The Accidental Mother Read online

  “I haven’t given men up,” Sophie had told her. “I’m just choosing to put my job first at the moment. I think you should do the same. Now is an important time for us. If Gillian decides to give up work, then someone will need to take over her job. Opportunities are opening up. I want the best out of my career, and so should you. I’m giving you a big chance here, Lisa, it’s time for you to grasp it with both hands. Don’t let me down.”

  “I won’t, I won’t,” Lisa had promised her. But she had fallen in love with the watercooler deliveryman on the way back to her desk instead, and when he dumped her two weeks later, she was back to square one.

  The lift had paused on the floor below Sophie’s.

  “She’s here.” Cal almost shoved Lisa at Sophie, who looked at her trainee with a critical eye. She had reapplied her makeup, but her eyes were red and puffy, and her nose swollen. She’d been crying again.

  “Dave chucked you?” Sophie asked her in the final few moments as the lift reached their floor.

  Lisa’s tender eyes widened with distress. “All I did was ask him to meet my mum. Is that too clingy?”

  Sophie sighed. “We’ll talk about this later,” she said. “Just stay focused and remember what you’re here for.”

  And the lift doors slid open.

  When Sophie and Lisa returned from the meeting, Sophie was feeling very pleased with herself. It had gone exceptionally well, she was going to look really good at the next new business meeting, and Lisa had made it from the meeting room back to her desk without becoming engaged. Things were looking up. Sophie even had time before lunch with Jake to catch up on her paperwork. Or maybe she should swing by Eve’s office and tell her about her new contract, show off her new boots, and generally try to piss Eve off, which was difficult with the undead, because they tended not to be that emotional.

  “You don’t have to tell me it went well,” Cal said, peering at her over the top of a copy of OK! “I can tell it went well just by looking at you; you’ve got that triumphant Boudicca look again. Sophie Mills, Warrior Queen Party Planner.”

  Sophie stopped dead in front of his desk and took the magazine from his hands. “Do some work,” she said. “I’ve got some free time now, so I’m going to catch up on some—”

  “Celebrity gossip?” Cal said, looking miserably at his magazine.

  “Filing,” Sophie lied.

  She had barely made it to the exclusive celebrity wedding pics when Cal interrupted her. “Slight problem with you catching up on your filing,” he said, glancing over his shoulder with a fastidious look. He lowered his voice. “Of the unscheduled variety. Elasticized waistband. Head scarf.” Sophie blinked at him. “There’s a ‘lady’ here to see you!” he exclaimed, as if his previous description had been more than sufficient. “Your twelve o’clock—the T.A.? Or Tess Andrew, I should say.”

  Sophie blinked at him. “But I told you t——”

  “I know!” Cal said,” but I couldn’t find anything anywhere and Lisa was in with you so I was waiting for Lisa to come out but she’s in the loo again and anyway the woman’s here now. She’s eight minutes early. So it’s not my fault.”

  Sophie thought about Jake, who might even at that very moment be about to “swing by” and “want,” and a part of her was relieved by this obstacle that had presented itself even if she didn’t want to let down her most important client.

  “Can you cancel her? Tell her my diary’s double-booked or something?” Sophie asked with the justifiable conviction that Cal could get most people to do most things.

  Her PA stepped into her office and closed the door behind him, standing close enough for Sophie to smell Chanel Allure mixed with the slightly salty scent of his own skin. She wasn’t sure if it was pour homme or pour femme.

  He held out a graying and dog-eared business card. “She gave me this. She said could she have it back please as she’s only got one. Budget cuts or something.”

  Sophie took the card and read it, “Tess Andrew, Highbury and Islington Social Services.”

  “But we deal only with private companies,” Sophie said, looking confused.

  Cal shrugged. “Obviously I already did tell her that. But she says it’s personal business. She says she’s got to see you—now.” He paused for a beat. “Look, Sophie, I’m sorry, but she means it, and she is in the diary, after all. She says she phoned this morning and a nice young lady fitted her in and said it would be no trouble at all. She says it is really urgent.” Any trace of Cal’s habitual humor or sarcasm was gone.

  “Urgent?” Sophie said uncertainly. What could a social worker want with her? Oh, God, she groaned inwardly. She hoped it wasn’t the neighbors complaining about her mother’s dogs again, not that she could blame them. It didn’t do much for house prices, living next door to a kennel. However, Sophie was not her mother’s keeper. She couldn’t stop her breeding dogs if she wanted to—they were all looked after. Sophie could vouch for that. She had grown up in the dog-related chaos, and she’d frequently felt the dogs had taken precedent over her. She told as much to the community liaison officer from the council who’d been sent around to vet her mum. But after her dad had died, sixteen years ago, Mum had begun not only to breed dogs but to take in waifs and strays. She needed a farm in Surrey really, not a Victorian terrace in Highbury. Sophie couldn’t think of another reason for a social worker to be here, and she could do without all that again, but Cal said she had to see her. If he couldn’t persuade this Tess Andrew to leave, then nobody could. She must be one of the few rare humans who were immune to his charm.

  “Okay, if I must,” Sophie said, briskly managing the moment with her usual aplomb. “Maybe I can get her in and out before Jake gets here.”

  “Jake’s coming here to pick up you up?” Cal asked, raising an interested eyebrow. “He so loves you.”

  Sophie found Tess Andrew sitting in Cal’s chair anxiously clutching a large sequined bag.

  “Miss Andrew.” Sophie smiled at the pleasant-looking woman, who was probably in her fifties, amply proportioned, and with a kind of innate air of disarray, set off nicely by her hippie gypsy look. “How can I help you? Because I have to say, when it comes to my mum and her dogs—there’s no logic there. She sees their ‘little faces,’ and all sense goes out the window. I don’t get it myself. I’m a cat person.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Mills? It’s not about dogs. Or…er…cats.” The woman followed Sophie into her office.

  “Sophie, call me Sophie. If it’s not dogs, what is it? Drains?” Sophie speculated out of left field. She wasn’t exactly sure what it was social workers did, and the downstairs drains were a bit iffy.

  “Thank you so much for seeing me at such short notice,” Tess Andrew said. “It must be odd, me, just turning up out of the blue, but it’s all been a bit of a rush. I thought we had time—but then there was Christmas and New Year, and, well, it—just ran out, and suddenly, out of the blue—we found you.” She beamed at Sophie and then switched off her smile abruptly. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”

  Sophie felt her stomach swell and buckle. Those were the words her headmistress had used on the day her dad died of a heart attack. She had called Sophie out of class and sat her down in her office and said, “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news…” Sophie felt a cold fear drench her. Was it Mum after all? Was Mum ill or…? “Okay,” she said, steeling herself. “Go on.”

  Tess Andrew composed herself. “I’m very sorry to tell you that your friend Caroline Gregory is dead,” she said.

  Sophie stared at her. She felt a bubble of relief burst in her chest, and she laughed.

  Tess Andrew looked startled, and Sophie realized what it must look like. “Oh, I’m sorry, Ms. Andrew. But there’s been some kind of a mix-up. I don’t know anyone called Caroline Gregory. I thought you’d come to tell me my mum was ill.” She took a breath and composed herself. “I’m sorry, but I think you’ve wasted your time. I think you’ve got the wrong Sophie Mills.”

 
Tess Andrew looked puzzled and closed her eyes for a moment as she furrowed her brow. “Oh no,” she said, looking awkward and uncomfortable. “Oh, look—I’m so sorry. I forgot. I have made a mistake, but not about you. Of course she didn’t use her married name, did she?” Sophie gave her blank look and watched as the social worker composed her face again into its bad news mode. “I’m sorry, Sophie. I meant to say Carrie, Carrie Stiles of St. Ives in Cornwall. She was killed in a car accident, outright. Carrie Stiles is dead.”

  For a second Sophie remembered laughing with Carrie in the girls’ room of Our Lady Catholic High School for Girls, folding the waistbands of their gray pleated skirts over and over as the hems gradually rose above their knees, and standing on the toilets smoking cigarettes out of the open windows.

  Carrie Stiles was dead. Carrie, who had been her best friend once. Her sister and ally for a long time, until the friendship had eventually ebbed as old friendships do and dwindled to a phone call once a year or so, with Christmas cards and presents for Carrie’s kids, Sophie’s godchildren. But if someone had asked her, just out of interest, who her best friend was, Sophie would instantly have answered “Carrie Stiles.” She struggled to remember how old the children were. Young, possibly even less than six, she thought. Cal always organized the birthday presents—he would know. She looked at Tess Andrew, who was watching her closely, holding a packet of tissues at the ready.

  “I’m sorry—it is a shock,” Sophie said, still not able to register the information that this Tess Andrew had given her. “We were close once. But thank you. Thank you for letting me know. I didn’t realize Social Services did this sort of thing. I thought you were too understaffed and overworked for that. So—When’s the funeral, do you know?” Sophie was aware that her voice sounded all wrong. As if she were making an appointment for a routine meeting. Not a funeral. Not Carrie Stiles’s funeral. But Carrie had been alive somewhere else for so long, it seemed impossible that she was not still there, leading her life as usual, just out of view.

  Tess squeezed the packet of tissues and twisted them. She looked more upset and uncomfortable than Sophie did. It was the shock, Sophie supposed. It didn’t seem real yet. Not like the day Dad died. That had been real from the moment she had known. The truth was that, while Sophie still thought about her dad every single day, she hadn’t thought of Carrie in ages. She tried to remember signing the last Christmas card she’d sent her, just a couple of weeks ago, but couldn’t. Cal wrote out all her cards, including the few personal ones. Sophie just signed them one after another—her name and then three kisses, XXX.

  “I’m afraid,” Tess said uneasily, “that the funeral was some time ago. A little over six months ago, actually. From what I understand, it was quite an affair. Carrie had a lot of friends in the area. They organized it down there for her. Her mum went down; she was in better health then. She said it was exactly how Carrie would have wanted it, pagan I think was the word she used. They scattered her ashes in the sea, at a favorite spot of hers and the children’s.”

  Sophie tried to picture a group of people she didn’t know scattering Carrie Stiles’s ashes in the sea. It didn’t make sense to her. It was like a dream. “Oh,” she said. It was strange to know that Carrie had not been in the world for six whole months now, that the Christmas card would have gone unopened. She was unjustly hurt that she had missed Carrie’s funeral but not surprised. She did not know any of Carrie’s St. Ives friends, and she’d hardly known Carrie’s husband. Sophie took a deep breath and tried to bring the real world back into focus.

  She had to get on, go to lunch with Jake, she decided. She had to do something now that was normal and that she could control and understand. She just couldn’t understand Carrie being dead. She just couldn’t think about it.

  “Well.” She glanced at the business card she was still holding before handing it back as requested. “Tess. Thank you for letting me know. You’re right, it was a shock, but I think the best thing is to get on with life as normal, so if that’s all?”

  Tess looked taken aback and shook her head. “Oh dear,” she said, apologetically. “That’s not the only reason why I’m here, Miss Mills. Sophie. I didn’t come just to tell you Carrie was dead. Oh dear.” She took a deep breath. “It’s the children. Carrie’s children. Bella is six, and Izzy is just three.”

  “Of course,” Sophie said, shaking her head grimly. “It’s terrible for them. Just terrible.” She didn’t quite understand what Tess wanted from her.

  “Good, I’m glad you understand how difficult it’s been for the poor little mites. That’ll make everything so much easier for them.”

  Sophie was confused. “Make what so much easier?” she asked politely.

  “For the girls to come and live with you.” Tess studied Sophie’s blank page of a face. “You’ve forgotten, haven’t you? I was afraid that you might have—people never take these things seriously.” She could see that Sophie wanted her to get to the point. “Carrie named you in her will, but we only just found it, you see, a couple of days ago. Her neighbor had volunteered to sort through her things before they got cleared out—to save anything special and important for the girls. They found it in the bottom of a box of paints, can you believe—” Tess switched her smile back on. “She named you as the girls’ legal guardian, Miss Mills. You must remember you signed the agreement. She wanted you to look after them.”

  Two

  Sophie had forgotten until that moment. Of course she had—why would she remember a half-drunk agreement she had made nearly three years ago? Carrie was never supposed to actually die.

  It had been after the girl’s christenings. Carrie’s mum had arranged the whole thing in the same Highbury church that Carrie had been christened and confirmed in. It was just after her first stroke, a mild one that she recovered from quickly, but she’d suddenly got a sense of her mortality and a renewed religious fervor that meant she had to see her grandchildren christened before she died, she simply had to, or so she’d told Carrie.

  “Of course it’s emotional blackmail,” Carrie had told Sophie on the phone, sounding strung out and stressed, two conditions her mother invariably inspired in her. “I don’t want them christened. But Mum’s really turned the screws, so I’m bringing them both up. It’s either that or living purgatory for the foreseeable future.”

  Sophie had felt a lot of sympathy for Carrie. She knew what it was like to have a twilight-zone mother; in fact, a lot of women her age had similar experiences with their mothers. For some reason, it seemed to Sophie that, immediately after becoming mothers, women began a degenerative process that slowly transformed them from bright and interesting people to dotty and eccentric and, especially in Mrs. Stiles’s case, unhinged harridans hell-bent on dragging their daughters to the same ruinous fate. It was the main reason among many that Sophie had decided she never wanted to have children: she never wanted to become her mother, let alone anyone else’s.

  And Sophie’s mum was crazy only about dogs. Carrie’s mum, on the other hand, was a leader in the field when it came to bitter recrimination and emotional blackmail.

  “What about Louis,” Sophie remembered having asked Carrie. “I bet he doesn’t want it. You could say he’s put his foot down and blame him, couldn’t you?” Carrie hadn’t answered for a moment, and Sophie had been able to hear the new baby gurgle and cough down the line.

  “Oh well, no…I just. Well, no, it doesn’t matter. I’ve said yes now.” Carrie’s laugh had seemed a little thin. “Poor Bella, God knows what she’ll make of it, getting water chucked over her head by a bloke in a dress at nearly three years old! Mum’s even sorted out godparents, dreadfully pious cousins from Tottenham. But I put my foot down. I said I’d have at least one friend that I chose. You will do it, won’t you, Soph? I don’t think I can face the whole eternal guilt trip thing all on my own. You are a product of Our Lady’s too—at least you understand. And anyway, you’d make a good godmother, set the girls a good example and all that.”
/>   Sophie had laughed at Carrie’s description of her relationship with her mother and the church. Carrie had declared herself an atheist and a vegetarian at fourteen. She and Mrs. Stiles had been engaging in a gargantuan battle of good and evil ever since, each thinking that the other was on the wrong side.

  “Of course I will,” she’d said, looking forward to mulling over old times with Carrie. “But you won’t be alone, will you? Louis will be there, won’t he? He’ll stop your mum checking you into a nunnery!”

  Sophie tried to remember if Carrie had laughed at the rather feeble joke, but she couldn’t.

  “Louis can’t come,” Carrie had told her, her voice wobbling as Sophie imagined her jiggling the baby in her arms. “It’s work. I told him not to worry about it. This whole thing is for Mum anyway. It’s her show.”

  Sophie thought of the one time she had met Louis, at Carrie’s sacrilegious registry office wedding. Carrie had been eight months pregnant, in a white crocheted smock with wildflowers entwined in her brown curls making her look like an earth goddess. Mrs. Stiles had managed to overshadow the whole event by not being present. Sophie had barely spoken to Louis. He’d seemed slightly drunk, even during the ceremony, and she’d thought the very least he could have done was combed his hair and shaved off his near-full beard of dark stubble. He was personable enough and friendly, but secretly Sophie had disapproved of the whole relationship; it was too impulsive and somehow hurried.

  Carrie had met Louis while she was on a long-planned painting holiday in St. Ives. He was into surfing and photography. They shared a love of art and of the sea. “Met most marvelous hunk,” Carrie had written on the postcard she sent to Sophie. “Am going to keep him.” She was pregnant three months later. They were married five months after that. Sophie had privately given it six months, as she made her excuses and slipped out of the pub wedding reception. She had felt out of place in her lilac suit and matching shoes, her long blond hair ironed straight over her shoulders. Everyone else had been tie-dyed and sort of a hippie. Carrie asked her to stay longer, but Sophie had explained she had to drive back up to London that night. She’d been working toward a promotion even then. The marriage had lasted longer than six months, and Sophie had been proved wrong, a new baby proved her wrong conclusively, she’d supposed. She had agreed to be the girls’ godmother.