By the time Billie returned to the booth, Imelda had already gone home. It was a dreary afternoon and a sky smutted with fat, grubby clouds threatened imminent rain. The promenade was very quiet and there were no prospective customers in sight. Billie opened the magazine again and flipped through the pages. She had thanked Clive but hadn’t really known what else to say to him. It was clearly ridiculous to think that there was any truth in what he had told her. But that wasn’t to say that he was deliberately lying. If anything, judging by her previous conversations with him, he seemed incapable of artifice. But she could see that he had developed a fondness for her, and she wondered if that might have led him to invent something that might please her. She slapped the magazine shut angrily. Now she was being patronising. Clive might be unusual, but he certainly wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t just choose some random woman from a magazine and pretend that he recognised her as being Billie’s mother simply because he had a crush on her. No, the most likely explanation was that Lady Longhorn bore a passing resemblance to the woman that Clive had seen outside the booth over four decades ago. It was simply his memory playing tricks on him.

Billie tossed the magazine onto a pile of paperwork waiting to go in the recycling bin, and then pulled on her coat, ready to go home.

Chapter 54

Chapter 54

1974

Jeanie stroked the fluff of blonde hair that crowned the baby girl’s head and marvelled as the tiny fingers gripped her thumb.

‘She’s beautiful,’ she whispered.

Vivienne smiled. She was sitting beside her daughter’s cot in the private maternity home where she had spent the final weeks of her pregnancy hiding from the world and planning her next move.

‘Have you given her a name yet?’ Jeanie asked.

Vivienne shook her head. She stood up and wandered over to the window that looked out over a well-kept lawn. At its centre stood a sundial mounted on an ornate stone plinth. Its brass plate and gnomon glinted in the spring sunshine; a relentless reminder that time was ticking away.

‘I’m not sure I should if she’s going to be adopted.’

Jeanie gazed down at the cherubic little girl who wriggled contentedly in her arms, snuggled in a soft pink blanket. She wondered how Vivienne could even consider parting with her.

‘Are you sure that’s what you want to do?’

Vivienne kept her back to Jeanie. ‘I’m not sure I have a choice. I couldn’t possibly manage on my own and I can hardly take her home. Can you imagine it? Hello, Mummy and Daddy, and welcome back. While you were gone, I qualified as a secretary, almost finished finishing school – oh, and gave birth to an illegitimate child.’

‘Don’t you ever think about her father?’ Jeanie asked.