Wicked Wives. Anna-Lou Weatherley

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СКАЧАТЬ – and a small upturned nose that sat in perfect proportion to the rest of her slim, oval face.

      Her eleven-year marriage to Lawrence Mayfield, a handsome, talented film director, had been, by and large, a blissfully happy one. Perfectly matched, they complimented one another perfectly; his natural vivacity offset by her quiet charm.

      On the surface, to an outsider who happened to be looking in, Lawrence and Victoria Mayfield had the lot; an enviable marriage, success and acclaim in both their chosen professions, plus a personal fortune that ensured they had the very best of everything. There was just one blot on their sublime landscape: they could not conceive.

      ‘Give it time,’ others said when month after month, Victoria’s unwelcome period had arrived with all the regularity of a baddie in a fairy tale. Five years down the line however, with numerous failed IVF attempts behind them, it transpired that they had what a glut of specialist doctors referred to as, ‘Unexplained Infertility’. Devastated that they might not ever be able to consolidate their love for each other with a child of their own, they had made the painful decision to stop with the treatment and let fate dictate. And so it had. Less than a year later, Victoria had found herself expecting.

      Victoria sat down in the large comfortable nursing chair, a chair she had sat in to cradle her daughter’s tiny body as she fed her, and looked down at the small, soft rabbit she held in her hand, its beady black eyes shining up at her. Every cell in her body wanted to scream with anguish. It was all so cruel and unjust. There was a world of unwanted and unloved children out there, neglected and abused by their parents, and yet God had not seen fit to take their children from them, had he? Deep down in Victoria’s shattered heart, she knew that God had had nothing to do with CeCe’s death; she just needed someone to blame, and He seemed as good as anyone.

      It had been uncommonly cold that night of the 16^th July. Victoria remembered this because she had felt the need to wear a pair of light cashmere pyjamas to bed – unusual for the time of year.

      After giving five-month old CeCe her bedtime feed and placing her down into the beautiful crib, she had watched her tiny daughter kick her chubby baby legs and coo, happily fixated on the mobile of bees and butterflies that gently danced above her, lulling her to sleep. Victoria had felt an overwhelming rush of love for her daughter as she watched her drift off in her crib. She was so adorable! Her saucer eyes were sapphire blue and twinkly, fine platinum curls settled at the nape of her sweet-smelling neck and her rosebud lips were as pink as the flowers themselves. CeCe was her greatest achievement; a baby made all the more precious by coming into the world against the odds.

      Lawrence had been in Guatemala the night of the 16^th July. He had been filming a documentary on drug mules, a somewhat dangerous assignment, and one that had caused Victoria some consternation at the time. Still, she had slept soundly that evening, a fact she felt guilty about to this day.

      CeCe looked peaceful when Victoria had approached her in her crib the following morning. She had slept seemingly soundly and Victoria marvelled at what a clever little girl her daughter was; she had never suffered the torture of sleep deprivation like so many of her fellow new mothers who bitterly complained, bleary-eyed and tetchy, over strong cups of espresso at NCT classes. It was only when she got closer to the crib that Victoria realised that something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

      CeCe’s perfect face was tinged blue and when Victoria snatched her up from the crib her body felt cold and rigid. The logical part of her brain immediately told her that her daughter was dead but her heart steadfastly refused to concede this fact, even for a second. And so she had run, clutching the child still wrapped in her soft cashmere blanket, down the stairs, her hysterical, bloodcurdling screams so desperate and piercing that they alerted her housekeeper way down in the basement of the house almost instantly.

      ‘Oh please, God,’ she had screamed. ‘No … nooooo.’

      Marney O’Brien would never forget the look of pure despair etched on her employer’s face that morning. Her low primeval screams would haunt her till her death.

      *

      From that day onwards, inside her own mind Victoria Mayfield had never really stopped screaming. Even Lawrence struggled to reach her. Though Victoria still loved her husband, their union was now forever blighted, defined by heartache and loss. This feeling was exacerbated by the fact that the doctors had said they were ‘unlikely, if ever’ to conceive again. As if fate hadn’t bestowed them a cruel enough blow, Lawrence had suffered a crippling bout of mumps in the year that had followed little CeCe’s death, rendering his already dwindling sperm count virtually non-existent.

      ‘Perhaps you might consider adoption?’ the US specialist had gently suggested, his five-thousand-dollar-a-pop fee affording them the soft touch at least. It was an option Victoria had flatly ruled out. She had felt the feet and elbows of flesh and blood inside her belly; her creation, their creation, and knew there could be no substitute.

      Two years had passed since CeCe’s death, and with still no baby, Victoria was getting desperate. She couldn’t afford to wait five years like she had done before; she wasn’t getting any younger. As far as she was concerned, a life without children would be no life at all.

      From the comfortable confines of CeCe’s nursing chair, Victoria was dragged from her thoughts by the sound of her private phone ringing in her bedroom next door. She heard the incongruous sound of her own cheerful voice as the recorded message kicked in.

      ‘Tor! Hi! It’s Ellie. Fancy a little lunch this week, if you’re around? I was thinking Nobo perhaps? Or The Belvedere? Your call … I don’t know about you but I could do with the company – and a glass of something alcoholic! Actually, sod it, make it a bottle with the week I’ve had …’ Ellie laughed, though Victoria’s intuition detected an edge to her friend’s tone. ‘Anyway, if you’re about, give me a shout. Otherwise, catch up soon. Hope all’s well, darling. Call me …’

      Victoria’s friendship with Ellie Scott was the best thing, the only good thing that had come out of all the wasted time they had spent at the fertility clinic. It had been comforting to meet like-minded people who understood the emotional ups and downs of endless fruitless IVF cycles and heartbreak, and through it the Mayfields and the Scotts had forged a strong bond.

      Victoria made to pick up the phone but hesitated as the image of her daughter’s coffin bubbled up in her mind; a beautiful white solid oak casket adorned with a stunning array of pink flowers that spelled out the word ‘Angel’. It had looked so small as it disappeared through the burgundy velvet curtain of the crematorium that she had wanted to run after it, to rescue her daughter’s tiny body before she turned to dust, to hold her hand, be with her, like a mother should be. She had become hysterical at that point and a doctor had been called to give her a shot of something that had made her sleep, a sleep in which she prayed to a God she despised that she might never wake from.

      Victoria abruptly stood. Kissing the rabbit on its soft fluffy face, she replaced it carefully onto the shelf and left the room, taking one sorrowful last look around before closing the door behind her.

      Making her way into the vast walk-in wardrobe in her bedroom, she drew back the bespoke sliding doors and began to pull various dresses from their padded hangers, only to instantly discard them in a pile behind her.

      Getting pregnant was no longer merely something she hoped for, but a base need within her that had to be filled, as essential as the very oxygen she breathed. Picking up the pile of dresses and throwing them onto the bed, Victoria knew what she had to do. She could no longer wait for fate to chance its arm any more than she could face another year of bitter childless disappointment. She could almost feel her eggs drying up with each second СКАЧАТЬ