Deceive Me Page 17

  In the end I stay a week, sleeping in my old room, which Dave has turned into a storage room. I lie on my back squeezed between boxes, staring at the ceiling, and rub my still-flat belly. At least I have this, I think, this new life growing inside me. It’s part of Hakan. It’s a connection between us that can never be broken. When it’s born, I think, Hakan will come to me. He won’t be able to help himself. He’ll be drawn to us, to his child. I imagine the reunion with tears rolling down my cheeks. Hakan at the airport, running towards me and lifting me up in his arms, swinging me around, kissing me on the lips.

  ‘My girl, my Jojo,’ he’ll say. And everything will be okay.

  Chapter 31

  ‘That was a bit harsh,’ says Chris once Dave has gone.

  ‘He deserves it.’

  ‘I know he hasn’t always been the best father to you, but he really seems to be making an effort lately. He flew all the way out here to see you and he’s really trying to help with Grace.’

  I think Chris identifies with Dave as a fellow stepfather. He’s always making excuses for him. Like I say, he doesn’t know Dave the way I do.

  ‘You don’t know the half of it,’ I say.

  ‘Do you think he really saw Grace in Ayia Napa?’ Chris asks, clearing away the beer cans and stuffing them into the recycling.

  ‘I seriously doubt it.’

  ‘Why would he make that up, though?’

  ‘Because it’s what he does,’ I say bitterly. ‘He makes things up. He always has. He can’t help himself.’

  ‘We should check out this club in Ayia Napa, just in case.’

  I sigh and nod. I’m almost certain it’ll be a waste of time, but Chris is right. We can’t afford to ignore any leads, no matter how dubious the source.

  Chapter 32

  2001

  As soon as I can, I move out, away from Dave and Mandy and into my own place. I land a job at a retirement home, emptying commodes and wiping old people’s wrinkly arses. It’s not ideal. It’s quite depressing in fact, but it pays the rent and I actually get quite attached to some of the residents. There’s this old dear called Mary who I’m especially fond of. She has a record player in her room, and she likes it when I play her old jazz records. She enjoys watching me dance around her room. She says I’m a breath of fresh air – that I make her feel young again. But I don’t always dance. Some songs I can’t dance to, like her favourite song. Her favourite is ‘Amazing Grace’ and when I play it, tears well up in her eyes and she warbles along in a shaky voice, like she’s an opera singer or something.

  ‘I used to sing really well,’ she tells me. ‘I used to be a pretty little thing too, like you. There were so many men who wanted to court me. But then the war came . . .’ And she stares with her faded blue eyes beyond me at something I can’t see. ‘But you don’t want to know about all that,’ she says after a while. ‘Tell me what you’ve been up to . . .’

  Sometimes I think Mary’s pretty much my only real friend in the world.

  The job in the old people’s home is not my only job. At night I work in a pub and try to save some money because I know when the baby comes money’s going to be tight. God knows I can’t rely on Mum or Dave to help me out.

  One day I take a bus to Cheltenham to visit Mum in the hospital. I buy some flowers before I go, yellow roses, which I think will cheer her up. When I get there, the nurse on duty tells me to wait. So, I sit in reception, staring at a black and white photograph of the hospital building in the old days, when it was a workhouse. I wait for what seems like hours, until the nurse comes back looking a little flustered and embarrassed.

  ‘I’m afraid your mum isn’t well enough to receive any visitors today,’ she says gently. ‘Would you like to leave a message?’

  ‘Just tell her that her daughter’s pregnant, if she gives a shit,’ I say, standing up and storming out. Outside I rip up the flowers and fling them in the bin. Then I catch the bus back home fuming all the way.

  At home I write a long, passionate letter to Hakan. I write pages and pages, pouring out my heart, telling him how much I miss him and, when I’ve finished, I put it in the post box at the end of my road. I wait for weeks for a reply, rushing to the door every time a letter drops onto the mat. But there’s no letter, only bills and adverts.

  I’m getting bigger every day now and soon it’s obvious to everyone that I’m expecting. Tessie, my boss at the retirement home, isn’t happy about the fact that she’s going to have to find someone to replace me, but there’s not a lot she can do about it. I start going to antenatal classes, but I feel so out of place amongst all the smug couples that I stop. And I go to the hospital for a couple of scans. On the first visit they tell me I’m expecting a girl and at the second they tell me everything is on track and that she should be coming any day now.

  The pains start in the middle of the night. At first, they’re like bad period pains, and I think this is going to be a walk in the park. What’s all the fuss about? But after a while it gets worse. Much worse. Each contraction shakes my whole body as if I’m being electrocuted. I lose track of time and I throw up everywhere, little piles of sick all around the house. When I really can’t stand it anymore, I ring the hospital. But my waters haven’t broken yet and they say that my contractions are still too far apart for me to be in labour. ‘Run a bath,’ the woman on the other end of the phone says. ‘It’ll soothe the pain. And take a couple of paracetamol.’ Paracetamol! Is she crazy? The woman I’m speaking to has clearly never experienced labour cramps.

  But as I haven’t really got anything else I can do, I fill the bath with warm water and immerse myself, watching my round belly float above the water. But it has little to no effect on the pain, so I clamber out again. And as I’m dressing, a wave of agony washes over me like nothing I’ve ever felt before. And soon I am on all fours, wailing like an animal. And it’s all I can do to drag myself to the phone and ring for a taxi.

  The taxi driver looks doubtful when he sees the state I’m in. ‘You look like you’re in labour, love,’ he says. ‘Don’t you need an ambulance?’

  ‘Could you just take me to the hospital, please,’ I say through gritted teeth.

  ‘Sure, sure . . . Come on then,’ he says, shepherding me into the passenger seat.

  On the drive to the hospital I concentrate on not throwing up on his new-looking leather upholstery. And it’s a huge relief when we finally reach the maternity ward and they hook me up to a machine that measures the contractions. As the midwives bustle about, I watch the graph rise and fall, making a sort of etch-a-sketch of my pain, and I feel strangely soothed.

  ‘Is there someone we can call?’ asks a young, blonde midwife, coming in and checking my chart.

  I shake my head impatiently. There’s really no one to call. Mum? No way. Dave? Ha! The only person I want here is Hakan and he’s two thousand miles away and doesn’t really care, or else he would have replied to my letter. I shake my head and wipe a tear from my cheek. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alone.

  The baby is finally born at six o’clock in the morning.

  ‘A beautiful baby girl!’ the midwife announces as she brings her to me and lies her against my chest, skin on skin. I gaze down at her, overwhelmed and amazed that I have created this tiny, perfect, wriggling creature.

  ‘Do you know what you’re going to call her?’ asks the midwife as I sit up in bed eating white toast with margarine like I’ve never eaten before in my life.

  ‘Grace,’ I say. ‘I’m calling her Grace.’

  I think of Mary warbling along to the tune. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

  Grace is an appropriate name, I think, because this little creature is the one who’s going to save me.

  Chapter 33

  Castle Moon is a seedy-looking club in the back streets of Ayia Napa. It’s only six o’clock and it’s obviously n
ot open for business yet, but the black-painted door is ajar, so we walk on in. Inside it’s dark and dingy. There’s a strong smell of stale cigarettes and alcohol. Near the bar a cleaner is hoovering the stained carpets. At a round table a middle-aged man and a woman are sitting drinking espressos and smoking, hunched over a large blue file.

  ‘Ne? Boro na se voithiso? Can I help you?’ says the man, looking up suspiciously as we enter. He’s portly, with a large beer belly and greasy black hair. He doesn’t exactly look welcoming.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, mate,’ says Chris, ‘but we’re looking for our daughter. We were wondering if she’d been to your club.’

  The man looks confused, so I speak more slowly. ‘Grace Appleton. She’s our daughter.’ I take out my phone and show him the photo, tapping at the screen. ‘Have you seen her? Someone said they saw her here last night.’

  He takes the phone and peers at the picture of Grace. Then he hands it to the woman, who shakes her head and speaks rapidly in Greek.

  ‘No, sorry. We don’t see your daughter,’ he says at last, handing me back the phone.

  ‘What about your bar staff. Who was working last night?’

  He calls to a young man who’s just appeared behind the bar and he too comes over and examines the photo and after a moment shakes his head slowly. It seems as though no one at Castle Moon has ever laid eyes on Grace, though when I show them a photo of Dave, they recognise him instantly.

  ‘He didn’t pay his bar bill,’ says the barman. ‘We had to throw him out.’

  ‘Well, that was a complete waste of time,’ says Chris as we step outside. The sun has gone down and although it’s not dark yet, there’ s a cool breeze wafting towards us as we head down towards the seafront where the car is parked.

  ‘I knew it would be,’ I say. ‘I told you Dave was bullshitting.’

  ‘But I don’t understand.’ Chris frowns as we stride along, winding our way through the tourists. ‘Why would Dave make something like that up?’

  ‘He can’t bear it if he’s not the centre of attention.’

  Chris doesn’t answer immediately. We’ve reached the car park and he leans on the railings and looks out at the sea. The sky is tinged with pink and a dusty yellow moon is hanging low. There are several large yachts moored in the marina. They have names like Athena and Aphrodite and Galina. Funny how boats are almost always named after women, I think vaguely, and the embryo of an idea stirs at the back of my mind, but before I have time to grasp it Chris interrupts my thoughts.

  ‘It’s nearly a whole week since Grace went missing and we’re back to square one,’ he says, eyes glistening with angry tears. ‘We still have no idea where she is or why she’s disappeared.’

  ‘We’re not exactly back to square one.’ I take a deep breath. I’ve been dreading this moment, but Chris has a right to know.

  ‘I need to tell you something, something I found out today, about Grace,’ I say.

  Chris stares at me. ‘What?’

  ‘She’s pregnant.’

  His eyes widen with shock and his breathing becomes ragged. For a moment I’m worried he might be about to have a heart attack. ‘How do you . . . ?’ he splutters.

  ‘Maria told me. Grace found out a few weeks ago apparently. But she made Maria promise not to tell anyone.’

  He clutches his chest. ‘Is it Tom’s?’

  Why would Chris even consider that the baby wasn’t Tom’s? Unless . . . For a split second a horrible, unthinkable suspicion uncoils and slithers through my thoughts. What if Dino’s source was right about Chris? Impossible, I think, consigning it to the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind.

  ‘Well, I suppose it must be Tom’s,’ I say. ‘Who else’s?’

  ‘I’m going to kill that piece of shit,’ Chris growls. ‘Do you think he knows?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Chris fishes his phone out of his pocket. ‘I can’t stand this,’ he says. ‘I’m going to phone him and give him a piece of my mind.’

  ‘Wait. There’s something else I haven’t told you yet,’ I say, placing my hand over his. I swallow. There’s no easy way of saying this. ‘She went to see a doctor about having an abortion about a week before she went missing.’

  He stares at me. ‘And did she go ahead with it?’

  ‘I don’t think so. The doctor told her she would need our permission.’

  ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God . . .’ Chris clutches his head.

  ‘That’s not all,’ I say. ‘I spoke to the doctor this morning. He said she wasn’t alone when she came to see him. She was with someone.’

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘No. From the description he gave I’m pretty sure it was Andreas.’

  ‘Andreas? You mean, that kid in Grace’s year, the one Maria told us about, the one she said was a junkie?’

  I nod, chewing my nail and thinking of the meeting I had with the boy down by the seafront. He seemed so nervous, from the way he avoided my eyes to all his strange, nervous tics. I put it down to shyness, but perhaps it wasn’t that at all. He knows more than he let on, that’s for sure.

  ‘I knew he was lying,’ I say out loud.

  Chris shakes his head. ‘Jesus Christ, what has she got herself mixed up in?’ he says, staring at me wildly. ‘Do you think she’s been taking drugs?’

  An image of Grace lying overdosed somewhere in a pool of her own vomit crashes into my mind. I shiver, then shake my head firmly. ‘I don’t think so. I lived with a heroin addict for years, remember? I know the signs.’

  Chris nods and breathes deeply, exhaling through his nose. ‘Who knows what that little shit has done? If he’s hurt Grace, I swear I’ll—’

  I look at my watch. ‘We need to get back for Jack. Let’s go and talk to him tomorrow,’ I say. ‘Find out what he knows.’

  ‘Yes, but don’t ring him first. We need to take him by surprise.’

  It’s not such a bad idea. ‘Okay,’ I say, taking my phone out of my pocket. Trying to stay calm, I tap in Maria’s number.

  ‘Hi, Maria, it’s Joanna,’ I say smoothly. ‘Sorry to bother you but do you have Andreas Pavlou’s address?’

  ‘Do you think that’s why she’s run away?’ Chris says as we drive back along the motorway towards Larnaca. ‘Because she’s pregnant?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ It’s getting dark now and the headlights of the other cars are dazzling and distracting. I grip the wheel tightly, fighting a strange and disturbing urge to swerve the car into the oncoming traffic.

  ‘She’s just a baby herself,’ Chris continues darkly. ‘I can’t get my head round the idea that she could have her own child.’

  ‘I know.’ I have rarely thought much about becoming a grandmother and never in my wildest nightmare did I imagine a scenario like this.

  ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about.’ Chris drums his fingers on the dashboard. ‘I mean, she can barely look after herself. Can you picture her as a mother?’

  I can’t. But then I suppose she’s not much younger than I was.

  Chapter 34

  2001

  Nobody told me it would be this hard. All she does is cry and cry. I don’t get any respite. I hardly sleep. She wakes me up all through the night crying and demanding to be fed. Feeding her is so painful it makes me cry. My nipples are cracked and sore. My body is not my own anymore. It belongs to this tiny tyrant.

  Despite it all, I love her. I love her so much it hurts. It’s as if my heart is no longer inside me. As if she is my heart now and so it is out there in the world, unprotected and vulnerable. I worry about her night and day – that something might happen to her; that I’m not looking after her properly.

  Maybe if Hakan was here, things would be different. I long for him so much – to feel his arms around me, to hear him whisper Jojo and tell me everything’s okay.

  I’m lo
nely too. I don’t think I’ve ever been so lonely. Days go past when I don’t speak to another adult human being. The girls from work paid a brief visit about a week ago and brought presents for Grace, but they’re too busy with their own unencumbered lives to be bothered about mine. None of them have babies and I could tell that they couldn’t wait to get out of my nappy-stinking house.

  It will all be worth it when Hakan sees her, I tell myself. He’s going to love her, I know. He’ll take one look at her and realise what a mistake he’s made, choosing Helen over me. With this in mind, I take a photo of Grace, in her nappy, lying on her front on her mat, and post it to him, along with a long letter detailing her weight and height, the way she can push her head and chest up now with her arms, the way she has his eyes and face shape. At the end of the letter I write, I miss you and Grace misses you. She doesn’t want to grow up without knowing her father. I send another copy of the same photo to my mother too. I haven’t completely given up on her and you never know, she might be able to shake off her depression long enough to take an interest in my life.

  A couple of weeks later a short note from Hakan arrives.

  Dear Jojo,

  Sorry it’s been so long. I hope you’re okay and the baby is doing fine.

  I’m coming to England next week to visit relatives. I’d like to see you and Grace if that’s okay. I’ll call you to arrange a time.

  Love Hakan

  Sunday, 24th September 2017

  Chapter 35

  ‘This must be it,’ says Chris, parking outside a small semi-detached house next to a field of stubbly yellow corn. In the far distance, across the farmland, I can see part of the big salt lake and a section of the old Venetian aqueduct. Chris stares up at the house. ‘It looks pretty run-down to me.’

  Run-down is a bit of an understatement. The plaster is cracked and tiles are falling off the facade. The yard is full of junk too: there are bags of rubbish, an old sofa, a dismembered motorbike and a sailing boat under a tatty plastic tarpaulin. I think about what Maria told us about Andreas being a junkie and his brother being involved with the mafia, and I’m glad that we dropped Jack at Angelo’s on the way here. At least I know he’s safe.