‘I am so thrilled for you both,’ she said. ‘It’s the most wonderful news. I love you, darling, and you’ll be the most incredible mother.’
‘Thank you.’ It was like a magic cloth had rubbed away the anger from her daughter’s face and now Beth looked serenely happy.
She’d been the same as a child: able to flick a switch between her passions. It was what made Beth so different from her mother. Beth’s moods changed like quicksilver and Anneliese had always envied that ability. It was as if Beth’s mind said, ‘OK, that’s horrible stuff, let’s not deal with that now, let’s deal with something nice.’
‘Marcus, I’m thrilled for you both,’ Anneliese said and she put her arms round Beth, willing herself not to faint. She would have a grandchild, how wonderful that would be. But the pain and the ache was still there, because there was a fault line in her relationship with Beth, and that was horrific. Beth blamed her for everything, and in her fury hadn’t even acknowledged the pain Anneliese must be going through. The love of a beautiful new baby couldn’t mend that, surely?
‘Thank you, Anneliese,’ Marcus said proudly. ‘It’s wonderful, but scary too!’
‘It’s taken me quite a while to get pregnant. We were trying for well nearly a year and then just when we thought we better get some help, it happened! We had a scan – I’ve pictures here,’ Beth said.
The proud parents-to-be crowded round and they looked at the scan. Anneliese kept her arm around Beth and tentatively touched her daughter’s gently budding belly. There was no kick from her future grandchild in there, and she thought of how often she’d longed for this news. How ironic that it had to come today of all days.
Yet she was happy to think that her daughter would experience that great mother-child love that she’d had. Except, they never told you, when your baby was little, that it could bring such heartbreak too.
‘I’m so sorry, darling,’ she said, a lifetime of suppressing her own needs allowing her to do so again. ‘I’m sorry that you had to find out about me and your dad today, but let’s just forget about that, that’s not important: this is important –’ she touched Beth’s belly again ‘– this new life. I am so happy, let’s focus on that. Maybe your dad and I are better off apart, who knows?’ There, she was doing it again, making everything nice and safe and sanitised for Beth. And Beth seemed to like it.
‘I hope you’re right, Mum,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand what’s going on in Dad’s head –’ She stopped. ‘We don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want. I’m sorry I shouted at you. It’s just that what with Lily and now this…I wanted everything to be perfect when I told you about the baby.’
‘Forget everything else,’ Anneliese insisted. ‘It will all work out in its own good time. Your news is what matters now.’
Beth grinned. ‘It’s so exciting. Will you come and stay with us when the baby’s born? Because it’s going to be difficult, and you know I don’t know anything about babies. I was saying to some of my friends that they’re lucky to have older sisters and brothers so they have nieces and nephews. But being an only child, well, I don’t have that experience. I suppose I’ll learn!’ she laughed. ‘I was thinking that it’s going to be hard to tell Izzie,’ Beth went on, ‘because, well, I never really knew if she wanted kids or not and there’s nobody special in her life, so –’ She broke off and sighed. ‘I sort of thought there was someone. She referred to a guy in emails, but she sounded a bit vague about him so I didn’t like to pry.’
‘She hasn’t told me about anyone,’ Anneliese said, surprised. She and Izzie spoke a lot. But then, she hadn’t been on the phone filling Izzie in with her own life-changing details, had she?
‘She was probably afraid to tell you and Gran, because you’d be planning the wedding as soon as you heard and, well, it doesn’t work like that nowadays,’ Beth said wryly.
Yes, Anneliese thought grimly, that’s me – poster girl for marriage.
Once she’d started talking about the pregnancy, Beth kept going. Marcus took their bags upstairs to the spare room and got his wife some water, while she told her mother how she felt tired at night, how she hadn’t really had morning sickness but the nausea had been quite intense, although it was improving now. And she’d developed a burst of energy the past week. Some people found that after the first trimester, she explained.
‘You sound so knowledgeable,’ Anneliese smiled. ‘You must have been reading loads.’
‘Yes, tons. Actually, last night, I was reading a baby magazine and it mentioned this new book about the first year with your baby. I’d love to get it,’ Beth said. ‘Maybe we could try the bookshop here?’
‘Of course,’ Anneliese said. ‘I’ll just run upstairs and brush my hair.’
In her bedroom, she found the tranquillisers and took another one. Right now, she needed some help, and since divine inspiration seemed to be in short supply, medical inspiration would have to do.
After they’d bought a couple of books – Anneliese paid – the three of them went down to Dorota’s and drank herbal tea, looking out over the bay. There was no fear of meeting Nell or Edward now, Anneliese decided. Nell wouldn’t dream of turning up, and even if Edward did, she could cope with him, thanks to both her little tablet and the presence of Beth and Marcus.
After a while, Marcus went back up to the counter to order more tea.
‘How are you feeling?’ Beth asked, taking her mother’s hand and patting it.
Anneliese smiled at her pregnant daughter.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she lied.
‘Dad says there’s a whale stuck out there in the harbour,’ said Beth idly when her husband came back. ‘Poor thing, how does that happen? Do they get lost or something?’
‘Nobody knows for sure,’ her mother replied, looking out at the sea. It was such a beautiful, clear day, but there were volcanic-looking dark clouds over to the right on the horizon, a summer storm coming in. ‘There’s a marine expert here and apparently he says it’s something to do with the whale’s sonar getting messed up. They get stuck and then they can’t get out again. Quite often they die.’
‘How long has the whale been here?’
‘Nearly two weeks, I don’t think she’s going to last much longer. They say she’s weak.’
‘Oh, poor whale,’ said Beth. ‘Why can’t they just put her to sleep, or does that not work?’
‘I think they can do that if the whale is actually beached, but here, she isn’t and it would cause her even more distress if they tried to get close.’
‘Oh,’ sighed Beth.
‘They tried to coax her out into deeper water with a diving team, but it was a long shot and it didn’t work.’
Anneliese had watched the rescue operation from the high point between the two bays. Lots of people had been there in the harbour, silently watching and willing the plan to work.
Anneliese had brought her binoculars and she’d spotted the marine guy, Mac Petersen, in the middle of it all. Now that she knew who he was, she realised she had seen him before on the beach near Dolphin Cottage. He had a small boat, a corach like the old island fishermen used to use, and he went out to sea in it occasionally. He had a dog too, a woolly scruffy thing that was just the sort of dog he ought to own, and she’d seen him on the beach with it.
When she saw him on the beach, she went the other way. She didn’t have what it took to be polite to strangers any more.
Thanks to her binoculars, she’d seen his head hang low on his chest when the rescue plan had failed, and she felt a pang of sorrow at having been so nasty to him the time they’d