by Ruth Mancini
“Oh my God.” I breathed in sharply. My heart was hammering against my chest. I turned the gas ring off on the stove and sat down at the table.
“It’s alright, Lizzie. She’s left Martin. She’s not with him anymore.”
“Really? Since when? What did she say?”
“She said they broke up a few years ago. She’s fine about it. She’s seeing someone else. And she was really keen to hear about you.”
“What? What did you tell her?”
“I told her you were living in France.”
“Zara!”
“I didn’t say where! It’s okay!”
“So what did you tell her?” I repeated.
“Not that much. Honest. She said she’d tried to find you on Facebook and I... well, I said you weren’t on there, for obvious reasons...”
“You told her that? For obvious reasons?”
“No! No, I just meant that I know that you’re not on there, for obvious reasons, like because of – you know – you not wanting Martin to know where you are and everything. But I didn’t say that. I didn’t tell her why.”
“So you didn’t tell her about Helena?”
“I said you had a daughter. Obviously I didn’t say that she was Martin’s daughter. She didn’t actually ask.”
“Oh God!” I said again.
“Lizzie, it’s okay...”
“Did she ask how old she was?”
“No. Lizzie, I didn’t give anything away, I promise. I was really careful. We mostly talked about her, what she was doing.”
“So what is she doing?” I couldn’t help being curious. My frantic and purposeful searches for Martin aside, I was not one for trawling search engines or social media, looking for people from my past. I hadn’t looked up Catherine or anyone else since I’d left England. I wanted to move on with my life and didn’t see the point. But now that Catherine – who had once been my oldest and dearest friend – was ‘here’ again, I couldn’t help but ask.
“She’s still acting. She’s been in a couple of shows. She’d just been up to the National Theatre to buy some tickets for a play and she was killing time until it started, she said. She was just on her way to check out the Shard.”
“Oh yes, the Shard.” The latest addition to the London skyline. It was meant to be amazing, and taller than that building in Frankfurt – what was it called? I tried to think about The Shard, to calm myself, to control my breathing, but I was still breathing in more than I was breathing out. “So what happened? How did you leave things?”
Zara was quiet for a moment and I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer. “Well, we swapped phone numbers. She asked if I would keep in touch—”
“Oh my God!” My breathing stopped again.
“—But I don’t have to, Lizzie! Really, I won’t see her again if you don’t want me to. I didn’t arrange anything. It was just, you know, a thing.”
“A thing,” I repeated.
Neither of us said anything for a moment.
“So – let me get this straight – she didn’t see Helena? She didn’t even catch sight of her? At all?”
“No. I just walked with her to the Shard and we both had a quick look inside to see how much it cost to go up but neither of us could afford what they were charging. And anyway, it was snowing by then, and we were laughing because there were people up there in the snow, and Catherine said that they can’t have been able to see very much, and then, like I said, we swapped numbers and said goodbye. Then I walked to down to meet Helena.”
“Okay.” I breathed out again.
“But she’s left him, Lizzie. Don’t you see? It’s over between them. It’s been over for years, she said. So you don’t have to worry.”
“Did she say why?”
“Why what?”
“Why she left him?”
“No. She just said that she didn’t like the way he treated her. And that he’d gone off with someone else.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, another woman.”
“Poor woman,” I said. “But lucky Catherine, I suppose.”
“She seemed happy, Lizzie,” Zara said, encouraged by my change in tone. “Back to, you know, how she was, when she lived with you, that time.”
“Yeah.” I thought back to the first time that Catherine had left Martin, the time he’d knocked her tooth out. When she’d come to live with me in my flat in Baker Street, and we’d had such a close friendship, such a good time.
“It’s good that it’s all worked out for her,” I said. I didn’t know quite how I’d expected Catherine’s life to pan out but, somehow, it wasn’t like this.
“I know.”
“So what did she look like?” I asked.
“Pretty, still. Her hair’s long still. A bit older.”
I smiled. “Yeah. Well I bet she looks younger than me.”
“You don’t look old, Lizzie.”
“Thanks. Neither do you.”
“So, anyway. I thought you should know. I wanted to tell you. I knew how you would feel. But there’s nothing to worry about, really.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Zara paused. “So, shall I get in touch?”
“What? No!”
“Oh, I thought you meant...”
“No!” I said again.
“But...”
“Okay, so think about it. What happens next, Zara? What’s she going to say when she meets Helena and finds out whose daughter she is?”
“Yours?” Zara sounded confused.
“And Martin’s!”
“Oh, I see.” Zara paused. “Do you have to tell her that?”
“Zara! She’s eighteen and she’s the spitting image of him!”
“Is she?”
“You don’t see it?”
“I always thought she looked like you.”
I considered that for a moment. “Well, anyway, Zara, can’t you see what’s going to happen? How long do you think it’s going to take Catherine to figure out that Helena would have been born nine months after... well, you know.”
Zara was silent for several moments and I worried I’d upset her.
“Look, Zara. Honey. I’m sorry,” I said eventually. “I’m being mean to you. I know I am. I don’t mean to be. I’m just scared.”
“I understand,” said Zara, quietly.
I bit my lip. I hated this. I moved the phone to my other ear, moved some newspapers aside and reached for a tissue from the box in front of me. As I did so, I knocked a cold cup of coffee all over the kitchen table and onto my manuscripts, at which point the doorbell rang. Lily sat up and started barking furiously. She ran into the hallway. I grabbed the cup and set it upright.
“Zara, I’m sorry. Can I call you back in just a moment?” I asked. “Please? Don’t go away.”
“Okay.”
I replaced the phone in its cradle and threw a cloth over the spilled coffee, moving my paperwork out of the way. I rubbed my ear and blew my nose as I walked to the door, calling to Lily to stop her noise. It was just the postman, as I’d suspected, but I was feeling so drained that I needed a moment or two to gather my thoughts before I called Zara back again.
I’ve got to stop doing this, I told myself, as I mopped up the spilled coffee from the kitchen table and spread the stained manuscript papers over the stove to dry. I was controlling Zara, now. I was controlling everything. She’d been Catherine’s friend too. What right did I have to object to their renewed friendship? Or to impose terms on what they could discuss? I was becoming desperate, I realised that. The Google searches, the questions I asked Helena, the way I was being with Christian, the way, in general, that I’d been feeling and behaving since I told Helena about her father just a few months ago; I didn’t recognise myself anymore.
I moved some ironing from the kitchen sofa and sank down onto it. I closed my eyes for a moment and leaned my head back against the cushions. Lily appeared beside me and put her chin on my knee.
Okay. So, what if Catheri
ne found out about Helena? Would it really be that disastrous? She knew that I’d slept with Martin, who had been her fiancé at the time. That – or, at least, Martin’s version of what had happened – was what had brought about the end of our friendship. But she knew about it, all the same. What she didn’t know was that I’d gone on to find myself pregnant with his child. It would be a surprise, but not an altogether unexpected one, surely? And, who knew, possibly even a pleasant one, now that her relationship with Martin was over and she’d moved on with her life and found someone else? She might even be pleased to meet my wonderful daughter. I smiled a little as my maternal pride began to seep through the barrier that I’d created for myself and I started imagining us all together, the way it used to be, but better, because Martin was gone (this time, for good, right?), Helena was here and Catherine (with her own story to tell) would be bound to accept that I’d told the truth all along about what Martin had done to me.
I looked across at my stove and imagined myself making coffee for Catherine. I imagined the tearful conversation that we would have, how she would say that she was so sorry that she had chosen Martin over me and that I’d been right all along, that he was a liar, a cheat, and a bully. I looked over at my kitchen table, and imagined Catherine sitting there, drinking the coffee I’d just made with me and my friend Suzanne (they’d have so much in common! Suzanne was an old hippie like Catherine. She cared about the environment, The Universe and philosophy. And she loved the theatre too!). Before long, next Christmas had arrived and Catherine was here, spending it with us. Helena and Zara were goofing around with the presents, Christian was pouring the wine and Catherine would be cooking with me and Christian – and, oh, she had such a sweet tooth. She would just love the Bûche de Noël!
Then another thought occurred to me and I froze in my tracks.
I picked up the phone and tapped in Zara’s number. She answered straight away.
“Zara?”
“Yes?”
“Does she have any kids?”
Zara was quiet again. “That’s what I was going to tell you,” she said. “Just before you put the phone down.”
“You mean she does?”
“Yes, she has a son.”
My heart started racing again. I took a deep breath. I had no idea why this wouldn’t have occurred to me before. But it hadn’t. Not once in all these years.
“How old?” I asked.
“Eighteen,” said Zara.
“Oh my God.”
“I know. I didn’t think. When she said it, I mean. It just didn’t register. But I just looked her up on Facebook,” said Zara. “And he’s there too. His name’s Sky. He’s eighteen. The same age as Helena. Well, just a few months younger.”
“So. Helena’s brother.”
“Yes,” Zara agreed.
4
Suzanne poured coffee into two large bowls. I loved the way that the French drank out of bowls, though I had never got out of the habit of using cups and Suzanne always thought that was odd. “Cups are for tea,” she’d say for the first few years that I knew her. She didn’t bother pointing this out any more.
I sat down at the table and her cat, Lancia, jumped into my lap.
“So when does she get back?”
“Next Friday.”
Suzanne nodded her head. “Okay. You want to know what I think?”
“Always,” I smiled. “That’s why I’m here.”
Suzanne laughed. “I thought you came for my delicious tarte au citron.” She pushed a slice across the table towards me.
I shook my head. “Not this time. Honestly, I couldn’t. I can’t eat, right now. I just don’t know what to do.”
“You do nothing,” Suzanne said. “That’s what. Don’t tell her.”
“What? But he’s her brother, Suzanne.”
“Her half brother. Who she’s never known. She didn’t grow up with him. He is nothing to her. The love between a brother and sister, it comes from a shared childhood, shared parents...”
“Well, she only had one parent,” I pointed out. “Anyway.”
“So?”
“Well, it’s not like we were the standard nuclear family. I can’t use that argument. All she had was me.”
“So? So what?”
I looked up at her. “She’s an only child with only one parent, Suzanne. A brother will be a huge thing for her. It’ll practically double the size of her family.”
“She has us. She has Christian and your friends. She has Zara. She’s not short on people that love her.”
“It’s not the same as blood relatives though, is it?”
“Half blood,” Suzanne reminded me. “They share a father, that’s all.”
“That’s all, she says,” I smiled, ironically. “If only that was all.”
“Well, exactly.” Suzanne took a sip of coffee. “It’s more complicated than just telling her she has a brother. You have good reasons for not wanting him to be part of her life. Reasons,” she added. “Which Helena understands, or would do, if you told her. Which you shouldn’t. Because it will create a problem where there isn’t one.”
“But what if I’m keeping back something that really matters to her? What if she wanted a brother more than... she cared about anything else?”
“Anything else... meaning your feelings?”
“Well, yes. Look how she is with you and Zara,” I pointed out. “She’s crazy about you. She loves having her ‘family’ around. Even on the rare occasion that my mum or my sister visits, she gets excited. For an only child, having relatives – well, it’s a big deal.”
Suzanne shrugged and picked up the coffee pot. “With your mum and your sister, it’s uncomplicated. There’re no feelings to get in the way.”
“Yes, but whose feelings are we talking about? Mine. I feel selfish. What about hers?”
“She cares about your feelings. She already proved that when you told her about her father and she said she didn’t want to know him. She said it wasn’t worth it. Il ne vaut pas la peine. That’s what she said.”
“I know that’s what she said,” I told her. “But I’m worried that’s not how she feels, deep down. And this... this Sky. Well, he’s done nothing wrong. There’s no justification for keeping him from her.”
“I think you are justified. Because of the pain it’s going to cause you. Because of what it may do to your family, what meeting him might bring.”
I looked up sharply.
“See?” She said. “You’re terrified. You’re in a complete state about this and anyone would understand why, after what Martin did to you. The pain it will cause you outweighs any pleasure she may get from knowing him. He’s a stranger to her, remember. It would be just like meeting a new friend. They have no shared history, nothing. All they share is some genes. Half their genes. It’s not enough to disrupt your whole life and cause you this amount of distress.”
I looked up at her gratefully. “You’re saying this because you’re my friend. My very good friend.” I took her hand and held it tight. She leaned over and kissed and hugged me.
“Of course that’s why I am saying it. Someone has to. And Helena loves you too. She wouldn’t want you to be hurt.”
“So why am I not going to give her the choice?”
“Okay, think about it. Say that you do give her the choice. You tell her. And she decides, non. I won’t see him. Is that really a choice anyway? A free decision she has made?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she will be making that decision to protect you. Because she doesn’t want to cause you pain. Of course she would want to see him if given a free choice. It’s not a free choice anyway. So why give it to her?”
I put my head in my hands. “So, basically, she didn’t make a free choice about her father? That’s what you’re saying?”
“Of course she didn’t. Her choice was informed by her love for you.”
I looked up at her. “That doesn’t help,” I wailed. “Now I just feel guilty!�
�
“Well, don’t. What about you? You count too. You are entitled to think of yourself.”
I traced the pattern on the tablecloth with one finger. Slivers of sunlight fell onto the table and I turned to look out of the window. I loved the view from Suzanne’s kitchen, which looked out onto a beautiful orchard. A tiny robin was hopping around on the grass, looking for scraps or worms to eat.
“You’re right. I’m scared,” I confessed. “I have been since I told her about her father. She accepted my side of things almost too readily, too easily. She accepted that he raped me. She accepted that her father is violent and unworthy of her love. But she’s only ever heard my side of things, hasn’t she? Sky may tell it differently. Helena loves me and she doesn’t want to hurt me, but what daughter doesn’t want to know her father, to believe that he’s a good person who would have loved her, given half a chance?”
“And that’s the reason why you shouldn’t tell her about her brother. It’s for her own good, for her own protection.” She nodded towards Lancia, who was purring gently in my lap. “Let sleeping cats lie.”
“So what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her?” I asked. “Is that it?”
“Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. And it’s true.”
I contemplated this for a moment.
“We are the authors of our own lives,” Suzanne said. “You’re a journalist, Lizzie, so stop translating other people’s work and write your own story.”
“Very profound.”
Suzanne smiled.
“Or were you actually talking about what I do for a living?”
Suzanne smiled again and shrugged. “If you like. It’s up to you.”
*
Helena returned at the end of February. I could see instantly that nothing had changed and that Zara had kept quiet about Sky, and Catherine, as I’d asked her to. I felt a confusing combination of guilt and relief, but life resumed as normal. Helena attended classes at the lycée and competed or studied in the evenings for the ‘Bac Blanc’ – her mock finals – whilst cramming in driving lessons in between. She drove to all her tournaments, with me sitting beside her, and by early April she’d put in for her driving test. Then she got the letter she’d been waiting for: she’d been offered a conditional place at LSBU. She was happier and busier than I’d ever seen her, and I couldn’t help but be happy for her too and proud of her achievements, despite the undercurrent of fear and trepidation that was with me all the time.