Promise Of A Family

Leyne did not pretend not to know what she was talking about. ‘It’s a bit early yet, love. Er—it may take weeks rather than days,’ she replied. With Max more or less incommunicado, she had not the first idea where to look. And supposing she were to find out. Did she have the right to tell Pip? Conversely, did she have the right to withhold that information from her? ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’

‘I know you will,’ Pip said trustingly—and at the little girl’s faith in her, so Leyne knew that she could just not ignore her need to know who her father was.

The trouble was, where to start? Pip was safely tucked up in bed that night when Leyne acknowledged that it had seemed no problem whatsoever to be appointed her niece’s guardian. But Leyne could not help but feel like some petty criminal when, biting the bullet as it were, she that night quietly entered her sister’s bedroom in search of Pip’s birth certificate.

She supposed when she had located it that it had been too much to hope that the birth certificate of Philippa Catherine Leyne might reveal who her father was. Leyne had been pretty certain, since her niece went by her mother’s surname of Nicholson, that it would not show her father’s name anyway. Even so, to see a short straight line in the space for ‘Father’ still came as a bit of a disappointment. All too clearly, Max did not want anyone to know the name of the father of her child.

Max had never spoken of him, and although Leyne supposed she must have had a natural curiosity at some stage, she was sensitive that some things were very private and were to be respected as such.

She put Pip’s birth certificate away. It seemed Max’s cellphone was permanently switched off, because all her attempts to reach her had come to nothing. Leyne briefly toyed again with the idea of using that emergency number and have someone try to find her in that vast country of Brazil.

But, in the end, she abandoned the notion. She had assured Max that she could cope with whatever cropped up. It would be like throwing in the towel at the first hurdle. It suddenly came to her that she must think not of what Max would want, but must think of what was best for Pip.

Leyne thought back to eleven and a half years ago, when Max had given birth to her precious child: Pip, with her astonishing mop of jet-black hair. Max had been living at home then, and in fact she had never lived anywhere else. So…

Suddenly Leyne saw a chink of light, saw what was now blindingly obvious. If Max had been going out with someone, and she was too choosy to give herself to just anybody, then of course he must have called at the house for her. Which meant her mother, their mother, must know him! Their mother must know the name of Pip’s father, and all about him.

Feeling very much like telephoning her mother straight away, Leyne made herself go downstairs and think about it.

Perhaps, on second thoughts, with her quest so delicate, a personal visit to her mother would be a better idea. While Leyne knew that she was very much loved by their mother, she was also aware of the special bond between her mother and Max that had probably begun when, widowed young, Catherine Nicholson—as she had then been—had cleaved to her toddler daughter.

Yes, definitely her mother would know, Leyne decided, and got out of bed on Saturday morning reflecting that she would again try to phone Max, but if she could still not contact her that she would contact her parent.

While Leyne still felt very undecided, not sure if she should be doing what she was contemplating, her imagination took off as she pondered if there was some dark reason why Max had never mentioned Pip’s father. Was he some kind of villain, some jailbird, some monster, that Max had never breathed a word of who he was? Perhaps, Leyne fretted, she would be doing Max a disservice if her sister did not want Pip to know the name of her father because he was a felon?

From what she knew of Max, though, and how, while occasionally dating, she had always been most circumspect about who she went out with, Leyne could not see her being involved with anyone who was not upright and honest.

More often than not Leyne took Pip and Alice swimming on a Saturday morning. Leyne decided not to alter that morning’s arrangement. She would leave it until Pip went to Alice’s for her sleepover and would then ring her mother in St Albans and ask if it was convenient if she drove up to see her.

The best-laid plans…she discovered, when Dianne Gardner rang to say she had been called away unexpectedly to an elderly aunt who had been taken ill.

‘Would you mind very much if we put off the sleepover until next Saturday?’ Dianne asked.

‘Not at all,’ Leyne replied, and offered, ‘If it will help I can have Alice here with me until you get back. She can stay the night here to save you rushing back.’

Silence for a moment as Dianne thought it over before, ‘Would you mind?’ she asked gratefully. ‘I wouldn’t…’

‘It will be a pleasure,’ Leyne assured her.

She was having a coffee, watching while Pip and Alice outraced each other in the swimming pool, when she belatedly remembered she was supposed to be seeing Keith Collins that night.

Oh, grief! Taking out her phone, and hoping she had remembered his number correctly—this was not the first time she had cancelled their arrangements—she pressed out the digits—and waited.

‘Keith,’ she said, when she recognised his voice. ‘Leyne Rowberry.’

‘I shall never forgive you if you’re putting me off!’ he stated, in a voice that wasn’t over-brimming with good humour.

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ she replied cheerfully. ‘The thing is—er—I wondered if you’d rather come to my place for coffee?’ And quickly, lest he got the wrong idea, ‘I can promise you one of your favourite sumptuous feasts first.’

‘You’re breaking our date!’ he exclaimed heavily, and for a moment Leyne wondered if she even liked him.

‘I’m offering an alternative,’ she answered, concentrating her thoughts on the nicer side of him that she had previously seen.

‘Too late now for me to make alternative arrangements,’ he said—as if she’d be gutted if he couldn’t come!

‘Your choice,’ she offered. If he wanted to try and find a date elsewhere, good luck to him.

The evening was not a success. The meal, if not exactly sumptuous, was good. But, since the girls had helped with the coconut and orange pudding, it seemed churlish not to let them stay and eat with them.

Keith appeared to be making an effort to be charming, but he was obviously not devastated when Pip asked if they could be excused and, armed with various nibbles, she and Alice raced off up the stairs.

Leyne went to the kitchen to make coffee and saw that Keith’s good humour was surfacing when, on her return, he joined her on the sitting room sofa. ‘Sugar?’ she asked, quite aware that he was sitting unnecessarily close. She poured him a coffee and put a few inches of space between them when she got up to reach to the table for the sugar bowl.

‘You really have the most extraordinarily lovely hair,’ he murmured of her light-coloured hair, with its naturally lighter strands of blonde—sugar was all too plainly not his first priority.

‘Cream or milk?’ she offered.

‘Cream,’ he replied, and, looking into her large blue eyes, ‘To go with your lovely complexion,’ he said. And, taking the coffee from her, he placed it down on the low table in front of them and turned as though to take a hold of her. He got as far as, ‘Leyne, beautiful Leyne…’ when hoots of laughter wafted down through the floorboards overhead. ‘Oh, for—!’ he exclaimed impatiently. And, totally put off his stride, ‘Can’t those girls keep quiet?’

‘Not for more than five minutes, I shouldn’t wonder,’ she replied equably.

‘How long will they go on for?’ he asked, sounding hopeful and disgruntled at one and the same time.

‘I’d be very surprised if they settled down this side of midnight,’ Leyne answered. ‘It’s a sleepover,’ she added. She felt sorry for him, even though his hopes for the way the evening would end had never coincided with hers.

She guessed, when shortly afterwards Keith left, that he would not be asking her out again. It was a pity; she liked him a lot of the time. She was not, however, heartbroken.

Dianne Gardner called for Alice around mid-morning the next day, and ten minutes later Leyne rang her mother and asked if it was convenient for her and Pip to drive up to see them. Catherine Rowberry had remarried four years ago, and had generously allowed her two daughters and granddaughter to remain living in their old home when she had moved to Hertfordshire with her new husband.

‘I’d love to see you,’ Catherine answered warmly. ‘Roland has had a heavy cold, but he’s no longer infectious.’

‘Is he up to visitors?’ Leyne asked doubtfully. While sympathising with Roland, she was not wanting her niece to catch his cold, albeit Pip had not suffered an asthma attack in an absolute age.

‘You probably won’t see him. You know how it is—well, perhaps you don’t—but while women have colds, men, as dear as they are, have flu. Roland may say hello, then go and rest.’

‘Fancy going to see Nanna?’ Leyne asked Pip, and saw the lovely dark-haired child’s eyes light up.

‘It’s ages, simply ages, since I last saw Suzie!’ she exclaimed of Roland Webb’s Labrador dog.

Suzie came in handy, in as much as while Pip played in the large garden with the dog, it gave Leyne the chance to have a private conversation with her mother. Roland had heroically made it to his feet to greet them when they arrived, but, as her mother had hinted he might, had retired for a ‘lie-down’.

‘Er—Mum,’ Leyne said, after some minutes of wondering which way to bring up a subject that had an unspoken taboo attached.

Leyne’s pensive expression was not lost on Catherine Webb. ‘This sounds serious?’ she observed.

Leyne looked at her still beautiful fifty-six-year-old parent and knew that there was only one way to say this. ‘Pip wants to know who her father is,’ she stated, but the minute the words were out she saw her mother mentally strapping on armour to defend her firstborn.

‘Maxine intends to tell her when she’s old enough,’ her mother answered, a touch stiffly.