Missing Christina

  “Yes.” I explained that all over again.

  “Damn. I wonder if we can stop it?”

  “I doubt it. And have we the right to?” He thought about that for a moment, then moved away to light a cigarette, his first since I’d arrived, a record for him. “By the way, were Marian and I right? Was it Adrian who helped her leave Australia?”

  “Of course it was. Yes. She said once that even if he hadn’t had so much money they would have done it anyway, she had saved just enough to come to England by ship, so they would have managed somehow, it was just much easier because Adrian was rich. She had no idea how rich he was until after they married. It gave her a hell of a shock.”

  “She told you all about it? Everything?”

  “Everything.”

  “Before I got into all this, I wondered if Adrian had killed Belinda. You know how you told me he said he’d killed someone before that doctor. So what did he mean, d’you think?”

  “Hmmm, I don’t know. I may have remembered it wrongly. Or he may have meant he 'killed’ Belinda Tate. We were really very stoned that night. I’d leave it at that, dear. If there was anyone else... I can’t imagine him doing it for no good reason. Perhaps he meant an accident up in the north. But on the whole I think he meant 'Belinda’. Leave it, Jaques.”

  “All right.” But I did wonder how the Tates had died... Dad was looking so anxious I said, “Rick had a point – how did she turn herself into – well, later into Mum, but I mean, at first, into someone, well, posh enough to marry Adrian – how did she pass herself off...”

  Eyeing me sideways he said, “She was a good actress. And even at first she didn’t sound very Australian at all, there was no 'Strine’ to her voice. But look, she never tried to pretend she was anything but a nice middle-class girl – which she was, really. Adrian’s parents didn’t think she was quite good enough but they had no say in the matter. She wasn’t quite 'one of us’ but it weren’t as if she was common or anything like that. Despite whatever you’ve heard about the people she grew up with, she’d been what used to be called well-brought-up. A lady, in fact. Well-spoken. Quiet. Beautiful manners. And her grandmother – the adoptive one – was English, I think, or her parents were – I can’t quite remember but the grandmother’s father had been ADC or equerry or something to one of the South Australian governors in the nineteenth century.”

  “Well-connected, then.”

  “Oh yes.” Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair. “So the mother’s family was always rather upper-class English. Until the 1930s they visited England several times and they always had the English papers and magazines sent out to them. That sort of thing. Tia remembered bound volumes of years and years of Punch and Tatler and oh, The Lady and God knows what. She used to read them all the time. And on the father’s side, the Tate side, there was a bit of class there too – Scottish, educated, a bit of money.”

  “But,” I objected, “from everything Marian’s found out the father, old Tate, was a country bumpkin, someone said, a peasant.”

  “I don’t think that’s quite right.” He frowned, trying to remember. “Look, Tia hardly ever spoke of them but I think old man Tate was rather thick. His mother was an educated woman, a teacher, and his sisters were apparently bright enough and had good careers. Perhaps he was dyslexic or something, for he was almost illiterate, but it wasn’t because he came from a bad family. Solid middle-class Scottish on both sides. Tia had a faint Scottish accent at times when she was younger – absorbed it from the father, whose mother had a heavy accent all her life, it seems.

  “So you see, dear, all she had to do was mug up some recent English history and politics. The story, as I heard it back when I first met her with Adrian, was that she’d gone out to Australia on a sort of working holiday after her parents died. And you see, she had the English-background grandmother – whom she very much loved, I remember her saying – and all the English books and papers she’d read, and she’d been to a posh private school, she knew all the right words, how to say things, pronounce things. She seemed a thoroughly nice girl who sounded mostly English, a bit Scots, not Aussie. I suppose Adrian coached her a bit, too.”

  "'Tia Mia Galatea Dear’,” I quoted, and he looked at me as if I were mad. “It was in a letter to her from Adrian. 'Galatea’, you see.” Still nothing. “Pygmalion?” Blankness. Well, he hadn’t read Classics at university, but he had read English, and I’d been in a Shaw revival a couple of years ago. “Galatea was the statue Pygmalion fell in love with, he made her mortal.” I wasn’t sure if I’d got that quite right, but Dad caught on.

  “Ade didn’t quite have to Henry Higgins her, but he certainly paid for having her teeth capped and her nose straightened, she did tell me that. She had to have her tonsils out and a wisdom tooth, I remember her telling me, and the doctor said she should have her nose fixed – it’d been broken at least twice. So she had a bit of plastic surgery on it, and her teeth done. I remember that she seemed older than she actually was. In fact when I first met her I thought she was older than Adrian. After that it was just good clothes, a good job... I remember the first time she went to Williamscourt. Ade brought her to Barbara’s twenty-first-birthday ball. Beautifully dressed, good manners, quiet but pleasant, amusing. Very nice.”

  “Did you fall in love with her?” I asked. “Then, I mean? At first sight?”

  He laughed. “Good God, no! I had a girlfriend of my own. And Tia was Ade’s. No, I just liked her a lot, got on with her – in fact, apart from my parents she was the only one I could really talk to about literature and music. So no, I just liked her. It was long after Ade died that... You said this woman, Marian, has some old film...”

  Accepting the change of subject I said, “It’s pretty bad, in every sense, but yes. If you want to see it –” He nodded. “All right. Use your computer?”

  “Let me just...” He cleared away all the gun-cleaning stuff, locked the gun into a rack in a cupboard which he also locked, then made me free of his computer. I went into my website, into the secret password-protected area, and found the link to the film Marian had given me.

  “I must warn you –” I began, but he shook his head and gestured me back to the sofa. Instead, I went to the window and stared out over as much of London as was visible from that angle, counting off seconds in my head. Dad made no sound, but when I knew he must have watched it all I turned to look at him. The heels of his hands were pressed into his eyes, and he was silently weeping. I didn’t know what to do, or say.

  After a while he took his hands down, wiped his eyes, and came to join me at the window. “Hearing about it is different from seeing it. How young she was, and how much you look like her. Jaques dear, would it be possible to meet this woman? This Marian? I could go to Australia?”

  “She wants to come here anyway. To see, well, to check the certificates she found online. And family history, the Hernes – Quentin. He must know. And if there is any material here she could use in her book.”

  “We must talk to Quentin,” he said absently. “Tell him. Perhaps we should do that together. As for material... Yes, there is some. Do you want to see it?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I’ll give it to you. Then when you’ve seen it we’ll decide.” He opened a desk drawer, fished around inside for a moment, and brought out two huge, old-fashioned keys on a hefty iron ring. “Downstairs,” he said, and as I followed him out of his office he called to Gail to come with us, and sped towards the lift. Gail raised her eyebrows at me; I shrugged. Down we went in that lift, down into the basement, repository of the usual office junk and rather too ill-lit for my comfort, especially with those ancient keys clanking in Dad’s hand. I was in this straight-to-DVD Gothic horror movie once, and... At the far side of the basement was a barred door, as on a prison cell. Dad used one of the keys to unlock this, and then to my relief turned on a fairly bright light. Ahead of us was a vast door of what looked like green-painted iron. “It was the bank vault originally,” Dad sa
id. “Give me a hand here, the door’s very heavy.” Inside was a small room with shelves on two sides and a tiny barred window half above ground level, letting in not enough light and air. But Dad pulled a cord and the room was lit by a central electric bulb, although I was not too happy to see candles and matches on one of the shelves.

  “What is all this?” I asked, looking at piles of paper and perhaps a dozen old-fashioned metal boxes, deed-boxes of the kind lawyers used to use, at least in books and films.

  “When it was a bank they kept their gold down here. When the publishing company began they still kept their cash here. I suppose authors were paid their royalties in cash back then. We use it for valuables – a couple of manuscripts from the dark ages, worth a bit nowadays, and company papers. Also cash. And we let some of our authors use these old deed-boxes for things they want to keep safe. Here’s what we want.” He moved a couple of boxes to lift out one labelled only 'CB/CR’. “Gail, will you please witness that I am removing this box and giving it to Jaques?” This he literally did, putting it into my arms.

  “Yes, but – All right. Of course.”

  The box was metal, heavy, and coated in dust. Gail tutted and tried to wipe some of the dust off with a tissue. We all sneezed. I found that the box had a handle in its lid, and got a firm grip on it. We backed out of the vault, Dad locking up behind us, and in silence returned to his office. Gail spread a newspaper on Dad’s desk. I put the box on it, and, still in silence, we looked at it. I was shaking. Gail bustled off and returned with a duster and a damp cloth, and cleaned the outside of the box, then tactfully made herself scarce.

  I said, “Do you know what’s in here?”

  “Of course,” Dad said impatiently. “But I haven’t looked at it since she put it away back in the seventies, and I don’t want to look at it again. Hell, if I’d been a bit more organised and put my own stuff away you’d never have found those letters and none of this would ever have come to light.” He hesitated, then went on, “Tia did think that the Belinda Tate story should come out after we’d both died, but...” Abruptly he turned away, unlocked the cupboard he’d put the gun into, took out a little metal box, and removed from it two small keys. He threw these across to me. “They’re for the box. I’d rather you didn’t open it here. Take it home. Not to Williamscourt, I don’t mean – to your house. See what’s in it and then decide. We must consult Quentin, of course, there may be legal reasons... but you decide what you tell this Australian woman. If she’s worked it all out as you say she has, I don’t suppose we can stop her writing her damn book, but I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it. I hate all this. Perhaps we can ask her not to use our name, or Adrian’s. And what about your grandmother? She doesn’t know any of this and it would shock and upset her terribly, she was so fond of Tia. So I don’t know.” He sounded exhausted. “Take the box away and read what’s in it. Then we’ll talk to Quentin. For now, just take it away.”

  Twenty

  Have I said, in this record of that year, that Toby had recently moved into his own place? So I had the house to myself when I finally got there, dragging the wheelie case Gail had put that deed-box in. I put the box on the desk in my study, then made sure the answering machine was on and my mobile phone on voice mail, locked and bolted the doors. For some reason I took a shower and changed my clothes. I ate some lunch, drank a glass of wine. When I could put it off no longer, I unlocked the deed-box

  The first thing I lifted out was a long, legal-sized envelope of heavy paper, sealed with red wax. Under that was a pile of typed papers, held together with rusting clips. Under those, a red book with Journal in gold lettering across its cracked leatherette cover; pink legal tape had made a bundle of the book and papers that seemed to have been interleaved at random.

  On top was, in Mum’s handwriting: “Not to be opened and read until after my death, and then only at the discretion of my husband Jon, Viscount Randall or, should he have predeceased me, at the discretion of any of my surviving children.” She had signed it, the signature witnessed by Uncle Quentin.

  On the inside cover of the journal was written “Adrian Randall”, crossed through and “Adrian Fyffe-Randall” written below it. On the facing page, the first page, was, in that tidy writing with the flourishing capitals I remembered from Adrian’s letters:

  Queen Margaret Downs Station, Northern Territory, Australia.

  Oct. 1967.

  I hated coming here so much that I’m surprised at how much I now mind leaving. I’ve been counting the days until I would be 21 and free to go home, but now it’s come I’m almost sad. They’ve been kind to me here, and some of it I’ve liked. I’ve made friends. I didn’t expect them to give me a birthday party yesterday, or presents – and they must’ve ordered the presents specially to be here by last week’s mail truck, in time for my birthday. I’m not sure why they thought I’d want this journal, but perhaps they couldn’t think of anything else, and I suppose I might as well use it, because my life’s going to be very different from now on. This fountain pen was also a present. Tomorrow the station manager’s wife will drive me to Alice Springs, and then I’m going to see Ayers Rock and then to Adelaide by train. I had a soppy letter from Mum saying she can’t wait to have “her little boy” home again, but her little boy’s changed. While I’m here (in Aust.,) I might as well do some sightseeing, for it’s not likely I’ll ever come back here. I’d like to go to Sydney and do some surfing, and see the Harbour Brige, and then the Great Barier Reef. Then I might go to Tahitti or somewhere and Hawiaii and home via the USA. I’ll write and promise Mum I’ll be home for Christmas, though, or she’ll get too upset. Uncle Louis’s lawyers sent me a letter, also by last week’s mail truck, saying Uncle Louis left most of his money to me, and enclosing a cheque for £10,000 for “immediate expenses”, so I can go where I like and do what I want for once, which is tough luck on Lord Randall, the old bastard.

  A quick glance showed that about a third of the book was full of similar writing, the entries alternating between lengthy and sparse with a few postcards and photos pasted in here and there; also, there were some asterisks in the turquoise ink Mum used until I was old enough (seven) to ask her not to, and some loose pages interleaved here and there.

  I poured another glass of wine, took a deep breath and slit open that envelope first. On top was a folded document, an affidavit or statutory declaration, stamped and signed at the bottom in a legal way. Dated December 1975, it said:

  I am Christina Fyffe-Randall, widow of The Hon. Adrian Fyffe-Randall, who died in November 1973. I hereby state and affirm that I was born the illegitimate child of a woman whose name I discovered was Penelope Herne. I was born on the second day of February 1949 in the Queen Victoria Hospital in Adelaide, South Australia, and was christened Christina Joy Herne. My natural father’s name is unknown to me. When I was four months old my mother gave me up for adoption, and I have been informed that she then returned to her home in England and that my birth was unknown to most if not all of her family for many years. I was adopted by Alfred Timothy Tate and his wife Winsome Louise Tate, née Fanning, of Oban Farm near Naracoorte in the south-east of South Australia. The Tates changed my name to Ruby Linda when they adopted me, although I was always called by the nickname of Belinda. My home life with Mr and Mrs Tate was very unhappy and I was subjected to certain abuses. In October 1967 I met Adrian Fyffe-Randall, whose given name was George Adrian Louis Randall, the son of Viscount and Viscountess Randall of Williamscourt, Herts. We met because his cousin Jonathon Christopher Randall had been one of my several pen-friends for a year or two. Adrian had been working as a jackaroo on Queen Margaret Downs cattle station in the Northern Territory for about two years. Leaving there the day after his twenty-first birthday he travelled to Adelaide, and as a courtesy to his cousin and because he knew no one else in Adelaide he got into touch with me and invited me out to dinner. We fell in love with each other and wanted to marry, but I knew that Mr and Mrs Tate would never give their permi
ssion, which was necessary because I was then still a minor. I was very much afraid of Mrs Tate, who was a violent and abusive woman who drank heavily and who, while resenting and disliking me, was possessive and enjoyed thwarting me. Mr Tate too was afraid of her and would never have given permission for me to marry Adrian. We therefore decided to elope. I think it is important to state that Adrian did not seduce me and we had no sexual relationship until we were married. I was acquainted with a girl called Alison Ivy Lang, born in 1946, who was crippled with polio and thus unable to travel, and I obtained a copy of her birth certificate and used it to obtain a passport in that name. Adrian paid my air-fare to England, and soon after I arrived there I went to stay in Scotland, where one can marry without one’s parents’ permission provided one is over sixteen. Adrian left Australia a week after I did, and went home to Williamscourt after he had visited me in Scotland. We were married in Aberdeen in January 1968. I was married in my legal name of Ruby Tate. Soon after that I changed my name by deed poll to Christina Bryant, and in that name I married Adrian again in July 1968, after he had changed his name, under the terms of his uncle’s will, to Adrian Louis Fyffe-Randall. I was unaware until Adrian arrived in Scotland that Mrs Tate had claimed that I had been abducted from Glenelg Beach like the Beaumont children nearly two years earlier, and that she caused a great deal of trouble and waste of police time. Within a few days, however, the South Australian Police came to the conclusion that either Mrs Tate had killed me in one of her drunken tantrums or I had committed suicide and she had hidden my body. She was arrested but found unfit to plead, and spent some years in a mental home. When Adrian told me of her claims that I had been abducted I wrote to the South Australian Police telling them a version of the truth, saying I had moved to Melbourne. I do not know what became of that letter to the police. I suppose Mrs Tate destroyed the letter I had left telling her I was so afraid of her that I was going away. I am aware that I broke the law by obtaining a passport in a false name and leaving the country without my adoptive parents’ permission, but it was the only way I could escape. Since Adrian’s death, no one else knows these details I have stated herein, but I feel there should be some record of what became of “Belinda Tate”, whose disappearance is, I believe, still an unsolved mystery in South Australia.