Life Less Lived Ch. 05

After showering and changing, they both put Marina's clothes through the washing machine and dryer again in the utility room next to the kitchen.

"I'll be glad when I can get home and wear some different clothes," Marina said, more for initiating a theme of conversation than anything.

For the previous ten minutes or so they had been speaking about Sophie and Ginny's nanny and former housekeeper, Mavis, who Sophie wanted to introduce to Marina in the morning.

"I expect you'd be happy to have your room back again and have your father all to yourself," Marina added.

She was surprised by Sophie's reaction. She threw her arms around Marina and started crying softly.

"I hope you would never go away, Marina. I would love you of all people to be my new Mummy. I'm sure Daddy would hate you to go, so soon after having you back in his life."

Marina was taken aback by Sophie's assessment of the standing between Daniel and herself. She held on to the weeping girl, trying to think of what to say. Of course she had performed this role of comforter for years within her own extended family, at those other times she had known exactly what to say. She was sister to her siblings, respected aunt to her nieces and nephews, trusted friend to colleagues and customers in their moment of need, whether it be help with selecting a condolence card or helping Tracey tell her Mum that she was pregnant. Those were everyday problems that she normally took in her stride.

This was different. These were emotions which she had never had to tackle before, except when she was 12 and had no-one to turn to. They had been the feelings of an impressionable young girl who had just lost her mother and for almost the same length of time she had effectively lost her father too while he had struggled with the enormity of losing his wife so tragically. This time it actually involved Marina's active participation, and not just as a concerned onlooker, able to dispense succour and sympathy.

Marina had never been in a position where she knew she was in love with someone and where there were actually forces at work willing to bring about some sort of fulfilment of her hopes in that direction. Sophie clearly wished for it and had just given voice to that fervent hope, and Ginny also seemed enthusiastic about keeping her father and Marina in as close an association as possible over the next few days and the Christmas holidays. Perhaps Ginny too, wanted love to blossom. Even Daniel himself seemed overly swift to eliminate someone close to the family who had believed herself to be in with a chance of developing her emotional standing with Daniel.

Marina had considered that Daniel's attentions to her were merely those of a host to a guest, in order to make her comfortable and to show off his daughters, the house and grounds of which he was rightly proud. It would not be realistic, thought Marina, to read into his actions anything other than that of a proud host, who was still deep in grief after the loss of a beloved wife and partner. He had been a perfect gentleman, hardly touching Marina except helping her passage through doors or up steps in the last two days. Surely, Marina thought, Sophie was imposing her own desires to restore a happy family unit of a pair of parents, to a situation that was barely conceivable after only two days' reacquaintance, when they were nothing more than old friends.

Was it only two days she gasped? It had seemed a lot longer to Marina.

Anyway, what really was Daniel's attitude towards her?

Even Sophie had helped her mount and dismount Daisy, leaving Daniel to aid Lady Barbara, so Daniel had paid little attention to her needs other than a few words of thanks for handling the gates. And in the earlier part of the evening, although he had been an occupant of the same room, and took some part in the conversation, he had left Sophie to bear the brunt of the conversation. Sophie had talked about all manner of things, the beauty spots on the hills behind the house, the village life and some of the characters, she even mentioned college briefly before falling silent and weary before expressing her wish to retire early.

This had been Marina's chance to escape being left alone with Daniel by retiring with her. Sophie seemed pleased and together the girls wished goodbye to her father. Sophie reinforced her farewell with a cuddle of her father. Marina came up with half a wave and a smiled "Goodnight!" which received Daniel's easy disarming smile plus an echo in reply, before the girls ascended the stairs arm in arm.

Now they were embracing in the utility room with the young girl racked with tears. College, thought Marina, it was the only subject broached that evening where Sophie had become thoughtful and quiet. Was she worried about her grades, the workload, her accommodation ... perhaps a boyfriend? Marina smiled. Despite her lack of direct experience in such matters, all of her sisters and nieces had had similar reactions to the opposite sex, or just sex in general, at about this time during their rapid transition from childhood to becoming a woman. Marina found herself on somewhat familiar ground and was confident she could help.

They carried the warm folded clothes plus a hot water bottle each back up to the bedroom they shared so comfortably together only two nights into their acquaintance. Would they be so comfortable after Marina tried to help with her problem? One thing was certain. Sophie's problem wasn't being dealt with by Daniel. Marina was sure he hadn't even realised that Sophie had a problem. Perhaps Ginny could help her sister but that opportunity was several days away. Sophie clearly needed help now. Her Aunt Barbara appeared to be no help either, she was totally wrapped up in Daniel and herself to consider the feelings of a third person, even a goddaughter.

Marina climbed into Ginny's old bed and Sophie switched off the light switch by the door and skipped across the room into her own warm bed.

"Sophie, if you want to talk about College, or whatever is bothering you, I am here to help. You know, if you want help," Marina said softly in lieu of a simple goodnight.

Sophie sobbed, a single huge sob that was strangled in her throat even as it tried to escape. There was a rustle of bedsheets and within seconds Sophie was tunnelling into Marina's bed and buried her head in Marina's chest and crying, "What am I going to do? What do I say to Daddy?"

Marina cuddled the young woman who for now was just a child to her and let Sophie have her cry and allow her space to speak when she was ready to tell all, nothing or anything she wanted to say. Lots of different thoughts went through Marina's head as she stroked the girl's hair and with a soothing voice assured her that everything was going to be all right. After all, she told the girl, she had her sister and father and added, "I'm here to listen too, if you need me".

"I do need you, Marina," she said in the semi-dark, "It is like you came along at just the right time to help me, and to help Daddy. You are the answer to my prayers and I have been praying very hard these last few weeks. Can you hear what I have to say and advise me how much to tell Daddy? We have never really had any secrets between us, Daddy and I, until now."

"Sophie, I will help you as much as you want, whenever you are ready. Am I right, this goes back to college?"

"Yes," Sophie said and paused, still sobbing while she tried to calm herself and find the words to start to say what Marina thought must have filled almost every second of her recent life. "Where do I begin?"

"Well," smiled Marina with her gentle voice steady, "You can either start at the beginning or start with whatever you are most frightened about telling your father, or you can begin with what you want the outcome to be of whatever you want to say to your father."

Sophie paused from replying immediately, no doubt thinking through the options, before deciding.

"I-was-pregnant and ... then-I-lost-my-baby!" she said as quickly as she could so,the words merged together.

Both were silent for a while. Marina was shocked both by the two statements and by how much it affected her personally. Sophie was surprised and more that a little relieved that those two horrors came out so easily and how instantly cathartic the revelation was. Although Sophie knew there was a long road to travel and she had worked out that she was prepared for pain along the way, this first step had been relatively painless.

Marina was similarly thinking how calmly Sophie had released that pent-up tension and yet how tumultuous her own thoughts and emotions had suddenly become. Marina held the girl tight to her for a while before saying what she wanted to say, it was so difficult to stop her own heart from beating out of control.

"Sophie, I want you to consider, in the light of your lost baby, whether you actually need to tell your father anything."

Sophie lifted her head off Marina's chest, "Really, you think? I have never had any secrets from Daddy before."

"Think of this from his point of view, Soph," said Marina evenly, "To him you are his baby, you will always be his baby. It is probably going to be difficult for him to consider you have already become a woman. This would be a shock to him and would cause him heartache without him being able to do anything about it. Being a parent involves active participation in their offspring's lives and to solve any problems. This is something he can probably do little about other than approve or otherwise of your boyfriend. If you were having a baby, it would soon show and you would have to tell him. As there is no baby, why does he really need to know that you lost it? You have shared the burden. You've told me, and I am happy to help you through whatever you need to do to come to terms with the loss. You can also speak to Ginny about it and she can help you through this when I am gone."

"No, no, you mustn't go, Marina," she begged, "I am still going to need you. I still have so much to say and do, this isn't finished by a long chalk yet."

"I know," Marina said, "I wouldn't dream of abandoning you after the next few days have whizzed by. I will give you my home number and you can call me at any time you need to call. And we can meet up too, if you want to, anytime you like and as often as you want."

"See, I told you that you'd make a great new Mum!" Sophie exclaimed.

"Well, at least I could be your Aunt, if you like, your Aunt Marina."

"As a stopgap, maybe!" said Sophie cheerfully, before pausing again, then continuing more gravely. "Marina, there's so much more I want to tell you, are you prepared to hear the worst?"

"They do say a problem shared is a problem halved," Marina replied smiling, "You don't have to worry about anything you say to me. I will never say anything to anyone to break your confidence, including your father, and I will tell you honestly what I think if you feel you still need to decide what is the best thing to do."

"I know that is a promise I can rely on."

"You can. Now, where do you want to begin?"

"Firstly, there is no boyfriend, there's no-one at all in the picture as regards that side of things."

"Well, that simplifies things," Marina commented.

"Well, it is complicated enough ... I became pregnant because I was drugged and gang raped!"

"Oh! Honey!"

Marina clutched her tighter in her arms and suddenly found herself crying heavily, too. She could not stop the flood of tears which suddenly engulfed her. It all came tumbling though her mind, the waking up alone in that hotel room, the discovery of her pregnancy, telling her father, losing her baby, Daniel and ... and everything. Suddenly it was all too much for Marina.

Sophie knew that Marina was upset for more than just her problems and held her friend close for a long while, sobbing in unison until they were each able to compose themselves.

"The same thing happened to me," Marina confessed. "I was younger than you when it happened."

'How much to say?' Marina thought, 'how little to say about Sophie's father, baby Daniel Shaw's father?'

"I lost my mother when I was 12, so I had no-one at all to speak to when I found I was pregnant. I lost my baby just two weeks before he was due to be born. I don't even know where he is buried. I carried him for nearly nine months, felt him kick and then felt no movement and he had died in my womb and I have nowhere where I can visit him and mourn him."

"Oh, Marina," Sophie wailed, "If I had known something like this had happened to you, I would never have burdened you with my problems."

"Hush, I have had a long time to come to terms with what happened to me and until now I thought I had. Truth is that you can never really get over something like this. The best you can do is be ready to cope so that you can be strong when the enormity of it all comes back to haunt you. Sophie, I must tell you, from personal experience, that you will probably always think of your baby whenever a friend or Ginny tells you they are pregnant, or even if someone shows you a baby in the street. It happens to me all the time and it always will, and I have to learn to live with it for as long as I live."

"I will have to tell Daddy sometime," Sophie said quietly, "It's complicated. Very complicated. Because I haven't told you the full story, yet."

"Go on, honey, best to get it all out, then we know what damage limitation we need to work out."

"I tested positive with a pregnancy testing kit I got from the chemists, but by the time I saw the doctor, the one that I had transferred to, in the local surgery in Cambridge, I had already miscarried."

"And you said the potential father's no longer in the picture?"

"I'm not sure who the father of that embryo was, actually. It happened at a party. It was the first party my room-mate Suzie and I were invited to in a house near the college. I don't know what happened to Suzie as we lost contact with each other not long after we got there. I was going to restrict myself to just a couple of drinks, but I was drugged with one of them and had no idea what happened exactly. I woke up alone in a bedroom and I had clearly been raped and sodomised and was completely covered in ... you know, semen."

"Oh, Sophie," Marina whispered holding her close.

"I pulled off the sheets from the bed, found my clothes and got dressed, taking myself and the sheets to the hospital and told them I had probably been multiple-raped in ... both passages ... and almost certainly drugged. The police came to see me in the hospital almost immediately, the WPC who came with them was very nice and well trained in the procedures and calmly guided me through it. They took statements and tested me, my blood and urine, my clothes, the sheets, my face, body, hair. They identified saliva, semen and hair from about 12 different DNAs, eventually, although that information didn't come through to me until quite a few days later.

"The police were brilliant. They raided the house immediately, before anything could be cleaned up, and checked out the room, gathering more evidence. They arrested the three students that rented the house and were still there at the time of the raid. All three have been confirmed as having deposited DNA on either me or in the room. They are still tracking down the others. I haven't heard any more about when it will have to go to court, but it will be within the next six months. When it does, we will have to tell my father."

Sophie looked at Marina and appealed to her face, seen palely in the moonlight streaming through the window. Marina smiled reassuringly even though she still felt like crying.

"When it comes to it, yes, we will speak to your father."

"We?"

"We. I won't abandon you now, Sophie. We will pick our time so that we tell him when he has just a little bit of breathing space to prepare before the court case but not so long that he broods about it and feels the frustration of inaction."

"Thank you, Marina. What would I do without you?"

"I think you have coped extraordinarily well as it is. But you don't have to bear it all on your own shoulders any more. I am not working at the moment, and not really sure when I will be, but if you need my support in Cambridge, such as if you need to go to the police, I hope you will contact me. I can come up by train any time."

"I will. Can I ring you at other times, you know, just to talk things over?"

"Of course you can."

"Thank you, I love you, Aunt Marina." She couldn't have been more sincere.

"I love you too, Sophie." Marina said, and she did, she really did.

To be continued