by Caro Fraser
‘So, how have you been lately?’ asked Adam conversationally, as they walked to the car. ‘I saw a picture of you in the paper last week at that film premiere.’
‘Mmm. I went with Bruce.’
Adam nodded. ‘Right.’
Adam assumed the tone of his voice as he spoke this one word to be entirely neutral, but Bella picked it up instantly. He cared. He was jealous. She could tell. It was unmistakable. Perfect.
She smiled disingenuously at Adam. ‘Bruce is such an amazing man. I’m very lucky.’
Adam said nothing.
Bella unlocked the car, and they got in. ‘God, five minutes and it’s already blistering in here. I’ll turn on the air conditioning.’
She ran the fan for a few minutes until the car had cooled, and they set off.
Adam allowed a few moments for his resentment of Bruce Redmond to dissipate, then glanced at Bella’s profile. She looked inscrutable behind her sunglasses. His mind shifted to the purpose of their journey.
‘Are you scared?’
‘Terrified.’ She grimaced. ‘I’ve got a thousand and one possible scenarios in my head, and each time I play one of them through, I haven’t a clue what I might say or do, really.’
‘Don’t worry.’
‘Fish the A–Z out of the side pocket and tell me where I’m meant to be going,’ said Bella.
‘How’s the biography coming along?’ she asked, as they headed towards Battersea Bridge.
‘Fine. Though I’m concerned that the business about the adoption should be handled the right way. I don’t want to upset your family.’ He glanced at her. ‘How will you feel about that coming out?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t suppose it will matter. Cecile’s the one you should worry about, if anyone. Charlie and I just have to come to terms with it.’
‘The rest of it should be coming together, but it all takes much longer than I expected. I’ve spoken to one or two new people over the past few weeks, the ones I met that night at your stepmother’s. Everyone comes up with another couple of names of people I should talk to. It’s a sort of self-generating process. For instance, Joyce Cole, your father’s old editor at Barrie and Jenkins when he first published Pale Journey, was very insistent that I should get in touch with someone called Richard Compton-King. Do you know the name?’
‘Nope. Who is he?’
‘According to Joyce Cole, he was quite close to Harry during the sixties.’
‘Are you going to speak to him?’
‘If I can track him down. He’s in the music business. Old, but still a player, apparently.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’ll let you know what fascinating insights he has, if any.’
For the next forty minutes, Adam guided them through the dense Saturday-morning traffic of south-east London. Eventually they came to Deptford, and after five minutes they found Duffy Road. It was an unremarkable street of tatty terraced houses with a row of shops at one end – a newsagent, barber, kebab takeaway, and a dilapidated minimart. It was lined from end to end with parked cars. The rattle of Connex South East trains could be heard from the station two streets away.
‘What number?’ asked Adam.
‘Forty-four,’ said Bella. ‘God, I’m so nervous. So nervous…’
‘I know. Don’t worry. Thirty-six, thirty-eight… It’s this side. Look, park over there, outside the pub.’
Bella pulled up. The Southbrook. Beers, spirits, fine wines. Family beer garden. Sky sports, big screen, all top sporting events.
Adam twisted round in his seat and looked back up the road. ‘It’s the one with the yellow door. There’s a sort of alley next to it.’
Bella stared straight ahead of her, hands clasped in her lap. ‘I’m shaking. This is pathetic.’
Adam looked at her. ‘Why don’t you wait here? I’ll go.’
She took off her sunglasses, nodded. ‘I don’t think I can move.’
When Adam had set off she got out of the car and stood leaning against it, staring at the house with the yellow door. There was the house where she might have spent her childhood. Where she was probably conceived. Where lives had been lived that had not included hers. Should have. Still no feeling came. No sentiment. She found herself thinking disloyally of the house where she and Charlie had grown up, the two-acre garden, and of Montresor, holidays with her father.
Adam walked along the pavement. He stood outside number forty-four for a few seconds, then took a few paces to the side of the house and glanced up the alleyway between it and the house next door. A painted board leaning against the brickwork read ‘Crash repairs. Free estimates.’ Adam walked slowly up the alleyway and round to the back of the house, into a large yard with three cars parked in it. He looked up at the silent windows at the rear of the house.
‘Can I help you, mate?’
The voice startled him, and he swung round to see a figure squirming its way out, face-up, from beneath one of the cars, spanner in hand. A lanky, dark-haired youth, wearing oil-stained overalls, got up. He wiped his hands and came over to Adam.
‘I’m looking for a family called Kinley,’ said Adam. ‘Mr and Mrs Kinley. Do they still live here?’
The boy looked uncertain. ‘You mean Derek and his mum?’
‘Is their name Kinley?’
The youth nodded. Only at that moment did Adam become aware of the incredible tension which had gathered in him. He felt a dizzy mixture of elation and relief – and had no idea what to do or say next.
He nodded. ‘Right. Thank you.’ He turned and walked back down the alleyway. The youth stood looking after him. Then after a few seconds he went to the back door and called inside.
Adam went back to the car. Bella was leaning against the door. Her eyes looked enormous, tragic, as she stared at him, trying to prepare herself. All he had to do was nod, and watch her expression, the anxiety disintegrating into wild and astonished disbelief.
‘God, they’re still there?’ She clasped her hands to her mouth.
‘There was a boy working on a car out the back. I don’t think he’s anything to do with you, but he confirmed that there’s a Kinley family living at forty-four. He mentioned someone called Derek, and his mother.’
Bella clutched tightly at his sleeve. ‘Adam, that must be my brother. My brother, and my mother… Oh God, oh God…’ She leaned against Adam for a brief moment.
‘What do you want to do?’
‘I don’t know. Do you think they’re there?’
‘No idea. Do you want me to wait here?’
Bella shook her head. ‘I’m so scared. Would you come with me?’
‘Of course.’
As they approached the house, a figure appeared at the end of the alleyway, a tall, muscular man, middle-aged, with scant blond hair, close-cropped. ‘You the fella that was asking about me a minute ago?’ He had a heavy south-London accent.
Bella looked at him in astonishment. Christ, thought Adam, he looks just like Charlie. Charlie, ten years older, with suntanned biceps, tattoos, wearing a T-shirt and jeans.
‘Are you Derek Kinley?’ asked Bella. Her voice was weak with nerves.
The big man nodded.
Adam saw the whiteness of Bella’s knuckles as she clasped her hands hard together. ‘Look, I know this must seem like an awful intrusion, but I have to find out… About thirty years ago, a woman who lived at this address, at number forty-four, called Kinley, had twin babies. She gave them up for adoption. I was one of them. Do you know anything about it?’ Her eyes searched his face anxiously.
Seconds passed like an eternity. It seemed to Adam that a whole world of improbability and conjecture made its slow revolve as Derek Kinley attempted to make sense of what Bella had said. How much did Derek recall of the time just before Bella and Charlie had been born? He would have been ten, according to everything Cecile had told Bella and Charlie, so he must remember something. Perhaps he had obliterated or buried that childhood recollection. The silence lengthened.
‘Sorry? What are
you on about?’ The man seemed on the verge of becoming truculent. God, thought Adam, he was like Charlie.
‘Look, do you think we could go somewhere else to talk? It’s not easy, here in the street…’
Derek glanced from Adam to Bella, then said, ‘You’d better come indoors.’
They went up the alley and past the repair yard, and followed Derek through the back door. They sat in the front room, on the three-piece suite. Adam glanced round, taking in the cheap furniture, the standard lamp, the budgerigar cage on its stand, the nets at the windows, the ornaments on the mantelpiece. The television in the corner was large, too big for the room, with speakers either side. Bella and Derek stared at one another.
‘Right,’ said Derek. ‘You’d better give us this again.’
Bella swallowed. ‘There was a family at this address, by the name of Kinley, who gave up twin babies for adoption.’ She gazed intently at Derek. ‘If that’s your name, then I know I’ve come to the right place.’ Bella’s voice grew weak with nervousness. ‘I think… I’m your sister.’
Derek Kinley smiled an unamused smile. ‘I think someone’s been having a laugh with you, love. I haven’t got no brothers or sisters.’
Bella nodded. ‘If the woman I’m talking about, Doreen Kinley, is your mother, then I’m your sister.’
Adam watched in fascination as something touched a nerve, a buried recollection. ‘Jesus,’ said the man at last. ‘That can’t be right. No.’ He seemed dazed by the effort of making sense of the past. ‘My mother never had any more kids. She lost a baby, that was all.’
Bella’s eyes were huge, bright with the effort of concentration, or with tears, Adam didn’t know which. ‘Oh, look, I don’t know what you were told, I don’t want to cause any pain, but… if you remember her being pregnant… How old were you then?’
‘Nine? Ten?’ Adam saw that Derek Kinley was now actually looking properly at Bella, taking her in, on the verge of the connection Bella so desperately sought.
‘She didn’t lose the baby. Babies. My parents adopted them. The parents were called Kinley, and they lived at this address. They had one child, a boy.’ Bella nodded, swallowed. ‘Our brother.’ Bella’s eyes swam with tears. ‘I can’t believe I’ve found you.’ She glanced at Adam. ‘This is my friend, Adam Downing. He helped me to find you. I only found out a few weeks ago that I was adopted, you see.’
Adam could sense the man’s panic and uncertainty.
‘I’m sorry if this has been a shock for you,’ said Bella.
Derek said nothing. He seemed baffled, as though someone had put one over on him when he wasn’t looking.
‘Didn’t you know anything?’ asked Bella.
Derek shook his head slowly. ‘Nothing. I’d forgotten the whole thing. It was that long ago. She was expecting, and then she… Everyone said she lost it.’
Adam, watching his face, wondered what Derek’s feelings towards his mother were at this moment.
Derek stared at Bella, long and searchingly. At last he put his head in his hands. ‘Bloody hell.’ There was silence for a few seconds, then he looked up again. ‘Twins? You said there was you and your brother?’
‘His name’s Charlie.’ Adam could hear tears choking her voice. ‘I don’t know the details of what happened, but the adoption was done privately and arranged very carefully. I think it cost our parents a good deal of money.’
‘Knowing my dad, I’ll bet it did.’ Derek Kinley nodded slowly. Adam detected no bitterness in his voice, merely understanding.
‘Shall I make some tea?’ Adam asked. No one said anything, so he got up and went to the kitchen at the end of the narrow hallway. The kitchen was very small, with just a cooker, a fridge, a sink, and some cupboards. Like the front room, it had a timeless quality about it. Adam filled the kettle and found a teapot and some tea in a tin caddy. He got some mugs and a milk jug from a cupboard. He brewed the tea, and poured some milk into the jug from a half-full bottle in the fridge. He noticed a hand-knitted woollen tea cosy on top of the fridge. He hesitated, then put it over the teapot. He put everything on a tray and took it through to the front room.
‘Thanks,’ said Derek, as Adam poured out some tea and handed it to him. He gave some to Bella. She hardly glanced at him, utterly absorbed in her cross-examination of Derek. He gave his answers to her questions with a reluctance that concealed itself as an effort of memory.
‘What do you remember about that time?’
‘I dunno. I haven’t thought about it in a long while.’ He pondered. ‘I remember I knew about the baby coming. But no one bought anything for it. Then Mum said she lost it. I remember we got a new car. We went to Butlin’s that summer, down in Walton. We was well off for a bit, that much I know. Well, by our lights.’ He looked at Bella, shook his head again in disbelief. ‘This has done my head in, you know that?’
‘Are my – our parents still alive?’ asked Bella. Her voice was faint.
‘Mum is. Dad passed on a while back. You didn’t miss nothing there.’
Adam saw a flicker of emotion tremble on Bella’s face. A long moment passed. ‘Is she here?’
Derek shook his head. ‘Mum? She’s up the shops. Lil took her. She doesn’t get about too well.’ He fell silent again. Just as the pause was growing awkward, Derek gave Bella a searching glance, almost as if he didn’t want to, and said, ‘I don’t reckon she would know you.’
‘I wouldn’t expect her to. Why should she?’
‘No, I mean, she doesn’t know who anyone is half the time. She’s lost her marbles a bit.’ He sipped his tea. Silence fell again, lengthened.
‘Don’t you want to know my name?’
‘Sorry, yes. Go ahead.’
‘It’s Bella.’
Derek Kinley nodded. ‘You look a bit like that actress that was in that film – that drug thing, with the bald guy who had the three-legged dog.’
She nodded. ‘That’s me. My name’s Bella Day.’
Derek gaped. ‘Right. Right.’ It was all too much for him. Adam sensed that Derek wished his Saturday morning hadn’t gone this way. The enthusiasm, the hope, the need which radiated from Bella was not reflected by this stolid, puzzled man.
‘Do you want to know about Charlie?’ said Bella.
Derek nodded with an air of interest which Adam guessed he did not feel. Perhaps it wasn’t interest that he lacked, exactly – more that he felt apprehension, that things were rolling towards him which he didn’t know how to handle. Adam thought he could understand that. Bella, rendered oblivious to any of this by the adrenalin rush of meeting her new-found brother, told Derek all about Charlie.
‘A brief, eh?’ Derek gave a sad laugh. ‘There was a few times we could’ve done with one of those in the family.’
Another long moment passed. Adam could tell from Bella’s eyes that it was dawning on her that the elation of this reunion was somewhat one-sided. It was painful.
‘Look,’ said Derek, putting down his mug of tea, ‘Mum’s gonna be back in ten minutes or so. I’m not being funny or nothing, but I think it would be best if you wasn’t here.’ Adam noticed for the first time that the slow, dejected way in which Derek had answered Bella’s questions was his normal manner of speaking.
Bella looked bewildered. ‘Not meet her? After everything… I have to see her! She’s my mother.’
Derek regarded her frankly, thoughtfully. After a space of some seconds he asked, ‘What kind of a life have you had, then? Being adopted? They must have been pretty well off, your folks, given you a good education, a decent start in life.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Bella gave Adam a brief, baffled glance.
‘Right.’ Derek nodded. ‘So you’ve got a good life, done all right for yourself, actress and all that. Brother’s a lawyer… Point I’m trying to make here is – when Mum gave you up, that must have been a hard thing for her to do. Now I look back, I can guess why she did it.’ But Adam sensed that this was not entirely true, that there was unsolved anger and pain. �
��She did it to see us better off, to stop Dad leaving, keep money coming into the house. She’s not had a great time of it, Mum. And now she’s not too well. Like I said, she might not know you after thirty years. But she might. And if you look at it from her point of view, maybe she doesn’t want to be reminded of you, and what happened back then. I know it sounds hard, but she needs looking after.’
‘Believe me,’ said Bella earnestly, ‘I can see that it might be a shock for her. But you don’t understand what it would mean to me, how badly I need to–’
‘Yeah, well, that’s what I’m getting at. It’s not just a question of what you need. Like, you come here, you’re my sister and all that. But in a way, you’re not. We’re not really anything to do with each other. I’m sorry if it sounds hard and all, but I’m thinking about Mum here.’
‘She’s my mother,’ said Bella, somewhat dazed by this. ‘Don’t you think she’s thought about me all this time, wondering what I’m like, what Charlie’s like? Why would you want to stop her meeting me again? Don’t you think it might be as important to her as it is to me?’
Derek stared down at his hands. They were heavy, freckled and furry with blond hairs. He twisted a chunky gold ring on one of his little fingers. ‘I’ll tell you a bit about Mum. She’s seventy. Since she left school she’s always worked. She worked in a baker’s, then in a bookie’s, she did twelve years in the laundry on the council estate, she worked another fifteen years down the rope factory in Woolwich. She’s had two hip operations, and needs a stick to get about. She’s had a lot of worry one way or another, what with my dad, and not having much money. I’m divorced, with two little girls. They live with their mum. I’ve lived here for the past four years, looking after things, running the business out the back. The last year or so, she’s begun losing it. They reckon it could be the beginning of Alzheimer’s, I dunno. She goes up the day centre on weekdays, has her lunch there, talks to all the other old dears, comes home teatime. Weekends, like today, she goes up the shops with Lil, sometimes she goes to the bingo in the evening. She watches telly, likes her soaps. Sometimes she thinks I’m her dad, or her brother that died in the War. She can manage things for herself, but she gets confused.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s Mum. That’s what the last thirty years have been for her. I don’t know what you think it’s going to do for her now, meeting you.’