The Second Child Read online

  The Second Child

  What does it take to make a family?

  And what does it take to break it?

  Why do you love your child? Is it because they’re a straight A student, a talented footballer? Or is it simply because they’re yours?

  Sarah and Phil love both their children, James and Lauren. The couple have the same hopes and aspirations as any parent. But their expectations are shattered when they discover that their perfect baby daughter has been born with a flaw; a tiny, but life-changing glitch that is destined to shape her future, and theirs, irrevocably.

  Over time the family learn to adapt and even thrive. Then one day a blood test casts doubt on the very basis of their family. Lauren is not Phil’s child. Suddenly, their precious family is on the brink of destruction.

  But the truth they face is far more complex and challenging than simple infidelity. It tests their capacity to love, each other and their children, and it raises the question of what makes – and what breaks – a family.

  CAROLINE BOND was born in Scarborough and studied English at Oxford University before working as a market researcher for 25 years. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Leeds Trinity University, and lives in Leeds with her husband and three children.

  A note to reviewers: please remember that this proof is uncorrected and changes may be made before the book is printed. If any material from the book is to be quoted in a review, please check it against the text in the final bound edition, which will be sent to you when it becomes available.

  First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2018 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

  Copyright © Caroline Bond, 2018

  The moral right of Caroline Bond to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is

  available from the British Library.

  Hardback ISBN: 978 1 78649 334 7

  Trade paperback ISBN: 978 1 78649 335 4

  E-Book ISBN: 978 1 78649 337 8

  Printed in Great Britain

  Corvus

  An Imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

  Ormond House

  26–27 Boswell Street

  London

  WC1N 3JZ

  www.corvus-books.co.uk

  The Second Child

  1

  The Results

  SARAH

  OUR DESTINATION is a nondescript waiting room located in the far corner of the hospital. A cul-de-sac tucked far away from the normal, noisy traffic of the wards and clinics. It’s an appro-priate location. The Genetics Department rarely sees patients; for us they’ve made an exception.

  There’s no one around to welcome us, just a series of blank doors facing onto a small waiting area. There are windows, but they’re too high up to see out of. Two flickery fluorescent tubes make up for the lack of natural daylight. There’s a water dispenser and a single row of grubby, wipe-clean vinyl chairs. They’re empty. No one else is in our predicament.

  We’re early for our appointment, desperate for an end to the hiatus of the past ten days, but now we’re here I’m gripped by the desire to run away. I can’t settle. I pace. Nine steps to the wall and turn. Nine steps and turn.

  Phil is immobile. He sits, hunched forward, staring at his shoes, utterly still and unreachable. It’s his way of coping. He’s trying to protect himself from what’s happening, but he can’t. He hasn’t looked me squarely in the face for days, but I’ve caught his oblique glances when I’ve been busy doing something or when he thought I was reading or sleeping. I’ve seen his confusion and hurt and, beneath that, his doubts – doubts that I’ve been unable to assuage. How can I explain the inexplicable? How can I defend myself against an accusation that he can’t bring himself to level against me? Instead of talking things through, sharing our fears, we’ve retreated into our respective corners and waited for today, and for the results.

  Nine steps and turn.

  Phil keeps his head bowed as if he’s praying, but I know he’s not; the only faith he has is ‘us’ and that’s been called into question. Besides, it’s not prayer that’s going to save our marriage, it’s science.

  The scuffed door with the black name-plaque, outside which we wait, is closed. On the other side of the door is Mr Stephen Berill. PhD, CSU Lead Clinician, Department of Clinical Genetics. Mr Berill knows our future because he has looked into our past. He knows and we do not. So we must wait. We must bear the corrosive ignorance for a few minutes more.

  Nine steps and turn.

  The distant sounds of the hospital leak around the corner.

  Phil does not look up.

  Nine steps and turn.

  At last the door opens and a smart woman in her fifties emerges. Her voice booms around the tiny, spartan waiting room. ‘Good morning. Maria Tharby. We spoke on the phone.’ She extends her hand, first to me, then to Phil. Brisk, smiling. ‘Please, come through.’ Like obedient children we follow her into the room. ‘Stephen. Mr and Mrs Rudak are here.’ A tall man steps out from behind his desk. His hand is papery-dry in mine. He says ‘hello’ in a soft Scottish voice, then falls silent, letting the woman do all the talking, and she is still talking. ‘I know this must seem unnecessarily pedantic, but could I just check: you have brought the documents with you, haven’t you?’ I nod. For a second her sparkly tone falters. ‘I’m sorry, but may I see them.’

  ‘Yes, sorry, of course.’ I fumble the envelope out of my bag and pass it to her.

  ‘Please, take a seat.’ We do as instructed and she talks some more. ‘As I explained on the phone, I’m afraid I have to repeat the identity checks again today. Overkill, I know, but the data-protection guidelines – as you can imagine… in the circumstances…’ She flutters her hand through the air as if to sum up the complexity of it all, but when her eyes meet the blankness of mine she subsides back to her task. She pulls our documents out of the envelope and begins to go through them. ‘Passports and birth certificates, excellent. If you can bear with me, just a moment, while I take down the details, then I promise we’ll get under way.’

  Phil and I have no choice but to sit there while she laboriously records whatever it is she needs to record onto her set of official forms. She starts with Lauren’s passport, cracking open the cover and turning to the photo pages at the back. Lauren, at ten, round-faced and unsmiling. The main colour image is as clear as my memory, the duplicate image, on the facing page, faded and recessive, like a child from the past. I hold myself still as the silty anxiety in my stomach churns.

  ‘You’ll be needing a new one for her soon.’ Ms Tharby chatters away as she transcribes the dates and serial numbers. ‘And her birth certificate… Ah, here it is. Oh…’ she separates the sheets of paper with a moistened fingertip, ‘you seem to have brought your son’s along as well. I’ve no need for his, thank you.’ She hands it back to me. ‘Now, just yourself and Philip’s details, and we’ll be finished.’ Phil stares at her, in disbelief. I stare past her, at Mr Berill. He has gone back to work, immune to Ms Tharby’s brittle prattle and to our presence: glasses on, head down, his attention totally focused on the lab repor
t on the desk in front of him. In his hands Mr Berill holds the fragile skeins that bind our family together. I watch him, unable to discern our fate.

  PHIL

  The administrator woman seems incapable of shutting up. On and on she rambles. I stare at her and concentrate on thinking… nothing. It’s more difficult than it sounds. It’s been a struggle to keep control of the tight coil of possibilities that has been wedged in my gut for the past ten days, but somehow I’ve managed it. The alternative is unbearable. Sarah and I do not lie to each other, we have never lied to each other; she would not lie to me, not about this. So that’s what I’ve chosen to think – nothing, because nothing is far less frightening than the alternative. I resolutely refuse to start chasing nightmares until we know, for definite, what the tests say. It’s hard work. I focus on the pressure in my spine and wait for the bloody woman to shut up.

  ‘All done,’ she eventually trills, gathering together her forms with officious zeal. She glances at the consultant, transferring the power to him, then withdraws to a chair at the back of the room. Her job done. We turn our attention to Mr Berill. He removes his glasses and composes himself. When he finally speaks his voice is low and calm. ‘First of all, I want to apologise for the length of time this has taken, it must have been very difficult for you. It was a consequence of the initial problems in obtaining your daughter’s samples and the resultant delay in them coming through to the lab. Our sincere apologies for that. Thank you for your patience. We also wanted to be absolutely confident in our reading of the results.’

  ‘And are you?’ Sarah asks.

  ‘Yes.’ He slides his finger under the top cover of the file and flips it open. ‘The results have been checked, very thoroughly, and we’ve run a number of extra screens, above the usual PCR and RFLP approaches, due to the result.’ Sarah edges forward on her seat. I stare at his downturned face, wanting to shake the answer out of him. ‘We were obviously tasked to establish Lauren’s paternity, but I’m afraid we were unable to do that.’ Sarah makes an inarticulate noise. I taste ash in my mouth. ‘What we’ve found is very unexpected.’ He hesitates and picks up his glasses again, twisting the frame between his fingers. ‘The tests… all the tests we ran… confirm, unequivocally, that Lauren is not your biological child.’

  ‘That can’t be!’ Defiance from Sarah, absolute defiance.

  The nightmares I’ve kept buried scream free. Sarah lied.

  ‘Please, Mrs Rudak, you must hear me out.’ Mr Berill has to raise his voice to overcome Sarah’s furious denials.

  ‘But it’s not true. I—’

  He cuts her off. ‘Mrs Rudak! Please! It’s very important that you both hear me out.’ He waits for silence, and in the gap I start to mourn. He starts speaking again, insistent, slow, clear words. ‘What I mean is: she is neither your child, Phil, nor is she yours, Sarah. Lauren shares no DNA with either of you.’ One beat, two beats. The blood still flows through my heart, oxygen must still be reaching my brain, for his soft, educated, authoritative voice still gets through. ‘You both scored zero per cent on “probability of parentage”.’ He waits, letting what he’s just said seep in. ‘We’ve already looked into a possible chimera situation, but we’ve discounted that.’ I concentrate very hard on listening to one word after another. ‘I’m sorry, but to clarify: the test results categorically confirm that Lauren is not your biological daughter.’ He looks from me to Sarah. ‘I’m so very sorry. I can only try to imagine the shock you must be feeling.’

  It feels like a car crash. I ricochet from one soul-jarring impact headlong into another, leaving me stupid with shock. ‘What’re you talking about? How can she not be ours? I don’t get it.’

  The woman lamely chips in, ‘We appreciate that this must be a dreadful shock.’

  ‘No, I don’t get it. How is that possible?’ My voice is shaking.

  Mr Berill draws a deep breath. ‘That I don’t know; all I can do today is go through the results with you.’ He gestures at the papers in the file. ‘I can explain the processes we’ve used, but I’m afraid the conclusive finding is that Lauren is not your biological child.’ The sound of Sarah’s chair being pushed back draws our attention. She curls forward in her seat and wraps her arms around her knees, a tight curve of misery. ‘Mrs Rudak, are you all right?’ Mr Berill makes a move to come out from behind his desk, but I stop him.

  Sarah is my wife. Sarah did not lie. Sarah has never lied to me. I kneel down beside her and tentatively place my hand on her back. ‘Sarah?’ I need her to come back to me. I need to tell her that I’m so sorry I ever doubted her. I need to get through to her, to comfort her. I need her. But she doesn’t unlock. I keep my hand there, touching her, pressing my fingers gently into the soft fabric of her jumper, trying to reach her. Eventually I feel her lean her weight back into me as she unfurls upright to face him and, in a voice that sounds unnaturally normal, she says, ‘Are you telling me we have another daughter out there somewhere?’

  And we crash and ricochet again.

  2

  Like Normal

  SARAH

  AN HOUR and a half later we’re home. It’s like waking abruptly from a nightmare, disorientating and disconcerting. My body’s still coursing with adrenaline, making me feel trapped and breathless, and yet we are resolutely back in the world of the mundane. Phil opens the porch door and moves aside to let me through, and for a split second I’m struck by the urge to step backwards, not forwards, but one of us has to break the seal on the house. We’re being ridiculous. This is our home. It’s the same, slightly over-stuffed mid-terrace with the chipped-paint front door that we stepped out of this morning. There’s the same pile of shoes in the porch and the same tangle of jackets on the newel post. There’s still only one slice of the bread left in the bread bin, the thick crusty end that no one will eat, not even as toast; and I still need to go shopping, take the washing out of the machine, change Lauren’s bed and check my emails. But it’s the very normality of it that’s the problem. The house hasn’t changed, but we have. Phil puts his hand to the small of my back and the contact propels me forward. We step inside. He pauses in the middle of the hallway, the keys in his hand.

  ‘Tea?’ I ask.

  He looks at me, taking far too long to respond. ‘No.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Just after two p.m.’ I know what he’s asking. He’s calculating how long we have until Lauren arrives home. It’s not long. We have exactly two hours and fifteen minutes before our daughter – who they say is not our daughter – returns. I reach out and take the keys from him and dump them in the bowl on the side. We stand, stranded, in the hall.

  ‘Sarah?’ He reaches out and pulls me to him and we cling to each other, wordlessly, for a few seconds. It’s me that breaks us apart.

  ‘Come on.’ He follows me through to the kitchen and waits while I unlock the back door. I shove it open with my hip, it always sticks, and we step out into the garden, leaving the pressure of the house behind.

  It’s a relief to be outside after the stale, closed-off atmosphere in the hospital. We sit on the bench and breathe fresh, soft air into our lungs. A cloud of midges swirls in the sunlight threading through the branches of the apple tree and somewhere, a few gardens over, a radio cuts the quiet. The burn in my throat eventually eases enough for me to speak. This isn’t about me and Phil any more, we’ll heal; this is about us, as a family. We have to start thinking about James and Lauren. ‘I don’t think we should say anything yet. Not until we’ve had time to… think.’

  Phil nods, but after a second he says, ‘But it’s going to kick off. From what that woman said, an army of bloody professionals is going to descend on us, now that they’ve confirmed she’s not ours.’ He sees me flinch.

  ‘She is ours.’

  ‘I know, but… legally.’

  ‘Phil, don’t. I can’t bear to think like that. I know what the biology says, but that doesn’t change Lauren being our daughter.’r />
  He shifts around to face me. ‘So what do we do? We can’t just pretend that everything is normal.’

  ‘Can’t we?’

  We fall silent, thinking about the impossibility of the next few hours, the next few days, the rest of our lives. The pain returns and the fear, but not the panic, because I know we can survive this, navigate a way through it, as long as we’re together, counterbalancing each other, keeping each other in shape. We’ve had twenty years of this yin and yang: his pragmatism framing my emotion, his impulsiveness balanced by my caution… both of us always, ultimately, brought together by what’s best for the kids. And that’s precisely what I think we need to do now: what’s ‘best’ for them. We have to absorb the shock and dilute its power, before we unleash it inside our family. ‘Just for tonight. Please, Phil. Besides, what are we going to say?’

  Phil leans back and tilts his face up to the sky. The radio contributes something loud, rappy and completely inappropriate to the moment as he thinks. ‘Okay… until we know how we’re going to handle it, we’ll say nothing, but tomorrow…’

  ‘I know.’ The enormity of it is overwhelming. It’s also hard to countenance sitting in our small, sheltered back garden.

  ‘Are you okay?’ He takes my hand and holds it lightly. I can feel his pulse through his fingertips.

  I nod; it’s an obvious but necessary lie. We both look back at our solid, slightly scruffy house. Everything appears so calm and ordinary. Eventually I say, ‘I need to get something in for tea.’ And with that, we pick up the worn-smooth threads of our daily routines.

  We are both fully back in role by the time James thumps into the house after college. I’m prepping veg for our evening meal and Phil’s working on his laptop. James heads straight to the bread bin, now replenished with a toastie loaf and a pack of bagels. ‘Can I have two?’ He’s already ripping open the packet. ‘Oh, hi.’ This to his dad, a rare sight this early in the day. ‘Why are you here?’