by Unknown
More than once he had been on the point of contacting his birth parents. Almost five years had passed since he put the phone down on his mother – or at least he presumed it was her; that was still on his conscience. Somehow he had not been able to summon up the courage to speak to her, but the time was fast approaching when he would have to do the inevitable.
Meanwhile, he did everything he could to reassure the Hughes. ‘You are my parents, the two people I love most in the world, and always will.’ Despite his assurances, Elizabeth could not endure the thought that her beloved son might soon be embracing his natural mother. He could tell her ten times a day that no one would ever take her place but she would never believe him. Before Arthur could take the fateful step, however, there were questions to be asked, questions only Merlin could answer.
‘Why did their marriage break up?’
‘There were financial problems, I believe,’ Merlin responded cautiously. And then, seeing that Arthur was not satisfied . . . ‘There may have been other reasons too.’
‘Such as?’
‘I can only tell you that Godfrey Whittaker moved out of the house and was living in a small hotel in Victoria. It seems he was chronically depressed.’
‘My poor father.’
Merlin made no comment. It was his duty, as he saw it, to answer Arthur’s questions, not to give answers to questions he never asked. If Arthur wanted to know who his biological father was, he would certainly tell him. Much better, though, if he heard it from his father.
‘When did my mother remarry?’ asked Arthur.
It was the first time he had asked that question. Who could say what resentments Arthur had stored up against his mother and step-father? ‘About twelve months after Godfrey died,’ said Merlin.
‘So soon.’ The implied censure was clear enough but Merlin did not react. Abruptly Arthur changed the subject. ‘And my adoption? How did that come about?’
Merlin sent his mind searching back nineteen years to the events of those momentous days. ‘You were two weeks old. Uther asked me to find a good home for a baby boy.’
‘You didn’t try to change his mind?’
‘No, Arthur. It was something that had to be done. A week later he brought you to my house and I handed you over to Hector and Elizabeth who were very happy to adopt you. From the moment they saw you they loved you. The rest you know.
Those are the facts.’
Sparse facts. There was more, much more that he needed to know. Arthur took time off from work and drove down to Ponterlally to be with his parents . . . if only they really had been his parents, if only everything were as simple as that. In every important way they were his parents, though he could no longer think of them in quite the same way. He was so confused, so uncertain where he belonged, that he could scarcely look them in the eye. It was unreasonable and unfair, and he hated himself for it but the fact was that he was angry with Hector and Elizabeth, as if somehow it was their fault they were not his real parents, as if indeed they were the ones who had abandoned him. He could feel his whole world changing, and that made him desperately sad.
Every morning he would wander along the banks of the Lally to the spot near the stone bridge where he and Keir had passed so many happy hours, Keir fishing, Arthur lying on his back, dreaming. The moment he sat down, shoals of fish thronged the water’s edge, reaching up their heads, mouths gaping expectantly. Scattering fish food on the water, he stroked their snouts gently with the tips of his fingers. Thinking he knew them, he greeted them by name, until he remembered with a pang that they could not possibly be the same fish he had known all those years ago. Lying on his back, legs outstretched, ankles crossed, head resting on clasped hands, he watched white wisps of cloud drift across the sky, and dreamed the dreams he had dreamed when he was a boy.
After a few days at Ponterlally he decided not to contact his birth parents after all. The next day he changed his mind again, and again the next, until he no longer knew what he wanted to do. He was curious to meet them, if only to learn why they had abandoned him, yet he was afraid to meet them too, in case they told him things he had no wish to hear.
What sort of parents, he kept asking himself, gave away their own child? Merlin had offered no reason, no chronic sickness, no lack of material resources, no sudden catastrophe to explain such a callous act. Why then had they rejected him? That was the question he needed to ask them. Did he really want to hear the answer? Was there some sinister explanation? Some genetic or inherent flaw in his own character or body? Could it be that in some way he deserved to be rejected?
Most days he would wander over to the primary school
and stand leaning on the gate imagining he was a child again. Nothing had changed, Arthur told himself, everything was the same; the same battered old school building, with its red brick walls, its grey slate roof, its smoke-blacked chimney stack, the same playground with the same swings, the same climbing frame, the same rocking horse and elephant and fire-engine he used to sit on, the same slide he used to slide down. Those children he now saw dimly through the classroom window – were they not his old friends? Was Keir not there too, eyes forever glued to the blackboard? And was there not in that same classroom a small boy who saw nothing of his teachers and heard nothing of his lessons, dreaming away the hours tracking aliens from outer space, ready at a moment’s notice to challenge a billion invaders in a shaft of sunlight?
If only he could stop time, or even turn it back. If only he could stay in Ponterlally and be a child again, be as carefree as he was then, for a year, a month, a week, even for one single, precious day. Life was so much happier then, so much less complicated, so much less cruel. Poignant memories flooded in on him, moving him to tears. He longed to embrace his youth once more, but everything has an end. Time present and time future had to be faced. He was a man now.
Suddenly all his doubts left him and his mind was made up. One morning he came back from the river, hugged Hector and kissed Elizabeth so fondly that she cried, partly from happiness, partly because she too knew that the old life was over, and that nothing would ever be the same again.
Twenty Four
2015
This time, when Igraine answered the phone there was a voice at the other end, and a name attached to it. She
begged Arthur to come and see her that very day.
There was an uncomfortable silence in the sitting room as mother and son stood looking at each other. ‘You cannot imagine how many times I have dreamed of this moment.’
‘Me too,’ confessed Arthur.
She lifted her shoulders awkwardly. ‘Shall we . . . ?’ She sat in the corner of the sofa, Arthur opposite her in an armchair.
‘Let me look at you.’ She studied the son she was seeing for the first time. ‘You won’t be angry with me if I say something personal?’
He smiled. ‘I’ll try not to be.’
‘You are quite the handsomest young man I ever saw.’ ‘You don’t think you might be just a little prejudiced?’
‘Not in the least.’ Igraine searched for the right words. ‘I wish I could express to you how happy I am. I had given up hope of ever seeing you.’
‘Well, here I am,’ he said flatly.
‘Yes, here you are,’ she said. She wanted to take him in her arms, yet looking at her son across the coffee table, the distance between them seemed as unbridgeable as the gulf of years.
‘Why did you have me adopted?’
She had expected the question, but not so directly and not so soon. ‘You don’t believe in wasting time.’
‘We could talk about the weather if you prefer.’ ‘So angry?’
‘Angry is not the right word. Puzzled, certainly. Hurt, perhaps.’
‘No. You are angry. How could you be anything else?’ She stood at the bay window looking out at the lush lawns, the well-tended flower beds, the rose garden, the gazebo, the ornamental lake and the woods and fields beyond; everything perfectly laid out, everything in its proper place. U
nlike her life. Hers had been a privileged existence, she had everything a woman could reasonably ask of life, everything but peace of mind. Since she gave her son away, hardly a single day had passed without her conscience troubling her. She hoped he might forgive her, even perhaps in time learn to love her. More than anything, she wanted an end to lies.
‘When I look at you now, Arthur,’ she said, ‘I don’t know how to answer your question, I don’t know how I could ever have given you away. All I can say is that you were a baby then. I didn’t know you, I hadn’t learned to love you. It was wrong of me, I should never have done what I did. But do please try to understand. I know you must feel desperately hurt and rejected, but you see it wasn’t you I gave away. It was someone else, someone I didn’t know.’
‘It was your son,’ he said bitterly.
Igraine bowed her head. What could she say? ‘When Godfrey died, I was lonely, Arthur, so very lonely. He deserted me when I needed him most. Oh yes, you can look shocked, but that is exactly what he did. He left me to face the world alone, with three young children and another one on the way.’
‘Why do you think he . . . ?’
‘Who knows,’ she said wretchedly, ‘who knows why anyone takes their own life? He was faced with financial ruin.’
‘Was that the only reason?’
‘I knew he had problems, but he would never discuss them. He was brought up in an old-fashioned school, you see. His father died leaving a lot of debts, and after that it was all downhill. Godfrey became introverted and morose, not a all the sociable, charming man I married. We had no fun, no social life, nothing. I didn’t mind so much for myself, but there were the girls to consider. We hardly had the money to pay the school fees. Things were difficult, very difficult.’ She paused, observing her son’s sombre expression, wondering what he was thinking.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘We gave this New Year’s Eve party,’ she continued. ‘It was Godfrey’s idea, though how he was going to pay for it I never understood. I should have talked him out of it, but . . . ’ She shrugged. ‘I thought it might cheer everybody up. I even persuaded myself he must be doing better. Perhaps he thought of it as his final fling. Who knows? Anyway, he chose that very night to tell me he was bankrupt. It was a nasty shock, I can tell you. He had given me no real warning. I knew things were bad, but not that bad. If only he had taken me into his confidence before, I might have been able to help him. We had a row. I – well, I threatened to leave him.’
‘Did you?’
She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t. He told me something else that night. He said he had stolen money from his club – he was the treasurer of Greys, you know – well, borrowed it was what he said, but I knew what he meant. I never discovered exactly how much, but apparently it was a great deal.’
‘What did you do?’
‘What could I do? I wanted to help him but I didn’t know how to. Anyway, Godfrey didn’t want to be helped – not by me, at any rate. It was New Year’s Eve, and my world had collapsed. It was the worst night of my life.’
‘Was that when he left home?’
She shook her head. ‘That was much later. No, New Year’s Eve was the night I met a man who looked like Godfrey’s twin.’ On a tripod table by the armchair stood two silver-framed photographs, one of Godfrey, one of Uther. ‘See for yourself.’
Arthur studied them. ‘Incredible. Which is which?’
She pointed at one. ‘This is Uther.’ ‘How could you tell them apart?’
Her face flushed scarlet. ‘It was fate, Uther turning up out of the blue like that. If it hadn’t been for him, I don’t know what we would have done. He was simply wonderful, kind and thoughtful and generous. He adored Godfrey, of course, everyone did, and he respected him enormously, thought him such a gentleman. It was Uther who settled the business of the missing money – how exactly, I don’t know. I only know he saved Godfrey from disgrace, and then he helped him out financially. Not just once, either. Finally, when he realised Godfrey was never going to make it on his own, he gave him a job in his property company. For a time our lives were transformed.’
‘For a time?’
‘Godfrey was a proud man. I don’t think he was ever comfortable working for a friend. It wasn’t long before things started to go wrong.’
‘In what way?’
She hesitated, as if she had said more than she intended to. ‘There was Uther . . . successful, confident, rich. Poor Godfrey. I think he felt inadequate.’ Arthur’s face showed his discomfort. It hurt to hear her talking about his father in that disparaging way.
‘You make him sound such a failure.’
‘I’m afraid he was, at least financially. Though if money had been the only problem, we would have managed, somehow or other.’
‘What other problems were there?’
Igraine shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. She had said too much, and now was being pushed where she did not want to go. ‘He – imagined things.’
‘What sort of things?’
Lord, why these questions? Why, after all these years, did he have to know everything, and so quickly? Arthur was young. How could he possibly understand what she had endured? ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s not important.’
It was her evasiveness that gave him the clue. He saw it in her eyes. ‘He was jealous of you and Uther. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?’
‘Dear me, what a suggestion.’ She tried to laugh it off but the laughter sounded forced. ‘Mind you, men do get jealous sometimes. Yes, I suppose he might have been jealous of us.’ She looked away, avoiding her son’s keen look.
‘Might have been?’
‘Supposing he was, what then?’ There was an edge of impatience and irritation in her voice.
He studied the photographs again. The two men were so alike that at first sight they might well have been twins, and yet, on closer examination, they were really very different. There is a glint in this one’s eye, and a toughness about the mouth and jawline that clearly says, this is a confident man, a man who knows what he wants and means to get it. This other one is a gentle man, lacking the inner strength to endure the worst the world flings at him. The eyes of the first challenge you, the eyes of the second stir compassion. He picked up the photograph of Godfrey Whittaker, Marquess of Truro. Thinking of all the misfortunes he had suffered, he pitied him with all his heart. How he wished he had known him.
He glanced at his mother, unaware that in his eyes there was a look of reproach, gone in an instant, but not before her watchful eye had caught it. She burst into tears, but they were more tears of temper than of sorrow. ‘How can you be so distant?’ she complained. ‘You haven’t kissed me. You haven’t even called me mother. I am your mother, after all, whatever happened in the past. You have no right to cross-examine me, no right at all.’
‘I believe I have. And you have the right to answer, or not to answer, as you choose.’ It was a cold reaction to her heated outburst.
‘Whatever you may think, I never gave Godfrey any cause to be jealous of me,’ she said, lifting her head defiantly. ‘He may have imagined the worst. But what was I supposed to do?’
‘Is that why he shot himself?’
Igraine jumped up and paced the room, wringing her hands. ‘How can you say such a wicked thing! It’s cruel! Cruel!’
‘Sit down, mother.’ The words rang out like a command. It may have been the tone of authority in his voice, or because he had called her mother for the first time, but she obeyed instantly. ‘Forgive all these questions,’ he went on gently, ‘but I want to try and understand my father’s state of mind, and why he committed suicide.’
His father? For a moment Igraine was confused. Of course! Arthur assumed that Godfrey was his father! In all the trauma of the meeting, she had overlooked that crucial fact.
‘From what you tell me,’ he went on, ‘his financial problems were solved. So he had only one reason to be depressed that I can think of; he thought he had lost his wife to anot
her man. What other explanation could there be?’
She slumped back on the sofa. So he did blame her. Suddenly she was weeping, this time not tears of anger but tears of remorse. When she spoke again, Arthur had to lean forward to catch the words. ‘Godfrey and I were devoted, but we were never . . . oh, he loved me in his way but he was not a passionate man. And then suddenly, there was Uther. I never meant it to happen, it just did. Those two men . . . you can’t believe how much alike they looked. Even more alike than the photographs.
‘In a way it was like falling in love with Godfrey all over again, except that . . . how can I put it? Uther pulsated with life and energy. He needed me to love him, he needed me so much to love him; and so I did, you see. What else could I do? It was as though I had been waiting for him all my life. I never believed in fate before, but oh, I am certain it was fate. How could it have been anything else? I couldn’t help myself. I did love him. I loved him passionately.’
For a while the great drawing room was so quiet that through the open windows they could hear the breeze sifting through the avenue of beech trees. Arthur broke the silence. ‘So my father must have known, or at least he must have guessed that you and Uther – that you were lovers.’ The word burned like acid in his mouth.
Igraine hesitated. For a moment she was on the point of telling him the truth. But then her courage failed her. ‘Not while Godfrey was alive,’ she muttered. ‘I was never unfaithful to him.’ Pray God she would be forgiven for the lie, pray God Arthur would believe it.
‘I am not here to judge you, mother.’
She reached out her hand and touched his cheek. ‘Oh Arthur, I am sorry. So sorry. If only I had the time all over again. It was a terrible thing we did to you, a terrible thing we did to ourselves. I would give anything to be able to make it up to you. But I can never do that, can I?’
‘What’s done is done. We all have to live with it. At least explain to me why you had me adopted.’ She tried to take his hand in hers but he eased it away. ‘Why, mother?’