I was begging on Waterloo Bridge, on the steps as you go down to the South Bank. It’s nice and sheltered there. People come upon you suddenly, rounding the corner and they feel embarrassed. Sometimes they give you their small change. The thing is, you see, you mustn’t beg aggressively. You mustn’t give people a reason to despise you, to think, ‘Well, she wouldn’t be on the streets if there weren’t a very good reason.’
(What would be a good reason, I wonder?)
People want to think it’s your fault. It helps them cope with their guilt and shame, shame that people like me exist. So you must never look angry, or mad, or as if you expect them to give you anything. You just have to look hopeful. And grateful. Grateful in advance of receiving anything. It’s quite a tricky balance to get right.
I think it helped that I’d been an actress. And of course simply being a woman was good training. I’d spent years cultivating a hopeful-but-grateful, ‘for what we are about to receive’ expression as a clergy wife and I found it stood me in good stead for most of the situations I found myself in, including sex with total strangers and begging on Waterloo Bridge.
Which is where I was sitting when I saw this pair of legs go by, then stop. I looked up cautiously and saw that the man had turned back to look at me, was staring at me, in fact. (They don’t do that. They almost never do eye contact, even when they give you money. They’re ashamed it’s not more, that they aren’t emptying the contents of their Italian leather wallets into your lap.)
It was Colin. I looked down and started coughing violently. (That drives people away. They think you’re going to give them TB or something.) As soon as Colin was out of sight I gathered up my things and moved on.
I never went back. Shame. It was a good pitch and I used to like watching the actors and actresses going down to the National Theatre. Some of them were quite generous. I suppose they knew what it was like to fall on hard times. I saw Jack Cunningham once. Jack, my student Hamlet, my first love. (Apart from Rory.) He’d put on weight and really gone to seed. I was quite shocked.
He didn’t look at me. Well, Jack never looked at me, did he, even when I was worth looking at. Jack was gay and I never realised, stupid bitch. I was wasting my time there. Jack was bent, like my bloody husband.
It is better to marry than to burn.
Oh, really? Not a lot to choose between them if you ask me.
I wish it was me. I’d fuck you to kingdom come.
Is that what you did, Rory? Did you fuck me to kingdom come?
You said it was what you’d always wanted, Flor… That’s what you said. You said you wanted me. Me… Always…
I burn…
I burn…
1987
When Flora woke her hand was resting in the small of Rory’s back. Without opening her eyes she identified the downy hollow and spread her fingers slowly till her hand filled the warm, moist concavity. She ran her hand along the ridge of his spine and buried her fingers in the tangle of damp hair at the nape of his neck.
She opened her eyes. Grey light. The dingy bare walls of the bedroom looked bleak. ‘We should have had sun, Rory,’ she thought. She looked at him, lying on his front, his face pillowed in his arms. She traced the curve of his arm and shoulder with her fingertips, then moved down over his shoulder-blade, feeling the projection of bone through the scant covering of flesh.
Rory stirred and opened his eyes. He said nothing but lay still, staring at her as if he were fixing something in his memory. Then he propped himself up, bent his head and kissed her gently on the mouth. Flora rolled on to her back and he kissed her again, his lips travelling down over her throat. She kissed his hair, cradled him against her breasts, inhaled the smell of him, her heart and womb leaping.
He lifted his head and smiled sleepily. Slipping an arm under her waist he lifted her bodily towards and under him, marvelling at the lightness of her. As he raised himself over her she nuzzled him gently with her thigh. He was already hard. She moaned softly as her thighs took the now familiar weight of his body. Rory hesitated, her small, thin body under his, so pale, so fragile, but she grasped the bones of his hips and pulled him down and into her. As her body arched up towards him she gasped, then whimpered like some crazed, injured animal. He lifted his head and looked down at her, pinned and splayed like a butterfly. She writhed and looked away, ashamed of her ecstasy.
‘Look at me, Flor.’ She felt the vibrations of his voice deep inside her, felt his ribcage move against hers as he breathed deeply. ‘Look at me… ’
He wanted, more than anything, he wanted her to trust him again, as she had once, when they were children. She looked up at him, askance, embarrassed. Gazing down into her fearful eyes, willing her not to break the contact, he started to thrust, gently at first, then harder. She began to relax, succumb to his rhythm, her eyes narrow with pleasure.
‘Stay with me, Flor… Look at me!’
Her slack mouth moved, opening and closing as if trying to form words. She lifted both hands and touched his face, then spread her fingers in his hair. She tugged at it gently and held his head a moment, cupped in her hands, looking at him, then pulled his face down to hers. He silenced her sobs with the pressure of his mouth.
Hugh wrote me a letter. I don’t know how many times he must have photocopied it. Several of them found their way to me. Because of the photo I suppose. It was a good likeness.
The letter begged me to let somebody in the family know I was alive and well. (The Salvation Army and Shelter won’t tell families where you are. They respect your decision. Your right to privacy. They took Hugh’s letter and passed it on, but they wouldn’t have told him they’d seen me. They’re good like that.)
Hugh didn’t actually ask me to come home, which I imagine was out of deference to Theo. He said Dora was now very frail; Charlotte had gone abroad to work as an au pair and had plans to go to Australia. He gave me no news of Theo other than that he was still living and working at Orchard Farm. He told me Rory was still living with Grace and he gave me their telephone number, asking me to contact Rory if I didn’t feel I could ring Orchard Farm.
It was a nice letter. Kindly meant. I kept it with all my newspaper cuttings in a big envelope safety-pinned to the lining of my coat. (Sally got me a very good coat. 100% wool and almost new. It was too big for me but that didn’t matter so much in the winter because I wore so many layers of clothing. Insulation is the key to survival. Layers that trap the air and keep you warm, layers of material or newspaper.)
I wasn’t surprised to hear that Rory had gone back to Grace. Where else was he to go after we’d burned down Tigh na Mara? I told him it was a stupid idea but he wouldn’t listen. Rory never listened to anybody. Except perhaps Hugh. You had to listen to Hugh. For a clergyman, he talked a lot of sense.
1987
His hands far from steady, Hugh unpacked sandwiches on to the picnic rug and poured tea from a Thermos. He passed the plastic cup to Theo, perched on a tomb in the lee of Blythburgh Church, his long legs extended, his eyes downcast. Theo took the cup without speaking but didn’t drink. He was studying the activities of a ladybird greedily devouring aphids on an adjacent rosebush. He looked away in disgust but the image of the ladybird conjured from some mental jukebox the children’s rhyme:
Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home.
Your house is on fire and your children are gone.
Theo thought briefly of Tigh na Mara, of children yet unborn, then became aware that Hugh was speaking.
‘…the work of vandals, undoubtedly. Nothing’s sacred any more. I gather people steal them to put in their back gardens. With the gnomes.’ Hugh was pointing to a broken statue of an angel, a tasteless monument to Victorian vulgarity erected over a child’s grave. After a pause, he said in a low voice, ‘If I’d been a better husband to her, Flora would never have known whose child you were. She would have enjoyed the luxury of doubt. And therefore hope.’
Theo sipped his tea in silence.
Hugh indicated the
packet of sandwiches that lay untouched. ‘Don’t suppose you want to eat?’
Theo shook his head, then said, ‘So she passed me off as yours. For how long?’
‘Eight years.’
‘Jesus…’
‘I think those years must have been very hard for her. She never stopped loving Rory. She never has. I don’t think she ever will. I would have told you long before now that I wasn’t your father if it weren’t that telling that particular truth would have required me to tell others, even less palatable. Neither Rory nor Flora wanted you to know about your parentage and I respected that. I suppose I didn’t want you to know either. I wanted you to think you were my son. But in any case, none of us could ever see any reason why you would need to know. There was only one, of course, and I suppose we should have seen that coming. Perhaps if we’d told you who you really were, it might have altered your feelings for Charlotte. But Rory and Flora always knew their love was impossible and, as far as I can tell, it never made the slightest difference to how they felt. Merely increased the guilt factor.’
Theo looked up. ‘Does Charlotte know? About me?’
‘No, not yet. If you don’t want to tell her yourself, Grace has said she’ll do it.’
‘Grace? She knows too?’
‘Yes. Apart from it being an appalling shock for her too, she was very upset on your behalf. She’s very fond of you, Theo. Always has been.’
‘Chip off the old block, I suppose,’ Theo said with a derisive laugh.
Hugh’s expression was pained. ‘For whatever reason, Grace thought you and Charlotte were good for each other. It’s my impression that she’s never had any illusions about Rory’s fidelity, but she had no idea about Flora.’
Theo was silent for a few moments, then said, ‘Grace must hate my mother.’
‘Yes, she probably does now. It wasn’t always so. They were friends once, many years ago. Before Flora and Colin…’
‘Ah, yes, Flora and Colin. Not content with stealing Grace’s husband she has to sleep with her son as well. God, my mother is a monster!’ Theo flung his tea at the rosebush and tossed the cup back down on the rug. He folded his arms across his chest and bowed his head.
Hugh looked up and saw Theo’s eyes shut tight, his lips compressed to a thin line. In a deliberate, measured tone he said, ‘Flora must have been lonely in London. Frustrated. Hard up. She’d turned her back on everyone, including Rory… Colin is a likeable young man. Good-looking. They were both adults. I think her affair with Colin was probably an ill-advised attempt to get over Rory, to start again. I believe she meant well. Flora never did anything with the intention of hurting you or Charlotte. Nor did Rory. You have just been caught, very badly, in the cross-fire.’
Theo looked up, his face contorted with anguish. ‘You should never have told us!’
‘Possibly not. We gave it a great deal of thought. Many harsh words were said.’ Controlling his breath with some difficulty, Hugh continued, ‘Flora didn’t want either of you to know. But Rory wanted Charlotte to know, so I had a casting vote, so to speak. I thought you both had a right to know.’
‘We had a right not to know!’
‘Yes, that’s what Flora said. She did have your interests at heart, you see. She wanted you to be happy. She saw no reason why you should pay for her sins. But if Charlotte conceived your child it would be the product of two generations of brother-sister incest. I think you must accept that she had a right to know.’
Theo was silent. Eventually he nodded.
Hugh continued. ‘It’s up to Charlotte now what she decides to do. It all depends on how much she wants a child, I suppose.’
‘You mean, if she wants a child more than she wants me.’
‘Yes, to put it baldly. Leaving aside the moral and legal issues, it boils down to that. And I think you should prepare yourself for the worst, Theo. It isn’t possible for men to understand how much a woman may want and need a baby. Your mother wanted one so desperately she was prepared to keep her brother’s.’
‘But Flora never loved me, did she?’
For a moment Hugh wrestled with a strong temptation to lie, then braced himself. ‘She tried. I think she tried very hard. Life was so difficult for her. Perhaps if you’d looked less like Rory… People were always commenting on the resemblance - quite innocently of course. But Flora heard reproach in those comments. She saw you as the living embodiment of her sin. You know, she was very devout when she was young. And she was a clergy wife. God didn’t exactly cut her a lot of slack. I think she tried to love you, but shame got in the way. In the end she left - and I gave her my full support to do so - because she thought it would be the lesser of two evils. And she knew she could rely on me to look after you. She knew I would make a better job of it than she would.’
Theo stared at the elderly man he’d always believed to be his father. ‘Did Flora ever love you?’
‘Oh, yes, I believe so.’ Hugh’s smile was ghostly, ironic. ‘She loved me - as she loved Colin, I suppose - with what was left over. After Rory.’
You had to be resourceful, living on the streets. Especially in the winter. It reminded me of when I was at the vicarage: hiding booze, stealing money, the daily challenges I had to meet, just to get by.
Food wasn’t really a problem. There were soup kitchens and in the summer people would leave perfectly good food lying around in parks or on café tables. I used to steal fruit from an Asian grocer’s. As I walked past I’d palm apples and oranges from his displays outside the shop. He caught me at it once and gave me a really good talking to. I told him I missed fresh fruit and that all you could scrounge, all you were ever given as hand-outs was junk. He thought this was shocking, made a speech about vitamins and told me to call by at the end of the day when he would give me a bag of bruised fruit. He even gave me a knife to cut out the bruised bits.
His name was Mr Patel and he was very kind. If it weren’t for Mr Patel I might have died of scurvy.
1987
When Rory walked into the pub Hugh was already seated at a table studying a pint of Guinness, barely touched. Rory ordered at the bar, then joined him, dispensing with formalities.
‘What did he say?’ Hugh opened his mouth to speak but Rory forestalled him. ‘I want to know what he said, not what you wish he’d said.’
Hugh stared into his Guinness, disconsolate. ‘He doesn’t want anything to do with you. He doesn’t want to see you and he doesn’t want to talk about it.’
‘He hates me.’
‘He didn’t say that.’
‘But he does. My God, I’ve fathered three children,’ Rory muttered, ‘and they all hate me.’
‘It will take time.’
Rory lifted his pint. ‘He also said - but you’re far too kind-hearted to tell me - that you’re the only father he’s ever known, the only father he’s ever wanted and that it makes absolutely no difference to him.’ He drank deep while Hugh gazed at him, open-mouthed.
‘Yes. He did. How did you know that?’
‘I know Theo. He’s a nice kid. Well done, Hugh. You won the jackpot. It couldn’t happen to a nicer chap. I take it you didn’t tell him about the love of your life?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ Hugh said faintly. ‘I thought the poor boy had suffered enough for one day.’
Chapter 27
1987
Rory was waiting for Theo in the music room at Orchard Farm, standing by the French windows, looking out on to the terrace. When his son entered Rory turned and, noting Theo’s belligerent look, said, ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me.’
Theo regarded his father, shorter by several inches, and said, ‘I’d like to knock you down.’
Rory spread his hands. ‘Go ahead. Break every bone in my body if you think it’ll help. We could smash up the piano together in an act of therapeutic vandalism.’
Theo folded his arms and said, ‘Can we get this over with?’
‘Certainly. I won’t insult you by claiming I know how you feel, but
obviously I of all people do have some idea. I won’t pretend it’ll get easier. It never did for me. Or Flora.’ Rory pushed his hands into his jacket pockets and looked down at the floor. ‘I haven’t been a good father to my children - any of my children - but in my defective, emotionally crippled way, I do love them.’ He looked up at Theo, steely grey eyes meeting icy blue. ‘Lottie had to be told. Which meant you had to be told. It was our intention - Flora’s, Hugh’s and mine - that you should never know your parentage. Since you’d acquired the world’s best father in exchange for your own, we didn’t see why you ever should. I thought you’d actually got a much better deal. When - if - you ever stop being angry with me, I think you’ll agree.’
Rory paused, regarded Theo’s handsome and impassive face for a moment, then continued. ‘I hoped Lottie would have you anyway, but she seems to have inherited some sort of over-active conscience. Nothing to do with her Dunbar genes, it must come from Grace’s side of the family, I suppose. To spare her feelings, I’ve refrained from pointing out that when I was a music student I donated sperm - as lots of us did - to raise cash. Theoretically, Lottie could travel halfway round the world and fall in love with another of my children. So could you. It’s all a bloody lottery.’
Theo said nothing but Rory thought he detected a softening around the mouth. His eyes had widened and Rory knew he was listening intently. If he’d taught his son anything it was how to listen - to birds, to insects, to music. ‘The only thing that matters as far as I can see is to try not to hurt each other. If you can, find a way to love each other still, retain some of what you had. But if she wants to let go, Theo, then just… let her go. Don’t bully her. You’ll probably find you’re able to live without Lottie - eventually - but I doubt you’ll be able to live with having hurt her, having made her do something she didn’t really want to do.’ Rory took a deep breath. ‘I did that to Flora… That’s why you exist. You mustn’t blame your mother. It was all my fault. She just… loved me.’
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