This Is My Child

“But he won’t have a mother who loves him,” Melanie screamed. “Oh, God! Oh, God!”

Zena regarded her dispassionately. “The welfare worker told me you gave up David because you wanted to play in a rock band. I can only say that if this performance is anything to go by you should have been an actress. However, it doesn’t move me, you know.”

“Rock band?” Melanie echoed, dazed. “I don’t know what you mean. I may have mentioned to her that I once thought of something like that, but I didn’t give Peter up because of it. I don’t care about a career now. I just want my baby.”

“My baby,” Zena said calmly. “Mine and my husband’s. Now I think you’d better go.”

She’d pleaded for one last sight of Peter, a chance to say goodbye, but Zena had been like flint.

“He hasn’t seen you for months. You’d only disturb him. Besides,” she added belatedly, “he isn’t here.”

“He is, I can hear him.”

She ran out of the room, up the stairs toward the sound of a baby’s crying. In her distraught state it seemed that Peter was calling to her. But she never got to him. A nurse came out of a room at the end of the corridor, closed it firmly behind her and stood with her back to it.

“Peter,” Melanie screamed. “Peter.”

Then Zena caught up with her, and together she and the nurse wrestled her downstairs into the hall.

“I suggest you leave now before I call the police and charge you with attempted kidnapping,” Zena said breathlessly.

She’d stumbled out of the house, tears streaming down her cheeks. As the front door was slammed shut, she turned and screamed, “He’s my baby. I’ll get him back, whatever I have to do.”

But the next day Zena had gone to Australia, taking Peter with her.

Melanie had tried to put the past behind her and plan for a career. She’d been a talented pianist and for a while she had played keyboard with a rock band that had some modest success. Men pursued her, attracted as much by her haunting air of melancholy as by her gentle beauty. But she had nothing to give them. The trauma she’d been through had frozen her, until now she was sure she would never fall in love. Only one kind of feeling still lived in her, and it was one she couldn’t acknowledge. Each year she celebrated Peter’s birthday with a breaking heart, and each night she prayed for a miracle.

At last the rock band broke up. Melanie was growing weary of the futility of the life and she left music completely to take business courses. She joined a temping agency and took a succession of jobs until at last she was hired for a month by Ayleswood School, a select, fee-paying establishment, whose secretary was off sick. And there she found her miracle, in the school records.

His name was David Haverill, son of Giles and Zena Haverill, and his address was the very same house where she’d confronted Zena. There could be no doubt. The family had returned from Australia, and now her child was here, within a few yards of her.

When her first transports of joy had calmed, she began to search for him slowly, careful not to attract attention. There were three boys who were possible. None of them had her features, or Oliver’s, but they were fair haired, like herself. She’d cherished dreams of an instant thunderbolt of recognition, but it didn’t happen that way.

It happened through stealing.

She’d come into the anteroom of the headmistress’s office one afternoon to find one of the “possibles” there. He was sitting on the edge of a seat, his face set in a mask that might have concealed defiance or indifference or just plain misery. “Hello,” Melanie said cautiously. “I’ve got some files for Mrs. Grady. Do you know if she’s in there?”

He stared at her for a long moment before nodding. “She told me to wait here,” he said at last.

“I’m Melanie. What’s your name?’

“David.”

Her heart began to hammer. “David Haverill?” she asked breathlessly.

He nodded again. He seemed strangely listless for a boy of eight.

“Are you here because you’re in trouble?” she asked gently.

For the first time, he raised his head and looked at her directly. His nod was almost imperceptible and his eyes were wary.

“Well, I don’t suppose it’s so very bad,” she said in a rallying voice.

Before he could speak, the headmistress had opened her door and said, “You can come in now, David.”

Melanie had been forced to leave the files she’d brought and depart, trying to look indifferent to conceal her inner turbulence. After all these years she’d found her son.

She had to wait until next morning to find out more. When she casually mentioned the incident and asked what had brought David to the office, Mrs. Grady, the headmistress, said, “Stealing, and not for the first time. I suppose we shouldn’t blame the child too much. He never acted like this before his mother went away.”

“Went away?” Melanie asked.

“Ran off and left the poor little mite, about a year ago.”

Something was constricting Melanie’s breathing. “And—his father?”

Mrs. Gray’s voice became tart with disapproval. “I had to get his father out of a board meeting yesterday to tell him what had happened. He wasn’t pleased. Oh, I think he’s fond of the boy in a business-must-comefirst sort of way, and he used to be proud of him. But frankly he’s not coping very well, either, and if he doesn’t start managing better he may lose David entirely.”

“But why?” Melanie asked, startled. “Lots of fathers bring up children alone these days.”

“It’s not that. David’s run away twice, trying to find his mother. Once he was gone for two days. We had to call the police out to search for him. So of course the social services became involved, and then they discovered about the stealing, as well. To them he looks like a disturbed child. He actually has a social worker assigned to him, and I know she doesn’t think Giles Haverill is doing a marvelous job of giving David the reassurance he needs.”

That night Melanie dreamed Peter was calling to her again. The baby she’d heard crying eight years ago and the little boy who’d run away to find his mother merged into one child, pleading for her to go to his rescue. She awoke with her mind already made up. Fate had offered her the chance she’d prayed for, to be reunited with her son, even if it meant being his nanny, not his mother.

She went about her plans with cool determination. There could be no failure. While learning secretarial skills she’d sometimes worked as a baby-sitter. Now she contacted the parents for references, and when she had them she telephoned Giles Haverill.

Confronting the man himself was the hardest part. Melanie’s dislike of Zena was a rational thing, based on their meeting. But over the years Giles had loomed in her mind as a monster, the unseen puppet master whose demand for an heir had made his wife grasp at a child she didn’t love.

Now she was over that hurdle. Giles Haverill was no longer a monster, but a stern, unlikable man. He’d sized her up like goods to be assessed before buying, and she’d tolerated it because she had her eyes on her goal. There would be other things to put up with, but she would endure them all. This was her chance, and she was going to take it, Giles Haverill or no Giles Haverill.

Two

The room that Melanie had been allocated was right next to David’s. It was spacious and pleasant, and Brenda, the middle-aged housekeeper, had made it spotless.

“Thank goodness you’re here, Miss,” she said as she showed Melanie the room. “I’ve had all I can take of that child. He’s a right little devil. He’s rude and awkward, shuts himself in his room for hours at a time, and when he does come out, half the time he won’t talk.”

“Perhaps he’s got nothing to say,” Melanie observed, disliking Brenda.

“Humph! Last week all my dusters went missing. Every single one. He’d hidden them under his bed, just for the fun of watching me chasing around.”

Melanie laughed. “That doesn’t sound so very wicked, just normal childish mischief.”

“And there’s the staring.”

“What do you mean?”

“He stares at you as though he could see right through you. Just stares on and on. It’s unnerving.”

“Does he have any friends?”

“Not anymore. He made some at school, I think, but since he became a thief—”

“Don’t call him a thief,” Melanie said quickly.

“What else do you call a kid who steals? You do know he steals, don’t you?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to hang labels around a child’s neck,” Melanie said firmly.

Brenda shrugged. “Please yourself. But be sure to hide your things away.”

A shadow darkened the door. Melanie looked up to see Giles. “When you’ve finished settling in, Miss Haynes, perhaps you’d come down to my office.”

He departed without waiting for an answer. Melanie went down a few moments later and found him regarding her dispassionately. “Perhaps I should make it plain at the outset that your duties will not include listening to Brenda slandering my son,” he snapped.

“I think my duties include anything that will help David,” she said calmly. “And first of all that means learning all I can about his problems.”

“I can tell you everything you need to know.”

“Can you? There’s probably a lot about him you don’t know. Why not let me approach him my own way?”

He considered her thoughtfully. “Very well,” he said at last in a dismissive voice. “But I don’t want to overhear any more conversations like that.”

She was turning away, confirmed in her poor opinion of him, when he stopped her. “Miss Haynes…” There was an uncertain note in his voice that took her by surprise.

“Yes?”

“Those dusters—it was just childish mischief, wasn’t it? The sort of thing any boy of his age might do.” He was almost pleading.

“Exactly the sort of thing I did when I was a child. I told you I was the black sheep. Can you tell me where to find David?”

“In the garden.”

The garden was huge and could have been an enchanted place for a crowd of children, but it dwarfed one solitary little boy. David was sitting on a log, absently tossing sticks. Melanie was sure he detected her approach, but he refused to raise his head as she crossed the grass toward him.

“Hello,” she said cheerfully.

He continued tossing twigs, ignoring her presence.

“Do you remember me?” she persisted.

At last he raised his head to look at her silently, and she understood what Brenda had meant about his staring. “My name’s Melanie,” she said. “And I know you’re David. It’s nice to meet you properly at last.” A sudden impulse made her put out her hand, and she said, “How do you do?” as she would have done with an adult.

After watching her carefully for a moment, he took her hand. “How do you do?” he said politely.

“Has your father told you very much about me?” she asked, feeling her way by inches.

“Yes. He says it’ll be like having Mommy back, but it won’t.”

On the last words his voice rose to a sudden shout that made her flinch. She stared at him, appalled. For a moment the mask had cracked, giving her a glimpse of the rage and misery that boiled beneath. “Of course it won’t,” she said quickly. “Daddy didn’t mean that I could take Mommy’s place.” It hurt to speak of Zena as his mother but she had no time for her own feelings now. “He just meant that I’d be here if you ever needed me.”

“I don’t need you,” he said coldly. “I don’t need anyone. I don’t need Mommy or Daddy, or you or anyone.” Again there was that unnerving shout, coming out of nowhere.

“Well, perhaps you don’t,” she said, as if giving the matter serious consideration. “But maybe Daddy needs you. Have you thought of that?”

He shook his head. “Daddy doesn’t need me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’m bad.”

The bald statement brought tears to her eyes. She fought them back. “Don’t call yourself bad. It isn’t true.”

“Yes, it is. Everyone says so.”

Mercifully memory came to her rescue. “I was bad, too,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. “One of my teachers told my parents I was on my way to becoming a juvenile delinquent.”

“What’s a ju…ju…?”

“Juvenile delinquent? Someone who causes chaos. I did things that made that duster trick look like nothing.”

“Brenda was really mad,” he said with satisfaction.

“Yes, it’s no fun if they don’t get mad,” she agreed.

A glimmer of appreciation appeared in his eyes. “What sort of things did you used to do?”

“There was a boy in my class who used to bully anyone smaller than himself,” she recalled. “He made people’s lives a misery. I sat behind him one day and painted his hair with glue.” She chuckled. “It wouldn’t wash out. He had to cut the hair off. Of course his parents complained to mine, and I was in trouble. But it was worth it. There’s a lot of fun to be had with sticky stuff.”

He didn’t answer this, but she was pleased to notice that he was looking more cheerful. When she asked him to show her around the garden he got up at once. He was knowledgeable for a boy of his age, and talked to her about his surroundings in a way that made her start to feel hopeful.

But her mood was short-lived. After lunch she had to return to her old flat to collect a bag she’d overlooked. Brenda agreed to look after David and take him shopping with her. David too seemed happy to go shopping, which puzzled Melanie slightly, as it seemed odd for this activity to appeal to a small boy.

But she returned to find a message that she was to see Giles immediately. In his study he turned exasperated eyes on her. “You’ve only been here a day,” he snapped, “and already you’ve shown David new ways to make life hideous for the rest of us.”

“I beg your pardon?” she said blankly.

“It was you who told him how much ‘fun’ could be had with ‘sticky stuff,’ wasn’t it?”

“Oh, heavens! What’s he done?”

“Ask Brenda.”

“He didn’t glue her hair, did he?” Melanie asked, horrified.

“Not her hair. Her purse. She went to pay the paper bill and found her purse stuck solid.”

Melanie gasped and caught her lip between her teeth. “That was wrong of him, of course,” she said in a shaking voice. “Very naughty.”

“Then you can be the one to tell him so.”

“I’m sure you’ve already told him.”

“But he needs to hear it from you, since you seem to be his partner in crime,” Giles said grimly.

“David!” She’d spied him lurking in the hall, and called to him. He came nearer, watching her closely, as though waiting for the storm. “Come here, you wretch,” she said cheerfully. “Now see what you’ve done to me.”

“But you said—”

“I did it to a boy in school who’d been bullying people. He was a fair target. Brenda isn’t. It wasn’t kind of you to make her life hard. Come on, let’s go and tell her you’re sorry.”

“But I’m not sorry,” he said innocently.

“Then fake it,” she told him, leading him away with a hand on his shoulder.

Brenda greeted them frostily but received David’s mumbled apology in astonishment. “And I’m sorry, too,” Melanie said before the housekeeper could recover. “I put the idea into his head, but I didn’t mean to. I’ll be more careful in the future.”

They came out of the kitchen to find Giles in the hall. “I only came home to get my things,” he explained. “I have to fly to New York. The plane leaves in a couple of hours.” He was shrugging on his coat as he spoke, and Melanie saw his bags standing by the front door. “It’s lucky you’re here or I’d have had a problem about leaving.”

“Will you be away for long?” she asked.

“I’ve no idea, but it’ll give you a chance to get to know David. You’re in sole charge.” He turned to David. “I’ve got to go now, son. You’ll behave yourself, won’t you? Don’t give Miss Haynes any trouble. I shall expect good reports of you when I return.”

To hell with good reports, Melanie thought crossly. Tell him you’ll miss him.

David hadn’t spoken. He stood next to Melanie in silence, but as Giles headed for the door he suddenly dashed forward and clasped his father, hiding his face against him. Melanie tensed, ready to hate Giles if he pushed his son away, but he didn’t. To her surprise he dropped onto one knee and put an arm around David. “Hey, come on now,” he said in a rallying voice. “It’s not for long.” David didn’t answer in words but his arms went around his father’s neck. “It’s all right, son,” Giles said in a softer voice than Melanie had heard him use before. “I’m coming back.”

Then he enfolded David in a fierce hug, burying his face in the child’s soft fair hair. When he emerged, his voice was a little husky, but that might have been the effect of being half strangled. “Goodbye,” he said quickly, and went away, leaving Melanie wondering just what sort of a man he really was.

Giles was away for a week, and it was a happier week than Melanie had known for a long time. She was in David’s company every day. It was she who took him to school, collected him, had tea with him, put him to bed. It was what she’d dreamed of for years, and at first it was enough.

She was free to slip into his room at night and watch him sleeping, hugging her joy to herself like a miser brooding over rediscovered gold. She’d often wondered how the reunion would be. Would her heart still recognize him as her son?

But all was well. On her side the bond held, true and strong, and along it streamed love as fierce and protective as the love he’d once drunk in with her milk. She instinctively knew that this was the child she’d held in her arms so long ago. When he wasn’t looking her way, she would watch him in secret, inwardly whispering words of wonder, “My son. My son.”

But as the days slipped past she knew that she hadn’t made the breakthrough she wanted. David spoke to her politely enough, but he didn’t give her the eager confidence she longed for, and she could sense that he was still wary of her. She was inching her way along, always alert to seize the moment that might bring them closer, but such moments were painfully slow in coming.

One morning she heard Brenda grumbling inside David’s room. “…think I’ve got nothing better to do than change sheets every day.”

“Is anything the matter?” Melanie asked, entering.

“He’s done it again,” Brenda declared bitterly. “Look at that!” She held up a sheet with a large damp place. “It’s time he pulled himself together instead of acting like a baby.”

David’s face was scarlet and he was fighting back the tears. Melanie put a hand on his shoulder. “Go down to the garden,” she suggested gently. “And don’t worry. It’s not important.”

She shut the door behind him and faced Brenda. “From now on if David is unlucky enough to wet his bed, you tell me and no one else. I won’t have him made to feel bad about it.”

Brenda was up in arms, her heavy face mottled with anger. “He’s not the only one who feels bad. It’s me who has to do the extra washing.”

“Aided by a state-of-the-art washing machine,” Melanie said, her temper rising. “If putting a few sheets in it is too much for you, I’ll do it. But the important thing is that you are to say nothing to David. Do you understand?”

Brenda seemed, about to argue but then fell silent, alarmed by a fierce gleam in Melanie’s eyes. She wasn’t to know that she was dealing with a tigress defending her cub. She only knew that something in the other woman’s look quelled her. She sniffed and hurried out of the room.

Melanie joined David in the garden and said, “Don’t worry about Brenda. She won’t bother you anymore.”

“I’m not a baby,” David said quickly.

“Of course you’re not.”

“But Daddy says I am,” he told her in a wobbly voice.

She put a hand on his shoulder. “You leave Daddy to me.”

He looked at her in awe. Then a smile of gratitude and trust came over his face.

“Come on,” she said. “What are we going to do today?”

He slipped a hand in hers. “I’ve got a new computer game,” he said eagerly.

“Come on, then. Teach me.”

They spent the day cheerfully zapping each other on the screen. Like many children of his generation, David was at ease with computers and instructed Melanie with careful courtesy. One moment he was like a little old-fashioned gentleman, the next he was doubled up with excitement and laughter. But then he would grow suddenly quiet, as though all the computer games in the world couldn’t ease the crushing burden on his heart.

Late that evening the telephone rang. Melanie lifted the receiver in her bedroom and found herself talking to Giles.

“Is everything all right?” he said. “Is David behaving himself?”

“Perfectly. He’ll be thrilled that you called him. Just a moment.” She hurried out of her room to knock on David’s door. “He’s just coming,” she said when she returned to the phone.”

“Actually I didn’t—if you hadn’t run off so fast I could have told you that all I meant—” He sighed.

I know you weren’t going to talk to David, Melanie thought crossly. That’s why I called him before you could stop me.

David bounced in. “Is it really Daddy?”

“That’s right,” Melanie said brightly. She added, loud enough for Giles to hear, “He called especially to talk to you.”

“Hello, Daddy-Daddy-”

Listening to the child’s end of the conversation, Melanie formed the impression that Giles was laboring to keep going. He seemed to be questioning David about his behavior when he ought to have been saying how much he missed him. But David’s delight was touching.

At last he said, “Yes, Daddy, I’ll be good. Goodbye.”

“Back to bed now,” Melanie commanded with a laugh.

It took time to settle him down again. In his excitement at receiving his father’s call, he repeated everything that had been said a dozen times. But at last he snuggled down between the sheets and dropped off. Melanie crept out of the room but couldn’t resist returning an hour later. The moon, sliding between a crack in the curtains, touched David’s face, revealing a smile of blissful content that she had never seen before.

Melanie stood looking at that innocent smile for a long time, hating Giles Haverill with all her heart.

During weekdays, when David was at school, Melanie took the chance to explore the house. It had been built about sixty years earlier by the first Haverill to make money, and had a look of forbidding prosperity. The design was spacious but undistinguished, and the best part of the place was the huge garden. Someone had designed that garden with love, arranging trees and shrubs so that there were constant surprises and changes of view.

Downstairs the big piano tempted her. It was locked, but after a search she found the key on a hook behind the door of Giles’s office. Playing again was like rediscovering a lost friend. She sat there for so long that she was nearly late fetching David from school, and had to hurry. When she told him what had delayed her, he stared. “Daddy keeps the piano locked,” he said. “He stopped my lessons.”

“Why did he do that?” she asked gently.

He didn’t reply. His face was set in the rigid lines of misery she’d seen on the day she first saw him at school. “It was my own fault,” he said at last.

After tea she asked him to play for her. As soon as he started, she realized that he had a talent and confidence that were like her own at the same age. Listening to her child expressing himself through the gift that had always been hers, Melanie breathed a prayer of thanks. “You ought to be in the school concert,” she said when he’d finished.

“I was going to, but Daddy said no. He says if I can’t get my schoolwork right…it’s next week.” he finished miserably. “And everyone’s in it except me.”

Melanie drew a long breath and counted to ten to stop herself expressing her opinion of Giles in terms unsuitable for a child’s ears. “Let me hear it again,” she begged. “You do it so well.”