to the truth. I’ve racked my brains for the last few hours. Well, what brain I have left, it’s been such a huge fucking shock!’
‘Well, yes! It must have been… It just beggars belief, the whole thing. Why on earth would anyone do that? It makes no sense!’
‘God only knows.’ I flop onto the sofa and try to stop picking the skin at the edge of my thumbnail because I’m making it bleed. I suck the blood away and look at the letter again on the coffee table.
‘I think your theory about a spurned lover might be the most feasible,’ Demi says with a sigh. ‘I know it’s not something you want to hear, but it’s better than the alternative.’
‘What, that Ruan’s alive? My God, what I wouldn’t give…’
‘No. That somehow someone has your baby. It’s such an unspeakably evil thing. To let you think he was dead… nobody would be so cruel, surely?’
My nail worries at the broken skin and I suck blood again. I’m very close to saying something I might regret, given my mother’s reaction last week, but I need to talk it out. ‘Demi, you might think I’m nuts but I woke up the other night convinced Ruan was still alive. You know when you get this unshakable gut feeling? I could smell his skin, touch him almost. Yes, I was just coming out of sleep, but… oh, I don’t know. It was just so real.’
Nothing from Demi apart from a sigh.
Then I remember something odd from the day I had the C-section. I heard the wail of one infant and the surgeon, Jonathan, Simon’s friend and colleague, told me we had our baby girl. You remember him from the wedding? She does. ‘But then a little while later I heard another cry but very weak, just before the nurse put my daughter in my arms. I assumed at the time it had been Iona again, but what if it wasn’t? What if it was Ruan?
I quickly blurt it all to Demi but she still says nothing. Is she doubting me? I take a breath and say, ‘Now I get this letter and… well…’ Well, what? My words sound desperate, unreal.
‘Look. I know you’ve been struggling, who wouldn’t be? And of course you want to believe that Ruan is still alive. But, Holly, can you imagine that anyone would ever do such a thing? And to what end? And what about the photo of him you saw, love?’
I don’t like the way Demi’s tone has become soothing, as if she’s trying to talk someone down from a high building. That’s how I feel. I feel like I’m on a high building looking down at the tiny, insect-sized cars crawling past, and instead of wanting to jump, feel I’m being pushed. Pushed over the edge into madness. But I’m not mad. I know I’m not. It is suddenly important to tell her that.
‘Demi, as I said, I know how this sounds, but I am totally sane, you know? The letter exists. And you said to what end and about the photo?’ My ravaged thoughts gather themselves. ‘Perhaps Ruan’s heart hadn’t stopped like Simon told me and he actually survived, was sleeping in the photo, not dead… But maybe the poor sweetheart was disabled, sick, because of what happened to him in the womb… and Simon thought I wouldn’t be able to cope with him? As I said before to you, the photo was pretty hard to look at. And Simon wraps me up in cotton wool, always has. I mean, for goodness’ sake, he’s constantly hovering over me asking about my state mind, suggesting I go on antidepressants. He often says he doesn’t want me to go back to how I was when he met me. Says I’ve come so far. Perhaps he thinks I’ll go back on the coke…’ I wrap a tissue around my thumb and just for a second wish I was back on it. I could do with getting out of my head, because it isn’t much fun being inside.
‘But you can’t possibly think Simon would have anything to do with it. And who would want a disabled and sick baby?’ she asks.
‘What? Me, of course; I’m his mother!’ She’s the one that’s gone fucking mad.
‘No, of course you would. I don’t mean that.’ The calming tone is getting a bit strung-out. ‘I mean the letter said that he’d gone to new parents.’
‘Ah right. Sorry, yes it did.’ There’s no answer to that. I walk to the picture window, rest my head on the cool glass. ‘Maybe they think they can give him a life? Maybe they’re medics, friends of Simon? Shit, Dem, I don’t know.’ There’s silence and I picture Demi in the camper van looking out over a blue ocean, wind in her hair, her elfin face screwed up in contemplation. Outside the window the barge has gone and smaller boats have taken its place, battling the gravy waves. I’m battling too. I close my eyes.
‘Look,’ Demi says, authoritatively, ‘I think the best thing to do is show Simon the letter and see what he says. You’ll soon find out if he’s been having an affair or not…’
‘No!’ The force of my voice shocks me. Even though I don’t know what to do about it all, I do know that would be a major mistake. ‘There is NO way Simon is getting to know any of this, do you hear me?’
‘Hey, don’t get upset, Hols. I just thought it would be best to know the truth, even if finding out that he’s having an affair…’
‘I don’t give a shit if he’s having an affair; just promise me you won’t tell Simon about any of it, Demi.’ My voice trembles with a mixture of fear and anger.
‘Of course not. That’s your call – but can you explain why not? Surely you’d quickly get to the bottom of it, one way or another.’
‘The less he knows about it the better. If it’s true Ruan is alive, Simon would be in some pretty big trouble, wouldn’t he, having lied to me? Telling me our baby had struggled to take his first breath, that he died? But, instead, allowing someone else to have him because he was ill and he thought I’d be unable to cope, that I’d crumble? Then going to the trouble of organising a ceremony, sprinkling fake ashes; God only knows what else he would’ve had to do to cover it all up…’
‘Yes. But, like I said, that scenario is SO far-fetched. Simon isn’t my favourite person but I can’t believe this of him. Of anyone. Even if he did it to protect you, it’s still “out there”. I think the spurned lover is much more likely.’
I can’t believe it of him either. Not really. I’ve seen him drink himself into oblivion to blot out the grief. Got up in the early hours to find him curled up in a ball on the sofa, sobbing his heart out when he thought he I was sleeping.
And if he had taken a lover, could I blame him? Not really… I haven’t been as attentive as I should have been to him. He’s always had to be the strong one – rescuing me from my life, the mess I’d allowed myself to get in, putting a hundred per cent into our marriage while I…
‘Holly? You okay?’
‘Yes… just thinking. Of course I know Simon’s not involved. It’s just all so hard to get my head around. It could be someone else at the clinic… Someone might have taken him, and instead showed Simon someone else’s dead baby?’ Demi mutters an expletive under her breath, and I must admit that sounds ridiculous, even to me. ‘Oh God, I don’t know… And the spurned lover… it might be. But I need to think, sort out a plan.’ As I say the words I feel stronger. Ideas of a way forward are already forming. ‘Promise me you’ll say nothing of this to Mum, to anyone, and especially not my husband. I don’t want to worry him, or raise his hopes if it was someone else who took Ruan… or most likely make him think I have totally lost my mind. I daren’t have him think I’ve lost my mind.’
‘Okay, Holly.’
‘I need you to say it.’
Demi sighs again. ‘Okay. I promise that I will tell no one. I just wish I was there with you, love.’
‘I wish you were too. But I’ll be in touch and don’t worry about me, okay?’
‘I can’t promise that. Though I must admit, you do sound a bit more like yourself at the moment.’
‘Yes. Told you I wasn’t mad.’ We do fake laughs and end the call.
Iona is stirring