“Yes. That was me.”
“I’m Jim, James Parry, just call me Jim.”
I barely heard what he was saying, I assumed he was asking me my name and I answered “Susan…” I cut off before the end, wondering briefly if he noticed, I couldn’t say Susannah. Just in case.
Parry. He was a Parry. I looked at him again and saw the same nose and blond hair. Parry was not an uncommon name in this part of the world but I realised he was one of the Parrys. I knew Joe had brothers but I had barely met them, Joe had made sure we mixed in different circles as he tried to distance himself from the fishermen and casual labourers that made up most of his family. This young man must be the son of one of them, the family resemblance was too striking for him not to be. Yet he seemed respectable enough.
Jim handed me a glass of red wine and indicated for me to sit. I couldn’t fault his manners.
He sat opposite me and began the conversation easily, “You said you used to live here?”
So I told him. Little by little I explained how my parents had moved here during the war, how we had left when I was in my early teens, how this room had been part of the nursery suite, how I had spent so much time here with my brother and another boy who I believed was a sort of cousin. Jim listened as I described the house and the garden as it had been then. I tried not to look at him, he was so very like what I would have liked Joe to be.
“And then I came back to live here after it had been divided into flats.” I found it easy to tell Jim about those months, I think I probably told him more than I needed to. I had given too many hints about my life and Jim had put them together.
“Your name isn’t Susan is it? It’s Susannah.” He was standing with his back to me, opening another bottle of wine, I couldn’t see his face and I didn’t know him well enough to interpret the inflexion of his voice. Was he curious, or triumphant?
“Yes. I’m Susannah, Joe was my husband.” There was no point in lying.
“I thought you must be. When Gran knew it was a flat in this house I was buying she told me all about you, none of it was very flattering. That was the first I knew that Uncle Joe had been married. It’s been fascinating listening to your side of the story.”
“Have I told you so much?”
“Enough to know you a bit I think. Would you like to stay for supper?”
All that evening we talked. Jim knew names and would ask who the people were and how they fitted into the family, and it was only a matter of time before he had produced a large sheet of paper and some felt tipped pens and was encouraging me to draw a family tree.
As I drew the complicated network of lines and names I surprised myself by telling Jim details I never thought I could speak freely about. But I didn’t put everything on that diagram. There were some things Jim had no right to know.
It was nearly midnight when I realised the time.
“I’ve got to go, good grief I had no idea it was so late.”
“Stay.”
It would have been so easy to agree, so easy to stay in the warm and open another bottle of wine. It would have been so easy to be undressed and made love to by this strangely attractive man, because that was what he wanted to do.
But, attractive as he was, I had known him for only a few hours. I was the older by at least fifteen years and for the first three years of his life I had been his aunt. Two years ago these things probably wouldn’t have mattered and I would have stayed. But now they did and for the first time in my life I didn’t sleep with someone because it wouldn’t have been right.
My hotel room was cold, made even colder by the sound of the wind. It was beginning to blow fiercely and I remembered nights spent at Sandhey when such a wind blew. I wondered how many members of the Parry family were members of the lifeboat crew, whether Jim would be getting a message to leave the warmth of his flat and go out onto the sea. I hoped no one was stupid enough to put others at risk by being out in the storm.
The progress I’d made with Max didn’t compensate for my sense of loneliness. What good would it be to learn all about Max if my life was still a mess?
Soul searching wasn’t something I usually went in for but that night I spent time looking at my life as if it were someone else’s. I didn’t like what I saw.
For so long I had blamed others for ruining my life. Charles, my mother, my father and Kathleen had all stopped me from being with Carl. No one had stopped me marrying Joe and that had ruined my chances of a career. It was all someone else’s fault. But Jonathan, who could I blame him on? Ramesh? Ramesh had only put me in the position to make such a mistake. No one had made me marry him.
Now I was really alone. Ted, Charles, my children had all moved, Max had made that clear, but where to? I went back to the carrier bag of letters and read them all carefully. There was nothing in them to give an address, postmarks were unclear.
It was time to take some responsibility for myself. In a way I was glad Maureen hadn’t been in as I would simply have run back to her and, despite everything, she would have welcomed me back and saved me from making any decisions. But I would have loved to have found Ted.
He would have helped me. Just as he always had.
I didn’t go back to see Max the next day.
As I sat in the freezing cold dining room drinking a miserable, obviously instant, coffee and looking at the worst egg and bacon I had seen for some time when an apologetic waitress came in with an envelope. Inside were a bundle of papers and a letter.
Susannah,
Perhaps I have to admit to not having been entirely honest with you. On the morning after your mother’s funeral I had a long talk with David Redhead.
We had thought to use Carl but for all his success he is not as bright as you and we felt he would have been too condemnatory. That morning we decided you would be the one and we sought to prepare you. It would be necessary to give you the correct background so you could understand why we did what we did so you would not judge us too harshly. Maureen was reminded of her obligations to us. I knew her husband during the war, he was a good chap but died before he could really be of any use to us. Our talk yesterday proved to me that we made the right decision, though it has taken far longer than we had thought. You will use the enclosed papers to help complete your work. We hoped you would find Vijay Thakersey before he had a chance to wreak any havoc on the family but it is too late for that. But it is still necessary for you to find him to convince him that we did not betray him. Another generation will suffer if you don’t.
On another, more personal, matter. Your mother would be saddened that you haven’t found the man who will make you happy. She despaired of Charles, she had no understanding of him whatsoever, perhaps he was too like his father, perhaps it was because she blamed him for many things, but she worried about you. ‘She will cling to the wrong people, she will need men but, like me, she will never find the right one.’ Find that ‘right man’ Susannah. The right man is strong and he is patient. He loves you and he is waiting for you to find him. This man is not Carl Witherby.
Maximilian
Do not judge us too harshly for things we could not know.
“Who brought this?” I had finally managed to attract the attention of the waitress thinking that only a day earlier I had been at the Savoy, my every need anticipated and the breakfast faultless.
“An old man dropped it into reception. I thought he was a tramp he was that dishevelled.”
“An old man? Did he say anything?”
“I dunno I didn’t talk to him. Do you want me to ask?”
“That would be very helpful.” I hoped there wasn’t too much sarcasm in my voice.
She came back a few minutes later.
“The man said to give it to the beautiful lady from London. He didn’t seem to know your name.”
Perhaps now I would know where to start. Perhaps now, finally, if it wasn’t too late, I would do what David had wanted me to do.
I did not appreciate Max’s comments about my
life. It was far more important for me to find a place to live and a way of earning some money, to divorce Jonathan and learn to cope with having no friends and no family.
As the taxi driver drove me back across the Wirral to Lime Street Station everything that I owned was in his car. There were two brand new suitcases packed with, possibly technically stolen, clothes; my two briefcases containing all my research material and computer disks. In my handbag was about £1,500 in cash, I had destroyed all my credit and bank cards, they were all Jonathan’s.
I was going to start again.
But this time Annie Donaldson was going to do things right.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I rented a flat in south London, near enough to get to the libraries, galleries and auction houses but far enough out of the city to be affordable. I wrote short articles which I submitted to local newspapers, regional magazines and the small cheques soon added up, £50 here, £100 there until I could buy my own computer. I wrote short stories which were accepted for some of the lower circulation women’s magazines. The theme of all my work was the generation that grew up between the wars. It was something I was learning more and more about. I even did some teaching, tutoring in the evenings to help the children of over-anxious parents enjoy reading and learning about words.
I had nothing in common with my flat mate Caroline, a young teacher at the local comprehensive. She had an active social life and seemed to spend practically every evening out. I wondered when she managed to do any marking or lesson planning, activities I had always thought teachers had to do in their spare time. At least she was away for long periods during her holidays and I had the flat to myself. She had a regular boyfriend who frequently stayed with her.
After several weeks I had had enough of feeling that neither Caroline nor he recognised that it wasn’t their flat. They would sit on the settee entwined, touching each other as if I didn’t exist and in the mornings he would wander around the flat in his underpants. When I tackled them about their behaviour I was rewarded with a withering look ‘We didn’t think you’d notice, you’re old enough to be our mother.’
It hurt to realise they were right.
That made me wonder about my own children. Josie would be coming up to her 21st birthday, the boys all in their late teens. Even Bill would be 16, the same age I was when I was pregnant with Josie. They would all have grown up in the three years since Cambridge. I had rarely wondered about their lives but what Caroline had said struck a chord and I began to think of them more, of Maureen and of Ted. I had vanished, again, from their lives. What, if anything, did they ever think of me?
Most of my time was spent working on Max’s inventories. He had given me page upon page of lists. All the items he knew to have been brought to England by David’s Fishermen. Tracking down items in arts sales over the past few years was easier than I had thought it might be, but was time consuming. It was more difficult to persuade museums and art galleries to provide lists of the items they had in their cellars and storage facilities. They admitted quite readily that only a small percentage of their complete catalogue was ever on display and that many items were on loan to government ministries, embassies around the world and even, in exceptional circumstances, individuals. Whenever I was able to match an item to Max’s inventories and identify, as far as possible, where it had been since the 1930s the details were entered on my spreadsheet and I quietly celebrated another piece in the jigsaw. Somehow something must connect to Vijay.
The details on some items such as Princess Sophie’s decanter, were very easy to complete. Everything that had been in Max’s column now had a question mark against them. Nothing that had been Max’s had showed up since the burglary in any of the sales catalogues I had seen.
But there were successes. I traced three Fabergé eggs which had been brought over by Max. They were sold at Christie’s in London in 1983 by a member of the House of Lords to an American. The sum paid astonished me and I wondered how his Lordship had explained the provenance of eggs and how he had proved his ownership. I felt like I was really achieving something and it was most satisfying, little successes buoyed me up through the days when the only contact I had with anyone was a letter in the post from Jonathan’s lawyers.
He had not been happy with my assault on his credit card the day I had left him but he had accepted it and had not asked me to repay anything. I could not have done anyway.
I was glad Ted was not acting for me, there was much I would not want him to have known.
I hated telling my solicitor so many details about my life but she seemed to think the divorce would be quite straightforward. I had come into the marriage with nothing and would leave with as much as she could extract on my behalf. I had told her I didn’t care what I got, I just wanted my freedom and that was more important than regular maintenance payments or a lump sum. She seemed to think I could get quite a substantial sum. Jonathan had earned a great deal of money when we were married, had property and assets, and she seemed to think I was entitled to a reasonable share. “It won’t be half or even a third but we should get 15%, maybe 20 if we’re lucky.”
“Even though we were only married a few months?”
“Absolutely, it was his unreasonable behaviour that brought the marriage to its premature end wasn’t it?”
“Absolutely.” I had confirmed. There were few things about my marriage that I did not tell her. “I really was not prepared for marriage to a drug addict. He had never indicated before the honeymoon that he had ever taken drugs. I wouldn’t have had anything to do with him if I had known.”
“The court will like that. A woman, widowed so young, wanting another chance of happiness, you had such a shock so early in your marriage, yet you persevered, you didn’t leave him immediately, you tried to make it work.”
I had agreed with a slight nod of my head, as if words would have been too difficult.
“It’ll play very well. I think we might get more than the 20.”
Ted’s approach would have been completely different. He would have looked at both sides of the argument and I couldn’t see him believing my word quite so readily. He wouldn’t have taken some of the excesses of my statements at their face value, but Miss James asked me more questions, leading me to greater detail of my husband’s depravities. I found myself exaggerating his friendship with Ramesh, hinting at a relationship that might have been rather more intimate than perhaps it should have been.
“Excellent!” Miss James had exclaimed, “We don’t have to actually say that they were lovers, we can just gently hint at it. Worth an extra 5% I would expect. “Wonderful.”
I couldn’t imagine Ted even accepting the possibility let alone using it to my advantage.
Chapter Thirty
I wasn’t really concentrating when I answered the phone, it was late and I was tired and cold. It was just a year since I had moved to the flat and that fact had depressed me. Caroline had gone to her room with whoever she was with that week. I lost count of the different men she had brought back since she broke up with the one I had always thought of as ‘Pants’. She would make perfunctory introductions as we had an awkward cup of coffee together before they disappeared to her room. Some names I heard, Ian, Alan, Stuart, Pete, Malcolm; others I never knew. They were usually gone early the following morning and very few ever appeared a second time.
“Hello.” I had said, expecting to have to talk to one of Caroline’s men.
“Susie?”
“Who?” I didn’t want to recognise the voice.
“Susie is that you?”
“Who’s that?”
“It’s Carl, is that you Susie? Have I got the right number?”
“Carl?”
“I’ve found you! Thank God for that! Where have you been? What have you been up to? Why haven’t you been in touch with anyone? Oh Susie is that really you?”
“Carl?”
“Stop saying that! We have all been so worried about you. Where are you? Can I come to
see you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“We haven’t known where you’ve been for years. How are you? Say something.”
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t believe Carl had found me and was on the other end of the phone.
“Yes, Carl. It’s me.”
“How are you? Susie? Please talk to me.”
“Hello Carl. What do you want me to say?”
“Are you OK? That’s the most important thing. Are you OK?”
“Of course I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Susie, we haven’t heard from you for years, the children have sent cards that have been returned, we’ve written and had no reply we’re all worrying about you. It’s like you disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“I’m here.”
“Where’s here?”
“You phoned me. You must know.”
“I got your number from the man at the library.”
“What?”
“I saw you. The other day. You were at the British Library and I watched you.”
“You didn’t come up and talk to me?”
He didn’t answer directly. “You were engrossed, I watched you and you were the Susie I knew all those years ago, you were concentrating, oblivious to everything and anybody else. I recognised you immediately, you’ve lost weight, it suits you, and you’ve cut your hair, that suits you too. I watched you working, and I wanted to go over to you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“You looked so untouchable, so confident, so different.”
“You were afraid of me?”
“Yes. Susie, that’s it. I was afraid you would tell me to piss off.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Susie, please, can we meet? Can I talk to you face to face? Please?”
I thought about it for a few seconds.
“Why not?”
“Where are you? I know you’re somewhere in London, your phone number told me that but I haven’t a clue where.”
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