I tried to forget about it and move on, but a few months later one of Tanya’s female friends – she didn’t say who she was – rang me while I was at work.
‘Tanya’s pregnant,’ she blurted out. ‘And you’re the father.’
‘And how on earth am I the father, then?’ I demanded. ‘Of course it’s not my bloody child. She’s just trying to mug me off.’
When I saw her next, as I was dropping Danny home the following weekend, she noticed my eyes wander down to her growing baby bump. I said I didn’t believe it was mine.
‘It is your baby,’ she shrugged. ‘You’ll see.’
The months passed and I carried on having Danny at the weekends, as usual. Then, on 3 June 1998, I got a call at work from one of Tanya’s friends to tell me that she had given birth to a baby girl. I thought it was nice that Danny would have a sister, but I still didn’t believe the baby was mine, even though she was born roughly nine months after Tanya and I’d had that one-night reunion.
The day after the birth, I drove Danny up to the Bristol Royal Infirmary so he could meet his little sister. Tanya had decided she was to be called Rebecca, Becky for short. Danny was excited about it, and I didn’t want him to miss out.
As we walked through the ward, Danny spotted Tanya and ran towards the cot where little Becky was sleeping.
‘Don’t wake her up!’ Tanya warned as he peered over the edge. I was proud of how quiet and gentle he was for a three-year-old. I could tell he instantly felt protective towards his baby sister.
‘Don’t you want to say hello to your daughter?’ Tanya asked me, and I sauntered over to the cot to have a better look.
Becky was a cute little thing, wrapped up tightly in a white blanket and with a little white cotton hat on her head. I didn’t want to fall in love but I simply couldn’t help myself. She was so adorable, I fell hook, line and sinker on the spot. It was overwhelming, just like the feeling I’d had when I first saw Danny. But was she mine, or was some other man going to come along and claim to be her dad? At that stage, I didn’t know.
Tanya took Becky home a few days later, and we went back to the routine of me having Danny each Friday to Sunday.
‘Why not take Becky as well?’ she asked one Friday night when Becky was three months old.
I was reluctant, as I didn’t want to spoil the time Danny and I spent together, but Tanya wouldn’t take no for an answer.
‘She is your daughter,’ she insisted. ‘You’re going to have to start looking after her sooner or later.’
‘We don’t know that she’s mine,’ I pointed out. ‘I’m not having her until I know the truth.’ I’d thought about getting a DNA test, but it was expensive and at that time I didn’t have the cash to spare.
Finally, Tanya said, ‘You’re not having Danny if you don’t take Becky too.’
She knew she would win with that. I was backed into a corner, with no choice other than to take little Becky home with me. I could remember all the routines from when Danny was a baby: getting up in the night to feed her from a bottle, bathing her carefully in a little baby bath, and dressing her in her tiny clothes. It was during these moments that I started to look at her more closely, and I noticed her hazel eyes were starting to look exactly the same as mine. I melted inside when she beamed up at me, and my stomach filled with butterflies whenever she reached out to grab my finger. I’ve always been a complete softie at heart, and Becky was winning me over more and more every time I saw her.
I was out one weekend with the kids, Danny holding my hand and Becky, who was six months old, in her pushchair, when I bumped into Anjie on Kingswood High Street. I felt flustered but Anjie’s face broke into a huge grin as soon as she saw me.
‘Darren! How are you? I haven’t seen you in ages!’ she said.
Suddenly, I got the same rush of electricity running through me as I’d had ten years previously, when we first met, and I felt tongue-tied. I’d caught glimpses of Anjie over the years while she was out and about in Bristol – usually with her little boy – but we’d never had the opportunity to chat properly.
‘Oh, you know – keeping busy,’ I forced myself to reply, gesturing at the kids.
‘They are very cute,’ she said, the smile not leaving her face. ‘Are you still with Tanya?’
‘Oh no, not at all,’ I answered quickly. I really wanted Anjie to know I was single. I was disappointed when she then told me she was in a relationship, although something in the way she talked about it gave me a hint she wasn’t too happy.
We parted, promising that we would go for a drink and a good catch-up soon, and for the rest of the day I thought of nothing else but her. I’d honestly never had such strong feelings for anyone in my life, and the possibility that things might work out between us was incredibly exciting.
A few months later, I was in the pub having a pint after work when she walked in with her friend Kim. I could tell from the expression on her face that she was not in a good way, although she raised a smile when I asked if I could get some drinks in and join them.
‘I was hoping to see you,’ Anjie said, taking a seat. ‘That’s why I came here.’
It turned out that things were on the rocks with her boyfriend, but she hadn’t had the guts to tell him yet. We had a few drinks and she came back to stay at my flat, just to clear her head. I said I was sorry she was having such a difficult time, although secretly of course I was delighted at the thought that she might soon be single. A few weeks after that night she broke up with her boyfriend, and we started seeing each other. I was over the moon.
Everything was so easy with Anjie. We instantly felt like we were two jigsaw-puzzle pieces that fitted together perfectly. She was warm, loving, gorgeous to look at and great fun to be with. I’d gaze at her sometimes and have to pinch myself because I couldn’t believe my luck. One night, when we were cuddled up in front of the television, she looked at me and said something that stopped my heart beating.
‘We were always meant to be together, you know,’ she said. ‘I always knew it would be you and me.’
It turned out that when we first met, Anjie had felt the same connection as I had. It felt like the most natural thing in the world for us to be together.
I soon realised that Anjie was the kindest person I had ever met. Most people have the ability to be kind, but with Anjie it just radiated from her. She was lovely to everyone she met, and could never do enough to help someone in need. She would spend her days helping elderly neighbours with their shopping and chores, and she loved being around children. I couldn’t believe my luck that I’d found someone like her. As far as I was concerned, she was an angel on earth.
Because Anjie’s previous relationship had been so troubled, she had taken the difficult decision to have her son, Nathan, stay with her mum, Margaret, during the week and come to her at weekends. Nathan was twelve when Anjie and I got together, and we decided that it was best for him to stay in the same school, which meant he had to stay with his nan, who lived five miles away. Anjie still saw him every day, though, because she used to walk over and take him to and from school, morning and afternoon, meaning that she had covered 20 miles by the end of the day. She was too broke to afford the bus fares.
Nathan didn’t see anything of his biological father, so when she decided it was time to introduce us, I was keen to make a good impression, hoping I might become a father figure to him.
‘Nathan, this is Darren,’ Anjie said when we picked him up from his grandmother’s one weekend.
‘I haven’t seen you since you were a little boy – you’ve grown loads since then.’ I grinned at Nathan, but he regarded me