Nanna Doris weighed in, ‘Everyone can just shut the fuck up. Minnie isn’t PART of this family, she IS this family. She’s in it, right at the heart, and that’s the end of it. My bloody fear is that she could be removed from us, she’s still a minor.’
‘God, Mum, could that happen? I don’t want to go anywhere …’ Minnie panicked, and grabbed Lee’s hand.
‘No one has suggested anything like that. Min, the police told me to wait at home with you. We have to see what’ll happen.’ Hope was keeping it all very cool, although the thought of Minnie being ripped away was her worst nightmare.
Nanna Doris gave everyone a reality check. ‘Let’s not forget, in the craziness of all this, we’ve lost a child. My granddaughter. Your daughter. One of us is gone. We must remember her.’
The three generations gathered each other up in a family hug and spent the night talking and sleeping and talking and eating and talking, and Hope made sure they finally understood who Quiet Isaac really was and why he did what he did. At last.
The next morning, Lee left to go to work as usual, but returned twenty minutes later with an armful of different newspapers.
‘Sorry to ruin your morning, girls, but thought you ought to see these …’ and he flumped the pile down on the counter. ‘Seems like your dad, your birth dad rather, is some famous dude,’ he said to a very sleepy Minnie.
The front pages of pretty much all the newspapers were splattered with huge photos of Julius. It was the same image in each one: he was looking directly at the camera, with his hands clasped together, as if in prayer, in front of his chest, and there was a hint of brimming tears in his eyes. It was mawkish to say the least, but it was pure Julius. The headlines varied from ‘“The heartbreak is over,” says ex-MP Julius Lindon-Clarke’ in The Times, to ‘My baby girl is back’ in the Mail to ‘Put the monster who stole my daughter behind bars!’ in the Sun.
Doris, Glory, Hope and Minnie were speechless with horror. They were all drowsy from the lack of sleep until they saw these. They woke up fast.
‘God, Mum, is this him?’ ventured Minnie.
‘I suppose so, yes,’ replied Hope as she hurriedly flicked quickly to the pages inside where Julius had clearly written his statement. Luckily, he hadn’t named her, but he told the story of what happened seventeen years ago, and didn’t hold back on the emotion and drama. Glory read part of it aloud, over Hope’s shoulder.
‘My life has never been the same since,’ said the grieving ex-MP, desperately fighting back tears. ‘The huge stress of it all has weighed heavily on me especially. My ex, Anna, has thankfully moved on with her life, but I simply couldn’t. I have been stuck in the sadness of that awful day and, truthfully, I think my heartbreak was the reason our marriage failed in the end. So very sad …’
There was no sign of anything directly from Anna. She hadn’t spoken to the press at all.
Just Julius. All about Julius.
Minnie was fixated on the photo. ‘Look, he’s sort of crying. God, I think I’ve got his nose, and deffo those eyebrows! It’s so random …’ She was eating the image with her eyes, scanning every inch of it for any clue to the person in it, and thus to herself, vicariously.
‘Look at this,’ said Glory, as her finger followed the piece in the Daily Mail. ‘It says here, “‘I’ve lived my life ever since that day in the pursuit of safety in hospitals, so that no one else should have to suffer what I did,’ said the Great Man himself.” That’s weird because it says it was written by him, so has he called himself “the Great Man”? Do you know his face, Mum? Is he like really important or something?’
Doris replied, ‘Never heard of him. But tell you what, he’ll hear of me if he continues to call my daughter “a monster”.’
Minnie chimed in, ‘YES, that’s terrible. How is he allowed to do that? You’re not a monster, Mum,’ and she put her hand on Hope’s.
Perhaps, Hope thought, she WAS a monster.
A monster.
Hope and Minnie to the Hospital
Three days later, Hope and Minnie sat in the waiting room outside Dr Chandra’s office. Hope was convinced people who looked at them knew their whole story, but Minnie reminded her that there had been no pictures of them or any names used as yet in the news. Hope was naturally uncomfortable in hospitals. In fact, she hadn’t been back to one for seventeen years. She didn’t like anything about them. She still found herself scrutinizing the cleanliness; it was an old habit. Southmead Hospital in Bristol was passing the test – she was impressed. All of those thoughts were distractions, she knew that, as she found herself counting the amount of people who used the hand-sanitizer when they entered the waiting room.
Hope smiled at Minnie, remembering with a jolt why they were here. At the local surgery, the GP had examined Minnie when she went in for her appointment, and was concerned to hear a ‘murmur’ she didn’t like. That, coupled with Minnie’s chronic tiredness, had put Minnie on to the fast track for an appointment with Dr Chandra, the most senior cardiologist in the department.
They’d been at the hospital all morning while Minnie had an echocardiogram and an ultrasound scan, and now they were waiting anxiously for the doctor to tell them the results. Hope felt for Minnie. All this on top of the startling news she’d had to deal with in such a short space of time: no wonder her heart was under pressure. Hope considered whether she’d been an utter idiot to reveal all as she did. She could’ve kept the secret for longer and spared Minnie
