The Hidden Legacy: A Dark and Shocking Psychological Drama

by GJ Minett

  I was in my mid-thirties when Josef announced he’d booked a week’s holiday for the two of us at a B&B in Torquay. We’d never had a holiday before, apart from a week in Blackpool for our honeymoon. For the first couple of years we’d been unable to put aside more than the bare minimum. Things were much improved once Josef started work at the architect’s, but we still felt holidays were a luxury we could ill afford. We preferred instead to save for a house of our own and the family we both wanted so much. His decision, out of the blue, that we would have a week away felt portentous somehow, as if this was his way of telling me he’d given up on that particular golden future.

  I hadn’t. I still wanted to keep the dream alive. My body clock by now may have been reduced to the occasional plaintive whimper but I couldn’t bring myself to give up just yet. I still felt as if I had a child in me, so to speak. Enthusiastic as I was about the prospect of a week by the sea, I couldn’t help feeling dispirited at what it might actually represent. It felt as if we were letting go in some way.

  I realise this might be interpreted as a plea for some sort of understanding, given what happened next. I can assure you that’s not the case. Infidelity seems to be so lightly regarded nowadays but I am a product of my age. I was appalled then by my actions and am no less harsh a self-critic now. I didn’t seek forgiveness from Josef, even with his dying breath, so I’m not about to ask it of anyone else. I don’t deserve it.

  I would prefer not to dwell for any longer than necessary on what happened next. It’s a source of great embarrassment to me. Suffice it to say that Josef had surprised me with tickets for a show in Torquay one evening and we were having afternoon tea when he was taken violently ill. We called a doctor who decided it was mild food poisoning – presumably the seafood he’d bought on the promenade at lunchtime. Josef decided to stay in bed and try to sleep it off but urged me not to waste my ticket at least. He knew I’d been looking forward to the show and didn’t want me to be disappointed.

  And I so nearly didn’t go . . . oh, the irony of it. I offered to stay and look after him and would have done so if he’d just asked me to. But as usual he was thinking of me and insisted I go without him, which somehow makes the whole thing seem even more of a betrayal. Because at the show I found myself sitting next to an American boy, whose father was over here as a visiting naval attaché. He must have been ten years younger and he was lively and entertaining and his eyes hadn’t yet lost the freshness I believed I’d bleached out of Josef. And he was obviously oh so interested in me and I felt flattered. Wanted.

  And nine weeks later I found out I was expecting.

  July 2001: John Michael

  Guy sitting across the aisle, the one with the sharp blue suit and enough gel on his head to grease an axle. Business man. That’s three times now in the last five minutes he’s looked up from the paper he’s reading and stared in his direction. Not just looked – stared. It’s the sort of thing he notices, even now. Nothing like that to get the blood pumping.

  First time it happened, John Michael turned away, casual like, and gazed out of the window. Nothing too obvious. Countryside’s fascinating all of a sudden. After a while, when it’s safe to risk a quick look, the guy’s gone back to his paper, so no problem. Only two minutes later, damned if he doesn’t do it again, which means this time he has to turn away and get his face out of the firing line. He wonders what it must be like to be able to return the look, stare someone out and not worry about being recognised. Not something he’s ever had the chance to do. Number one on the professor’s list of no-nos. But he often thinks it’d be nice, just once, to say sod it and give it a go . . . really give someone the eye.

  Then, the third time, he wonders whether maybe he’s got it wrong. Looks like maybe the guy’s just day-dreaming rather than actually staring. Probably thinking about something he’s just read or some deal he completed this morning. And now he’s calmed down a bit and started to think straight, he can see the guy’s way too young anyway. Twenty-five tops. He’d have been in nappies back then. It’s the older ones he needs to worry about. They’re the ones who’ll never let go.

  So he goes back to the book he’s been reading and takes a few deep breaths. Worrying about nothing. Even so, he tells himself . . . if it happens again, he’ll get up and change compartments. No point in asking for trouble.

  It’s like that woman on the ferry this morning, out on top deck. The moment he sits down opposite, she’s pulling the little girl closer to her, taking a sudden interest in the shells she’s been playing with. Lifts her up and holds her on her lap, rather than let her wander too close, like he’s some sort of paedophile or something. And the little girl’s struggling to get down while the mother clings on for dear life, jiggling her up and down on her knee to keep her happy – and he hasn’t even done anything. Hardly even looked in her direction. Once upon a time he knows he’d have read too much into that. Now he has to remind himself she didn’t mean anything by it. People are just wary of strangers, that’s all. It’s nothing personal.

  He gives it ten minutes or so, then realises he’s been going over the same paragraph three or four times and hasn’t got much idea what’s happened in the last few pages. It’s a cheap thriller he picked up at the station, thinking it might take his mind off things for a while. Some chance of that. He snaps it shut and stuffs it in his jacket pocket. Then he turns up his collar, rests his head against the window and hunkers down for a while. Chance to switch off.

  Funny to think this is England flashing past. It’s been over twenty years now and in all that time he’s hardly ever thought about coming back, let alone done something about it. Last month was probably the closest he’s come in all that time . . . and some stroke of genius that would have been. Embarrassing to think he got as far as the outer office, was just minutes away from asking the man himself for compassionate leave, before he finally came to his senses. God only knows what he was thinking.

  OK – it was right out of the blue. Granted, the professor was no spring chicken, but there was nothing to suggest he’d suddenly go like that. John Michael had seen him only two months earlier and he looked as fit as a butcher’s dog. He had something permanent about him, did the professor – something indestructible. To read just those few small paragraphs in the paper like that was a real hammer blow. After all, he owed him just about everything, not least the fact that he actually belongs somewhere now. After all this time, he feels he can say that much. Even if it hasn’t been without the occasional scare, he’s been able to lead what his neighbours and colleagues at work probably think is a pretty ordinary, uneventful life. They’ve no idea who he is . . . was. And that’s all down to one man.

  So yes, he owes him – of course he does. Big time. If it wasn’t for the professor’s money and contacts which made all the documentation possible, there’s no way he’d have made it over there in the first place. It’s the professor’s summer cottage he’s been ‘renting’ all this time. It’s his references and reputation that helped him get his first job in the area. And he’s been the one constant in his life, the closest thing to family he’s had for a long time now, so the temptation to come over to England for the funeral was always going to be hard to resist.

  But the professor wouldn’t have thanked him for it – not for one moment. Goes against everything he’s ever taught him. Seems like all his life he’s been having the same message drilled into him – keep your head down, never stand out in a crowd, p-p-p-play the p-p-percentages. Then, the moment the professor’s not around any more, first time he has to do some real, joined-up thinking for himself, what does he do? He dives straight in – no risk assessment, no exit strategy, no plan even, of any description. Enough to make you cringe. Such an amateur.

  Part of the problem is that, having been out of the headlines for a while, he’s tempted to think he’s yesterday’s news, even though he should know deep down that’s never going to happen. All it takes is some new ‘sighting’ and everythi
ng flares up again. Out come all the old photos, the old hysteria. He can have a quiet laugh over the places he’s supposed to have turned up. And as for these age-enhancement pictures they come out with every so often, they’re just a joke – nothing like him now. He always makes sure of that. But it’s not really that funny – the search has never died away. He has to believe there’s always someone out there, looking for him. There’ll always be an O’Halloran or another just like him. And if someone like the professor dies, this is a big opportunity as far as they’re concerned. It breathes a bit of life into the corpse. They’ll have been staking out the funeral, just waiting for him to show his face, and he’d be mad to think otherwise. They’ll have been there, alright. Count on it.

  So would the professor have been any happier about this little trip then? Probably not. He’d still say it’s way too dangerous, that it’s crazy to even think about going. But at least he’d understand why. And if John Michael insisted on going anyway, against his advice, the professor would have sat down with him and worked out exactly what the risks were and the best way of getting around them.

  The journey wouldn’t have worried him. Passport control maybe, but that’s only a problem if you lose your head. London should be OK too – always safety in numbers. It’s when he gets to Ashbury and starts asking questions . . . that’s when he’s really sticking his head up in the air. He’s going to need a good story then, that’s for sure. That’s the bit that would’ve had the professor biting his nails and asking if he’s sure about this. Really sure?

  But when it came down to it, the professor would have backed him because he understood – he knew how he felt about gaps. How helpless they make him feel. For those first few years, she was always there with him, all day, every day. He fell over, she picked him up. He sneezed, she was there with a hanky. It was like he was all she ever thought about. Then she went away and he was left with nothing, just a gaping hole. And just when it looked as if there was a chance his father might be the one to fill it after all, he too was snatched away. Since then it’s the professor who’s been there whenever he’s needed someone.

  The moment it really hit home that he was gone, that he was back on his own again, he found his thoughts drifting back to those years when they shut him away while his father ran off to start a new life somewhere else without him. And for the first time he’s really curious about what sort of life that might have been. He doesn’t know many of the details; his father always seemed to shy away from talking too much about what he was doing, as if he felt it would be tactless to say too much. And there was no way he was going to ask because he was so busy trying to make him feel bad about that newspaper article. He resented the fact that his father could just up sticks and start all over again without him as if nothing had ever happened, while he was left behind to fend for himself.

  But now he’s older, settled . . . and curious. He does wonder about that part of his father’s life. Nearly seven years he spent in this Ashbury place. You don’t just sit and do nothing in all that time. You move on. He must have met people, done things, formed relationships. He can’t remember most of the little details that came up in conversation – they would have gone in one ear and out the other. He knows he was working at an inn, that he tried to keep his running going. Names are a complete blank but he suspects, from one or two things that emerged the last few times they were together, that there might even have been someone he was close to. But it’s the lack of detail that’s the problem. He’s at that stage in life where he doesn’t want mysteries any more – what he wants is answers. And he’s more aware than ever, after the recent health scare, that he might not have as long as he’s always assumed. The clock’s ticking.

  So if this trip means taking a few risks, stuff it. With any luck, if things start to get a bit hairy, he’s still got his old life to run back to. It’s just that lately, especially since the professor died, he’s had the feeling that if that life is going to mean anything to him, he’s going to have to fill in all those gaps first.

  And he knows he needs to start with Ashbury.

  August 2007: Ellen 2

  I was thinking just now about the sermon Reverend Williams gave last Sunday. He was talking about a film he’d seen on television about a woman whose future is determined by whether or not she steps through the doors of a London underground train. The film depicts two parallel universes, showing what would have happened to her in each and the point he wanted to make is that our lives are governed by what seems like a random collection of moments. We like to talk about luck, chance, coincidence, how things could have been different if fortune had smiled on us. We’re less keen to look closely at ourselves and accept our own share of responsibility for what’s happened. Fate is a more convenient handle on which to hook our disappointment.

  Reverend Williams knows nothing of my guilty secret. I know I should tell him but am also sure I never will. I have a great deal of respect for him and don’t think I could bear to see the disappointment in his face. If I were to tell him though, I’m sure he’d be quick to point out that fate had little to do with the way things have turned out for me.

  I could, if I were so inclined, point to my own series of sliding doors that might have led to a very different future. Josef, for instance, was tired that morning in Torquay and not really in the mood for a stroll along the sea front before lunch. He only came along to keep me company, otherwise he’d never have seen the seafood stall in the first place. Having done so, he might easily have decided not to buy the tray of cockles and whelks that struck him down later that afternoon. And if he’d been able to go to the show, I would have made no more than nodding acquaintance with the person next to me, who in turn could just as easily have been one of the many pensioners who made up the bulk of the audience, rather than a lonely boy far from home. So yes, there were any number of moments which might have worked out differently, but that’s life, I suppose . . . a series of choices. What matters is that when you have the chance to take the reins yourself, you accept responsibility for your actions. It’s too easy to look back years later and blame it on the vagaries of fate.

  When I first discovered I was expecting, there was a moment when I might have confessed all to Josef. I knew his capacity for selflessness. It’s not inconceivable that if I’d managed to summon up the moral courage to seek his forgiveness, there might still have been a different outcome. If anyone was likely to be willing to bring up another man’s child, it was Josef.

  But the stakes were so high. Divorce in those days was much more of a taboo than it is now. In telling him what I’d done, especially in view of what I’d just discovered, I would have been running the risk of social disgrace. I’d already been abandoned by my family – if Josef were to walk out as well, where on earth would that have left me? And quite apart from my own selfish concerns, how could I possibly do that to him? After all those years of desperately wanting a son or daughter of his own, how was he supposed to cope with the knowledge that I was expecting the child of a total stranger?

  But, as fate would have it (that word again), our last night together in Torquay provided me with the chance to take the coward’s way out. You’ll probably have gathered by now that, as a rule, Josef and I were not as intimate with each other as we might have been. He was laid low for twenty-four hours by his bout of food poisoning but once he’d recovered he was full of the joys of spring and determined to make the most of the holiday time we had left. Without wishing to be indelicate, our last night in Torquay was the first time we had shown that level of interest in each other for several months. It did little to ease my conscience but it did at least prove fortunate in providing me with an escape route.

  You’ll probably wonder how I could have been so sure back then that the baby was not Josef’s. I can’t explain it to you. It was no more than a feeling, yet it burnt in me so strongly. Perhaps, despite everything I said just now, I’m a fatalist after all. But I can assure you, there’s no element of h
indsight at play here. From the moment my pregnancy was confirmed, I was convinced that Josef was not the father. I’m sure a psychologist would be quick to identify feelings of guilt and the need to punish myself but for my part, I can only tell you how it seemed to me at the time.

  I offer no excuses for the choice I made. I considered the alternatives and went for what seemed the least painful of the options available to me. I had no desire to reap the whirlwind so I said nothing to Josef about my fears and chose to live with a lie in the hope that everything would be for the best.

  If I needed any encouragement, any persuading that I’d done the right thing, his reaction to the news was all I could have hoped for. His kindness had never been in short supply but to it he now added an element of tenderness I was unaware of until then. And nothing was too much trouble for him. During the first few weeks, which he constantly referred to as the danger period, I was barely allowed to get up from the settee while he was around. Cups of tea, hot-water bottles, a plentiful supply of books from the library . . . all were brought to me the moment I threatened to move a muscle. I’m not sure he’d ever cooked a meal – a proper meal – in his life but he was happy to stand there in the kitchen and respond to instructions as I called them out to him. In time he built up a small repertoire of presentable dishes.

  Once we were safely past the first three months, he became less fearful and things gradually reverted to normal but he was still solicitous in the extreme, always looking for ways to help or thinking of little treats he could arrange for me. His draughtsmanship skills had earned him a couple of promotions in the last few years and the extra money, even allowing for the amount we felt we needed to put to one side, enabled him to buy a second-hand Morris Minor, which he took great delight in showing off on weekend trips to a succession of Cotswold villages; Bourton-on-the-Water one week, Ledbury or Stow-on-the-Wold the next. I think, looking back, that we were probably more of a couple during those few months than at any other time.