Unforgettable (Gloria Cook) - By Gloria Cook Page 0,45

the bed properly. Fiona planned to slip away hoping the baby would drift back to sleep. On top of the bed Finn had left his sketchbook. It had been months since she had taken interest in Finn’s favourite pastime, his skill that he had hoped would become his livelihood after further study. She froze on the spot, and for the first time acknowledged that Aidan’s rejection of her was also a rejection of Finn, who had subsequently lost his future, his dream. Fiona accepted his resentment for her slapping him; she had put her own feelings before his whereas mothers were supposed to be sacrificial and put themselves last in the family. While Eloise fidgeted in the cot she took Finn’s sketchbook to her own room, gleaming and heavy with polish, and sat down on the bed. She wanted to see if Finn’s drawings gave a clue as to what was on his mind. She dreaded to find a page with her appearing hangdog or mean, or a caricature (Finn excelled at those) of her cleaning in a whirlwind or as a witch perhaps. However, the pictures seemed to be all of Eloise. Eloise kicking her legs and grabbing her tiny feet. There was Eloise with her rattle in her pram. Lying on a blanket in a field surrounded by buttercups and butterflies. Being held by Dorrie at Sunny Corner, and Jean Vercoe at By The Way. Fiona gasped in wonder at an amazing ethereal study of Eloise being held by Belle Lawry, with Belle’s hair encircling them both and Belle gazing lovingly at Eloise as if she was her mother. Fiona felt pangs of jealousy. She had carried Eloise inside her body and given birth to her. There were the gorgeous details of Eloise’s first smiles. Jealousy again, for Fiona had not noticed her baby smiling into her eyes. At the last drawing Fiona felt as if an icy hand had clenched her heart. It depicted Eloise with her little face puckered up about to cry.

It hurt Fiona. Her baby was about to cry with discomfort, pain or fear and before now she had not cared a jot. Slamming into her mind came a rhyme from a skipping game Fiona had taken part in as a child:

Poor little baby, no wonder you cry

Your daddy doesn’t love you and your mother’s going to die.

But God will send an angel

With wings long and fair

To take you up to heaven

To join your mummy there.

Fiona jumped to her feet. ‘My poor baby, I promise I won’t leave you.’ She paced the floor, wringing her hands, striding from the paisley rug to the polished floorboards and back again and again. ‘Your daddy doesn’t love you . . .’ Suddenly she was the angriest she had been in her life. Fury and offence frothed up inside her and spilled out into a strangled scream of pure rage. She clenched her fists, made movements like shredding a cushion, then as if throttling someone’s neck. Aidan’s damned neck! ‘That’s right,’ she seethed at the ripped and mangled image in her mind. ‘Your daddy doesn’t love you, Eloise. He doesn’t love Finn and he doesn’t love me. He probably never did. I was just the sort of pretty, adoring, compliant wife he wanted, a good hostess, willing in the bedroom, grateful for my good fortune in life and living for his approval and compliments. Yet all the while he was laughing at me, making a fool of me, squirming because I couldn’t let him go. He’ll make a new life with this tart he’s got and won’t give us another thought. Well, he’ll squirm all right if he ever gets down on his luck and tries to wheedle his way back into our lives. His beastly rotten charm won’t work on me again.’

She punched at that image and could almost see her wrath for real. ‘I hate you, do you hear? Rot in hell.’

Her energy whooshing out of her she flopped down flat on the bed, the back of her hand over her brow, sweating and panting. ‘Why did I spend so much time moping for that worthless man? Finn was right about him all along. I should have listened to Finn. I’ve caused him so much worry. No wonder he’d rather spend time with Dorrie and Sam Lawry and the Vercoes. I’ve got a lot to make up to him.’

Poor little baby . . . ‘My darling little girl,’ she whispered in remorse, sitting up. ‘You don’t