It wasn’t the rapturous reception the others had got, but there were enough nods and smiles from the staff for me to know that I hadn’t come off as badly as I’d feared. All I had to do now was keep my head down, sit through Ade’s announcement and scoot off to bed. Tomorrow couldn’t be as eventful as today.
We watched as Ade clambered on to the stage and I could see the tension in her face. I had no idea how she was going to break the news. I just hoped they’d done as they said and told Naomi.
‘You certainly know how to put on a show,’ she said, beaming. ‘I don’t think I have ever been so moved, entertained and tickled in such a short space of time.’
She took a deep breath, and I held mine in anticipation.
‘Today, though, is a special day for other reasons … not just because of what we have seen tonight. I actually have two more things that I need to tell you about. Both are good news, and the first is to do with our friend Daisy, who is fifteen today.’
There were polite whoops as the focus turned to me, and if I’d had the time I would’ve slid down my chair to hide.
‘As you know, Daisy has had some issues to work through since she arrived, some of them to do with the death of her father, but some that are older than that.’
I saw Paddy roll his eyes at Naomi, whose jaw was stiff and tense.
‘What you might not know is that Daisy wasn’t lucky enough to ever meet her mum, and that has been difficult for her to accept. As much as I’d love to be able to remedy this, I can’t. But I did make Daisy a promise a few weeks ago and I hope that this birthday present will in some ways help me keep that promise.’
From behind her back she pulled out a CD and, after waving it in the air, she asked Eric to do the honours, which he duly did, sliding it into the DVD player.
‘Now, this may not make much sense to you, but it’s important that we all support Daisy. She has made incredible progress, despite tensions between some of you, and that’s why I want you all to see this. I hope this may make up for me letting you down earlier, Daisy. Happy birthday, lucky charm.’
The lights disappeared and all eyes were sucked back to the TV.
At first there was little to see. The picture was scrambled, a snowstorm invading both the top and the bottom of the screen, but slowly it started to settle and instead of the snow there was now a beach. The picture quality wasn’t great, it was overexposed like an old Polaroid, with the camera pointed out to sea, a woman’s back the only thing blocking the waves as they rolled in.
‘For God’s sake,’ moaned Naomi. ‘Is this You’ve Been Framed or something? Can we cut to the funny bit where she falls over?’
It was like whoever was holding the camera heard her, as they started to walk towards the woman, and as he called her name, everything fell into place.
‘Lydia!’ the voice called. ‘Lydia! Lyds!’
It was Dad’s voice, the familiarity of it shocking me upright in my seat. Not just that, though, the name he was calling was Mum’s, which meant …
I stopped the thought in my head, terrified of disappointment, but the camera rolled on and finally the woman turned to face him.
There was no disappointment, just shock, as for the first time I was confronted by the sight of my mum in something other than a photograph.
As a gift that would’ve been enough to satisfy me, but as I tore my gaze away from her face I saw the shape of her body, and the swollen bump where her stomach should’ve been.
It had to be me in there, but I didn’t understand.
Where had Ade found it?
My pulse quickened in excitement and I lifted myself off my chair, gripping the front of the stage hard.
‘I was beginning to think you’d fallen asleep?’ I heard Dad say to her.
‘What, standing up?’ She laughed.
‘Well, you have been knackered lately.’
‘No wonder, what with this one booting me every five minutes!’
‘Is she kicking now?’
I watched Mum’s face soften and nod.
‘And how does it feel?’
Dad zoomed in as her hands slid down and held her tummy.
‘How do you think it feels?’ She laughed, before speaking a line I never thought I’d hear. ‘It’s my daughter belting the crap out of me. It feels amazing.’
It didn’t matter that the screen went fuzzy again. It didn’t matter that the snowstorm took over and the lights went back on. All that mattered was that line, looping endlessly in my head. I could think of nothing else. No one would ever be able to take it away, even if the disc never worked again. I fell back into the chair, my eyes leaking everywhere, but I didn’t care who saw. I wasn’t going to let anything spoil the moment.
Ade walked back to the centre of the stage, her eyes misting too.
‘Happy birthday, Daisy,’ she said. ‘Do you like your present?’
I stuck my thumbs up.
‘Well, you should thank your dad, not me. He hoarded a whole load of old tapes. The hardest bit was finding a video player. As soon as I found that I just had to sit and watch until your mum showed up. I guessed she would in the end.’
This brought a ripple of applause from Bex and the other carers, and edged Naomi ever closer to the end of her leash.
‘Have we finished now? Or do we have to flick through their holiday snaps as well?’
She ignored the stern looks of the staff and pushed herself to her feet.
‘Seriously,’ she moaned. ‘From the way you lot go on about her you’d think she was the only person living here. So if we’re done I’m going to go and have a smoke. I reckon me and Paddy deserve it after what we laid on.’
She made for the door, only for Ade’s voice to pull her grudgingly back.
‘Naomi. Patrick. Please. Sit down for one minute. There’s something else I need to tell everyone. Something important.’
Naomi growled, every muscle in her body tensing as she threw herself back into her seat. ‘Make it quick, will you?’
Confusion buzzed through me. I studied Naomi, to see if she was acting dumb like I was. She had to know, didn’t she? I mean, why on earth wouldn’t they tell her like they told me? Ade was her key worker too.
‘I have one more piece of news that is important. You see, today is going to be my last day on shift here. For a while at least. I discovered today that I am having a baby. So until it has arrived, I have to step away. I know it will be a bit of a shock to some of you, but I hope that you can all be pleased for me as well.’
I sat with my head down, my nerve not strong enough to look up and feign ignorance. But when I did, I found Naomi’s boring a hole in me and I knew my fears were true.
She didn’t know. The pain was all over her face and she stared at me without blinking.
‘You knew,’ she mouthed to me. ‘You knew. Didn’t you?’
I should’ve acted more. Or better. Or both. I tried, but failed, as she wasn’t buying into whatever look I managed to give her.
‘Bitch,’ she mouthed again, before shouting it, loudly, startling everyone. ‘BITCH!’
I wasn’t sure if it was aimed at Ade or me. Probably both, not that it mattered. With a screech, her chair flew backwards and I braced myself, expecting her to throw herself in my direction, but she didn’t. Instead she sprinted for the door, her hat flying off in the process. With a final flourish, the door slammed shut behind her, the echo tearing its way around the room, causing the drapes to flutter like kites.
There was silence around the room for a heartbeat or two, until Susie broke it. Climbing to her feet, she clambered on to the stage and hugged Ade a little too tightly.
‘Congratulations,’ she said, beaming. ‘We aren’t half going to miss you.’
Everyone else took that as their cue, whether it was news to them or not, and I stood in line, waiting to tell her again just how pleased I was.
Typically, though, Ade deflected any talk of herself away and focused instead on me.
‘You should be so proud of yourself. To tell everyone what you did, today of all days … Incredible, Daisy Houghton. Incredible.’
‘But what about Naomi?’ I whispered in her ear. ‘I thought you said you were going to tell her too.’
‘And we tried. Several times. She wouldn’t come to Bex’s office or the staff room. She even locked herself in her room. In the end we had no choice but to tell her tonight with everyone else.’
‘She looked gutted. What do you think she’ll do?’
Ade shrugged, upset herself that Naomi had reacted as she had. ‘She’ll do what she always does. She’ll shout, and break a few things, but she’ll calm down finally. I’ll go look for her. It’s not like I can leave until we’ve smoothed things out, is it?’
‘Suppose not. You want me to help?’
‘You know what I want you to do? I want you to take this DVD to your bedroom, put it into the player and look at it again. I spent hours looking through your dad’s tapes. Pretty much every night for the last couple of weeks. But I’ll tell you what. Seeing your face as you watched it? It was worth every single second.’ She looked at me, head cocked on one side. ‘Do you think it’ll make a difference, like you hoped it might?’
‘It already has,’ I said, grinning. ‘It’s the best present I could’ve asked for. Thank you.’
‘You are welcome,’ she said. ‘Now go and watch it again.’
I didn’t need telling twice, so I hugged her, making her promise to say goodnight before she left.
It had been a long day, and a knackering one at that, but for once I didn’t notice the stairs up to the girls’ landing. I practically floated up them, knowing that my mum would be waiting at the end of the corridor.