How had Father found the time for another family, with all his engineering and his business trips Abroad? I visualized his passport, his empty passport, and sat down, suddenly, on the side of the bathtub. He’d never been to Japan! I’d believed he’d gone there because that’s what he’d told me, and because he’d brought me back Japanese presents: a doll, the notebook, the netsuke animals. It hadn’t been a disguise for secret engineering work or spying missions for the Government. He didn’t have another secret passport somewhere else.
I shifted my behind on the cold enamel, the movement reflected in the bathroom mirror, clear and sparkling now that I’d polished it. I looked pale and hunched, with a deep groove between my eyebrows. When Father had said Japan, he’d really meant Crawley. He’d been not a spy, but an old man having an affair with another woman, Ms. Katharine Hargreaves, and father (dad!) of a child, Charlie Hargreaves, by her. He wasn’t a hero, a Laurence Olivier, a tortured, clever soul who did the right thing. He’d been like a character from a Mills & Boon, the man with the flashing teeth and sports car who the heroine rejects for someone more reliable.
I knelt beside the bath, shook scouring powder inside, and scrubbed at the barely visible ring. I hadn’t had a bath for years—I preferred showers—but Mother had had lots of them. I’d had to run them for her. I stopped. The ring I’d just erased had been another part of her dust. I wished I hadn’t scrubbed it away.
I sat on the white cotton bath mat, hugging my knees. I felt sorry for Mother. Mother, who’d had a lot to put up with and who had been good not to tell me about Father’s other life. I rested my chin on my knees. I didn’t want a boyfriend, but if I did have one, I certainly wouldn’t want to share him. Mother had had to share Father. Charlie Hargreaves must be at least twenty-one years old, so she’d had to share Father for all that time, even longer. And yet she’d been kind enough to leave them something in her will. I rocked to and fro. A cold dread seized me. The photo from Father’s wallet that I’d blue-tacked to the fridge!
I ran downstairs. The woman in jeans with her hair blowing over her face, holding a baby, must be Ms. Katharine Hargreaves of Crawley, and the baby must be Charlie Hargreaves! I stared at them. Now that I knew who they were, they looked different. Katharine Hargreaves’s hair was untidy and her gaze to the camera bold and triumphant, while Charlie Hargreaves’s face was pudgy and his tiger onesie garish and cheap looking.
I stuck the photo back on the fridge, facedown, and fetched the Japanese notebook. I sat down at the kitchen table—I couldn’t bear to sit at Father’s desk—chewing my pencil. I had lots of answers now to the questions I’d noted over the last months. They were all unpleasant. They needed to be written down, though, because they were true. With all my memories turning out to be lies, it was important to have a record of what had happened.
Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I began. There were no Japanese stamps in Father’s passport (question one) because he’d never been there. He’d led a double life with another family instead. Katharine and Charlie Hargreaves were that family; they were the people in the photo from Father’s wallet, and Father had been the source of the Deceit, Lies, and Shame that Jane from Dunstable had shuddered about. I hadn’t yet found the answers to what was wrong with Father’s finances, or why his evening shoes had secret compartments, and I’d already crossed out the question about where Mother’s Lost Capacity had gone because of her Passing Away.
• • •
I pushed Roxanna on her swing, my mind still on Charlie Hargreaves. I hadn’t replied to his last email, and I’d deleted two further ones without reading them. Perhaps it wasn’t Polite or Respectful, Rule One, to keep him in the dark.
“That’s enough pushing,” shouted Roxanna from the depths of the apple tree. “My legs are getting scratched!”
I could hear her words, but it was if I was behind glass listening, in a world of my own.
“Stop!”
My hands dropped. The arc of Roxanna’s swing slowed. She jumped off. “When we don’t listen, our teacher tells us off,” she said severely. She used my arm to steady herself. “What are the monkeys doing now, Ellie? Tell me a story. About them dressing up and dancing.”
I shook my head so firmly I felt dizzy. “They don’t wear clothes. They just drape sheets around themselves to play with or to keep warm.” Roxanna’s mouth formed an O shape when I added quickly, “And they definitely don’t dance.”
“Roxanna, sweetheart, Daddy’s back,” Sylvia called.
“Daddy!” Roxanna took her hand from mine and ran inside. “Have you brought me something?”
Sylvia waved to me. “We must have a catch-up soon, pet.”
• • •
I went back to my house and switched on the computer. It couldn’t help being on Father’s desk, but it was still irritating. I was trying to block him from my thoughts. If I didn’t, I knew I’d throw things, or bang them on the table like I’d seen Josh do, or slam doors over and over again. Or I’d stay in bed forever, with the outside world—where people lied—muffled by the duvet and the drawn curtains. I rested my head in my hands. There was still the problem of Charlie Hargreaves.
I let all my breath out in a long sigh and clicked on to the Internet.
Dear Charlie,
I think you should sit down, although you are probably sitting down already because of being at the computer, because I may be writing something that will be a shock to you.
Your “Dad” had another child. It is me. He was my father.
I am telling you because otherwise it would be like lying, and I don’t tell lies (unlike Father). I know I am not being diplomatic by telling you. That is another reason why I wanted you to sit down.
Yours sincerely,
Elvira
33.
No one is a hundred percent good or a hundred percent bad.
—Karen Hutchinson, adoptions administrator, Animal Arcadia
I woke, before the alarm, to the cold misery of realizing, again, that Father’s other life hadn’t been a bad dream. I went downstairs to make a cup of tea, pushing his photo farther under the dressing table with my slippered foot.
I switched on the computer. There was a reply from Charlie! I sat up, muscles tensed. I put a hand to my chest, ready. Everything Charlie Hargreaves had written to me so far had been a shock.
Hello, Ellie,
I was really pleased to hear from you again. Finding out about me must have been a complete shock. I’m sorry, perhaps I didn’t take that into account. Anyway, it’s great we’re in contact again.
It was kind of you to explain things about your father and mother, but I have a confession to make. You didn’t know I existed, but I knew you did. I already knew about Dad, your father, having a wife and child (you!) who lived in Sandhaven. Because I thought you might not know about Mum and me, I’ve tried to take things slowly. Perhaps not slowly enough!
Do you realize we’re half brother and sister!! That’s so cool! I never liked being an only child, and now I’ve got a big sister. You must be a few years older than me?
When you’ve gotten over the shock, it would be great to have a chat on the phone. Perhaps, when you feel ready, we could even meet up?
Love from your brother,
Charlie
I printed out the email. I read it over and over again. Sylvia had told me things about Father, and I’d thought about them, thought about them all the time, pieced them together, but seeing them written down made them real. My brother, Charlie.
I sat there for a long time, blood throbbing in my ears, staring at Charlie’s email. He’d known about me when I’d had no idea about him. I looked out the study window. Sunlight was breaking through the leaves of the oak tree. One magpie chased another away with a harsh, rattling cry. Across the road, the postman ran from house to house in loping strides. A small, blue car drove past with a bicy
cle on its roof rack. It seemed impossible that normal things were continuing like this when my world had completely changed.
I folded the email, pressing it into a neat and perfect rectangle, the collapsed feeling sweeping over me even though I had nothing to grieve about. I had my volunteering, my friends at Asda and the Library, Paul, Karen too, Sylvia next door, and Roxanna, and in the evenings I had Coronation Street, Casualty, my David Attenborough DVDs, and all my Mills & Boons. I had a full life. But, at this moment, I felt empty rather than full. Not just empty but…naked. Charlie knowing about me, when I’d known nothing about him, made me feel like I was in an enclosure at Animal Arcadia, with the public staring at me through the fencing, knowing where I’d come from, knowing my name, watching my private moments, and laughing at them. Now I knew exactly how an orangutan felt.
• • •
Later, at Animal Arcadia, I shook out a sheet and folded it carefully, placing it on top of a pile of bed linen. I got into a rhythm of shaking, folding, placing. I wished the rest of my life was so simple. Charlie’s email was still on Father’s desk at home, waiting for me to know what to do with it. It was unsettling, not knowing.
“You OK over there in the ranks?” Karen’s chair swiveled toward me. “Did I hear a sigh of insubordination?”
I looked up, baffled, as usual, by Karen’s conversation. “Mmm.”
“Are you all present and correct? No more skirmishes with neighbors or creepy keepers?”
I shook my head, unsure what a skirmish was. I kept my eyes fixed on a striped towel I was folding. “I’ve been traced by a distant relation,” I mumbled to the towel.
“Sounds painful! What sort of distant relation?”
Karen was right. It was painful. I put the towel on the pile and picked up a pink sheet, shaking it out to check it was clean. “The half brother sort of distant relation.” My heart raced as I said the words aloud for the first time.
“Oh!” Karen’s crest of hair quivered, and she said a swear word. “That must have been a shock.”
“It still is a shock,” I said, my face hidden behind the sheet.
“Give me a full report then.” Karen folded her arms. “Start at the beginning.”
I put the sheet on the pile and tried to work out where the beginning was. “I don’t know when Father’s other life began, but I’ve found out he had one, one that nobody told me about.” I grabbed a gingham duvet cover and shook it open.
Karen nodded as I told her the rest of the story. The pile of folded linen grew higher. “Crikey! You must be seeing your dad in a whole new light.” She spun around and around in her chair, silent for a moment. “It doesn’t take away what he felt about you, though.”
“He told me a lot of lies.” I threw a folded sheet onto the pile.
“Not good.” Karen paused mid-swivel. “But nobody is a hundred percent good or a hundred percent bad, are they?”
Aren’t they? I wished they were. My life would be a lot easier. I recognized Rule Seven: Rules change depending on the Situation and the Person you are speaking to—the one I struggled most to understand.
Karen waved her hand, palm up, fingers spread, which people did, I’d noticed (noticed and written down), when they gave explanations. “You might be very kind to animals, but cheat on your wife,” she explained. “Or, you might never look at another woman, but on the other hand, never do anything nice for anyone else.”
My eyes prickled. “Father looked at another woman,” I told her. “He cheated on Mother with one. If I’d known about it, I would have been nicer to her.” I thought of all the times I’d rolled my eyes behind Mother’s back, when she’d sent me upstairs, yet again, to fetch something, and the way I’d dug my nails into my palms when she’d told me things were Beyond your capabilities, Elvira, and recently, how I’d wanted to press my hand over her mouth every time she’d shouted Not that way!
“But, your mum and dad didn’t tell you, so you didn’t know. Don’t beat yourself up.” Karen swiveled back to face her screen.
I hadn’t. I’d only banged my head on pillows and cupboards. I paused. It may have been a Figure of Speech.
• • •
The more I talked about Charlie, the more real he seemed. I didn’t know if he was a good thing or a bad thing yet, because of not having had a half brother before.
Paul slapped his hand against mine—“High five, big sis!”—when I told him. He tapped his empty Coke bottle on the table. “You’ll be able to boss him around like my sister does me, even though she lives in New Zealand.”
I put my cup down, heart sinking. Would I? Is that what big sisters were supposed to do? I crumpled the napkin in my hand. “I haven’t even spoken to him yet. I’m trying to get used to the idea first.”
“When are you going to? Can I meet him?” Paul’s eyes gleamed.
I shut my eyes. “One step at a time,” I repeated under my breath so as not to look eccentric, even though I was only with Paul, who wouldn’t mind, or even notice. Mother’s words. Mother’s comforting words. Mother, who’d had to share Father with Ms. Katharine Hargreaves. What would she have felt about me emailing, perhaps speaking to, even meeting, the other woman’s son? It was a situation I’d never read about in a Mills & Boon.
Mother’s jar of dust, waiting to be scattered, had taken center stage on the mantel, crowding out the African figures and looming over the cherub clock. The jar’s bronze plastic surface gave off a dull glow, as if the dust inside had a kind of life. A life that still watched over me and was aware of what I was doing.
I’d stood in front of it last week, hands clasped, to ask for advice. I’d bought a four-pack of raspberry yogurts without noticing there were only two days to go before their sell-by date. By the time I’d eaten the third yogurt it would be out of date, and the fourth one would be even older. But throwing them away would be Wasting Money and Wasting Food.
Her jar hadn’t spoken, of course. It had no blood supply or vocal cords, but as I’d watched it closely, waiting for some sort of sign, a pulsating gleam of light had seemed to reflect from its bronze surface. I’d watched it, hypnotized, almost forgetting what I needed advice about. A bubble of raspberry yogurt came up in my throat. The gleam was like a spark of life. It must mean I should help save the planet. I didn’t throw away the third and fourth yogurts; I ate them. I didn’t get food poisoning. Mother—well, her jar—had been right.
I stood in front of her jar again now and asked her if meeting Charlie was the right thing to do. I stood there for several minutes, but this time there was no sign of a reply.
34.
Write down some ideas about what to talk about first.
—Amy from America, website member
While I was still waiting to know what to do about Charlie, my birthday came and went.
It was my first birthday without Mother, without a trip to Ravel, and without her giving me the money for a new Nature Documentary DVD, two new Mills & Boons, and some new stationery.
I’d gotten used to not having a present from Father and I didn’t want to think about him anyway.
Karen gave me a small, cuddly orangutan from the Animal Arcadia shop. I hung it from a nail on my Mills & Boon shelf under O beneath Ocean Odyssey, a story set aboard a marine conservation ship. Paul gave me a giant chocolate-chip cookie from the café, slightly squashed from having been trapped under a tray of sliced white loaves. Sylvia gave me a Coronation Street plate to match my mug and an Asda Fresh Lemon Toiletries Set with shampoo, shower gel, and body lotion.
In the evening, I got out one of my old David Attenborough DVDs, The Life of Mammals, and watched it while I ate the cookie from my new plate.
Later in bed, I lay in the dark with my eyes wide open to get used to being twenty-eight.
• • •
Shelbie spread out some glossy black-and-white photos on Sylvia’s dining table.
The ladies in the photos looked similar and slightly out of focus, as if they’d been photographed through a misted-up window.
“This is before…and this is after.”
In the after photos, their eyes drooped under something spidery on their eyelids. “Real-hair false eyelashes. All the way from China,” Shelbie said. Their teeth were bared and dazzlingly white against their tanned skin, and their hair was pulled into complicated patterns on top of their heads, or fluttered behind them like horses’ manes.
“They’re very glamorous, pet.” Sylvia bent over the pictures, a dishcloth in her hand, her face pink from getting roast things out of the oven. Her blond hair was curlier than usual. “I feel a proper Cinderella, looking at these, my hair all frizzy with steam.” She pulled her leopard-skin top down to cover her bottom, but it wasn’t long enough. “I can’t shift this weight either. I haven’t touched a cookie in over a month, but it hasn’t made a blind bit of difference.”
I opened my mouth to remind her about the tin that Trevor kept, under lock and key in his shed, but she went on, picking a photo up. “Oh, this is you, pet! I didn’t recognize you at first. You look as if you’re going to a film premiere!”
“Yeah, Lewis brings out the best in his subjects. Specializes in soft-focus lighting.” Shelbie took out a packet of sugar-free chewing gum from her bag. “I’ve been doing up the storeroom in the salon as a studio. Got different backdrops, velvet curtains, gilt chairs, a wind machine, and all in there now. We’ve got a makeup artist that comes in and a fashion stylist.”
“Oh, I say,” Sylvia murmured.
Shelbie looked around at us, chewing. There was a strong smell of peppermint. “Yeah! We’re offering a complete makeover package that includes the photo session with Lewis. We’re calling it Look Lovely with Lewis.” She tilted her head to one side. “Is that something you’d fancy, Sylv?”
The Seven Rules of Elvira Carr Page 24