Roxy's Baby Read online

  ‘Before it’s too late!’ She asked him again, ‘What does that mean? Too late for what?’

  He looked worried now, glancing around him as if someone might jump out of the trees. ‘Said too much, said too much. Shut up … shut up.’

  He was weird. No, worse than weird, he was scary. And he hated her, she was sure of that.

  And she was alone here with him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Roxy made a sudden rush at him, taking him by surprise. She pushed her palms against his chest with all her strength. He stumbled, almost fell, just giving her enough time to dodge round him, and shoot out of his way. She began to run, breathing hard, afraid. Angry too. Why did the Dyces have this weirdo working for them? The last person who should be here among young vulnerable girls. He looked like some deranged homicidal maniac, a pervert. She was going to run straight to the Dyces, tell them to get rid of him, tell them just how scary he was. She glanced behind her, sure she would see him, reaching out for her, closing in on her.

  It was the worst thing she could have done. She lost her balance, tried to find something to grasp to keep herself steady, but there was only the long grass, the wild flowers. Roxy fell badly, and hurt her back. She tried not to scream. She tried not to breathe. She let out a low moan and just lay there, hoping he would have moved off, thinking she had gone. She bit her lip and listened. She could hear a swishing through the tall grass. Footsteps striding towards her. He was coming, reaching out for her with those fingers, those nightmare fingers. Every instinct she had told her to get up and run, but she couldn’t move. She was too clumsy with this stupid bump holding her back and once again she resented it.

  Any moment now, he would be here above her. Any moment now …

  ‘What on earth are you doing down there, my girl?’

  It wasn’t Stevens. It was Mr Dyce, with his Santa Claus smile. He reached down and gripped her hand to help her up.

  ‘Did you fall, dear? Are you hurt? Do you need to see the doctor?’ He fussed about her like an old granny, dusting her down, feeling her brow. ‘What happened to you?’

  Roxy found her voice. ‘It was that weirdo, Stevens. He scared me.’

  ‘Did he say anything? Do anything?’

  She steadied herself, thinking how to answer. A second ago she had thought to tell the Dyces everything Stevens had said, ask them what he meant. ‘They’re taking care of you all right.’ In the moment it took her to answer, something held her back. Some instinct she couldn’t explain.

  ‘He’s just scary,’ she repeated. ‘Why have you got someone like that working here? He’s weird.’

  ‘He’s always worked here, even before we came. He is a good worker.’

  ‘Why can’t I get out of the gates? Why are they locked?’ Roxy’s questions took him by surprise.

  ‘Was that what you were trying to do?’

  ‘I don’t see any reason why I can’t go outside for a walk, or go to the village. There must be a village nearby.’

  He looked flustered. He was never the one who was asked difficult questions. It was always his wife, she was the one always ready with a glib answer.

  ‘It’s for your own safety, Roxy. You must understand that. If you go into the village, people might see you, recognise you.’

  ‘Recognise me?’ The idea surprised her. ‘Why should anyone recognise me? Have I been on the telly? Has my photo been in the papers?’ She had a vision of her mother once again, sitting at a table at one of those press conferences, in a tearful appeal begging her daughter to come home.

  Sweat was breaking out on his forehead. Was he so nervous? Or was it the heat? It was such a hot afternoon perhaps that could explain it.

  ‘Maybe at the beginning, there was some publicity. But the police soon lose interest when it’s clear that a young person has run away, and doesn’t want to be found.’ He took Roxy by the elbow and led her back to the house. ‘It’s not as if you’ve been kidnapped or anything.’ He giggled as if he’d made a very funny joke.

  Not kidnapped. No. But she wasn’t allowed out, was she? The gates were locked, and she was kept inside.

  ‘But just a walk outside, what would be the harm in that?’

  ‘Plenty of places to go walking inside the grounds, dear,’ he said, and in truth that seemed a perfectly logical answer.

  As were all of their answers, all of their explanations. All perfectly logical. She seemed to be the only one to question everything. Roxy remembered Sula who’d gone home to her family, and she felt guilty. The Dyces had helped Sula get home. They had only ever helped her. She walked back to the house with Mr Dyce while he prattled on, gossiping like an old maid. He was a nice old man. She too could go home whenever she wanted, she told herself, and they would help her. They had only ever helped her, the Dyces. She tried to think like Anne Marie, but all the time there was a feeling as if something heavy was lying in her heart. Maybe it was guilt, she told herself over and over. Guilt about how much she distrusted the Dyces, and guilt about what she had done to her mother.

  She would write to her.

  The decision came in a flash. She would tell her mother that she was safe and well, and that there was no need to come looking for her. She would promise to get in touch again, soon. Roxy didn’t want her worrying, or crying on television over her.

  Although, deep down, there was also a fear that her mother wasn’t worrying or crying. That, with Paul and Jennifer there beside her, Roxy, her wayward daughter, had been quickly forgotten.

  A few days later, on a sultry afternoon, Babs went into labour. Roxy couldn’t believe how calm she was as she packed up her bag and got ready to leave them. Wasn’t she nervous?

  ‘Know what’s coming,’ she answered her, casually. ‘This isn’t my first, you know.’

  Roxy was shocked. She hadn’t realised that at all. Babs, for all her worldliness, was only a young girl. ‘You’ve had a baby before?’

  Babs nodded.

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Had it adopted.’ She said it as if it didn’t matter. ‘Or I should say, the Dyces got somebody to take it.’

  ‘The Dyces? You’ve been here before?’

  ‘That’s why I knew to come this time. The last time they picked me up, just the way they did you, and they took me here. When the sprog was born, they sorted everything. Gave me money, good bit of money.’ She raised her eyebrows with glee at the thought of that money. ‘So, naturally, I came back here again. Wasn’t going to pass this up, was I?’

  Roxy looked at Babs as if for the first time. She realised she didn’t like her. Babs was funny and common and loud – but she was selfish and heartless too.

  ‘You’ll get money this time too?’

  Babs knew by Roxy’s tone how she felt about that. Her face grew hard. ‘So what? I thought you were getting yours adopted too. You’ll get money. You’re not any better than I am.’

  Roxy didn’t know how to answer that. Selfish and heartless, was that her too?

  A flash of pain crossed Babs’s face. ‘Mrs Dyce!’ she screamed. ‘Time I was going.’

  Mrs Dyce came hurrying in and took her by the arm. ‘Come along, Babs.’

  Babs waved cheerily to everyone as she waddled off. Roxy was the only one who didn’t wave back. She just stood trying to take in what Babs had just told her. Now she was sure she knew what was happening here.

  They were selling their babies.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘Of course they’re not selling our babies! Roxy, what a thing to say!’ Anne Marie was more amused than shocked when she told her what she thought.

  ‘You can’t see anything bad in anything they do, Anne Marie. But there’s something fishy going on here.’

  It was their turn to make the evening meal, along with one of the new girls, dark-skinned, silent, with hardly any English. She looked perpetually frightened. She was already heavily pregnant and would undoubtedly drop her baby before Anne Marie. She sat at the big table in the middle of the k
itchen peeling potatoes. When Anne Marie laughed, she looked round at her, but didn’t smile.

  Anne Marie had a musical laugh, almost like a tune. It made Roxy smile, even though she was trying hard to be serious.

  ‘Fishy. How appropriate, we’re having fish for tea. Salmon cakes.’

  Roxy wouldn’t let it go. ‘Babs told me they gave her money the last time. They’re giving her money this time too. Anne Marie, they’re buying our babies and selling them for adoption.’

  Anne Marie stopped what she was doing and looked at Roxy very seriously. ‘You listened to Babs? Babs is what your mother would call a “loose woman”, any looser and she would fall apart.’ Then she laughed again. ‘Mind, my mother would have a cheek calling any woman loose. However, Babs is the type who would sell her baby, to the highest bidder too. But the Dyces would only have given her money to try to help her get started again. The money was to help her, not to buy her baby.’

  ‘So, where did the baby go? Who adopted it? When people want to adopt a baby they have to go through checks. Rigorous checks. The authorities have to make sure they’re the right kind of people, decent people.’

  ‘The Dyces do make sure they’re letting decent people adopt the babies. I’m sure of it. I trust them.’

  But then, Anne Marie trusted everything about the Dyces, didn’t she? thought Roxy.

  ‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘I’m not having my baby adopted. I’m keeping Aidan.’

  That was the moment Roxy made up her mind. She was keeping hers too. It was also at that moment she realised her baby was no longer ‘the bump’. It had become her baby.

  And no one was going to sell her baby.

  After dinner all the girls sat outside in the evening sun. Too hot to stay indoors and even uncomfortably hot outside. Summer smells scented the air. Roxy and Anne Marie lay on the grass and watched the first star appear in the blue sky. One by one the other girls drifted inside the house, but not them. It was too beautiful.

  Roxy watched as the moon cast silver lights on the roof of the house, on the attic windows. ‘I wonder how you get into the rest of the house,’ she said, almost to herself.

  ‘I think that would be through the Dyces’ apartments, probably.’

  Roxy wasn’t so sure. ‘You think so? I mean, there must be a staircase up to the next floors, there must be some kind of corridor leading into the rest of the house. I think it’s strange we’ve never actually seen it. It’s as if, if we stepped into that other part of the house we would be in a different world.’

  ‘Aren’t you the one with the imagination, Roxy.’ Anne Marie laughed. But a thought had been planted in Roxy’s mind. She was going to find the entrance to those attics, and do a bit of exploring. If she couldn’t wander outside the grounds, then nothing was going to stop her wandering inside.

  Anne Marie breathed in deeply. ‘It’s nights like this that make life worth living,’ she said softly.

  Roxy leaned up on her elbow and watched her as she studied the sky dreamily. ‘For someone who’s had such a hard life you always look on the bright side of everything, don’t you?’

  ‘And for someone who’s always had it so cushy, you are the most cynical person I have ever come across.’

  ‘Cushy? You think I’ve had it cushy?’

  ‘Yes, I do. A mum and dad who loved you, a little sister you … used … to get on with. A home. Yes. I think you’ve had it cushy.’

  ‘Until my dad died. Then everything changed.’

  Anne Marie struggled to sit up. Roxy had to help her. She stared at Roxy. ‘Maybe it was you who changed. Your dad died, but Jennifer’s dad died too, and she didn’t go off the rails. Your mum’s husband died, and she didn’t go wild.’

  ‘She got married again,’ Roxy reminded her.

  ‘So, she got married again. I bet your dad would have wanted that for her.’

  ‘Whose side are you on?’

  Anne Marie smiled. ‘It’s not a case of sides, but from what you tell me, I think you should take your baby home. I think your mum would welcome you with open arms.’

  Roxy dismissed that suggestion. ‘I’m never going home. I’ve done all right by myself up till now. I’ll do just as well when my baby comes.’

  ‘Your baby?’ Anne Marie grabbed her into a hug. ‘That’s the first time you’ve called him “your baby”.’

  She was still hugging her when Mrs Dyce turned the corner of the house and approached them. She seemed startled to find them there, still sitting in the twilight. ‘I thought all you girls had gone to bed.’

  Anne Marie got to her feet and brushed the grass from her trousers. ‘It’s such a beautiful night, we didn’t want to waste it.’

  Mrs Dyce turned her face to the sky. ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it?’

  ‘How’s Babs?’ Roxy asked, and there it was again, that tight smile. Surely she couldn’t be mistaken about that.

  ‘Babs is doing fine. She had a little girl.’

  Anne Marie clapped her hands together enthusiastically. ‘Oh, that is so lovely.’

  ‘Can we see her? Is she still here?’ asked Roxy.

  ‘Babs is gone already.’

  ‘How did she go? In an ambulance? We never see any ambulances coming or going. So, how do the girls leave, and the babies?’ Roxy was asking too many questions. She could read that in Mrs Dyce’s eyes.

  ‘Young girls are usually fit enough to leave in a car, Roxy. The delivery room has its own exit, that’s why you don’t see them going. We make sure the girls are well wrapped up, and rested before they leave. As for the babies who are being adopted, they’re in tiny bassinets. We put them safely in the back seat and take them to their new families. Does that answer all your questions now?’

  ‘You don’t waste any time, do you?’

  Mrs Dyce didn’t even look at Roxy when she said that. But she did look when Roxy asked the next question.

  ‘Can we see the baby? After all, Babs won’t have taken the baby with her. Is her baby still here?’

  It was as if her smile was fixed to her face. She never got a chance to think up an answer, if that’s what she was intending to do. Anne Marie burst in with her happy laugh. ‘You’ll never guess what suspicious little Roxy thinks is happening here. She only thinks you’re selling babies.’

  There was no mistaking the shock on Mrs Dyce’s face this time. Her head swivelled round so fast Roxy thought it was going to be like that scene from The Exorcist.

  ‘What on earth gave you such an idea?’

  ‘Babs,’ Anne Marie answered for Roxy. ‘Babs told her she’d been here before and you gave her money.’

  The tension seemed to ooze out of Mrs Dyce. Her thin shoulders dropped and she breathed out slowly. A sigh of relief. That’s how it seemed to Roxy.

  ‘We gave her money to help her start a new life. We never expected to see her again. And then, when she was brought back to us in the same condition … what could we do but help her again?’

  Anne Marie punched Roxy’s shoulder. ‘There. What did I tell you?’

  ‘But who adopts the babies? How do you know they’re decent respectable people?’

  Mrs Dyce pushed her balled fists deep into the pockets of her cardigan. ‘Don’t you think we run checks on everyone? Probably more thorough checks than any of the social services. We, after all, don’t have to be politically correct. If we don’t think a couple are suitable we don’t have to make excuses.’ She wasn’t smiling now. She was holding something in check. Anger at Roxy and her nosiness probably. ‘There are so many people out there who just aren’t eligible with the proper authorities, older couples for instance. And even after the adoption has gone through we keep a check on them to make sure the babies are doing well, being treated well. Does that satisfy you, Roxy?’

  Roxy only said, ‘Is it legal?’

  Anne Marie took a step closer to Mrs Dyce. Her face seemed to say that Roxy was asking too many questions. But Roxy wasn’t ready to stop now.

  ‘It just doesn�
�t sound as if the law knows about these babies, or these couples. How do they explain where they get their babies from?’

  She could hear frogs from the stream close by, croaking in the hot summer night. Otherwise there wasn’t a sound.

  Mrs Dyce took her hands from her pockets and waved them around, at the house, at the grounds. ‘All this isn’t legal, Roxy. Legally, we should be handing you over to the authorities. We should hand over a lot of the girls, the illegal immigrants especially. I can’t do that to them. I want to help … you … and them. So, I keep you here, illegally. You can go any time you want, I have told you that before. All I ask is a promise not to tell anyone about this place. If I’m doing a wicked thing, then that’s too bad. I think I’m helping girls. Girls like you, Roxy.’ She wasn’t hiding her annoyance this time.

  Anne Marie put an arm around the woman’s shoulders. ‘You are, Mrs Dyce. Roxy doesn’t mean what she said, she’s just curious.’

  Mrs Dyce patted Anne Marie’s arm. ‘I’ll say goodnight, girls. Don’t stay up too long.’ Only then did she look at Roxy. ‘You can be quite hurtful at times, Roxy.’

  Roxy and Anne Marie didn’t say a word as they watched her disappear round the house. Then Anne Marie turned on Roxy. ‘You’ve hurt her feelings, Roxy. You’re always questioning everything. I think you should apologise to her.’

  But there was no way Roxy was going to apologise to Mrs Dyce. Not until she found out exactly what was happening here.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Anne Marie wouldn’t let it go. It worried her that Roxy had offended her beloved Mrs Dyce. ‘Where would you be without the Dyces, and have they ever shown you anything but kindness?’

  In the end, she talked Roxy into apologising. Maybe Mrs Dyce was ‘selling’ babies, but if she was helping girls like herself – even girls like Babs – and if they were helping couples to have the children they were desperate for and, most important of all, settling a baby in a loving home, then who was Roxy to complain? It was the thought of how Babs would bring up a baby that helped her change her mind. Babs’s baby was much better off being adopted.