Tangled Lives Read Free

steamy, and thick with the noise from the large coffee machine and crying children. The walk had done her no good. Normally, exercise was Annie’s panacea; she believed almost every ill could be cured by a brisk walk over the heath, fifty lengths of the gym pool, a vigorous game of tennis with Richard. But today she could hardly contain herself for the ten minutes it took to reach the cafe. The east wind made the air bitter, but she didn’t care as she ran along the slippery streets, the letter burning a hole in her pocket.
    Her friend – dark, neat, handsome, and tanned from a hiking holiday in Crete – was already there, guarding a cramped corner table by the window, texting furiously on his mobile. She had known Jamie since she was a child. He had lived in the same London square as she, and they had played together in the communal gardens, although her mother had never approved. ‘That Walsh boy’ washow she referred to Jamie, as if he were some tubercular street urchin, when in fact his parents were mild-mannered professionals (his father a respected osteopath) who just happened to fall outside her mother’s snobbish and exacting social boundaries.
    She edged her way past a toddler spitting croissant onto the flap of his high chair, peeled off her hat and coat and crammed them by the window.
    ‘Whoa …’ Jamie searched her face. ‘You look manic. What’s up?’ He rose to embrace her across the table.
    She returned his kiss, then dithered for a minute, trying to find the words but failing. So she just unfolded the crumpled letter from Kent Social Services and smoothed it out on the cafe table in front of him.
    ‘Wow! That’s wonderful!’ he said when he’d read it. He glanced up at her, and she saw his smile become uncertain. ‘Isn’t it?’
    Annie found she was cold, even in the over-heated cafe. ‘I never thought …’
    ‘What is it? Thirty years? No, more. Thirty-five.’
    She nodded. ‘I’d given up thinking I’d ever see him … I just never imagined … after all this time …’
    ‘Nor me. The children must be a tad surprised.’
    She winced at his understatement.
    ‘They don’t know. Nor does Richard. It just came this morning when we were all having breakfast. I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. It was hell, pretending everything was normal.’
    Jamie raised his eyebrows. ‘I must admit I never thought he’d pitch up. But you’ll see him at last. That’s brilliant, darling.’ Despite Jamie’s words, his eyes were bright with concern.
    She dropped her face into her hands, the background noise fading as she tried to make sense of her emotions. A pulse thudded in her head.
    ‘I want to see what he’s like, of course, but …’
    Jamie looked puzzled. ‘But what? Isn’t this exactly what you’ve wanted all these years? To meet Tom again, to know what happened to him?’ He glanced down at the letter again. ‘Well, Daniel now.’
    ‘Daniel … Daniel Gray,’ Annie whispered, turning the name over on her tongue. Strange to think he’ll never have known the name I gave him. It had been Tom from the moment he was born. She had dreaded the birth, longed for it at the same time. She’d just wanted it over, to forget the whole thing had ever happened and get back to her life. But by the time they came to take him away, she knew every inch of him by heart. She counted his breaths, marvelled at the perfection of his newborn skin, the velvety cap of strawberry-blonde hair, gazed into his dark eyes, felt the squeeze of his starfish fingers, pressed her nose to his body to inhale the warm, milky scent. Never, not for a moment, did she imagine that her nineteen-year-old self would fall in love with that tiny, scrumpled form. She could still feel the softness of his skin beneath her fingers as she sat in the crowded cafe today.
    ‘How on earth did they trace you?’
    Annie shrugged. ‘No idea.’ She paused. ‘Mother? But she’s moved since