suppose I must have. I don't know what to say.'
The taxi man said that this wasn't where he wanted to go. He was on his way home. South London is what he wanted. Not miles out to Wembley.
He saw the tears beginning to form.
'Get in before I change my mind,' he said. 'Anyway, at least you've had it, let's look on the bright side, I could have ended up delivering it.'
'That's true,' Helen said, and the taxi driver looked at her anxiously, wondering would he get his fare when he got to Wembley.
She recited the address of the apartment block as if by rote and asked the driver to wait. The lady of the house would be down in a moment and would pay him.
| He told the other cab drivers afterwards that he had spotted her as trouble the very moment he saw her. The moment that her eyes had filled with tears when he said perfectly normally of an evening that he wanted to go south of the river rather than up to this neck of the woods in Wembley. Anyway, he said, it all seemed to have happened at once, the lady came down and was carrying a purse with money. Classy she was and foreign, she took one look at the baby and she started to scream.
'He's got blood on him, he's not properly formed, no, no, I didn't want this! This is a baby that still is not ready to be a baby. No, no.'
She backed away from the girl in the grey skirt and jumper with her hand up to her mouth and at that moment a fellow in a Rover came along and leaped out, he took one look at what was happening and he shook the foreign woman till her head near as anything fell off, then he took the child and seemed to recognize the girl in the grey. He kept saying 'Oh my God' too, as if she were something from outer space.
Then there was a bundle of notes stuffed in the taxi man's window, four times the fare out to bloody Wembley. So he had to go and he never knew what it was all about and how it ended.
It ended badly. As everything Helen Doyle had ever touched seemed to end.
She had refused to go into the flat, crying too now, louder than Renata, but neither of the women cried as much as the bewildered hungry baby that had been born in a lavatory that morning.
Sister Brigid was summoned eventually to make some sense out of the whole scene. She came with Nessa, white-faced but calm.
Nessa saw to the baby and Brigid listened to the hysterical explanations.
The Italian woman was saying that she had intended only to inquire if any mother wanted to give her baby privately for adoption, she hadn't asked anyone to take one for her.
The tall Irish businessman was pleading for Helen, saying that she had done it for the best as she had always done everything for the best, but the world was never able to perceive it that way. He sounded tender towards her and yet terrified of her as well.
He knew her parents, he explained. Desmond Doyle had been one of his oldest friends.
'She is the daughter of those Doyles?' Shock was being piled on shock for Renata.
'Yes, she can't have known it was us.'
There was something in the way the man spoke. There was something that sounded a warning. Brigid looked from one stricken face to another to try and read the signals.
Helen was opening her mouth. 'But I did know, I did know, it's only because it was Frank that I'd do this, I'd never have taken a baby, and told all those lies. If it hadn't been Frank I'd not have risked the baby's life. I felt I owed it to him, after all, after everything. , .'
Brigid had worked with people for all her adult life. Mainly people who were in some kind of distress. She didn't know what was going to be said now but she felt it was crucial that whatever it was, Helen should not say it. Helen was in mid-flight, through the tears and the gulps the story was coming out.
'I never meant it to be like this, but they could have given
it such a good life, so much money, and Frank's too old to adopt a child, and she said he had been having heart attacks . . .'
'You told her that?' Frank snapped at his wife.
'I
The taxi man said that this wasn't where he wanted to go. He was on his way home. South London is what he wanted. Not miles out to Wembley.
He saw the tears beginning to form.
'Get in before I change my mind,' he said. 'Anyway, at least you've had it, let's look on the bright side, I could have ended up delivering it.'
'That's true,' Helen said, and the taxi driver looked at her anxiously, wondering would he get his fare when he got to Wembley.
She recited the address of the apartment block as if by rote and asked the driver to wait. The lady of the house would be down in a moment and would pay him.
| He told the other cab drivers afterwards that he had spotted her as trouble the very moment he saw her. The moment that her eyes had filled with tears when he said perfectly normally of an evening that he wanted to go south of the river rather than up to this neck of the woods in Wembley. Anyway, he said, it all seemed to have happened at once, the lady came down and was carrying a purse with money. Classy she was and foreign, she took one look at the baby and she started to scream.
'He's got blood on him, he's not properly formed, no, no, I didn't want this! This is a baby that still is not ready to be a baby. No, no.'
She backed away from the girl in the grey skirt and jumper with her hand up to her mouth and at that moment a fellow in a Rover came along and leaped out, he took one look at what was happening and he shook the foreign woman till her head near as anything fell off, then he took the child and seemed to recognize the girl in the grey. He kept saying 'Oh my God' too, as if she were something from outer space.
Then there was a bundle of notes stuffed in the taxi man's window, four times the fare out to bloody Wembley. So he had to go and he never knew what it was all about and how it ended.
It ended badly. As everything Helen Doyle had ever touched seemed to end.
She had refused to go into the flat, crying too now, louder than Renata, but neither of the women cried as much as the bewildered hungry baby that had been born in a lavatory that morning.
Sister Brigid was summoned eventually to make some sense out of the whole scene. She came with Nessa, white-faced but calm.
Nessa saw to the baby and Brigid listened to the hysterical explanations.
The Italian woman was saying that she had intended only to inquire if any mother wanted to give her baby privately for adoption, she hadn't asked anyone to take one for her.
The tall Irish businessman was pleading for Helen, saying that she had done it for the best as she had always done everything for the best, but the world was never able to perceive it that way. He sounded tender towards her and yet terrified of her as well.
He knew her parents, he explained. Desmond Doyle had been one of his oldest friends.
'She is the daughter of those Doyles?' Shock was being piled on shock for Renata.
'Yes, she can't have known it was us.'
There was something in the way the man spoke. There was something that sounded a warning. Brigid looked from one stricken face to another to try and read the signals.
Helen was opening her mouth. 'But I did know, I did know, it's only because it was Frank that I'd do this, I'd never have taken a baby, and told all those lies. If it hadn't been Frank I'd not have risked the baby's life. I felt I owed it to him, after all, after everything. , .'
Brigid had worked with people for all her adult life. Mainly people who were in some kind of distress. She didn't know what was going to be said now but she felt it was crucial that whatever it was, Helen should not say it. Helen was in mid-flight, through the tears and the gulps the story was coming out.
'I never meant it to be like this, but they could have given
it such a good life, so much money, and Frank's too old to adopt a child, and she said he had been having heart attacks . . .'
'You told her that?' Frank snapped at his wife.
'I
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