I thanked her and walked off before I could hyperventilate in front of her.
‘Do you think it’s Victor?’ Daphne whispered by my shoulder. She had to run to keep pace with me.
‘Who else is it going to be?’ I snapped, then felt guilty at the hurt on her face. ‘Sorry, I’m sorry. It’s just …’ I let out a sob ‘… he’s found me. After three fucking years he’s found me.’
‘Rose, calm down, you’re scaring me. Stop!’ She grabbed my arm. ‘Stop,’ she said again, gentler this time. By now we were halfway up the hill towards the cottage. There was nobody else around but I shuddered as though Victor was behind us. ‘Listen, it was two days ago now. He’s probably gone home. Where does he live?’
‘Yorkshire,’ I said, wiping away tears. It was where Audrey and I had lived, to be near her family. I’d been happy there until I met him.
‘Right. So maybe he came here, but nobody said anything so he went home again.’
‘I – I don’t know, but that doesn’t sound like Victor. If he thinks I’m here he won’t give up.’
She took my hand. ‘Come on, let’s get home and talk about it. If you want me to pick Lolly up later I will. He won’t know what I look like, will he?’
I nodded and let her lead me home. Once inside she sat me at the pine kitchen table and made me a cup of tea. ‘We can move, if you want?’ she said, handing me a mug and sitting beside me. We still had our coats and boots on.
‘I can’t sell the cottage. Especially now with – with …’ I couldn’t bring myself to say Neil’s name. We were trapped there.
‘We could rent it out then? Move somewhere else. A city. Easier to hide in.’
‘What if someone found … him?’
‘If we rented it out we wouldn’t let any tenant dig up the garden. We’d put that in the lease.’
Nausea washed over me. ‘Daph, I need to be honest with you. About Victor.’
She pushed her fringe out of her face. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He … We were never romantically involved. We never had sex. He was my doctor.’
‘Your doctor? I don’t understand.’
‘He was my fertility doctor. But he …’ I gulped. I’d tried so hard to put him out of my mind these past three years. The betrayal I’d felt. The fear. It was all still so raw. The threats he made to take you away. ‘He did something awful.’
She reached across the table for my hand. ‘What – what did he do?’
‘He tricked me.’
‘How?’
It was a relief to reveal the secret I’d been hiding all these years. So I told her everything.
Nearly four years ago Audrey and I had gone to Dr Victor Carmichael’s clinic in Harrogate for fertility treatment. He’d seemed so nice, so caring as we explained our predicament, assuring us he had helped same-sex couples before. Once an anonymous donor was chosen he booked me in for the procedure. Audrey and I had always agreed I’d be the one to carry the baby.
Looking back to those sessions in Victor’s office it was obvious that he’d taken a liking to me. I thought, naively, that he enjoyed my company as we were around the same age. It wasn’t until later I realized that wasn’t the case.
I got pregnant quickly, even though, at thirty-three, I was older than what was considered normal for the mid-1970s. It was expensive and I’d had to use some of the money my parents had left me, but I was so happy that it had worked.
And then Audrey broke my heart.