found attractive in good-for-nothing fly-by-nights like that slimy Frenchman Dr Henri. Forget Doctors Without Borders. Michel Henri was a Doctor Without Scruples, and he’d hurt poor Miss Crewe badly.
‘You should have dinner with my friend Gustav,’ Pete told Tish.
‘Oh, I don’t know, Pete …’
‘Yes, yes, you must,’ Pete insisted. ‘Lovely young man, from a very nice family in Munich. Just started working for us. Brilliant with computers,’ he added, with a wink that made Tish wonder if this was intended as some sort of double entendre. Except that Pete Klein didn’t do double entendres. He did earnest and avuncular and kind.
So, ‘too nice’ to say no, Tish dutifully had dinner with ‘lovely young Gustav’, who was indeed brilliant with computers; though not quite so brilliant at either conversation or romance, judging by his clumsily attempted lunge in the back of the taxi after dinner, reeking of garlic sausage and cheap aftershave.
‘What are you doing?’ said Tish, squirming away from him.
Gustav looked aggrieved. ‘I thought you were single?’ he accused her.
‘I am,’ stammered Tish.
‘Well, what’s the problem then?’ demanded Gustav. ‘Everyone knows the only reason singles come out on these voluntary do-gooder vacations is for the sex. I mean, come on! We’re not in Romania for the scenery, are we?’
That much, at least, was true. Tish was not in Romania for the scenery. But why was she still here, really? Tish was the most English person she knew and she missed home dreadfully. Not a day went by when she didn’t stare unseeingly out of her car window at the bleak Romanian landscape, daydreaming about hedgerows and Marmite and EastEnders. It didn’t get any easier. She told herself she was here for the children – both the sixteen she’d been able to permanently rescue from institutions and bring to the bright, cheerful, family-run home she’d built just outside Oradea; and for the hundreds of others she was forced to leave behind, but whom she and her staff visited regularly in their hospitals. But, gazing at Michel’s strong, warm hands now as he changed a little boy’s dressing, remembering the feel of them on her skin, part of her knew that she was also staying for him.
Tish was doing what all the books said you should never do. She was waiting. Hoping, praying that eventually Michel would see the light and realize that the two of them were meant to be together. He’d make a wonderful father for Abel. So noble. So dedicated …
‘Tish!’ Carl, one of her co-workers, was tapping Tish forcefully on the shoulder. ‘Did you hear me?’
‘Hmmm?’ She blushed. ‘Sorry. I was, erm … distracted.’
‘There’s a problem back at Curcubeu, Carl repeated patiently. Curcubeu was the name of Tish’s children’s home. It meant ‘rainbow’ in Romanian. ‘Child services just showed up on the doorstep. They’re saying Sile hasn’t got all his releases signed.’
‘But that’s ridiculous. Of course the releases are signed. I picked up his paperwork myself.’
‘Whatever, they reckon he needs something else. They tried to seize him on the spot.’
‘What?’ Tish placed the sleeping baby back in her crib. Sile was an adorable, curly-haired two-year-old boy, the latest addition to her happy brood at Curcubeu. He’d only been with them a week and already child services were kicking up a fuss, no doubt hoping for yet another backhander. ‘How dare they!’ she seethed. ‘They have no authority.’
‘Yes, well, don’t worry,’ said Carl. ‘Lucio didn’t let them in the door. But they’ll be back in the morning with a warrant. We need to get it sorted, today.’
Damn, thought Tish. She’d really wanted to talk to Michel today, to get his advice. Yesterday, she’d received a letter, rather a distressing letter, from home. The letter meant that she might need to leave Romania, at least for a while, an idea that filled her with such a conflicting mix of emotions that she’d barely been able to string a sentence together since she read it.
Michel will know what to do, she thought. He’s always so level-headed. But now there’d be no time to consult him. By the time she’d sorted out this bullshit with Sile and child services, she’d have to race home in time to put Abel to bed, and Michel would already have left for Paris. He was flying home for the weekend to attend his sister’s wedding. Maybe once he sees her in a white dress, making that commitment, sees how happy and glowing she is …
‘Tish?’
‘Yes. Sorry. I’m coming.’ Tish reluctantly switched off the fantasy. ‘Go down and start the car. I’ll explain what’s happened to the nurses and meet you downstairs in five.’
The rest of the day passed in a blur of frenetic activity and stress, with Tish and Carl breaking every speed limit in the book in Tish’s ancient Fiat Punto, tearing from one government agency to the next in an effort to prove their legal guardianship of little Sile. Two bribes, a phone call to the British Consulate and countless vicious screaming matches later – Romanian Child Services did not consider Letitia Crewe to be ‘too nice’; as far as they were concerned, she was a bolshy, strident, harridan who’d been a thorn in their side since the day she set foot in the country – the matter was at last resolved. ‘For now,’ the Child Protection Officer warned Tish sternly.
As if we’re any bloody threat to him, Tish thought furiously as she finally started the drive back to her flat in the city. As if anyone on God’s earth gave a crap about that little boy until we took him in. Sometimes, most of the time, her work was so frustrating it made her want to scream. The Romanian government were like dinosaurs, terrified of change, resentful of any ‘outsider’ who wanted to help. As if any of the foreign NGOs wanted to be there. Don’t you think we’d love it if you sorted out your own bloody country and took care of your own kids, so we could all go home?
Home.
The word had been turning over and over in Tish’s mind all day. She would have to make a decision soon, tomorrow probably, and start making some concrete plans. She’d wanted Michel’s advice today, but deep down she already knew what he would have told her. Go. Go home and do what you need to do. There was no other way.
Home for Tish was Loxley Hall, an idyllic Elizabethan pile in the heart of Derbyshire’s glorious Hope Valley. Much smaller than neighbouring Chatsworth, but widely considered more beautiful, Loxley had been the ancestral seat of the Crewe family for over eight generations. Growing up there as a little girl, Tish had never noticed the house’s grandeur, not least because behind the intricately carved, exterior with its stone mullioned windows and fairytale turrets, the family actually lived in a distinctly down-at-heel ‘apartment’ of seven, shabby rooms, and not in the immaculately preserved ballrooms and dining halls that the public saw. What Tish was aware of, however, was Loxley’s magic. The beauty of her grounds, with their ancient clipped yew hedges, endless expanses of lawn and deer-covered parkland beyond, punctuated by vast, four-hundred-year-old oaks. At the front of the house, beneath a crumbling medieval stone bridge, the river Derwent burbled sleepily, little more than a stream in the narrow part of the valley. As a child, Tish would sit on the bridge for hours, legs dangling, playing Poohsticks with herself or watching hopefully for an otter to make a thrilling, sleek-headed appearance. Her older brother Jago had never shared her fascination with the river, nor her romantic belief in Loxley Hall as some sort of magical kingdom. Mostly, Tish remembered him as rather distant and aloof (‘sensitive’, their mother called him), always playing inside with his computer games or his older, sophisticated
