The Other Daughter

by Caroline Bishop

  His face wasn’t angry, just a mixture of surprise and hurt. She felt like she’d kicked a kitten. But it was for the best. He had to know now. She had to set the ground rules for their precipitated married life because there was no way she was going to let her future son or daughter stumble across a dusty scrapbook of her unfulfilled dreams stashed under the bed in twenty years’ time.

  JULY 2016 Montreux, Switzerland

  JESS

 

  Dear Mr Buchs,

  I would rather not say why I need to talk to Brigitte Mela. It’s a personal matter. But I would be very grateful if you could give me her contact details, if you have them.

  Jorge’s kept his word – he hasn’t told Julia and Michel about my transgressions, so I still have a job. We’ve exchanged several texts over the past week, his tone thawing a little with each one, so I’m feeling – to my relief – forgiven. And though I hardly know him, it’s nice to have this person checking up on me. It’s comforting to know that someone here knows my sorry tale and seems to care enough to check I’m okay, even if it is only to make sure I’m not going to take down the Chevalleys with me when I crash and burn.

  I haven’t heard back from Daniel Buchs since my email and the waiting is torture. I debate emailing him again, but I don’t want to scare him off. Perhaps he’s just busy.

  On Tuesday I take Léa and Luca to a water park at Le Bouveret. On Thursday we drive to Leysin and go summer tobogganing, screaming all the way down. On Friday we take the train up the Rochers-de-Naye mountain to see the marmots. The kids watch in delight as the furry brown animals poke their whiskers out of the burrow and call to each other in a distinct, bird-like chirp. But I’m more fascinated by the view up there – a glorious panorama over what feels like the whole of Lake Geneva, framed by mountains stretching into the far distance. Little black choughs sweep overhead, playing on the thermals.

  What would it have been like to have grown up here, with all this on the doorstep? Would it have been better than growing up in South London? Instead of fresh Swiss air and weekends hiking, I had Sunday strolls in Greenwich Park followed by a pub roast. I had the thrill of the city a tube ride away, school trips to exhibitions, Saturdays gawping at dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum with Dad, musicals with Mum and Maggie, gigs at Brixton Academy with friends, bargain hunting in Spitalfields, curries on Brick Lane.

  So different, I presume, to the youth the other daughter had – my parents’ real child.

  I wonder, for the millionth time, what I’d be like if this had been my life instead. If I’d lived the life I was actually meant to. Would I be toned and fit and an expert skier? Would I speak three languages? Would I still be a teacher? Would I still be me?

  After the DNA test, I’d often find myself looking in the mirror, as if my reflection could tell me something about who I was. I needed to know where my eye colour came from, whose nose I had inherited, whose propensity for indecision and procrastination, because without knowing, I simply felt rooted to nothing, as though I’d been cut loose to float in this world like driftwood bobbing on the tides.

  ‘Jess! There is five of them,’ Luca says.

  ‘Are five.’

  ‘Look!’

  I stand behind Luca and Léa and put my hands on their shoulders, watching the marmots scurrying about. Bigger, fatter squirrels, basically. ‘They’re pretty cute,’ I say.

  ‘Can we take one home?’ Léa asks.

  ‘Afraid not.’

  ‘Oh mais ils sont si mignons!’

  ‘They’d probably have your fingers off.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  I try not to think about her too often. The other daughter. Mainly because it messes with my head. But also because I imagine her to be better than me. Prettier, more confident, more sorted. Would she be a soon-to-be divorcée with a stalled career and a clock ticking in her ears as loud as Big Ben? I expect not. I presume she doesn’t know – after all, I didn’t for thirty-seven years – and sometimes I imagine being the one to tell her. Smashing her life to pieces, making her feel how I felt after the tests changed everything. But then guilt and grief and confusion catch up with me and I want to protect her.

  I don’t want her ever to know, because I wish I didn’t.

  * * *

  On Sunday, after Julia’s spent another long Saturday in the office, she tells me the four of them are going to the house of some family friends for an afternoon barbecue. As though she wants to remind me that I’m not actually part of the family, she doesn’t invite me to go with them.

  ‘Go and enjoy your day,’ she says. ‘We already take up far more of your time than we should.’

  I suppose I should be pleased she’s spending a day with her children and I have Sunday to do as I wish, but when I see them all get into the car and drive off, I feel like she’s usurped me. A cuckoo in my nest. Jealousy catches in the back of my throat when I think of Léa’s delighted face, Luca’s excitement, Michel’s obvious pleasure that his wife is joining them for a second outing in two weeks.

  The perfect little family, all together.

  I’m lying by the lake, head in the shade of a tree, legs soaking up the heat of the July sun. The grass is packed: sunbathers, picnickers, groups of teenagers with ghettoblasters blaring identikit Euro-synth. Opposite me is a large family that seems to have brought the contents of their home to the lakeshore: long trestle tables, foldable wooden chairs, a huge portable barbecue, cool boxes from which emerge endless cans of beer and meat and salads in Tupperware. There are screaming toddlers in frilly sunhats and UV suits, and oversized men whose fleshy behinds are wedged in deckchairs that strain under their heft. There are smooth-skinned teenage girls trying to look older than they are in string bikinis and lashings of waterproof mascara, shrieking as rake-thin boys in baggy shorts threaten them with water balloons in a deluded attempt at flirtation.

  It’s hardly a peaceful place to spend a Sunday afternoon, but the fascination of people-watching has kept me here for a good couple of hours so far. Nevertheless, it’s strange to be surrounded by so many and yet feel utterly alone.

  There’s only one person I want to speak to right now. I roll over on my back, stare up at the canopy of leaves and dial his number. He picks up on the third ring and my heart tears upon hearing his voice.

  ‘Dad? It’s me.’

  He lets out a little sigh, as though in relief. ‘Jessie. It’s good to hear from you.’

  ‘I’m sorry it’s been so long.’ I pause, fighting to keep my voice bright. ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘Oh, you know, this and that. Lunch with Brian in the pub yesterday. Popped into town to the bookshop. I’m going round to Alice and Richard’s for dinner tomorrow.’ There’s a pause. I know he wants to ask about Switzerland, but he also doesn’t want to know. I can picture the conflict gouging lines on his forehead. ‘Is everything all right, Jessie?’ he says finally. ‘Are you doing okay…’ he pauses, as though he can’t quite say it, ‘out there?’

  ‘Yes, everything’s fine. I just called to say hi.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you did. I miss you.’

  ‘I miss you too.’ I remember him pleading with me. Please don’t try to find them. Leave it be. What’s done is done. Just forget it. ‘Dad?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You know I love you, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sweetheart,’ he says, a wobble in his voice. ‘And I love you too, very much.’

  Now you do, I think. But what if I find your real daughter? What then? I’ve never doubted my parents’ love for me, not really, but there have been times when I think I’ve disappointed them. Not been ambitious enough for them, not been forthright enough, not achieved enough. So what if, as I fear, the other daughter is better than me? What if she’s everything my parents wanted? Might Dad end up loving her more?

  He breaks the pause. ‘What’s happened, Jessie? Have you found anything out?’
>
  ‘No. I don’t know anything, not yet. I just wanted to chat, that’s all.’

  Another pause. ‘Do you remember when you fell over roller-skating and bashed your head on the pavement? You must have been about eleven or twelve.’

  I smile. ‘Yeah. I was so proud of those stitches at school. Got all the attention.’

  ‘D’you know, I’d forgotten all about it. And then I came across this photo of the three of us in an album and I noticed you had a big plaster on your forehead and then I remembered it so clearly it felt like yesterday. And yet before seeing the picture, it had gone completely out of my head!’

  I remember Mum taking me to the hospital to get stitches; how annoyed she’d been at having to wait so long to be seen because she had some work thing she’d be late for. Rachel telling all the boys at school I’d been in a fight so they’d think I was cool, and her by default.

  ‘Anyway,’ Dad continues. ‘I got it framed. It’s a lovely picture, even with the plaster on your head. We all just look so…’

  Happy?

  ‘Anyway. Just thought I’d say.’

  I swallow down the lump in my throat. ‘I’m glad you framed it. I’d like to see it when I’m back.’

  ‘When is that again?’

  ‘Another month. I’ll come and see you as soon as I’m home.’

  ‘Good,’ he says. ‘I’ll invite Maggie down. We can all have a good catch-up.’

  ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘Good,’ he says again. ‘Jessie?’

  ‘Yes?’ I can hear he wants to say something, and I hope he’ll tell me what I need to hear, that everything’s okay, that he doesn’t think of me any differently, that he’ll always love me, whatever I find out.

  ‘Take care of yourself, okay?’ he says.

  I nod, keep my voice steady. ‘I will, Dad, I will.’

  I hang up. My arm drops to my side and I lie there, looking up at the sunlight filtering through the leaves, remembering being eleven, when the only thing I had to worry about was staying upright on roller-skates. I long to go back to that time, when I was still me, when my parents were still mine, when I knew my place in the world. Dad has lots of photos in his house – I’ve seen them so many times I can picture them in my head now. There’s one of me and Mum sitting on a wall eating ice cream, in France, I think it was – she’d taken us along on a press freebie for the travel pages. Another of the three of us, me a teenager, at Aunt Jemima’s wedding in Italy. And one of Patrick and me in my parents’ garden in Greenwich not so long after we met, his arm slung around me, a big grin on my face. These are the people who’ve shaped me, and the experiences that told me who I was. But it pains me to look at those photos now because when I do, all I see is what’s gone.

  They show the person I thought I was, and tell me nothing of who I actually am.

  I ache to know who that is. I ache to have a place in the world once again. That’s why, whatever my fears, however it may change things with Dad, I know I need to do this.

  * * *

  When Julia, Michel and the kids arrive home, I’m back from the lake, showered, and sitting on the terrace reading a book. Léa rushes to me and gives me a big hug, telling me about how much fun she had, about playing ping-pong with her friends, about the sausages on the barbecue and the tiny sip of wine she had when her parents weren’t looking.

  ‘I wish you were there too,’ she says, and my heart soars. I look over at Julia, standing in the doorway, and perhaps it’s my imagination, but I think I see her bristle at her daughter’s words.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I say to Léa. ‘Tomorrow it’s just you, me and Luca again.’

  ‘Jess needs a break from us sometimes,’ Julia says. ‘She must be exhausted looking after you two all week.’

  I smile at Léa, bring my face close to hers. ‘Never,’ I whisper. ‘I love it.’

  ‘Well, we’re lucky to have you,’ Michel shouts from the kitchen, where he’s making coffee. ‘You and Maria, both. I don’t know what we’d do without you, right Julia?’

  He comes over to the terrace door, puts his arm around his wife’s shoulders, and she nods back, mumbles agreement with a tight smile. But I feel it, nonetheless. I feel what my place in this family is – the outsider, the interloper, the temporary help – and I wonder then, how it’s come to this. What am I doing here, pretending to be the mother I’ll probably never be? How did my life unravel so badly, when it had the potential to be like Julia’s? Why does she get to have all this, and not me?

  Tears prickle my eyes, and before I can embarrass myself, I claim a headache, blaming too much sun, and head to my room. I sit on my bed and take out the photo of Mum in 1976, wondering what she was thinking then, and what she’d think of me now, if she knew what a mess my life had become. If she knew I wasn’t hers.

  When I crawl into bed I reach for my phone as usual and my chest lurches when I see the message symbol. I punch in my unlock pin and sit up in the bed.

  It’s been a long time since I heard the name Brigitte Mela.

  I’m holding my breath as I scroll down.

  Anna is her real name. Anna Meier. But please, I ask you to reply and tell me why you are looking for her? It’s important that I know.

  Daniel Buchs

  I read the message twice, three times, four. I stare at the name. Anna Meier. That’s why the hospital couldn’t find her. They didn’t have the right name. Anna Meier. Such an alien name to me, and yet it could be my mother’s name. I say it out loud in the quiet room.

  Anna Meier. I say it again and some part of my brain kicks in, telling me it’s familiar.

  Meier. An image flashes across my mind of a document.

  Julia Sarah Meier and Michel Jean-Pierre Chevalley…

  Julia’s maiden name. A prickle walks its way up my spine as I remember what else I found in her drawer. A handwritten letter in German and a signature with a large, looping A. Handwritten, not typed. Old-fashioned script. Kisses after the signature. Definitely an older relative. An older relative called A. Meier.

  I put down my phone and gently lie back on the pillow, as though my head’s as delicate as glass and if I’m not extremely careful, it’s going to shatter into tiny pieces.

  MAY 1976 London, UK

  SYLVIA

  The letter arrived in the office with the morning post, Sylvia’s name in a cursive script on the envelope, a Swiss stamp in the corner. It was little over two months since she’d been to Switzerland, but it felt so much longer. She pictured the small apartment – the girls crammed around the table, steam rising from the fondue, David Bowie on the record player, Daniel drinking beer on the tatty old couch. So much had happened since then. Opening the letter was like stepping back to before: before she’d admitted what was happening to her, before the clinic, before she took a left turn off the route she thought she was on.

  Dearest Sylvia,

  I can’t tell you how excited I was to receive a copy of the wonderful article you wrote. We are so incredibly grateful to you for shining a light on our cause and helping others understand our fight. I knew, from the moment I met you, that you were on our side, and it means so much to us I cannot say! And so I wanted to invite you back. We’re staging an event later in the summer, a feminist festival, where we hope to spread the word about everything we’re passionate about. Will you come? It will be the school holidays, you can stay with me, and I would be simply delighted to show you a little more of my country at the same time. Say you will?

  With my very best wishes,

  Evelyne

  Just the idea of it filled Sylvia with the same sense of freedom she’d felt that day on her old school’s lawn. Some more time in Switzerland, in summer, when the air would be bright and clear, with people who would understand her worries about her pregnancy, her job prospects and her new husband’s suffocating desire to stop her doing anything interesting. In recent days she’d felt a clawing sense of claustrophobia, which was reflected in the news making it to her paper’s fr
ont page. It hadn’t rained enough in recent months; the dry winter had morphed into a drier spring, there was talk of drought and empty reservoirs and water rationing, farmers harvesting early and animal feed tripling in price. And then there was the doom and gloom over the economy: inflation, spending cuts and debt. She would love a brief respite from all that, a chance to get away from it all. Yes, she had Copenhagen coming up, but why not Switzerland too? She very much doubted Roger would let her write another article on such a similar subject, but she could go anyway, just for fun. Of course, she and Jim were meant to be saving, not spending money on flights. They’d need the cash for rent and furniture for the new apartment, plus all the equipment for the baby. And then there was Jim’s aversion to her travelling whilst pregnant. But the more he acted like her protector, the more she wanted to break free, because wasn’t now the time? The time for her to do as much as she could, to pack it all in, because how long would it be until she could go abroad again, once they had a child in tow?

  She picked up a pen to write to Evelyne straight away, to say yes, she’d definitely come, but had to put it down again as a wave of nausea socked her in the stomach. She stood up and with careful steps walked through the open plan to the ladies. She pushed the door open, went into a cubicle and sat on the toilet, waiting for her body to decide if it needed to throw up or not.

  What was she, about four months gone? She’d expected this to be over by now. That’s what Jim’s mum had said, if she’d remembered correctly, because she had trouble concentrating on the reams of baby-related information Pamela continually spouted at her down the phone every time she called – which was often. The first trimester is the worst, after that it gets better, that’s what Sylvia thought she’d said. Well it hadn’t. Just her luck.