by Graham West
Liz and I made love eight weeks after I returned home. It felt awkward, and for her, I sensed, it had been an exercise born of duty rather than desire. Six weeks later, Liz told me she was pregnant. Jennifer Helen Adams was born nine months later, weighing eight pounds, two ounces. Now that child had turned into a beautiful girl and was staring at me, listening patiently and trying not to cry.
“I never thought you were capable, Dad,” she muttered. “Thank you for being honest, but I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” She tore out the page bearing Mellissa’s name and screwed it into a ball, launching it across the room. “I don’t want to hear her name,” she hissed. “Ever again!”
***
Sebastian Tint studied the letters carefully, reading each of the five several times. I remained silent, sipping my tea out of his best china while Ricky the German shepherd lay by the door, watching his master with mild interest.
“Well,” he said finally, removing his glasses and looking up. “I have to say, I’m relieved. We might not have a name for this woman but, as you say, she could well be our Amelia. We know, of course, that Reverend Allington existed, but this Root woman has proved rather elusive.”
“Do you think she was mad or just angry?” I asked.
Tint replaced his glasses a glanced down at the letters. “We can only speculate—but she certainly seemed to hate this Allington person.”
Tint paused, his finger running along the lines on the page in front of him. He stopped and tapped. “We need to find out about the Stanwick household,” he said. “Where they lived, what they did, and, above all, what connection they had with the Church. Then we can speculate a little more accurately.”
***
The phone was ringing as I walked through the door. It was Staple. I told him about the letters and gave him as much information as I’d gathered. “I just need to know where his descendants are,” I told him. “I know I’m clutching at straws here, but—”
“I understand,” Jack cut in. “Sebastian told me about your daughter. I’m really sorry. I’ll get onto it straight away.”
We didn’t talk for long. Staple sounded preoccupied, almost as if he had now taken upon himself the responsibility for my daughter’s welfare. I wished that my life had a remote control with a fast forward or maybe a rewind, which would take me back to that Sunday morning when Pascoe and Taylor were eyeing up the girls in Alshaw Park.
The feeling of restlessness led me to Elizabeth’s grave, where I remained until visiting time approached. I’d eaten nothing, but despite my lack of appetite, I stopped off at the hospital shop and bought an overpriced sandwich which I ate as I made my way down the long soulless corridors.
Jenny looked up as I entered the room. She was pale and drawn but seemed relieved to see me.
“Jack’s onto the Allington thing,” I told her, trying to sound upbeat.
My daughter nodded but didn’t answer. I could see that she had been crying. I didn’t want to bring up the subject of Melissa Ingram.
“Look, Jen,” I said, sitting on the edge of her bed, “everything is going to be okay. We’ll find Amelia.”
Jenny shrugged. “If she exists.”
“You don’t think she does? What about the mad woman at the church?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure about anything anymore.”
I felt anger surging inside. Jenny had only been here for a couple of days and had started to believe that this was all in her head. “Let’s just see what Jack drags up,” I said, trying to ignore her dark mood. “I’ve a good feeling about this.”
***
My instinct served me well. Jack called two days later. Days during which I watched helplessly as my daughter struggled with self-doubt, sinking into a mire of despondency.
“Robert—I have some news!” He paused. “You might like to sit down for this.”
My heart quickened. “I’m ready. What have you got?”
“I’ve traced the Reverend Allington’s family tree. They had a daughter called Rebecca, who married a Joseph Laycock. They had two children, Louisa and Thomas. Thomas fell ill and died, aged twenty, while Louisa went on to marry an Arthur Pensby. They had one child, Ellen, who married a certain—wait for it—George Pascoe!”
I felt a chill travel the length of my spine. “Pascoe?”
“Yes. They had one child. Benjamin.”
I flopped back into the chair.
“Hello? Robert?”
“I’m still here,” I replied. “I just don’t quite know what to say.”
“Well, if I were you, I’d go and drop in on his wife for a chat. Then I’d see if any of his family might have any stories or, better still, photos or letters. You just never know what they might dig up.”
I thanked Jack and replaced the receiver, allowing the music from the radio to drift over me. Had I been dreaming? What would Jenny’s doctors say when I told them that she had walked into a church, fifty miles from her home, and vandalised the grave of Darren Pascoe’s great, great grandfather? I didn’t really understand the spirit world, but only a fool could consider it a coincidence.
I needed to talk to Victoria Pascoe. It would, at least, give me time to think.
***
Jenny stared at me. “Pascoe? That little bastard’s father?”
“The very same.”
She seemed to stiffen, almost as if she had placed her finger in a light socket. “I can’t believe it—not…”
Her voice trailed off as she stared into space, her face drained of any colour.
“What’s wrong?”
Jenny’s eyes were red, her face almost grey. I guessed she wasn’t sleeping too well.
“It doesn’t make sense.”
Jenny was addressing herself, not me. I could have walked out of that room and she wouldn’t have even noticed. I left after half an hour. My daughter, absorbed in her own confusion, had not wanted to talk.
I walked like a man bearing the weight of the world, hardly recognising my reflection in the glass doors. I could only hope that the Pascoe family had some answers.
Chapter Nineteen
It didn’t take too long to find the Pascoes’ home. I pulled up outside and waited, having already decided against revealing my identity. My name was now Peter Norris, and I was writing a book on life in the eighteenth century. I had been studying certain people I believed to have been her ancestors.
Mrs. Pascoe had sounded amiable enough when I’d called that morning and had agreed to talk, although she wasn’t sure she could be of much help. I wasn’t so sure either, but curiosity took over. I wanted to meet the woman who had given birth to the kid who had robbed me of my wife and child. Perhaps it could be described as a morbid curiosity, but I couldn’t have cared less.
The woman who opened the door to me was younger than I’d expected. She wore a black silky top and tight fashionable jeans. She smiled warily. “Mr. Norris?”
I nodded, feeling a pang of guilt. The woman, after all, was innocent. Maybe it had something to do with the physical attraction I felt as I followed her into the room. It was difficult not to notice that she still had her youthful figure and her face showed little sign of age.
The room was modern—the kind you see on these TV makeover shows. Cream walls, wood floor, modern art hanging over an artificial coal fire set into the wall and lit by remote control. The plasma TV screen towered in the corner. Mrs. Pascoe flicked the remote and the picture died.
“Coffee? Tea?” she asked, standing with her hands on her hips, flashing a couple of inches of bare midriff.
I smiled. “Coffee will be fine, Mrs. Pascoe. Milk and one sugar.”
“Call me Victoria,” she said with a smile before disappearing into the kitchen.
I sat back, uncomfortable with the fact that I already liked the woman whose child had killed mine. How many tears had she cried? Her world, too, had fallen apart. A broken marriage. A son locked away. Would she have given up all the trappings of success just to have her life back? Was
this something we shared? Something we had in common?
“I’ve not really taken much of an interest in family history,” she said, handing me a mug of instant coffee. “I never seemed to find the time.”
“Not many people do,” I reassured her. “It seems to be the occupation of the retired, these days.”
Victoria nodded. “So what’s bitten you?” she asked.
I’d not really considered an answer to that one but surprised myself nevertheless. “Probably too many period dramas,” I replied. “I just found myself looking over old sepia photos of life in the late eighteenth century—the old houses, the workhouses and the servants. It’s fascinating.”
“So what brings you here?”
“I traced your family from the Reverend Allington, the minister of St. Jude’s in Tabwell in around 1870. According to the records, he did a great deal of good work amongst the poor and founded a school with the intent of providing a good education for the local kids.”
Victoria Pascoe nodded. “Nice to know we came from decent stock, at least.”
“Ah, but did you? You see, we found letters suggesting that Allington may have had a few skeletons in the old cupboard. Apparently, at the christening of his child, the service was interrupted by a crazy woman.”
I went on to tell Victoria the whole story—or everything we knew from the letters I’d discovered in the attic—about the rocky relationship that seemed to exist between Mary Allington and her fiercely religious mother.
“Interesting ancestors,” she said with a faint smile. “Almost as colourful a life as ours…” her voice trailed off.
“Really?”
Victoria smiled. “It’s a long story.”
***
Our meeting lasted little more than an hour, during which I had looked at some old family photographs of Victoria’s side of the family. I’d taken them, feigning interest and promising to copy and return them the following day. I’d drawn a blank—a kind of dead end—or at least I thought I had. Victoria handed me a slip of paper just as I was leaving.
“If you want to know about my husband’s side of the family, I’d go and talk to his mother. If I remember rightly, she has a house full of old letters and documents. She lives in a bit of a time warp herself, if you ask me.”
I looked at the slip of paper. Ellen Pascoe. The name had a phone number scrawled underneath it.
“If she wants to talk to you, she’ll give you the address—but be warned, don’t bullshit her. She might be elderly but she’s as bloody sharp as a razor.”
I drove home wondering why Victoria had thought that I might even attempt to bullshit her mother-in-law. Did she doubt my story? Had she been humouring me all along? I knew that the woman was no fool. She had a good job and had married well—a man, if my memory of the newspaper articles served me well, who must have been at least fifteen years her senior. Benjamin Pascoe was in his early fifties. Victoria, even if she had been under the knife, could only have just hit her mid-thirties.
I wondered if I’d been forewarned by a disgruntled daughter-in-law. I sensed little affection in Victoria’s tone when she talked about the old woman, so I called her that afternoon anticipating an abrasive old grandmother to pick up. Instead, I’d found myself talking to a rather sweet, eloquent woman who dealt with the call from a stranger with humour and grace.
“Ah, an old crusty historian! How wonderful!” she exclaimed. “So much more exciting than those double-glazing salesmen.”
I laughed.
“And you say that Victoria recommended me?”
“Yes. She said you have a house full of family history.”
“Yes. Much of which that girl would have tossed out, along with half of my possessions, if she’d been given half the chance!” the old lady said with a chuckle. “That girl’s home looks like no one lives in it!”
Ellen Pascoe was not only bright but very active, and she agreed to see me after her local coffee morning in two days’ time. I wrote down the address and thanked her, already having decided to arrive with a bunch of flowers, although I had a feeling that a bottle of gin would have been just as welcome.
***
When I saw Jenny that evening, I failed to disguise my lack of animosity towards Victoria Pascoe. She stopped me mid-sentence, staring coldly. “Good to see you’re making new friends. Mum would be so proud!”
If she could have slapped me and got away with it, she would. But Jenny knew that her behaviour was being monitored, and if she could not control what happened in her sleep, she sure needed to watch what she did while she was awake.
“That’s not fair, Jen,” I protested. “I could hardly be unpleasant to the woman, could I?”
“I can read you like a book, Dad,” she whispered as a nurse hovered at the door, scribbling something on her clipboard. “I can tell by the way you’re talking about her. Doesn’t Mum’s life mean anything?”
“She didn’t kill Mum, Jen.”
“She was responsible for her son. She obviously didn’t seem to care who he was with or what he got up to!”
“It’s not always that simple,” I protested
“It is when you want it to be,” Jenny replied with an accusing glare.
***
I left the hospital that evening with my daughter’s words laying heavily on my conscience. She now saw me as a bed-hopping middle-aged womaniser. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand how she felt. Victoria was a Pascoe, after all. She may not have been behind the wheel of the four-wheel drive that Sunday afternoon, but I’d felt comfortable in her company and that was enough to anger Jenny.
Sometimes people found the capacity to forgive others for the most terrible acts of violence. I’d often wondered how they overcame the natural human reaction to wallow in hatred. Perhaps my ability to accept Victoria’s innocence, and my inability to find her complicit in the death of my wife and daughter, meant that I was just a good guy at heart.
I was at peace with myself by the time I arrived home but the answering machine was flashing ominously. I hit the button and waited. Sure enough, it was Victoria.
“Hi—Victoria Pascoe here—please ring me ASAP.”
There was none of the warmth in her tone—in fact, she sounded agitated. I picked up and dialled her number immediately.
“Hi, This is—”
Victoria cut in. “You’ve left your wallet.”
I felt my stomach tighten.
“Thank you—I’ll come over now.”
***
I ran a red light with my foot hard to the floor, praying that Victoria wouldn’t open the damn thing and discover my identity. When I arrived she was watering the plants that overflowed the terracotta containers either side of the door.
She pulled the wallet out of the pocket of her denims as I approached. “Mr. Robert Adams, this says.” Her eyes were cold.
“I know—I’m sorry…”
“Why did you lie? What do you want from me?”
“Look, I can explain. My daughter—”
“I thought your face was familiar. I just couldn’t place it. Then I remembered. It was plastered across the front pages of the local news. How could I have been so stupid?”
“I’m sorry. I just—”
“Want blood?”
“No, I thought—”
“You thought that you’d lie, wheedle your way into my life, and then exact some kind of revenge. What did you have in mind, Mr. Adams?”
“Mrs. Pascoe, I’m not after revenge. I don’t intend any harm. Please believe me.”
Victoria stood, her arms hanging limply by her sides. “Then what do you want?”
“It’s a really long story.”
“Five minutes,” she said. “After that, I don’t want to see you again!”
The spark of attraction I’d felt yesterday burst into a flame.
“One sugar, isn’t it?” she called from the kitchen.
Stop this! I chided myself. Stop this now! Think about your daughter!
/>
Victoria Pascoe watched me warily as I sipped my coffee. “Okay,” she said calmly. “What is this all about?”
***
Victoria had come from a long line of agnostics and found the whole spirit thing a little hard to swallow. She looked flustered as she listened, fidgeting incessantly throughout and saying little. When we shook to say farewell, I’d noticed her palms were damp.
“I don’t wish to be rude, Mr. Adams, but I think it would be better if you didn’t contact my mother-in-law. The whole episode nearly destroyed her. Darren was the love of her life.”
“Elizabeth and Hanna were the loves of mine, Mrs. Pascoe. I deserve some cooperation.”
Victoria blushed and averted her gaze. “Yes. Yes, I’m so sorry—that was thoughtless…” I saw the guilt in her eyes. “I just feel that it might be too much…”
“I’ll call her back. If she says no, I won’t push.”
Victoria shrugged and smiled weakly. “If you have to. But I’ll be calling her to let her know exactly who you are.”
***
I flicked on the early evening news and lay back on the couch while a local politician bemoaned the escalating cost of fuel. I groaned and stretched, glancing at my watch. It was four—plenty of time to shower and visit the grave on the way to the hospital.
The sun was sinking low on the horizon as I arrived at the cemetery gates, bathing the land in a glorious golden glow. A solitary blackbird sat perched on the branch of a cherry tree leading the evening chorus. The whole place looked so wonderfully peaceful—a resting place for the dead and those they left. I had come laden with guilt—guilt that could only be shed at the place where my wife and child lay.
Once again, I read the inscription: words penned by a man who had fallen into the bed of his mistress and broken the heart of a woman who truly loved him. I began to sob, sinking slowly to my knees and drowning in remorse. I missed Elizabeth. I missed her love—her body—the smell of her skin. Melissa could never have replaced the woman I’d lost and the beautiful little girl she had presented me with.
I left having made my peace. I climbed behind the wheel of my car and turned up the radio, wondering once more what I was going to find behind the hospital doors.