‘I TOLD you no good would come of it.’
With her mother’s words ringing in her ears, Rachel made a concerted effort to concentrate on shaping the ready-made mixture into scones. It was a job she normally enjoyed: taking the pre-prepared dough out of the freezer and making it into the mouth-watering cakes that had been her first success when she’d opened the café. But this morning she was impatient and on edge, and she would have given a great deal not to have had to open up today.
But that would have been stupid, and she knew it. Whatever kind of mess she was making of her private life, the café was her livelihood, hers and Hannah’s, and she wasn’t going to do either of them any favours by allowing what had happened on Friday night to ruin her business.
All the same, it was incredibly difficult to keep her mind on her job. It was just as well that she’d left home earlier than usual, because she was probably going to have to scrap this first batch of scones and start over. Her reputation depended on not letting her customers down, and she owed it to Stephanie and Patsy, too, not to jeopardise their jobs.
Even so, she dreaded the moment when Stephanie would turn up for work. Her friend knew her so well, and, despite frequent visits to the bathroom to douse her eyes with cold water, Rachel suspected the other woman would know immediately that she’d been crying. Which in itself was stupid, too, but she couldn’t help it.
She supposed it was a case of delayed reaction. Somehow she’d managed to keep herself together over the weekend, even when Gabriel had done the unthinkable and turned up at the house. Of course he’d wanted to know why she wasn’t at the café, but she hadn’t answered the door. With a cowardice that was new to her she had begged her mother to speak to him in her stead, to tell him what Rachel had told Stephanie earlier: that she was unwell and unable to work today.
She’d half expected him to insist on seeing her, and in those circumstances there was no telling what her mother might have done. After all, for all her belligerence, Mrs Redfern was not unaware of Gabriel’s influence in the town, and Rachel was sure he could be intimidating if he chose to be so.
But in the event he’d accepted her mother’s excuses and gone away, leaving Mrs Redfern with the perfect excuse for her I-told-you-so attitude.
Which, in its way, had helped Rachel to maintain her own composure. So long as her mother expected her to fall apart, she felt obliged to prove her wrong, but now, away from her, and Hannah’s childishly knowing eyes, she’d gone to pieces, and she didn’t know how she was going to pull herself together again.
She felt the tears pricking at her eyes again and she struggled to blink them back. Her customers wouldn’t appreciate having their morning scones laced with salt, she thought, trying to find some humour in the situation. But there was none. She was totally without humour; totally without hope.
She sniffed, turning away to snatch a paper towel from the roll and rub frantically at her eyes. God, she was going to look such a sight! People were bound to think there’d been a death in the family. And what did it say about her that she almost felt as if there had?
The bell pealed and she glanced towards the door, panic in her eyes. It was too early for Stephanie, definitely too early for Patsy. So…
It was him. As she’d half known it would be. And she wanted to die of embarrassment. She should have locked the door behind her, she thought uselessly. She should have taken the fact that she was much earlier than usual into account, instead of assuming, as she usually did, that Stephanie wouldn’t be far behind her.
Gabriel didn’t make that mistake. With evident forethought he dropped the latch behind him, successfully forestalling any interruption. Or any chance of evasion, she acknowledged bitterly, half ashamed now that she had allowed her mother to get rid of him on Saturday morning. She should have faced him then, instead of chickening out of something that exposed her weakness, not his.
Determinedly blowing her nose on the paper towel she had used to wipe her eyes, Rachel thrust it into the wastebin before turning to face him. Let him think what he liked, she thought painfully. He and his son had probably already had a laugh at her expense. She thanked God that Mario had collected her car and left it parked on the forecourt in front of Gabriel’s house with the keys still in the ignition.
‘Are you prepared to listen to me now?’
Although she’d expected him to say something like that, Rachel was surprised by the roughness of his tone. If she hadn’t known better she’d have wondered if he wasn’t struggling with some uncontrollable emotion of his own, though she guessed this must be a new experience for him: trying to justify actions that were totally unjustifiable.
‘I suppose so. If I must,’ she replied, her eyes shifting away from his penetrating gaze. ‘But I hope you understand that, whatever you say, I can’t promise to believe you.’
‘Fair enough.’ Gabriel’s tone was flat now. ‘But at least give me the benefit of a hearing, without running away.’ His lips curled with sudden irony. ‘I was half afraid you’d have brought your mother with you to run interference.’
Rachel held up her head. ‘My mother was only doing what I asked her to do.’
‘And saying what you asked her to say?’ Gabriel rested both hands on the counter between them. ‘Yeah, I gathered that.’
‘So?’ Rachel forced herself to look at him again, hoping she didn’t look half as haggard as she felt. ‘You must have realised that, whatever you and Andrew have come up with, I’m not likely to believe it.’
‘Rachel!’ Gabriel’s jaw clenched and his hands curled into fists on the Formica surface. ‘I can see you’re upset, so don’t pretend that what happened between us didn’t mean anything to you. It did. It meant something to me, too. And I certainly haven’t discussed our relationship with my son.’
‘No?’ Somehow she managed to inject a sceptical note into her voice. ‘But you must have discussed me with your mother. What was it Andrew said? That she’d told him you felt sorry for me? Yes, that was it. Well, here’s a newsflash: I don’t need your pity!’
Gabriel sighed. ‘Would you believe me if I told you I’d said nothing to my mother? Anything she’s relayed to Andrew is her interpretation of the situation, not mine.’
Rachel’s lips twisted. ‘Oh, right.’
‘It’s true.’ His voice harshened. ‘For God’s sake, Rachel, you’ve got to believe me. I didn’t come here today to let you stonewall me again. Okay, what happened was—unfortunate, unpleasant, even, but I had no idea Andrew would turn up as he did.’
‘No, I believe that.’ Rachel was bitter. ‘I’m sure the last thing you wanted was for your son to see you in such a—a compromising situation.’
‘It wasn’t compromising,’ exclaimed Gabriel angrily. ‘Not to me, anyway.’ He paused, and when she didn’t say anything he went on doggedly, ‘As I say, when I’d spoken to Andrew earlier in the evening he was still in London, and I’d assumed—mistakenly as it turned out—that he intended to stay there. But, as always, Andrew doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings but his own, and he’d decided that stating his case in person might—might change my mind.’
‘Change your mind?’ Rachel knew she shouldn’t ask the question, knew she should show no interest in his affairs, but she couldn’t help herself.
‘Yes.’ Gabriel flexed his shoulders. ‘He—well, he wants me to—to increase his allowance.’
‘And he drove down from London in the middle of the night to tell you that?’ Rachel stared at him disbelievingly. ‘Oh, right. I believe that.’
‘Andrew’s problems are nothing to do with us.’
‘No, they’re not.’ Rachel’s voice was tremulous. ‘Nothing to do with you and your family is anything to do with me. Thank you for reminding me.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant.’ Gabriel groaned. ‘What I meant was—’
‘Don’t bother to go on,’ said Rachel unsteadily. ‘I don’t want to hear whatever lies you’ve concocted to explain why your son would turn up in the middle of the night and find us in bed together. Perhaps Andrew had it right. Perhaps you did want to keep him away until you’d got me into bed. It might even have been some kind of game you were playing between you. He didn’t succeed, but you did.’
‘It wasn’t anything like that and you know it,’ snapped Gabriel savagely. ‘All right. I’ll tell you why Andrew really wanted to see me—’
Rachel whirled away, putting her hands over her ears. ‘I don’t want to hear—’
‘No, but you’re going to,’ he snarled, coming round the counter and catching her as she would have disappeared into the kitchen. Dragging her arms away from her ears, he twisted them behind her, backing her up against the wall beside the ovens. ‘You’re going to listen to me if I have to gag you to do so.’
Rachel was trembling. ‘Let me go.’
‘Not yet.’
‘Stephanie will be here soon.’
‘So she’ll hear it, too. It’s about time she realised you’re not the only victim in this relationship.’
Rachel tried to twist away. ‘You’re not a victim.’
‘Aren’t I?’
‘No.’ She lifted her head and somehow managed to stare at him. ‘You know what you are? You’re no better than Joe Collins!’
It was an unforgivable thing to say, an unforgivable accusation to make. As soon as the words were out of her mouth Rachel regretted them. Whatever his faults, Gabriel was not like Joe Collins. He had never been dishonest with her or cheated her, and if she no longer trusted him that was more her fault than his.
But it was too late. Whatever he had been about to say, whatever excuses he had been about to make, Gabriel had evidently had enough. With a violent oath he thrust himself away from her, his hands dropping woodenly to his sides.
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said, and for a moment she thought he was admitting that he was no better than Joe. But then he continued contemptuously, ‘Perhaps my problems are nothing to do with you. I’ve been wasting my time thinking that you might be suffering because of what I did, when in fact you’re more concerned with what Andrew might have thought of your behaviour.’
‘That’s not true!’ Rachel was appalled that he should have got her so completely wrong. ‘I don’t care about Andrew—’
‘The trouble is, I don’t think you care about anybody,’ retorted Gabriel sadly, striding towards the door. He lifted the latch. ‘G’bye, Rachel. Oh, and give Hannah my love.’
How Rachel got through the next couple of weeks, she never knew. She supposed that habit made a good ally, and, despite the fact that she was torn apart inside, outside organisation and routine enabled her to function with a fair degree of success.
Her mother knew that all was not well, of course, and despite her earlier threats to wash her hands of the whole affair she’d proved a good friend again. Indeed, Rachel didn’t know how she’d have managed without her.
It had helped that she’d confided the real reason she and Andrew had split up to her mother. That it had been his unwillingness to accept Hannah as part of Rachel’s life that had caused the rift between them and not anything his father had said. Andrew’s opinion had been that if Rachel hoped to continue with their relationship she should seriously consider putting Hannah into a home, and Rachel had had no hesitation in telling him what she thought of that. Besides, she had already been having doubts about other aspects of his character, and if the break-up had been no less painful, it was her pride that had suffered the most.
Then, towards the end of the second week after that awful scene with Gabriel, something happened to bring her out of the trough of despair into which she’d sunk.
She got a call from Hannah’s school. The head teacher, Mrs Gower, rang the café on Friday lunchtime to ask Rachel if she could come and pick up her daughter herself that day. She wouldn’t say much more over the phone, except to assure Rachel that Hannah was perfectly all right, but for the rest of the afternoon, until it was time for her to go to the school, Rachel was in a state of nerves.
‘You have no idea what she wants?’ Stephanie asked curiously, once Rachel had come off the phone after ringing her mother to tell her of the new arrangements. ‘You didn’t even tell your mother that Hannah’s head teacher had asked you to go.’
‘I know.’ Rachel knew a momentary sense of guilt. ‘But I didn’t think there was any point in worrying her when it might be nothing important.’
‘Yet you don’t believe that,’ observed Stephanie shrewdly. ‘I know you, Rachel. You’re already anticipating the worst.’
‘Well, wouldn’t you be?’ Rachel was indignant.
‘After what happened between you and Gabriel Webb?’ Stephanie only knew that she and Gabriel had had a row and split up. The fact that Andrew Webb was back at Copleys hadn’t been mentioned, but Rachel guessed that Stephanie thought he had had something to with it. And he had. Only not directly. ‘Well, okay, I suppose it has been a pretty rough couple of weeks.’
Rachel turned away. ‘I’ll survive,’ she said tightly. ‘You don’t mind staying on this afternoon, do you?’
Stephanie pulled a face. ‘What was it you just said? I’ll survive?’ she remarked drily. ‘Now, stop worrying about something that may never happen. Hannah’s probably had a fall or cut herself in needlework. You know how fussy head teachers can be.’
‘Do you think so?’
Rachel tried to console herself with her friend’s words, but it was little comfort in the taxi she took out to St Winifred’s later that afternoon. Hannah had fallen before, and cut herself, too, on occasion. But Mrs Gower had never asked her to come to the school before.
‘Please, wait,’ she told the taxi driver when they reached the school. ‘I shouldn’t be more than ten or fifteen minutes.’
Or she hoped not, she thought tensely as she went through the automatic doors that led into the school’s entrance hall. Like everything else at St Winifred’s, the doors were geared to make things easy for their wheelchair-bound pupils, and it was one of the first things that had persuaded Rachel to choose this school for her daughter.
Mrs Gower’s secretary showed her into the head teacher’s office. It was still fifteen minutes to the end of the school day and Rachel hoped to get this—whatever it was—over with before going to collect Hannah.
They shook hands and then the older woman indicated the chair at the opposite side of her desk. ‘Please, sit down, Mrs Kershaw,’ she said easily. ‘Can I offer you a cup of tea?’
‘Nothing, thanks.’ Rachel was too on edge to want any refreshment. ‘Um—I have a taxi waiting. Could we possibly get to the reason why you asked me to come here?’
‘Of course, of course.’ Mrs Gower seemed to understand her apprehension. ‘I’ll get straight to the point: how long has Hannah been able to move around?’
Rachel’s jaw dropped. ‘Move around?’ she echoed blankly. ‘You mean, how long has she been able to handle her wheelchair? Oh, a few years. As you know—’
‘Not her wheelchair,’ interrupted Mrs Gower steadily. ‘I meant, how long has she been able to get out of her chair without any assistance?’
‘She doesn’t. She can’t.’ Rachel stared at the woman with wide disbelieving eyes. And then, reading Mrs Gower’s expression, ‘You mean, she has?’
‘So I’m told,’ agreed the head teacher, nodding. She rested her forearms on her desk and linked her fingers together. ‘I gather you know nothing about it?’
‘No.’ But Rachel was instantly reminded of that day at Copleys, and of how proud Hannah had been of her achievement. ‘That is, she did stand once. But that was with—someone’s assistance.’
Mrs Gower considered her words. ‘And do you think this might have encouraged her to try it again? On her own?’
‘I—don’t know.’ Rachel was stunned and trying not to show it. ‘How—how did you find out?’
‘Ah.’ Mrs Gower released her hands and lay back in her chair. ‘Unfortunately it seems she has grown a little too confident of her own abilities. During her painting lesson this morning she apparently dropped her paintbrush, and because Mrs Wilson was otherwise engaged Hannah attempted to pick it up herself.’
Rachel’s jaw dropped. ‘She fell?’
‘Only a little way.’ Mrs Gower seemed unperturbed by that aspect of the incident. ‘But it did acquaint us with the evident improvement in her condition. And, according to her classmates, Hannah has got out of her chair on more than one occasion. You say you’ve had no inkling that her paralysis may be responding to therapy?’
‘I—no.’
But then for the past couple of weeks Rachel had been so wrapped up in her own misery that she’d paid only nominal attention to her daughter.
‘Well, I do believe Hannah wanted to surprise you. That’s what she says, anyway.’ Mrs Gower paused. ‘I had her checked over by our own doctor after the fall and he assures me that no harm has been done. In fact…’ She hesitated. ‘That was why I asked you to come in. It seems obvious from recent events that Hannah’s condition may be self-induced, and Dr Rigsby wants me to suggest that you allow her to talk to a counsellor.’
‘A counsellor?’
‘A child psychologist,’ clarified Mrs Gower quickly. ‘It’s possible that the child is suppressing something—some incident that happened either at the time of the accident or just before it—which may have caused her to become paralysed in the first place.’
It was ironic, Rachel thought, as they were driven home later that afternoon, that the school doctor should say much the same thing as Gabriel and Gabriel’s mother. Were it not such a ludicrous proposition she might have wondered if Gabriel had had any part in that conclusion, but, however far-reaching the Webbs’ influence might be, she doubted if he had any further interest in Hannah’s treatment. Since that morning at the café she had neither heard nor read anything about him or Andrew, and she’d told herself with increasing desperation that nor did she want to.
But Hannah was another matter, and, although she said little to the child in the taxi, as soon as they got home, and Mrs Redfern had been assured that her granddaughter was well, Rachel demanded that Hannah tell her what had been going on.
‘You know,’ said the little girl sulkily, apparently in no mood to demonstrate her motor skills to her mother and grandmother. ‘Mrs Gower told you.’
‘Told you what?’ asked Rachel’s mother, and Rachel swiftly explained why the head teacher had wanted to see her.
‘You can stand?’ exclaimed Mrs Redfern, staring at the child as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’
‘’Cos you didn’t want to know,’ said Hannah indifferently. ‘I told you I could stand that day Mummy and me went to Gabe’s house, but Mummy told me not to do it again.’
‘I didn’t—’
‘Yes, you did.’ Hannah was indignant. ‘It was when Katy took me to see the horses. You said I couldn’t show her what I’d done.’
Rachel groaned. ‘That was different.’
‘No, it wasn’t.’ Hannah stared at her. ‘And Katy said that if I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t ride one of the horses either, so—so—’
‘So you decided you would,’ Rachel finished for her weakly. ‘Oh, baby, why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I’m not a baby,’ retorted Hannah with a sniff. ‘And I am going to walk again. One day. I know you said we couldn’t go to Copleys again, but maybe if I could walk Gabe would change his mind.’
‘Oh, Hannah!’ Rachel exchanged a helpless look with her mother over the child’s head. Then, stifling the sudden urge to burst into tears herself, she added, ‘Just—just wait until I tell Mrs Stone what a clever girl you are.’