by Kate Field
So Mum hadn’t known the truth about Faye and Paddy. That was some comfort at least; that not everyone was keeping secrets from me.
‘She had met him. Paddy told me in Paris. They met during Freshers’ Week – you remember that Faye came to stay with me? And they …’ I shook my head. I couldn’t say the words. ‘So it’s true. Paddy might be Caitlyn’s father. And he wants to take a test to find out.’
Mum covered her mouth with her hands, and a steady stream of tears rolled down her cheeks, carrying her mascara with them.
‘And I told her to stop spreading lies …’
I went round the table and hugged her. And it was a loaded hug, intended to offer her comfort, to share her grief, and also to acknowledge this reminder that although she’d had more in common with Faye, she had loved me just as much. She had argued with Faye to protect me, and that meant more than I could say in any words.
‘Did she really never tell you who Caitlyn’s father was?’ I asked at last, when we had dried our eyes and I had returned to my seat.
‘Never.’ Mum shrugged. ‘I always assumed she wasn’t sure herself. We looked through her things after she died, but we didn’t find any clues.’
Her things! Why hadn’t I thought of that? Faye’s personal belongings were in the loft, stored in case Caitlyn ever wanted them. She hadn’t chosen to look at them yet, but perhaps I should. Mum might have searched for evidence of Caitlyn’s father before, but it was possible she had missed something; equally possible that she might not have understood something that I would.
I stood up. ‘I’m going to have a look.’
‘I told you, there was nothing there …’
‘A fresh pair of eyes can’t do any harm.’
‘Can’t they?’ Mum stood too, and looked at me across the table. ‘If you found something – something that proved Paddy was Caitlyn’s father – what good would it do you?’
None. It wouldn’t do me any good at all. But I’d already decided to tell Caitlyn the truth and let her decide whether to take part in a paternity test, and I wasn’t going to change my mind; as Gran had reminded me, it might do Caitlyn some good, and what further motivation did I need? The sooner we found out the better, as far as I was concerned, so this torturous state of uncertainty would be over.
Mum followed me upstairs and climbed the ladder into the loft after me, her bracelets jangling all the way. Stacked in the corner, behind the Christmas decorations and boxes of Caitlyn’s old schoolbooks, stood a couple of large plastic trunks filled with those possessions of Faye’s that we had chosen to keep. There wasn’t much; it upset me every time I came up here to see a life so extraordinary reduced to this meagre collection of mundane items. I lifted the lid off the first box and started taking out the contents: CDs, books, costume jewellery – all things kept to show Caitlyn who Faye had been, rather than because of intrinsic value. An old shoebox of assorted photographs came next, brim-full of memories of our childhood and teenage years.
I rummaged through the box and stopped short as I found one of me and Faye in my first-year room at university, during that fateful Freshers’ Week – an old-fashioned selfie, taken with the timer function on a proper camera, the top of our hair missing as we’d posed in the wrong spot. Had this been taken before or after her encounter with Paddy? I’d never know if the smile on her face was a result of pleasure at being with me, or of having been with him. I threw the photo back in the box, and moved on to the next pile of belongings.
There was a stack of diaries, from the pre-smartphone days, but only appointment diaries, nothing personal. I flicked through the diary for the year Caitlyn must have been conceived, looking for I don’t know what – names? Dates? A highlighted entry saying, ‘Caitlyn was conceived today!’? But there was nothing significant: just the regular sort of dental and optician’s appointments; the dates when Faye had visited me during Freshers’ Week; and a mysterious number of asterisks against certain dates that could have meant something or nothing.
The diary for the following year was the same, save that antenatal checks and GP appointments filled the first few months and a sketch of a stalk carrying a baby was marked on a day in July.
Mum was hovering nearby, and despite the tan and the bright clothes, she seemed to have faded at the sight of these reminders of Faye.
‘She drew a stork in July,’ I said, holding out the diary. ‘But that’s not right. Caitlyn was born in June.’
‘That must have been her due date. Caitlyn came three weeks early. Don’t you remember?’
‘No.’ It had been the busy end-of-year time at university, and I would have been in the first flush of my relationship with Paddy. I probably hadn’t paid much attention to the details beyond the baby being a girl and everyone being well. But was it significant, that Caitlyn had been due in July? I picked up the diaries and flicked back nine months. October. After Freshers’ Week. And then I noticed what I had missed on my first inspection of the diary: a red circle around the date, five days after Faye had visited me. Faye had always marked the start of her period that way. I flicked forwards. There were no more red circles until after Caitlyn was born.
‘Look,’ I said, showing Mum the page. ‘Faye had a period in October. The diary might not tell us who the father is, but it tells us who it isn’t. Paddy can’t be Caitlyn’s father, can he?’
I stared at the page, trying to take it in. After all the trauma, all the worry of the last couple of weeks, was it really as simple as all that? It looked it; but would one red circle be conclusive enough for Paddy? And what it did mean for me? I couldn’t even think about that yet.
‘Well, that’s that, then,’ Mum said. She squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back. ‘I’m going back down. Seeing all her things …’
I nodded. Opening this box had made grief a sharp pain again, rather than the dull ache that we had grown used to living with. All these possessions should have been in Faye’s home, not stored in my loft; the dated CDs were a reminder of a life frozen in another time. As Mum disappeared through the loft access, I packed up the box again, pausing on one of the CDs. I’d bought it for Faye, but had probably listened to it more than she had done. I opened the case and pulled out the cover leaflet, intending to remind myself of the lyrics printed there, but as I opened it out, a photograph and a slip of paper fell out.
It was a photograph of Faye and Caitlyn, taken in her hospital bed judging by the background. Faye looked beautiful – even after giving birth, her luminosity shone out from the image. I bent down to pick up the paper. It was a sheet of good quality writing paper – a rare sight these days – and contained only a few scrawled words in handwriting I didn’t recognise.
‘Don’t send any more photos. I told you I didn’t want it. It was your decision to go ahead. You asked me to choose, and I chose my wife, so you can stop your games. Don’t contact me again. M.’
Didn’t want it? Was the ‘it’ Faye’s baby? Had this note been written by Caitlyn’s father? I tidied away the box and climbed back downstairs. Mum was sitting in the living room. She wiped her eyes quickly when I walked in.
‘Did you find anything else?’ she asked. Before I could reply, she pointed at the note in my hand. ‘What’s that?’
I sat down next to Mum and gave her the note. She read it in silence and her hand was trembling as she put the paper down on the coffee table.
‘Poor Faye. A married man,’ she said. ‘I did wonder. I hope to God she didn’t do it deliberately – get pregnant and try to pressure him to leave his wife. It sounds that way.’
‘She wouldn’t have done that!’
‘She might have done, if she thought he was losing interest.’ Mum took my hand, and rubbed it between hers. ‘She had her flaws. It doesn’t mean we loved her any less. But you were always the stronger and kinder one, taking after your dad. What you did for Caitlyn proves that. I can’t think that Faye would have taken on your child, if the situation had been reversed. Your dad and I were so proud of what
you did.’
She looked at me then, and I could see the love and pride in her face. And I couldn’t bear it, not when thoughts of Faye filled my head, not when the loss of her felt so visceral again. For all these years, I had mentally accused Paddy of being a sham, of not being what he seemed – but I was far worse than him. I wasn’t what I seemed. Because I hadn’t been strong or kind, not to Faye. I had let her down when she needed me most, and I couldn’t accept this display of love from Mum when it was the opposite of what I deserved.
‘It’s not true,’ I said, and I withdrew my hand from Mum’s because she wouldn’t want to offer comfort when she heard what I had to say. ‘I’m not kind. I wasn’t kind to Faye.’
Mum tried to interrupt, but I wouldn’t let her. I had to get this out at last. My guilt had haunted me for too many years, directing my thoughts and behaviour.
‘Something happened on the night Faye died that I didn’t mention to the police, or at the inquest,’ I said. ‘It was my fault that she took the pill that killed her.’
We’d been out to a club that night; a rare night away from Paddy for me, but Faye had nagged about how boring I had become until I agreed to go out with her. It had been fun at first, and I’d let my hair down, drinking more than I had done for a while. But then Faye had drifted off to hang about with a group of lads I didn’t know and I’d grown tired of dancing on my own. So I’d gone to find her, to see if we could go home, and had caught her with a pill in her hand.
Even in my drunken state, I’d been horrified; Faye had always loved a good time, but I couldn’t believe she would take drugs. I’d told her to get rid of it, reminded her that she had a daughter at home, shouted at her not to be so stupid, and finally knocked the tablet out of her hand. I’d left the party on my own, and after I’d gone, Faye must have bought another pill that had led to her death.
That was what I’d told everyone, when Faye’s death had been investigated. That was the truth. But there was one detail I’d never shared with anyone else, even Paddy.
‘You know we argued about the drugs,’ I said to Mum now. She nodded. ‘It was worse than I told you. We were drunk. We both said some vile things. She said that I thought I was better than her, because I had a degree, and she said that there was no way Paddy would stick around with someone as tedious as me. There was much more along the same lines. And I said …’
I paused. Mum was watching me, her face pale, but I couldn’t stop now – just as I hadn’t been able to stop then.
‘I took some money out of my purse and threw it at her, and I said that she could buy more drugs and kill herself for all I cared. And that’s exactly what she did.’
Chapter 25
‘The £20 on the mantelpiece,’ Mum said.
I stared at her, not understanding.
‘Did you throw £20 at her?’ Mum asked. ‘Two tens?’
‘Yes. How do you know that?’ Did it matter? Surely Mum should be angry with me for what I’d done, not focusing on a trivial detail?
‘The money was on the mantelpiece in her flat, under a photo of the two of you. There was a sticker on it, with one word written down.’ Mum reached out and grasped my hand. ‘It said “sorry”. It must have been meant for you. We never found any other explanation for it, and it didn’t seem to matter with everything else going on …’
It would have mattered to me. It still did matter, more than I could ever say. I had spent half my life regretting that my last words to Faye had been so cruel; that was why I had given up alcohol, so that I would never lose control and lash out that way again. I could never undo those words, but now I felt a rush of relief that at least she hadn’t died hating me for them; that she had wanted to make up after our argument. I hoped with all my heart that when she wrote her ‘sorry’, she had realised that I would want to apologise to her too.
‘You mustn’t feel guilty,’ Mum said. ‘None of this was your fault. You didn’t put that drug in Faye’s mouth. She chose to take it. The one you knocked out of her hand might have been from the same bad batch. When were any of us ever able to stop Faye when she set her mind on something? She was unlucky. We were all unlucky, losing her like that.’
I nodded. Perhaps Mum was right. I’d been through all the different scenarios, all the what-ifs, countless times, but the one element that could never change was Faye herself. We had loved her for her exuberance, her almost reckless determination to embrace every experience that life could offer. On this occasion, it had cost her life. I couldn’t deny the truth; if she’d decided to take drugs that night, she would have found a way, whatever I said or did, and whether I’d given her money or not.
‘Don’t you think I feel guilty too?’ Mum continued. ‘When she phoned me that night, and said she felt ill, I didn’t go to her. I thought she’d drunk too much. I’d had a few myself, and couldn’t face going out. I told her to drink water and take aspirin. What if I’d gone to her then?’ The tears were rolling down both our faces, and I hugged Mum as I should have done at the time, if my guilt hadn’t thrown an inflatable barrier around me so I couldn’t reach out to her.
‘We can’t go on blaming ourselves,’ Mum said. She grabbed my hands. ‘What have I always said? Life’s too short to spend it looking over your shoulder at the past. We’re the lucky ones. We’re still here. Let’s not waste it.’
*
We were a surprisingly happy group as we arrived at the bistro the next night – Luc escorting me, Mum, Caitlyn and Gran, four generations of women whose lives had all been changed by grief but who had found the strength to keep going. There had been plenty of tears after my conversation with Mum yesterday – tears for Faye, cruelly denied the chance to fulfil her potential, and tears for me too, because after years of punishing myself, I still had the opportunity to fulfil mine. It felt like a momentous point – as if life truly was beginning again.
The bistro was busy, and Tina and Graham were already sitting at a round table at the back – nearest to the ladies, at Gran’s request. As we all took our seats, my stupid heart ached at the sight of the empty place where Paddy should have been. I’d sent him a text to let him know that I couldn’t meet him this afternoon. Had he changed his mind about coming at all? And why was I so bothered if he had? The answer was obvious. My attempt to be neutral about him had utterly failed.
Mum ordered a bottle of champagne, and we were all clinking glasses as best we could without burning ourselves on the candles in the centre of the table, when a few whispers swept across the restaurant and the attention of most of my table refocused on something behind my back. I swivelled in my seat. Paddy was striding towards us, smiling at me with a degree of wariness, of uncertainty over his welcome, but even so his smile instinctively made my heart spin. And then he glanced at Caitlyn beside me, and my heart collapsed in a stupid, dizzy heap.
‘Cutting it fine, aren’t you?’ Gran said, while Paddy bent and brushed such a fleeting kiss on my cheek that it was over before I could decide whether to allow it. ‘We don’t run on celebrity time up here, you know. You’re lucky you’ve not missed your dinner. The champagne’s all gone.’
‘We’d better have another bottle,’ Paddy said, and with a few nods and gestures, the waiter brought over another bottle and glass.
‘Here you go,’ Gran continued, pointing at the empty chair between her and Tina. ‘You can be the thorn between two roses. And you can make yourself useful and help me with this menu. Which of these foreign words means chips?’
Paddy squeezed round the table to the furthest place away from me, smiling and exchanging greetings as he went. He looked impossibly handsome; the blue shirt set off his dark hair and the sleeves were artfully rolled up, exposing firm, tanned forearms. Arms that had held me pressed to him, skin to skin, not so long ago. The champagne suddenly tasted like vinegar in my mouth, as it brought back memories of Paris: of everything that had been done and said and discovered there; of the happiness when I had thought a different future was in my sights; of the de
spair when I had realised that it was actually the past that had changed. I put down my glass. Why was he here? Was it to celebrate my birthday, or to see Caitlyn again? I wished I knew.
The meal was every bit as delicious as I’d hoped, and there was no denying that Paddy’s presence helped the conversation and laughter flow. I’d dreamt of this, long ago: growing old with Paddy, sitting around a table, surrounded by our family and friends. But I had never imagined how small the table would be; that vital family members would have gone; that the children I had expected us to have one day wouldn’t exist. And it struck me that perhaps Mum had had the right attitude all along. There was no point dwelling on the past or dreaming about the future. All we had, all we could be certain of, was now.
I reached under the table for my bag, and pulled out the box of ‘Be Kind to Yourself’ cards. My wrist jangled as I did; Mum had insisted on giving me some of her bangles, and I had accepted them gladly.
‘Here are the final two cards,’ I said, sliding them over to Caitlyn, who was sitting at my side. ‘The first was for this dress, which was very expensive.’ I laughed. ‘I’ll be wearing it to every occasion for at least the next twenty years to get my money’s worth, so I hope you all like it.’
BE KIND TO YOURSELF
VOUCHER ELEVEN
I, Eve Roberts, have been kind to myself by buying an outrageously expensive dress!
‘You could have saved a few bob and borrowed something from Mrs Pike,’ Gran said. Laughing, I looked across the table at her and caught Paddy’s warm gaze rising back to my face. The smile he sent me suggested that he appreciated the dress, if no one else did.
‘And the final one,’ I carried on quickly, ‘is for this meal out, because I can’t think of any greater treat than to be surrounded by the people who matter. A family isn’t defined by size, or shape, or titles, or even ties of blood,’ I said, smiling at Tina. ‘It’s about a group of people who might have nothing in common but love, but that’s enough.’