the unhappiness and trauma of her own marriage, her mother had never tried to put her off getting married herself, Cathy acknowledged. Not that it would have done much good. She had fallen in love with Stuart virtually the moment she had seen him, and he with her, so he had told her later.
‘What’s wrong?’ Abbie asked her daughter, pushing away her papers and turning to look up at her.
‘I know you’re not going to believe this,’ Cathy responded nervously. ‘But…I think…I think…’ She looked down and started fidgeting with the laces on her boots. ‘I think I…’
‘Yes, go on…you think what?’ Abbie encouraged her wryly.
‘I think I saw Dad today…’
As she finished speaking she looked up warily to meet her mother’s eyes.
The shock was rather like believing you were crossing a completely empty road and then suddenly realising there was a ten-ton truck bearing down on you at high speed, Abbie recognised, and she felt her body’s adrenalin system surge to fight off the blow she had just been dealt.
‘You’re right,’ she agreed flatly, when she thought she had her voice under control. ‘I don’t believe you. Cathy, It’s impossible for your father to be here,’ she added more gently, when she saw her daughter turn her head away and bite her lip. ‘Your father is in Australia. He emigrated there just after…just after you were born, and there’s no reason—’ She stopped.
But Cathy picked up her unfinished sentence for her and supplied harshly, ‘There’s no reason for what? No reason for him to come back? No reason for him to want to see me…to know me…?’
Abbie could feel the lump forming in her throat. It hurt her unbearably that she who had learned to be so tough and protective of her child, who had thought she had done so well in making herself independent, in supporting them both, in giving her precious little girl all the love and security she could, had still somehow failed her.
She knew what it was, of course. Now that Cathy and Stuart were planning to get married, now that she had seen at first hand how Stuart’s happily married parents related to one another, now that she was no doubt thinking of the future, and the children she would have herself, her natural curiosity about her father had risen to the surface of her consciousness. It was making her more curious about him, making her want to know more about him and no doubt making her wish that he felt the same way about her.
When Cathy had still been a small baby, Abbie had made a vow that she would always be honest with her about her father, that she would never lie to her about him or what he had done, but that at the same time she would do her best to protect her from the hurt she was bound to suffer once she was old enough to understand the truth.
And she had stuck by that vow, even though at times it had been very hard, and of course the older Cathy had got, the more aware, the harder it had been to protect her from what Abbie knew her daughter’s own intelligence and emotions must tell her about her father.
How could she…how could anyone protect a child from the pain of knowing that its father didn’t want it? She had done her best to make it up to Cathy, and she had been so proud when people commented on how well adjusted, how happy her daughter always seemed, but now she was wondering if she had congratulated herself too soon.
Because of that, because of her fear that she might not have been enough, that Cathy might still yearn for the father she had never had, she was less understanding and gentle with her than she might otherwise have been, telling her almost harshly, ‘Forget about your father, Cathy. He doesn’t have any place in your life. He never has had. I understand how you feel, but—’
‘No, you don’t. How can you?’ Cathy interrupted her passionately. ‘How can you understand?’ she repeated, tears filling her eyes. ‘Gran and Gramps love you. Gramps never, ever turned round and told Gran that you weren’t his child, that he didn’t want you… You never went to school and listened to all the other children talking about their fathers. You didn’t have to walk down the aisle without—’ Cathy broke off and whispered apologetically, ‘I’m sorry, Mum…I didn’t mean…I know it’s not your fault…it’s just…’
Abbie slid off her chair. With Cathy perched on her desk and her standing on her feet they were almost the same height. She wrapped her arms around her daughter, holding her close, comforting her just as she had done when she was a little girl, and for what felt like the hundred-millionth time she silently cursed the man who had brought them so much unhappiness.
Sam come back…? He wouldn’t dare…Not after what he had done. She had made it more than plain to him the last time she’d seen him that henceforward she wanted nothing more to do with him, that he could keep his name, his money, his house and every other damn thing he had ever given her…except for his child. The child he had refused to accept could be his, the child she was claiming for herself and whom she would never, ever allow him to see again.
He had accused her of having sex with someone else, of conceiving her child with another man; had even had the gall to blame poor Lloyd. Lloyd, who would never…
He had started to say something else to her but she hadn’t let him finish, pushing past him and preparing to walk out of the house she had shared with him for such a brief period of time.
That had been just after she had learnt she was pregnant, and she hadn’t seen him since.
Abbie gave a pleased smile as she totted up the final column of figures some time later and closed the account book, placing it on top of the pile of other papers she had prepared for her accountants.
She knew how dubious several of her friends had been all those years ago—ten years ago—when she had announced that she was going to set up her own employment agency, but after fifteen years of experience of working in the hotel and catering trade, doing everything from waitressing and chambermaiding right through to being asked to take responsibility for organising a conference, she had learned enough to take such a big step and, more importantly, in her mind at least, she had the contacts on both sides of the business to succeed.
And she had been proved right; some of the staff who had been with her at the very start were still on her books. Her reputation had been passed by word of mouth to others. Along with her honesty and her loyalty to her staff, she was known never to supply staff to anyone she felt would abuse their position of authority over them in any way.
Her rates of pay were good and she explained firmly to anyone who quibbled about the amount she charged that she supplied the best and paid them accordingly. Abbie could supply catering staff right across the range, from a butler to lend gravitas to a formal private affair to a French chef to step in at the last minute and provide a buffet for five hundred people at an important convention, and everything in between.
Cathy, just as soon as she herself had been old enough, had been encouraged to earn her own extra pocket money by waiting at tables and serving behind a bar, just as her mother had once done. It didn’t matter that once her daughter was at university Abbie could quite easily have afforded to supplement her grant very generously indeed; she’d wanted Cathy to have the independence and pride of knowing she could earn something for herself—just so long as her part-time work didn’t detract from her studies, of course.
Abbie’s own parents had offered to help her when her marriage had fallen apart, and had even begged her to move back home with them, but she had stubbornly insisted on supporting herself and now she was glad that she had done so, that she had made an independent life for herself
