back into the lounge, Bucket trailing her heels. The evening wasn’t going as she’d planned. She thought by now she’d have a telephone number or a place of work …
There were jobs she could have been getting on with like packing up the latest orders ready for posting to America. She also needed to add to her pile of felt for more berets. But she wasn’t in the mood for any of it. Seeing Grace had unsettled her, and she didn’t know why. Common sense told her she should just let it go, that she should let her go. She obviously didn’t want to be found or she’d have signed up to Facebook. But, for some reason, Izzy’s stubborn streak wasn’t letting common sense have a look in. She was of a mind to carry on with her search.
Bucket disturbed her thoughts by jumping up on her knee, his loud purr a comfort, and her thoughts shifted away from Grace and to the question that had been lingering ever since that day in Swansea. Ever since that glimpse of black hair framing her pale face.
Had she given up too quickly on her daughter? She’d never forgotten her. She was always there. The girl she could see out of the corner of her eye. The girl being hoisted into the shopping trolley, a stuffed tiger clenched between chubby fingers. Any girl with blonde hair and dark blue eyes got a second look even though she knew she wouldn’t be able to recognise her now. Eyes changed colour. Hair darkened. Features altered. She wouldn’t recognise her even if she was standing next to her.
She rubbed Bucket behind his ears, dipping her mind into the past. She’d carried on actively searching for Alys throughout that first year. It was all about Alys, never Charlie. She couldn’t bear to hear his name let alone remember the good times they’d had together. It was all about finding her child. She’d hated him then and she still hated him for what he’d done to her, for what he was still doing. The only time she’d had any feeling without hatred at its heart, was the day she took the bus into Fishguard to track down his mother and stepfather. Then she’d felt sympathy for him and only then. When he’d refused to talk about his reasons for leaving home she’d been too busy with her own life to question him. But one look at the rundown semi and the foul-mouthed pair who called themselves his parents and everything made sense. She stayed long enough to find out that he hadn’t taken his passport before hurrying away to catch the next bus home.
It felt as if she’d been treading water those first twelve months, neither moving forwards or back. But the stress and strain eventually took their toll and, after the incident with the sleeping pills, she’d had to come to a decision, the hardest decision she’d ever had to make: her daughter or her? If she carried on with her obsession she’d end up, if not dead then in some mental institution. So, she stopped haranguing the police on a daily basis. She stopped contacting them at all. Instead, she joined a local knitting group and soon the day-to-day act of living inured her to any thoughts other than the most superficial.
The temperature plummeted as late afternoon slipped into evening. Izzy finally put a light to the stove before sitting back on her heels, her eyes mesmerised by the flames catching the scrunched-up newspaper and stretching out towards the kindling, her thoughts continuing into the past …
Chapter 4
Izzy
Five years ago
August must surely be the worst of months in which to find yourself pregnant.
She laughed at the thought. It wasn’t as if she’d just opened her eyes to being five months into this mistake of all mistakes. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t slept with Charlie, knowing full well she was taking a huge risk. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know the facts of life. No, not those – the other facts. The fact that if a bad thing was going to befall anyone around here it was always going to befall her. Before she’d left school all her classmates had been messing about with boys and had never gotten caught, which in a way had led her into a false sense of security. After all, as the least popular girl around, the likelihood of anyone asking her back to their place was zero. And yet,