedgefield a month earlier but Mrs Jackson had become a good friend and confidant. It had been Elsa’s sister Celia who had convinced her that running away to Sedgefield was for the best; she could stay long enough to hide her shame before returning home to Liverpool – alone – to pick up her old life as if nothing had happened. Celia was older by four years and happy enough to be married to a boring civil servant, living in Manchester and popping out children every other year. It wasn’t the kind of future Elsa had ever imagined for herself – she had wanted to live life to the full until discovering there was a price to pay for her recklessness. Celia, expecting her fourth child, had taken control when Elsa confessed she might be pregnant too, and it had been her sister’s GP who had confirmed their suspicions. Together with the doctor’s wife, whose aunt ran a guesthouse in Sedgefield, Celia devised a plan for Elsa’s future and that of her baby.

Which was how she had ended up here, claiming to be a distant relative of Mrs Jackson, recently widowed and pregnant. It was all lies but lying was something Elsa had become used to. Her mum thought she was staying with Celia to help her prepare for her next child and would be horrified to discover where she really was and why.

Elsa looked out over the lake. The water appeared darker than it had from the top of the slope, reflecting barren treetops rather than blue sky. ‘What in God’s name am I doing here all alone?’ she asked. Her forlorn words, spoken out loud, were barely audible but trickled towards the water’s edge. ‘I need you Freddie. I need you to save me.’

As if in answer to her question the future, which had already been laid out for Elsa, flashed before her eyes and she let out a whimper. She wrapped her arms tightly around her body in a vain attempt to hold on to the baby she was destined to lose but it was hopeless. She wasn’t strong enough, not on her own. Her chest heaved and the pain of her heart being rent in two was impossible to bear. In slow, deliberate movements, she placed both hands on the bench and pushed against her palms as she prepared to launch herself from her seat and into the lake. Her body shook with an all-consuming need to let the waters drag her body down into the abyss and her misery along with it. But Elsa stayed where she was – she wasn’t brave enough.

Not yet.