Ralph’s Children Read Online Free PDF Page B

Dad.’
    ‘Emotional blackmail,’ her father said. ‘Bit beneath you.’
    ‘Sometimes,’ Kate said, ‘that just can’t be helped.’
    ‘Rob must be very relieved about your decision,’ Michael said after she’d told them. It was warm for April, and they were sitting out in the cottage’s
back garden, using the teak table and chairs that Kate and Rob had bought last summer, sitting beneath an apple tree on the grass that, in growing season, Rob liked to mow once a fortnight.
    ‘He doesn’t know,’ Kate had said.
    ‘When are you going to tell him?’ Bel had asked.
    ‘I’m not certain that I’m going to,’ Kate answered.
    ‘You’re not serious?’ Her father had been shocked.
    ‘I’m not sure I blame her,’ Bel said, ‘in the circumstances.’
    ‘It’s just so unlike him,’ Michael said.
    ‘Are you implying any of this is Kate’s fault?’ Bel demanded.
    ‘Of course not,’ Michael said. ‘But I think Rob’s probably grieving right now because he may believe your child’s already gone. His, too, remember?’ He took
in Kate’s pale, weary face, wanted to stop, but pushed on. ‘I just can’t imagine you think it’s fair to punish him by keeping the truth from him.’
    Kate had telephoned Rob as soon as they’d left.
    Before she had time to change her mind.
    The relief in his voice was plain to hear.
    ‘How’s Emmie?’ Kate had asked.
    ‘Beautiful.’ Rob had paused. ‘Kate, I want to come home.’
    She felt suddenly unable to respond.
    ‘If it’s all right with you,’ Rob said.
    Kate heard the uncertainty and neediness in his voice.
    Yet he had emotionally abandoned her at exactly the moment when she had most needed him, had totally shut down on her. She remembered his obduracy, the hardness of his eyes. Remembered him
packing. Leaving.
    ‘I’m not sure,’ she said, surprising herself.
    ‘I see,’ Rob said.
    A world of disappointment in his voice.
    ‘No,’ Kate had said. ‘I don’t think you really do.’
    The miscarriage had happened swiftly and agonizingly a fortnight later, and she had gone through the nightmare alone, refusing to let the hospital call anyone. And afterwards,
when she had told her parents and they’d come together to the Royal Berkshire, she had made them promise not to telephone Rob.
    ‘But you have to tell him,’ Michael said.
    ‘And have him feel obligated to come and see me?’
    She’d felt so vulnerable in her hospital gown, emptied out, her thoughts muddled, grief ebbing and flowing, half submerged by medication, corrosive anger seeming to surface more readily,
its first target the husband who had wanted their child more than his wife.
    ‘He’ll want to come,’ Michael had said. ‘Of course he will.’
    ‘Maybe,’ Kate said. ‘I’m not sure I want him.’
    ‘You’re going to need each other, Kate,’ Bel had told her gently.
    ‘I’ll tell him when I’m ready,’ she said.
    Sandi West, her mother’s friend, came to see her two days later, at the cottage.
    The last person in the world Kate wanted to see.
    She wore a limp-looking raincoat, carried her walking stick and a brown paper bag, which she thrust into Kate’s hand.
    ‘Grapes,’ she said. ‘People sneer, I know, but healthy all the same.’
    Rage filled Kate, at her mother for confiding in this woman, of all people.
    ‘You look tired.’ Sandi took a critical look. ‘But not too bad, considering.’
    ‘I wish,’ Kate said, ‘Mum hadn’t told you.’
    ‘Your mother tells me most things.’ Sandi leant on her walking stick. ‘Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?’
    ‘I’m actually very tired,’ Kate said. ‘I was about to have a sleep.’
    ‘You’re not an easy person to help, Kate, are you?’ said Sandi.
    ‘I don’t recall asking you for help,’ Kate said.
    Sandi gave a sigh, began to turn to the front door, then stopped. ‘I just wanted to say what I expect you’ll be too raw to believe right now.’
    ‘Time,’ Kate said, harshly.