A Family Concern

by Anthea Fraser

  It was arranged that they’d meet the following afternoon. As Rona replaced the phone, she wondered what had amused Coralie about the Clarendon. It was, surely, the obvious choice; she’d often used it to interview people for her articles or, on occasion, take them to lunch. In fact, the hotel had run like a skein through her life: childhood parties; post-pantomime teas; family dinners on special occasions. It had been the venue for her first formal dance, she and Max’s first date had been dinner in the Grill Room, and they’d chosen it for their wedding reception. The last time she’d been there, equally memorably, was when her father had summoned Lindsey and herself to tell them of his marriage breakdown.

  Still, there were unlikely to be any bombshells tomorrow, and Coralie Davis’s story at least promised to be different.

  Dorothy Fairfax paused at the bend in the stairs, as was her custom, to take stock of the foyer below. The flowers on the reception desk were beginning to wilt; she must tell Cicely to have a word with the florist. That group of men going into the bar would be the eight thirty booking in the restaurant, their bill to go on the Palmer & Faraday account. There were, she’d noted earlier, only three tables available for casual droppers-in; very good for a Tuesday in November.

  As she watched, Sophie emerged from the office and paused to speak to old Mr Tilbury, who’d just come through the swing doors with his wife. Merely looking at her grand-daughter-in-law gave Dorothy a lift. In her opinion, Sophie was one of the hotel’s chief assets; there was a warmth about her, a natural empathy that was invaluable in her job, added to which she always looked so elegant. This evening, she was wearing an oyster silk trouser suit that complemented her dark colouring.

  Thank God that ill-starred marriage to Lewis hadn’t lasted. Christopher had always been besotted with her, and had gone off the rails when she dropped him, though to be fair there’d been nothing definite between them. Dorothy permitted herself a grim smile; Lewis hadn’t liked it when Sophie continued to work here, rather than joining him in the shop. Perhaps he’d realized Christopher posed a threat.

  Well, Dorothy thought philosophically, continuing her descent of the staircase, all’s well that ends well. And, as she was recognized, she advanced smiling, hand outstretched to greet some of their regular guests.

  The tune still filled her head, but now it was the backgroundto different, more angry sounds, and she was becoming more and more frightened. Please make them stop! Make them stop!

  Then, terrifyingly, she needed to sneeze. What if theyheard her? Once, when she’d kept sneezing in church, Nanny had told her to pinch her nose, and the sneezes hadstopped. Gingerly she freed one hand to repeat the cure, and immediately felt herself slither an inch or two. Panicwashed over her. She couldn’t hold on any longer – shewas going to fall …

  Three

  Wednesday afternoon, and Max awaited Adele with some anxiety, aware of relief as her voice reached him from the hall below; late arrivals called up to check if they should put the catch on the door. He went to the head of the stairs.

  ‘OK, Adele, everyone’s here; you can lock it.’

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said breathlessly, as she came up towards him. ‘Daisy was ill in the night, but she was better by lunchtime, so I dropped her at school on the way.’

  She was pale, Max noted, and there were violet shadows under her eyes which, as usual, shied away from his concerned gaze. Long sleeves, also as usual. What did they hide?

  He cleared his throat, and turned to the rest of the class. ‘Right, everyone; the still life’s set out. Let’s see what you make of it.’

  Coralie Davis was an attractive young woman whose almond eyes, golden skin and blue-black hair spoke of the Orient.

  ‘I didn’t realize you were the one who found that girl’s father,’ she said chattily, seating herself opposite Rona. ‘I don’t read Chiltern Life, but when I showed my friend the bit in the Gazette, she told me about it.’

  ‘That was what started the series,’ Rona said.

  ‘I’m glad my search didn’t turn out like that, though it was tricky enough.’

  A waitress appeared at Rona’s elbow, and she ordered afternoon tea for two.

  ‘It ended satisfactorily, then?’

  ‘Well, it’s not completely finished, but I’ve probably gone as far as I can.’

  Rona felt a twinge of alarm, hoping her help wasn’t about to be elicited. She was determined her own involvement would, from now on, be limited to reporting on other people’s searches. However, it appeared that Coralie, who was looking round the room appraisingly, was in no hurry to get started.

  ‘They’ve changed the colour scheme,’ she observed. ‘It used to be blue and beige in here.’

  ‘So it did,’ Rona acknowledged. ‘You’ve a good memory.’

  ‘I should have; I worked here for six months.’

  ‘Really? In what capacity?’

  ‘As a waitress. I was attending night school at the time, and it helped pay the fees.’

  ‘Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘It was all right. Some of the senior staff were a bit snooty, but Sophie was a poppet, and tried to make me feel at home.’

  Sophie: she’d heard the name recently. Of course – Kate Tarlton had spoken of her: Lewis’s first wife, who’d later married the hotel owner’s son. But she hadn’t come here to discuss the Fairfaxes.

  ‘You said you weren’t adopted until you were four?’ she prompted.

  ‘I said I wasn’t abandoned,’ Coralie corrected her.

  ‘But you do remember your parents?’

  ‘It’s not as simple as that.’ Coralie sat back in her chair, crossing one long leg over the other. ‘I lived with a couple called Lena and Jim Chan, who I called Mummy and Daddy.’

  She was silent, gazing into a past Rona couldn’t see. After a minute she recrossed her legs and went on: ‘But they weren’t my parents. I didn’t realize that until much later.’

  ‘So what happened?’ Rona asked gently.

  Coralie caught her lower lip between her teeth. It seemed the memory still brought pain. ‘One night I woke up to hear them shouting and Lena crying. In the morning her eyes were red and she wouldn’t look at me. She said I wasn’t going to playschool that day, we were going for a drive instead. Then she packed up all my things and put the case in the car. I asked if we were going on holiday, and she just nodded. She didn’t say much during the drive, either, and she put on a tape of nursery rhymes to stop me asking questions.’

  The waitress appeared and laid the table, setting out plates of triangular sandwiches, buttered scones with jam, assorted cakes. They waited in silence until she moved away, then Coralie said, ‘It’s funny – I remember that day so clearly. Much more clearly than what came after. I suppose it’s because I went over and over it, trying to think what I’d done wrong.’

  She reached for a paper napkin and began absent-mindedly to shred it, watching in silence as Rona poured the tea, and shaking her head at the offer of both milk and sugar.

  ‘After a while we came to a town with a park in the middle of it. Opposite the park was a row of big houses, and we drew up outside one of them. Lena’d started crying again, and all of a sudden I was frightened, without knowing why. She took my case out of the boot and we went up the path and rang the bell. A woman opened it and just stood staring at us. It was all so strange that I started to cry too, so I didn’t hear what they said to each other. Then Lena bent down and hugged me and said, “You’re going to live here now, Corrie,” and before I could take it in, she ran back down the path, got into the car and drove away. I never saw her again.’

  Rona said softly, ‘That was cruel.’

  ‘Yes – no, not really. I don’t know.’ Coralie lifted her cup and drank the hot tea. Her eyes were full of tears. ‘We went inside,’ she continued after a minute, ‘and there was a little girl there, younger than me, and a baby in a high chair who stared at me. Neither they nor the woman were Chinese. Nor was the man who came in, and then it
was just like it’d been with Lena and Jim – raised voices, and the woman crying and pleading. The man went into the hall, and the woman ran after him, holding on to his arm and trying to stop him. But he shook her off, opened my case and took out an envelope that was lying on top. Then he closed it again, caught hold of my hand and led me straight out to his car. We drove in silence to the town centre, stopped outside a large building and went up some steps into it. Once inside, I thought he’d take off his sunglasses, but he didn’t. He just handed my case to a woman behind a desk, said something about having to move his car, and went out again. He never came back. So you see,’ she finished rapidly, ‘I was abandoned twice in one day.’

  Despite herself, Rona wondered how, if presented with this scenario, she would have set about her search. It was certainly a challenge; the couple couldn’t both be her parents, since neither was Chinese.

  ‘The woman was your mother?’ she guessed, passing Coralie the plate of sandwiches.

  ‘That was the million-dollar question. When I started looking last year, I’d literally nothing to go on. Eventually I discovered Jim and Lena had emigrated, but that was as far as I got, and I didn’t even know the name of the other couple. But yes, to cut a long story short, the woman – Judith Craig – was my mother. My father turned out to be Lena’s brother, Samuel, who’d had an affair with her when she was working in Hong Kong.’

  ‘What was the place he took you to, this Mr Craig?’

  Coralie shrugged. ‘Social Services? That’s where things get hazy; I probably blotted it out. I do remember I was a difficult child – tantrums, disobedience, bed-wetting, the lot, so I was with a succession of foster parents before I was finally adopted. And everywhere I went, I kept asking for Mummy and Daddy. It didn’t get me anywhere, because no one knew who they were.’

  ‘Were you happy once you were adopted?’

  ‘After I’d settled down, yes; I stopped looking back and started to live in the present. Then, last year, I saw a programme on TV about people searching for their birth parents, and began wondering again. Mum and Dad understood; they didn’t try to dissuade me, just warned me I mightn’t like what I found. But my goodness, it wasn’t easy. All I knew was that I’d been Coralie Chan and my date of birth was the third of April 1981; but they couldn’t trace me because I’d been registered under my natural mother’s name. It must have been my birth certificate Craig took out my case, so I couldn’t be traced back to them. As far as officialdom went, I didn’t exist before I turned up in that building.’

  ‘The Chans hadn’t legally adopted you, then?’

  Coralie shook her head, helped herself to another sandwich, and met Rona’s eyes challengingly.

  ‘Well, are you interested?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ The inference was that nothing more would be forthcoming without a formal agreement, which was fair enough. Certainly it had aroused Rona’s curiosity: why hadn’t the Chans adopted the child? Why had they suddenly returned her to her mother? What happened to them later? Did Judith Craig try to find Coralie? Did she manage to trace her father?

  ‘So what’s the next step?’

  Rona said tentatively, ‘You do realize we can’t offer you a fee?’

  Coralie’s face fell. ‘But I thought—’

  ‘So do a lot of people, I’m afraid, but we’d soon go out of business if we had to pay for every story.’ She paused. ‘Does that alter things?’

  There was a brief silence while Coralie, looking sulky, bit on her lower lip. ‘So what do I get out of it?’ she asked with a touch of defiance.

  Rona smiled. ‘Seeing your name in print seems enough for most people. We’d include any photos you could give us, and it would be a kind of official record you could in time pass on to your children – a family history, if you like. And if, as you say, there are still some things outstanding, the publicity might lead to someone coming forward.’

  When Coralie still did not speak, she added, ‘Anyway, think about it. If you decide to go ahead, I’ll call on you with a tape recorder and go through all the documents you’ve managed to unearth – photographs, and so on – while you tell me how you set about the search, and what success you had.’

  At last Coralie nodded. ‘I’ll talk it over with my boyfriend, and let you know.’

  ‘Fine. You have my phone number.’

  The main purpose of the meeting having been achieved, they finished their tea, Rona paid the bill, and they made their way into the foyer. As they were approaching the swing doors, a man’s voice behind them said incredulously, ‘Coralie?’

  They both turned. Since the speaker’s eyes were riveted on her companion, Rona was able to examine him at leisure. Probably in his late thirties, he was slightly above middle height, had mid-brown hair that fell over his brow, a long, straight nose and intent grey eyes. He was carrying a sheaf of papers.

  She felt Coralie tense, but her voice was steady enough as she replied, ‘Hello, Chris.’

  ‘What are you …? I mean …’

  ‘We’ve just had tea in the lounge,’ Rona put in smoothly, and his eyes switched to her.

  ‘Rona Parish,’ she introduced herself, since Coralie gave no sign of doing so.

  He held out his free hand. ‘Chris Fairfax. Good afternoon. I’m sorry, I must have sounded abrupt. It’s just that I was – taken by surprise.’

  ‘Oh, I’m still around,’ Coralie said, with a brilliant smile. ‘Nice to see you,’ she added carelessly, and pushed her way through the swing doors, leaving Rona to smile a farewell and follow her.

  Outside, Coralie allowed no time for questions. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ she said quickly. ‘Thanks for the tea.’ And she set off briskly along the pavement in the direction of Alban Road, her high heels clicking on the pavement.

  Rona turned and started to walk thoughtfully in the opposite direction. That had been a curious exchange between an ex-waitress and the son of the owner. There was obviously a story there, too, but Rona doubted that she would ever hear it.

  Gerald Fairfax, Chris’s younger brother, had also seen the exchange, and been disturbed by it. He hoped to God that Coralie wasn’t going to stage a reappearance. Though nothing had been said, he knew her dismissal had been softened by a generous sum in lieu of notice – surely on the understanding that she’d stay away from the hotel? Yet what could they do if she chose to visit it? She could hardly be barred. And that young woman with her: her name had sounded familiar. Wasn’t she the journalist who was making a name for herself settling old scores? If so, there was even more cause for worry.

  And Gerald was used to worry. Slight of build and looking considerably less than his thirty-four years, he was a reserved young man who’d never been able to discuss his problems, and had years ago resigned himself to sleepless nights as a consequence. Principal among those worries was the ever-present fear that he’d lose his position as head chef, that his ideas would dry up and his father would lose patience with him – something, Gerald reflected ruefully, that in any case happened fairly regularly. Cooking was his one passion, his raison d’être, and life wouldn’t be worth living without it. Consequently he spent all his free time pouring over recipe books and biographies of past cuisiniers from Escoffier onwards, and when not on duty, closeted himself in his little kitchen at home, experimenting with new dishes.

  But Coralie, along with his other anxieties, would have to be put on hold. Shrugging on his white coat and hat, he made his way to the kitchens to begin his evening shift.

  ‘Do you know anything about the people at the Clarendon?’ Rona asked Max that evening as he prepared their meal.

  ‘The owners, you mean? I met Stephen, that time I held an exhibition there. He’s known as an awkward customer but I got on with him all right.’

  ‘Is he the boss?’

  ‘Officially, but I hear his mother still has an input, even though she’s well into her eighties. Why the sudden interest?’

  ‘I had tea there today, with that girl I told you about.
She used to work there as a waitress, and as we were leaving we met Chris, one of the sons, and there was quite an atmosphere between them. I was curious, that’s all.’

  Max gave a short laugh. ‘Nose twitching, my love?’

  ‘Well, I wondered how it fitted in. Kate Tarlton said Lewis’s first wife is married to Chris Fairfax. By the way, did you know the Tarltons and Fairfaxes are related?’

  ‘Can’t say I did, but it’s not surprising. They’re both old Marsborough families.’

  Rona sipped her drink reflectively. ‘Actually, I was getting quite nostalgic, thinking over the part the Clarendon’s played in my life: childhood parties, our first date, our wedding reception. Come to think of it, the same applies to Tarlton’s, which the family’s been going to for years. Even Netherby’s has hardly changed since we were taken to the grotto each year. In this day and age, when so many towns are clones of each other, Marsborough’s lucky to have so many long-established firms.’

  ‘Why don’t you write about them?’ Max suggested carelessly. ‘Those that have been here since, say, the 1920s or longer? It might be quite interesting.’

  ‘It might indeed,’ Rona agreed, ideas beginning to form. ‘Offhand, how many can you think of that would qualify?’

  ‘Well, the Clarendon and Tarlton’s for starters, and, of course, Netherby’s. This was their original store, though they’ve now spread throughout the county. And Willows’ Furniture on the corner has been going for years.’

  He stirred the pan and tasted the contents on a wooden spoon. ‘Then there’s that speciality grocers at the far end of Guild Street – what’s it called? Anyway, they have a framed display of their shopfronts going back to the early 1900s.’

  ‘It would really be as much about the families who own them as the shops themselves,’ Rona put in, her interest quickening. ‘I don’t know if it’s true, but I heard that John Willow started as a barrow boy, and worked his way up.’