“That’s true.” He sat for a moment, shaking his head.
“Tell you what, Ells.” He reached for a pencil. “Let’s compare dates and establish some sort of timeline for Dad…Father. We could rule a third family out altogether then. We’d know where we were. Where he was!” Charlie’s laugh didn’t crinkle his eyes. “Try to get his affairs in order, eh?”
Affairs. A familiar word. One I’d heard Mother use about Father. “Not all of me wants to know the truth,” I said, rolling (not twisting) the sweater’s hem between my fingers. “We might find out things we don’t want to.”
Charlie gave my shoulder a quick squeeze. “But, like you said, at least we’ll know where we are. We don’t want any more secrets, do we? And, well, if he was hiding something, we’ll face it together.”
I took my hand from my forehead. “That’s what families say in Coronation Street.”
“Yeah? Well, we are family now, aren’t we?”
I stood in the doorway, half in and half out of the room, wanting to know exactly when Father had been Charlie’s dad and when he’d just been my father and where he’d been in between. And dreading it at the same time. I thought about what Charlie had said might be in Mother’s wardrobe. I leaned against the doorframe, the sand shifting beneath my feet, a sensation I hadn’t felt for weeks.
RULE 6
It’s better to be too Diplomatic than too Honest.
Reason behind rule:
Most people don’t want to hear negative comments about themselves.
People don’t always need to know everything.
Useful phrases:
“You don’t look fat.” (even if they do)
Hints and tips:
Don’t make personal remarks.
Don’t give an opinion unless it’s asked for.
Don’t ask personal questions.
Don’t always just say what you think.
If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.
Rule followed?
39.
People always do find out in the end.
—Charlie Hargreaves (Carr), half brother
“We’ll try and check, shall we? Be scientific about it.”
Scientific meant taping sheets of paper together to make a timeline for Father. It meant me fetching my “Japanese” notebook and some little diaries I’d kept over the years until it had gotten too boring to just keep putting Went to the Library.
“And his passports,” shouted Charlie from downstairs. “You said they’d hardly been used.”
He put on the kettle and brought in the cookie tin. I’d showed him where it was hidden. Inside were some Bourbons and Ginger Nuts, the remains of a packet of the Peek Freans Family Assortment. There was less to be scared of with a cookie in your hand.
I took a Ginger Nut—a solid, reliable cookie—and gave Charlie Father’s date of birth and the dates of his National Service and when he’d met Mother. The photo of Father in his tropical hat, still lying facedown on my bedroom floor, had been taken then.
“You weren’t born until 1988, so they were married a long time without having children,” Charlie said, his pencil hovering over the timeline. The pencil was mine, from school, with an eraser on the end. It had a red spotted design because it had been a present from Poppy. We needed it to write about Father and erase mistakes, because of his identity shifting.
“They had me late in life,” I reminded him. Mother had been forty-five, Father forty-eight. I crunched on the Ginger Nut. “I can’t remember, but Father can’t have been around much in the early 1990s, because Mother used to say how tiring it had been, on her own, as an older mother. He must have been Abroad on business trips.”
Charlie turned around. “But you said his passports had hardly been used.”
“Yes, yes I did. No, they hadn’t. I keep forgetting the lies.” I clutched the cookie.
We checked the passports just in case there was a Japanese stamp hiding somewhere, but they were as empty and unused-looking as before.
“Never been out of Europe, then,” said Charlie. “Mum did say he’d taken her to Paris once.”
“That must have been when that photo was taken.” Katharine Hargreaves, a brazen harlot, in jeans, with windswept hair, holding Charlie, a serious-looking baby in a tiger onesie. I tried to swallow, but my throat constricted. Charlie had vacationed Abroad with Father, but Mother had never allowed me to go.
Charlie wrote down the passport dates, groaning. “It’s hard finding out your dad’s a cad.”
The cookie crumbled in my fingers as I remembered how Mother used to get upset when Father went Away and then, when I was older, angry. Your Father’s not what you think he is, you know, she’d say. He’s got feet of clay. I’d thought she meant like a Terra-Cotta Warrior, noble and protective, but Sylvia had since put me right on what the expression really meant. All my life, I’d thought Father was what I thought he was. Smiling, trustworthy, never cross. How could he be anyone else? Now that he was someone different was being proved scientifically.
Charlie took a Bourbon. “Early 1990s, not with you, you said, and not abroad. So where was he? I wasn’t born until 1994, but like I said, we hardly saw him. It was something Mum went on about. He definitely wasn’t with us the Christmas before the millennium. We were going to go into London for the fireworks. I would have been six. He never came in the end, and I was heartbroken.”
I screwed up my face, concentrating, “I was twelve then. No, that was when we went to Mother’s friend Jane in Dunstable. Her house was really cold, and I wasn’t allowed to open any presents until I’d helped wash up. Father wasn’t with us either.”
Charlie looked at me. “Both our mothers must have gotten fed up with him going away.”
I didn’t like him linking them together. Father had been married to Mother. I was the senior child.
“It’s a pity they didn’t get together to compare notes,” Charlie added.
Mother’s jar of dust and ashes was squatting watchfully on the living room mantel. What a ridiculous suggestion! I heard. I went and closed the door.
Charlie said that, although his mum had known about us, Mother hadn’t found out about them until he’d been knocked down by a car. He’d been ten and in a coma, and his mum had phoned our house, something she wasn’t supposed to do because of the disabled child thing. Charlie winced. “Sorry!”
My lips tightened. Women weren’t supposed to contact other women’s husbands at all. Ever!
A thought struck me. The reason Father hadn’t left Mother was because I was disabled. I’d helped them stay together. Together, I thought. They hadn’t been together very much. I remembered Mother, her suitcase packed and waiting in the hall, leaving practically as soon as Father had arrived back home. All the times between his visits, it had been Mother who’d stayed with me.
“When your mother answered the phone,” Charlie continued, “she said, My dear, you must have the wrong number. Either that, or you are not in your right mind.” I nodded vigorously at Charlie’s words. Good for Mother. “And then, Dad…Father came on, and the next thing I knew was waking up in the hospital and him being there. This must have been 2004. I’ll put it down.”
“2004,” I echoed. “I was sixteen.” Things were coming together. Mother had gone off to Dunstable then to stay with Jane, and Mrs. Carver, my old babysitter, had come to stay. She’d still opened a box of Milk Tray every Friday evening, but she’d given me the Vanilla Fudge as well. Nobody had explained anything to me. “So that was when Mother found out about you,” I murmured.
“It’s good to get these things clear.” Charlie unfolded his long legs and rearranged them in a cross-legged position, like Father’s Buddha that contemplated the study from the shelf of books on Eastern Religions. The Buddha had curly hair and an earring, like Charlie, but was shaped more like an
orangutan. “We’ve still got gaps, though. We still don’t know where he was when he wasn’t with either of us.”
I remembered something. Months ago, I’d found a letter from Father to Mother. Not one of the love letters she kept on the top shelf of her wardrobe, but a lone one, bookmarking a page in Mother’s Mozart: Master of Illusion. It had toppled when I’d been dusting a shelf. The letter had looked old, I remembered, yellowed and brittle. I hadn’t read it because it was private. I fetched the book for Charlie now.
He took the letter out, skimming it, eyebrows raised. “November 1990. Before I was born. ‘Darlings Agnes and Vivi.’” My heart swelled, and I had to squash it back by remembering the only reason Charlie was looking at the letter was to find out if Father had had a third family somewhere. “Um…he seems to be asking for money here, and then he says, ‘Only four more months until I’m home.’” Charlie looked up.
“Home from where? And then he goes on, ‘P.S. Darling, if you possibly can, send me some cigars, would you? I can’t buy them here, and a bottle of English Leather would give me such a boost. There’s only Lynx or Brut available, and most of the men smell like animals. One shower a week is hardly adequate.’ And that’s it. ‘Lots of love,’ etc. So, wherever he was writing from in 1990, he was with a crowd of men.” Charlie made a note on the timeline, added another question mark, and put the letter back.
I shifted my position on the Persian rug. “I’d have thought Father would have liked Lynx aftershave because of the wildcats.”
Charlie’s face was blank. I paused, feeling stupid.
“But, of course, that was just a story,” I added, my face burning. “It didn’t really happen.”
“No,” Charlie agreed. “Wouldn’t it have been fantastic, though?” He put his cupped hands to his mouth and made a loud, howling meow. “Gregory of the Wildcats!”
I joined in his laughter, although I wasn’t sure what it was about, and then I gazed out of the window, thinking. It couldn’t have been long after 1990 when we’d moved from the big house. I’d never understood why. Charlie wrote this down, his pencil hovering around 1993.
I glanced up at him. “There were other things I’ve never understood too. Mother used to say she’d been brought up in a castle. I don’t think that was a lie. I don’t think she made things up. I mean, apart from Japan, which was Father’s fault.”
“No, she sounds straightforward, your mum.”
“And she had a Trust Fund. It’s mine now. Mr. Watson, her lawyer, said it was to protect her inheritance.”
“Interesting. The obvious person it needed protecting from was Dad.” Charlie scribbled more notes. “It sounds like they had a financial setback. Perhaps Dad lost his job. Two long, unexplained absences—1990 and the next year, then 2000.” Charlie chewed the end of his pencil. “Living just with men, and with only basic plumbing—sounds like he was back in the Army. Drastically downsizing their house… The mystery deepens.”
He sat for a moment, staring at the timeline, then he checked his phone. “Half past four. I promised Mum I’d be back in Crawley for dinner. She’s cooking lasagna. My favorite.”
• • •
I made a cup of tea. I saw Charlie having dinner with his mother, Ms. Katharine Hargreaves. She’d be wearing a fluffy sweater she’d knit herself, her hair immaculate because of often checking it in mirrors. They’d be eating their lasagna in a kitchen diner, with no animal horns on the walls, and reading their Kindles. Ms. Katharine Hargreaves would be using a finger to help her follow A History of the British Colonization of Africa, and she’d have to keep stopping to ask Charlie what a word meant.
I looked at the menu schedule I’d recorded on the new calendar Sylvia had given me for Christmas. It was a Primates of the World one, and January’s picture was of a gorilla. I could swap Spaghetti Bolognese for lasagna in case Charlie ever stayed for a meal here. My lasagna would be made with Quorn and lots of vegetables. I sipped the tea, frowning. The past was moving, shifting. It wasn’t a good time to change the menu schedule as well.
40.
Exercise is good for you.
—Mrs. Sylvia Grylls, neighbor
I drew open the living room curtains and saw Sylvia coming down her drive. There was something different about her. She wasn’t taking the teetering, clickety-click steps she normally did, but striding. She was wearing shiny gold trainers, and her hair was swept back with a leopard-skin headband. She waved.
“New regime! Doctor’s orders. Got to do a walk, a brisk one, mind, every day.” She moved her arms like pistons. “I could kill him! Put the kettle on, pet. We’ll have that cuppa, shall we?”
Sylvia had been bad-tempered recently. I knew this because she’d told me. “I’m sorry, pet. I’d invite you in, but I’ve got a lot on my mind and it’s making me snappy,” she’d said when I’d called around with a punnet of Asda grapes. “Josh and Shelbie splitting up. It’s taken it out of me.” She’d patted her chest. “Sent the blood pressure up again.”
“Sylv,” Trevor had called from inside, “put your foot down.”
I’d looked at Sylvia’s leopard-skin shoes, tensing because of Trevor. Both her feet were already down, although they were not completely flat on the floor because of the heels.
“Thanks,” she’d said, taking the grapes. “We’ll have a cuppa soon.”
• • •
Now I prepared the tray for the cuppa with Sylvia. Would feeling snappy and your doctor making you do something you didn’t want to lead you to kill him? My hand hovered over the tea caddy. It was unlikely because Sylvia was a kind person. Figure of Speech, I thought with a flash of irritation.
“Bless you, pet.” Sylvia laughed, sitting down with an oof! of expelled air. Her cheeks were pink, and she smelled of laundry dried outside. “You’re right. I didn’t really want to kill him. Actually, he’s right about exercise being good for you.”
She nibbled her cookie, a Rich Tea from a package I kept for social occasions with Sylvia, so as not to offer her much temptation. Behind the serving dishes in the cupboard was a new tin of Family Assortment. I was keeping it for when Charlie came, so we could each choose our favorites.
• • •
The cuppa didn’t last very long because Sylvia wanted to get home to do some proper stretches and to have a shower and blow-dry her hair. As I went to pick up the tea tray from Father’s carved wooden chest, I tripped. There was a crash, the plate of Rich Teas slid into Sylvia’s half-empty mug, and tea splashed everywhere. I ran to get a dishcloth. Some tea might have gone inside. I hesitated. Mother had forbidden me to open the chest because it contained fragile items from Abroad. But they could be damaged and stained by the tea. I sat back and looked up at Mother’s jar. It was near the edge of the mantel. I got up and pushed it back, the squeak as I moved it sounding impossibly like Not that way!
I knelt with my back to the mantel and lifted the chest lid right up. The creak as it opened was like the creak of coffin lids in Classic Horror Films. I threw back the lid and felt a jolt of electricity like the one I got from standing on Sylvia’s nylon dining room carpet.
Inside was an old brocade curtain, completely dry, and underneath that a rectangular shape. I drew the curtain back slowly, so as not to damage the fragile items. Would they be African figurines? Animal horns? Cut-glass decanters like I’d found in the attic? The rectangular shape was a large cardboard box labeled Clarks Shoes. It didn’t look foreign. I took in a deep breath and opened the box. Oh! I slumped back. Inside were some folded, yellowing copies of the Daily Telegraph.
I sat back on my heels, disappointed. Why had Mother kept those? Why had she lied and said the items had come from Abroad when they were English? The newspapers did look fragile. Some of the pages were torn, and the print was worn away from where they’d been folded. I looked at the dates. They went back as far as 1984, more than thirty years ago! Why hadn’t Mother recy
cled them or given them to Sylvia for her kitchen bin? Why had she hidden them?
I wiped the tray and ate a Rich Tea cookie that was too soggy to put back in the package. I chewed slowly, staring at the newspapers. Mother must have kept the Telegraphs for a reason. Once upon a time I’d have thought they contained articles about Father’s Secret Government work. Missions he’d performed in “Japan.” I swallowed the last of the cookie, the noise sounding unusually loud in the silent living room.
The Telegraphs must contain something secret for Mother to have hidden them. Something else I’d trusted in could turn out not to have happened. Or something surprising might have happened without me being aware of it. One of the Telegraphs was dated the same month—November 1990—as the letter in Mother’s book, Mozart: Master of Illusion. I chewed my lip. Was I brave enough to search through them? When what I discovered might keep me under the duvet for days and make my hands red and raw from cleaning?
I shivered, thinking about coffin lids. In films, whatever lay beneath was something you wished you hadn’t seen. Then I thought of the Lucky Dip at St. Anne’s Christmas Fair, which had contained surprises too, nice ones, quite nice ones, under the sawdust. I took a deep breath and plunged my hand in. I lifted out the Telegraphs and piled them on the carpet. They looked shabby and smelled of attics. I wondered if they’d powder into dust now they were exposed to the light and the air.
I went into the kitchen to wash up the tea things and to think what to do. I let the water run and scrubbed at the tea stains on the bottom of the mugs.
Even if I put the Telegraphs back in the chest and covered them up, I’d still know they were there, rustling with secrets, waiting to ambush me. I’d never be able to rest the tray on the chest again without thinking about what lay beneath. I banged the pie dish down on the draining board. I ran upstairs to get the “Japanese” notebook and a sharp pencil, then, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed, I picked up the Daily Telegraph of July 19, 1984.
The Seven Rules of Elvira Carr Page 28