Missing Christina

by Whitford, Meredith

  I’d offered to fly her here first class, but she refused. Eventually she said she could afford business class, and would pay for herself. It wouldn’t be right otherwise, she said. At least she agreed to stay at my house.

  When I met her off the plane she was in the usual exhausted, hassled state of everyone just off a long-haul flight, and when she saw me she tried to smile, and couldn’t quite manage it. I hugged her, inhaling that smell of freesias. “You all right?”

  “Is anyone, after that flight? How are you, you look different somehow.”

  “I’ve been busy.” This was quite true: I was preparing for rehearsals of Othello. My agent was hassling me to decide about three rather tempting job offers. Mum’s literary agent was also chasing me all of a sudden about selling the TV rights to the Simon Slaughter novels for a series, and if it went through they’d want me to play Slaughter. I was doubtful about this idea, because TV adaptations usually mangle the books. As a 'stalling’ manoeuvre I asked for script approval, which I knew would send everyone into a flat spin for weeks. Also I found I had to see Mum’s final Slaughter novel through publication. As Marian collected her luggage I told her about all this, knowing she was too tired to listen properly but not in the mood for either silence or the vital subject. In the car I chattered about the work I had coming up – a juicy spy thriller film and the upper-classes-at-play-whoops-we’re-at-war series (all this for next year) and a guest slot in a tedious but popular drama thingie. I went on a bit too long about Othello, saying how good it was that the girl who’d played my sister in Relative Causes was Desdemona, I knew the guy playing Othello pretty well, the Emilia I’d also known and liked for some time, the rest of the cast were good, the director liked me, and the thing hadn’t been updated or set in Alabama or Brixton or a laundrette or inside anyone’s cerebellum, including Iago’s. I was Iago. We had a decent rehearsal time in not-too-bad rooms, then would play four venues around the country before, unless Andrew Lloyd Webber or Disney filled yet another theatre, and if the stars were in alignment, going into the West End. Marian slept through most of this, I discovered when the car stopped outside my house and it was a struggle to wake her. I steered her inside and up to the bedroom, into the bathroom for a shower, then helped her into fresh clothes, one floppy limb at a time, and then suggested coffee, breakfast, whatever..

  “Need a sleep.”

  “Oh. OK.”

  “Just a nap. Don’t go.” Then she was asleep. I lay down beside her and took her hand, and before long I too fell asleep. Her plane had arrived at 6 a.m. so I hadn’t had much sleep, and what I had had was racked with weird dreams. The same this time, too, until I awoke just after eleven, feeling sick and confused in the way that daytime sleep often leaves me. Marian was still asleep, snoring faintly. I had to go, I had appointments. I left a note explaining this and asking her to meet me that evening.

  *

  Marian and I had dinner with Dad that night, and to my relief he liked her, was impressed with her. He’d even bought one of her books on Amazon and said he admired it very much, although he didn’t know much Australian history. I wondered why it’d never occurred to me to get hold of the books she had written; I suppose I was too taken up with all this 'Belinda Tate’ business. Anyway, we had a very pleasant dinner, and I told Marian about all the material Mum had left, and Adrian’s journal and so on, and we all argued a little about redacting names, etc. Or 'ect.’ as Adrian would have written, a memory that again gave me that weird feeling I’d overlooked something vital.

  Anyway, in the end we decided that Marian should see some of the papers, at my discretion, and then she and Dad and I would start by talking to Uncle Quentin. So, after dinner, I spread out all the material from that deed-box, and some of the letters and other documents I’d found in Mum’s Devon house. I’d decided to trust Marian’s judgement and taste about what could be used in her book. I’d photocopied the lot, but let her see the originals too, and, watching her face, I could see what she had meant when she had said about original documents meaning a lot to a historian. Businesslike, she made notes, scanned papers and dropped them into the manuscript of her book. At one point I realised she was crying a little. When I asked why, she said, “They were so bloody young. I like the sound of Adrian, from his letters and that journal – but do you think they’d’ve stayed together? Would they have felt they had to?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “And were they really happy together? Your mother never kept a diary, or if she did she must’ve destroyed it? But I suppose her novels were sort of a diary. And there are only a couple of letters from her to Adrian.”

  “At my sister’s wedding, Uncle Quentin got a bit drunk and said he’d never liked Adrian and thought he was very bossy and controlling of Mum. And it made me think – she couldn’t really have left him, could she. Or could she?”

  Marian thought about that for a while, flipping back through various papers. Finally she said, “I think she could’ve if she’d wanted to. But I think she loved him. – Bossy and controlling in what way?”

  I told her as much as I could remember of Quentin’s tipsy ramblings. After a moment she said, “It sounds more as if Adrian was trying to keep her safe. I bet she was always afraid of answering the phone and hearing Mrs Tate’s voice.” She hesitated, then went slowly on, “You’re famous. Have you ever had a stalker?”

  “No, luckily.”

  “Well, a few years ago I had a boyfriend who turned out... well, obsessive. We broke up. I broke it off. And although it never actually got to the point where he was stalking me he’d ring up at all hours or come to my place. I started screening all my phone calls, and getting my brothers to answer the door. It didn’t last long, he quite soon found someone else. But it was frightening while it went on. He never hurt me physically, he wasn’t violent, just possessive and obsessive. I’d hurt his pride by breaking up with him. He couldn’t quite believe it. So he hassled me until he found someone else, and married her straight away, and sent me a wedding photo of them. Which I quickly binned. So I can imagine that your mother must have felt the same – she must always have been afraid of the Tates finding her. I can remember once I did answer the phone without looking at the caller ID and it was that boyfriend. It was creepy. Frightening. Even though I knew he’d never be violent, that wasn’t in him, but... it was the feeling that he was sort of lurking on the edge of my life.” She’d been speaking slowly, tightly, then suddenly she relaxed and said, “Of course, having two big hefty brothers helped deal with him. I bet Adrian could’ve dealt with the Tates – I bet he kept on eye on them from a distance; amazing what money can do – but I also bet Christina always had that scary feeling every time the phone rang. Poor girl.”

  I’d never thought of it in that way. But I remembered the way Adrian had written to and about her; remembered the way she had looked at him in those old bits of film we’d found on the DVD in her writing house; remembered the pleasure she always took in decorating houses and buying clothes. Quentin, a teenager observing grown-ups whose history he didn’t know, had got it wrong. Dad had said she’d had a breakdown after Adrian died, and no wonder. He’d talked of their own married life in a way that made it clear that they’d had a free and open life, without the bonds of gratitude she must always have felt for Adrian, and he for her. Adrian’s sexuality? They must have come to some arrangement about that, and it was ancient history and nobody’s business any more.

  I said as much to Marian, who agreed rather absently, turning back to all those documents. It became very late without either of us noticing it until we were both yawning uncontrollably. And so to bed.

  *

  Quentin lives in a charming small house in Chelsea – as Mum had once put it, halfway between Oscar Wilde and Margaret Thatcher. It’s prettily decorated, because Quentin, who had never married, likes browsing antique shops and used to ask Mum about wallpapers and paint. The front door leads into a minuscule hall, with the drawing room to the right, and int
o this Quentin ushered us (Dad had come with me and Marian), and I was oddly touched to see a table laid for tea – the good china, apostle spoons found in a country junk shop, plates of biscotti and macarons. All he had to do, he said as we sat down, was to make the tea, the kettle was just on the boil.

  As he bustled off to do that I saw Marian looking around as if she rather liked the place, although, seeing it through her eyes, I noticed dust and a few cobwebs. I hadn’t been here for some time, and on my last visit the place had been spotless. I remembered Dad saying Quentin was moping. Letting things go to seed, perhaps. Not bothering. Maybe that was why, when I’d introduced Marian as Doctor Elder he’d given her such a sharp look as if he suspected us of forcing a psychiatrist on him. Still, he’d polished the silver and gone out to a bakery for the tea goodies, so he was able to make an effort.

  He came back in with a slightly too cute teapot, one of those thatched cottage ones, and we went through the milk-sugar-food business, reminding me of Mrs Fielke doing the same. When we had all we wanted he sat back in his wing chair and said, “Now, what can I do for you? Lovely though it is to see you again – and to meet, er, Doctor Elder – this isn’t a casual visit, is it, so if it’s legal business, I’m semi-retired but I could refer you to someone.”

  “It’s more family than legal business,” Dad said. Quentin made an odd little movement, drawing his head back. “It’s about Tia’s family background,” Dad went on. “Jaques has been – he’s interested in her family. She never spoke much of them, even to me. I, er, take it you know she was – was adopted?”

  “Yes.” Short and sharp.

  “So we wondered just where she fitted into your family?”

  Quentin took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He sipped his tea, then put the cup and saucer on the table. “She was my aunt’s child. Aunt Penny – Penelope. Of course I knew nothing of it until I was grown up. One of those family secrets. My mother knew, and another of my aunts on my father’s side. Penelope was his youngest sister. I don’t approve of what my family did, but I can see why they did it. Things were very different in the 1940s. An illegitimate baby was a scandal. All the family could think of doing was to send her away to have the child in secret. They wouldn’t help in any other way.”

  “They sent her to Australia?” Marian asked gently.

  “Yes.”

  “Why was that? I mean, did she have other family there, or friends?”

  “No.” As if he’d just remembered it, he grabbed for his teacup, drank all the tea in two mouthfuls. “I only heard all this much later, you understand. I gather there was an old family nanny, can’t remember her name, not sure I ever heard it – wait: Toller? Thompson? No, it’s gone. She had gone to South Australia after the war to look after her widowed brother, who had married an Australian woman. I think my family paid her to give Aunt Penny a home until the child was born.” He paused to reach for the teapot, re-filled our cups and then his own. “I think they put it about that Aunt Penny had been ill – and I think she really had, I do remember my mother saying everyone had bronchitis or something that winter, 1947 or ’48, I suppose. Aunt Penny had won a place at Oxford, but the family put it about that her doctor had advised a cruise or a holiday somewhere warm for a while, then she could take up her Oxford place later. It was quite often done like that in those days, to hide an unwelcome pregnancy.”

  “Yes,” Marian said thoughtfully. “Did your aunt try to keep the child?”

  “I believe so. The nanny didn’t approve of adoption. But she died, the nanny did, I mean, and her brother wouldn’t have an unmarried mother in his house. I suppose my family’s payments to the nanny had stopped. So yes, Aunt Penny had to give the baby up after about three months, I think. She had no money of her own, you see, and her family, my father and aunt – Aunt Penny’s parents had died in the war – refused to help unless she gave up the baby and came home.” Then, with a sort of double-take, he asked, “But how do you know that, Miss Elder? Did you know Tia – Christina?”

  “No,” I said. “Marian’s been helping me with – with researching this sort of thing. So Mum really was your first cousin? When did you first meet her, and how?”

  “Oh – she – she came to England in 1968. I think the case was that her adoptive parents, the Bryants, had died and left her some money that became hers when she was twenty-one.”

  Marian caught my eye, and immediately looked away. I heard Dad stir uncomfortably in his chair.

  “What is it?” Quentin demanded.

  “Oh – I think we wondered how she got in touch with your family. With her mother’s family.”

  “There was a letter. From her. From Tia. It was all very tactful; she wrote about trying to find a relative, a Penelope Herne who had lived in Adelaide in the 1940s. I can’t remember all the details. I was only a teenager, but my parents and aunts talked it over. They knew, of course, who she must be. Finally they told me about it. A meeting was arranged. I remember my father was rather annoyed because it was just before he was to take up that job in Canada. I think, too, that he had always felt rather guilty about Aunt Penny. I hardly knew her, Aunt Penny I mean, because she wouldn’t have anything to do with my father. Well, the very occasional rather stiff visit. She was nice to me, I remember that. She died, you know, in 1964, in an accident, and I think my father missed her and felt...

  “Anyway, as I say, we arranged to meet this girl. Christina. It was obvious at once she was who she said she was, once we’d got past the first, awkward bits. She said that the matron of the orphanage from which she was adopted had told her adoptive family, Mr and Mrs Bryant, what her birth mother’s name was.”

  “Surely that’s illegal?” Dad said sharply. “Tia told me the same thing but I never got around to asking if it wasn’t illegal.”

  “I’m sure it was. But Tia said that Mrs Bryant had told her that the matron had a horror of adopted children marrying their siblings, so they should know their birth names. Also Tia had found her adoption papers, she said. Somehow she was fairly sure her birth mother was English. She said she’d written to people in Adelaide called Herne, but had drawn a blank. So as soon as she could afford to, she came to England.”

  “And you were sure she was Penelope’s daughter?”

  Leaning eagerly forward Quentin said, “Oh, no doubt about it! My parents and aunts almost fainted when they saw her, she looked so like her mother. And she was the right age, and she had the adoption papers. I don’t remember details. I was fascinated, but, if you see what I mean, not interested in details. I was only a teenager. I remember,” he went on with a shade of resentment in his voice, “how they all kept on at me about it all being a secret, I mustn’t tell anyone. As if I would!”

  “And how did they explain her?” I asked him. “I mean, a sudden new arrival in the family?”

  “Oh, they fudged it all. I told you mine was an odd, scattered family, not close. A cousin, they said, and talked of cousins in Australia and all over the world. My mother said the fewer explanations the better. She said we could always pretend Christina was related to some cousin they hadn’t spoken to in years. I can’t remember it all. My father became quite fond of her, I think, and Mother was quite close to her. Aunt Athena took to her at once.”

  “Athena,” said Dad. “And Penelope. I’d forgotten that. Wasn’t there a Helen or a Minerva or something too?”

  “Helen and Minerva, yes. My grandfather taught Classics. My father’s name was Hector. Grandfather wanted my parents to call me Quintus, because I was his fifth grandchild. He didn’t know about Tia, of course, or he’d’ve wanted me to be Sixtus. My mother dug her heels in and they compromised on Quentin.”

  “It’s a nice name,” Marian said kindly.

  “Yellow and green,” he murmured, and reached for the teapot. It was empty, and he offered to make more. We all said No thanks, we’d had enough. Marian asked where he’d bought those delicious macarons, and he told her the name of the bakery.

  “S
o all your family – other cousins, I mean, just accepted Christina? Did they knew the whole story?”

  “Not sure. Oh dear, it’s so long ago, so hard to remember. I don’t think anyone asked many questions. But when she became engaged to Adrian Randall, my parents and aunt all quite agreed that Adrian’s family didn’t need to know she was illegitimate.”

  “God, Ade’s father would’ve hit the roof,” Dad said. “He was a wicked old snob as well as being the arrogant sort who gives the aristocracy a bad name. It didn’t matter how much money he gambled away, or how many mistresses he had, or how badly he treated his family – he could do what he liked; and did. But letting an illegitimate girl into his family? Still,” he ended rather glumly, “I suppose Ade could’ve bribed him. The old sod was all but broke by the time Ade came home from Australia to find he’d inherited all his uncle’s loot. I happen to know he paid off his father’s debts, a huge amount. But his mother would have minded about Christina. She was jealous of her – I mean, she would have been jealous of any girlfriend or wife of Adrian’s. But if she’d known Tia’s background she would have made everyone’s life a misery.”

  “Do you know who Mum’s father was?” I asked. “Did her mother ever say?”

  Quentin blushed and looked away, then said, very awkwardly, “Only gossip. Not nice. My mother said she thought the father was Aunt Minerva’s husband. Aunt Penny’s brother-in-law.”

  “Jesus!”

  “Quite. Mind, it’s only gossip, only what Mum thought, but apparently the brother-in-law, Ernest I think he was called, was quite the womaniser. Very handsome, charming, smooth. Something of a war hero. Mum said he’d think nothing of seducing his sister-in-law, he liked young girls and Aunt Penny was – had been – very sheltered. Perhaps he got her drunk and… well. Mum said that if it had been anyone else Aunt Penny would have said so but she couldn’t tell her sister it was her husband. And when Christina turned up, Aunt Minerva hated her, would have nothing to do with her, said horrible things about Aunt Penny. In fact she threatened to tell Adrian’s family. Good thing she died when she did, she was a spiteful old bitch.”