Deceit Of A Pagan

She didn’t bother to answer him. He was at least someone to talk to, a friend, something she was much in need of at the moment. It was surprising how many of the people she had thought were friends had shunned her when they thought Keri was her baby. Only Ken and Mary had remained loyal, Ken because he hoped eventually to wear her down enough to marry him, and Mary because she was a true friend.

She bent and picked Keri up in her arms. ‘Come on, poppet. Time for your bath.’

‘Couldn’t that wait until later?’ complained Ken. ‘I don’t see much of you as it is.’

‘Babies need routine.’

‘So you keep saying, but when do you have time to take care of yourself?’

She laughed lightly. ‘Is that a polite way of saying I look awful? Really, Ken, you aren’t very complimentary!’ Her green eyes twinkled at him teasingly.

Ken flushed uncomfortably. ‘You know very well I didn’t mean anything of the sort. You always look beautiful, and you know it.’

Templar knew she was attractive, as an ex-model she would be stupid not to know that. It wasn’t conceited to know that her long auburn hair shone like autumn leaves, that her wide uptilted eyes, small nose, and wide generous mouth made up a beautiful face, and that her body was perfectly proportioned, if slightly thinner now than it should be. But most of all it was her complete naturalness that finished her beauty, giving her an inner glow that many beautiful women throughout the world paid much money for and never attained.

At the moment her hair was tied back from her face, showing clearly her high cheekbones and slender swan-like neck. Up until a year ago she had been a model, but the unusual times, the long hours of work, and the travelling, as well as caring for Keri, had made it impossible for her to carry on. She had been forced to fall back on the secretarial qualifications she had obtained when she was at school, accepting a job that had little prospects and paid much less money than she had been earning. And she hadn’t been a model long enough for her to have saved much money, and what there had been was slowly wasting away. Almost every week she withdrew a small amount of her savings, and each week the amount seemed to be larger than the last.

Luckily Templar knew how to care for her hair expertly so that the loss of visits to the hair salon had made no difference to her long straight tresses, and her skin was smooth enough not to require any cosmetics whatsoever. Occasionally she applied mascara and a light lipstick, but as the money became more and more scarce, these occasions became almost never.

‘Do you want to help me bath her?’ she asked as she gathered the baby’s nightclothes together.

‘No, thanks.’ Ken picked up the newspaper, burying his nose in its depths.

She didn’t attempt to argue with him, well aware that Keri welcomed his company no more than he did hers. With the perception of the very young, Keri soon learnt who liked her and who didn’t.

This was the time of day Templar enjoyed the most, with Keri splashing about in the water with her toys, and usually wetting the bathroom more than she did herself. Templar looked down at the copper curls with love. It was strange really how Keri had inherited none of Tiffany’s blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty, but all of her aunt’s colouring and sense of fun.

She looked up now and dimpled at her aunt. ‘M—Ma—Ma—–’ she gurgled happily

‘Mama, Mama,’ encouraged Templar, come on, darling, say it. Mama, Mama.’

‘Ma—Ma,’ her little tongue wrestled with the word, still not quite managing to say the word properly and losing interest as she began gurgling again.

‘You’re a monkey,’ Templar laughed. ‘A monkey,’ she repeated as the little girl looked up interestedly.

Keri was rosy-cheeked and fresh-smelling when they re-entered the room, her tiny fingers clutching on to Templar’s hair. She kissed the baby gently on the cheek before laying her down in her cot. ‘Now off to sleep with you,’ she grinned down at the baby. ‘Keri be a good girl.’

‘That’d make a change,’ mumbled Ken, emerging from behind the newspaper.

‘She’s a very good baby,’ Templar returned calmly. ‘You don’t like children, that’s all.’

‘Oh, but I do. At least, I’ll like my own. I just resent the fact that Keri has no real claim on you. You just took over the responsibility of her after your sister died. I said you were stupid then, and I think you’re even more so now. That child is draining you physically as well as financially. You could have been one of the best paid models in the world by now, but instead you—–’

‘Chose to give Keri all the love she needs rather than fob her off with a nanny or put her into a home,’ she cut in. ‘We’ve had this argument many times before, and it gets us nowhere. I love Keri, and I intend keeping her.’

‘Okay, okay, on your own head be it. What I can’t understand is why you don’t know who her father is. Surely Tiffany could have told you?’

‘She refused to. She didn’t want anything from him, she couldn’t possibly have known she was going to die and so never need him again.’ A sob caught in her throat as she remembered her young sister, so full of life and not a care in the world. Until this unwanted pregnancy. But at least Tiffany had loved Keri’s father, of that she was certain. But as far as she knew he hadn’t wanted Tiffany once he found out about the baby. And so at the great age of nineteen her sister had departed this world with hardly a ripple, and her errant boy-friend hadn’t so much as made one enquiry about her.

‘Keri is my child,’ she insisted. ‘At least, in every way it’s possible for her to be without my actually bearing her. I could no more give her up than I could—than I could stop living!’

Templar took Keri with her to visit Mary the next day. It was her half day and she usually tried to see her friend on these occasions. She could have better spent this time searching for somewhere new to live, but she made it a habit to always spend this time with Keri. Goodness knows she spent little enough time with her as it was.

Mary was, as usual, pleased to see her. With two little girls and a third baby on the way and only a two-bedroomed flat, Mary and her husband were in just as much difficulty as Templar was. It gave them a mutual grievance. Although there wasn’t much difference in their ages, Mary was worn down with the weight of her family problems, and Templar dreaded getting into the same predicament.

‘Hello, poppet,’ Mary tickled Keri under the chin. ‘My, she’s getting bonny!’ She looked closely at her friend. ‘But you don’t look too good. What’s happened?’ she asked perceptively.

Templar explained about Mrs Marks’ ultimatum and her difficulty in finding somewhere else to live.

‘Oh, dear,’ sighed Mary worriedly. ‘You could always come here for a few days if you get really stuck for a place,’ she offered.

Templar knew this was a generous act on the part of her friend, but not one she could possibly accept. ‘No, I’ll work something out, thank you, Mary. You can guess what Ken suggested,’ she added dryly.

‘Oh, Ken!’ Mary dismissed him in disgust. ‘He’s no help at all.’

Templar laughed. ‘Never mind that for now. I’ve brought some apples, so we can make a pie for tea. You make the pastry and I’ll prepare the apples. Deal?’

‘Deal. Leave Keri with Samantha, they can play together.’

It was nice to forget their troubles for a little while, laughing like two schoolgirls as they both got flour in their hair. ‘We’re worse than the children,’ giggled Templar as she tried to get the flour out of her hair and off the tip of her nose.

‘You aren’t much more than a child yourself,’ teased Mary. ‘What are you? Twenty-one, twenty-two?’

‘Twenty-one,’ she confirmed. ‘A year older than Tiffany would have been. I often wonder what it would have been like if she’d lived. I could have worked and supported them both. I could, you know. My career was just expanding nicely. It seems so cruel that she had to die. She hadn’t even begun to live, she was just a child.’

‘And you’ve never heard from Keri’s father?’ put in Mary gently.

Templar shook her head. ‘It’s as if he never existed,’ she laughed bitterly. ‘But I have her to prove that he did. I think he must be rather a handsome man if Keri’s looks are anything to go by. Oh, I know she has my colouring, but her features are nothing like mine, or Tiffany’s for that matter. And her complexion is much darker than either of us.’

‘Did you ever look through those letters of Tiffany’? You know, the ones in that carved box.’

She shook her head. ‘No, I couldn’t. It would be like violating Tiffany’s privacy. Those letters were addressed to her, and it would be wrong of me to read them.’

‘But you don’t actually have to read them,’ Mary pointed out. ‘Just look at the signatures and addresses. Surely you could do that without reading them?’

‘I suppose so,’ Templar agreed reluctantly. ‘But I just don’t think I can.’

‘Of course you can,’ her friend insisted impatiently. ‘This isn’t the time to worry about a little thing like privacy. Or pride either, for that matter.’

Templar knew she was right. Tiffany had kept a box of letters, but Templar had never been able to force herself to look at them, although she felt sure Keri’s father’s name would be in there somewhere.

Once she had settled Keri down for the night she took the box out of the cupboard, staring fixedly at it for several minutes before opening its wooden lid. She hesitated for a moment more, unwilling to delve into secrets that were perhaps better left alone.

Taking a deep breath, she began flicking through the letters, only glancing fleetingly at the signature on each and ignoring their other contents. It didn’t take all that long to find the one she thought might be helpful. Never a secretive girl, Tiffany had spoken freely about her boy-friends, and so Templar knew most of the names on the letters. Only one was unknown to her, and she could only assume this was Keri’s father. It had been unlike Tiffany not to tell her sister everything, that was why it had been all the more surprising that she wouldn’t reveal the name of her lover.

Templar put the other letters back in the box, putting off the moment when she would actually have to read the letter. It just didn’t seem right to read someone else’s personal letters. Finally, she couldn’t put it off any longer, slowly reading the slightly faded words. There were faint smudges on the two pages of the letter, as if someone had been crying as they read them, which Templar could well imagine was true after reading their contents. Alex Marcose had said quite plainly that he wouldn’t be seeing Tiffany any more. No mention was made of the baby, but the date at the top of the letter fitted in with the time Tiffany must have found out about her pregnancy, so Templar imagined the baby must have been the reason he had broken off the relationship. Well, she was afraid that things like babies had a way of making their presence felt. And Mr Alex Marcose was about to be informed of his daughter’s existence.

She posted the letter to the London address the next day, informing Mr Marcose that she had something of import to tell him. But this didn’t stop her from searching for accommodation. Mr Marcose might not still live at that address, and even if he did, her name might be enough to put him off. The address was in one of the better parts of town, and people like that had a way of forgetting their responsibilities. He might even have forgotten Tiffany’s existence.