Gowrie was breathing thickly, his body tense, hands screwed at his sides.
‘I’ll deal with it,’ he thought aloud. ‘I’ll find a way. They aren’t stopping me getting there, I’m not giving up, I’m going on somehow, anyhow.’
The other two men contemplated him with a mixture of horror and awe, like people watching the undead walk. Steve almost believed, at that instant, that, in spite of everything Sophie had revealed about his past, Gowrie wasn’t finished, would go on with his campaign, might still make it to the presidency.
And God help America that day, he thought.
As Sophie re-entered the house, she heard Cathy running up the stairs, and followed, hearing a door slam shut before she reached the first floor. Sophie slowed as she got to the top of the stairs and stood there, irresolute, hearing wild sobbing from Cathy’s bedroom. Guilt made Sophie hesitate about going in – all this was her fault, she wouldn’t blame Cathy if she screamed at her to get out, leave her alone.
She must hate me. In her place I would. Poor Cathy. She’s undergone so many shocks over the past twenty-four hours, God knows what is going on inside her now.
The weeping went on and on, and Sophie felt tears spring to her own eyes. All my fault, she thought. This is all my fault.
The Latin words she had learnt as a child, in the little village church in whose graveyard her father had been buried, beside the body of Don Gowrie’s baby daughter, came back to her now. Mea culpa . . . Out of the past; it came like a ghost from the past – Don Gowrie’s sins, ambition, greed, selfishness had been the first cause, the original sin, but she had been the one who resurrected the buried secret.
My fault. Mea culpa. Words no longer used in the mass, but still so powerful, resonant with centuries of use, full of contrition and guilt, welling up in her mind like tears. Mea culpa, mea culpa . . . My fault, my most grievous fault. She should never have come looking for her dead sister, she should have forgotten her mother had ever told her.
She pushed open the door, and Cathy’s crying was stifled at once, as if she had put a hand over her mouth to hold back the sound. Across the elegant bedroom, Sophie saw her lying face down on the bed. Her body was shaking violently. The sobbing was silent now, but had not stopped.
Sophie ran over and sat down on the bed, close to her, put a hand on her shuddering shoulders.
‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, this is all my fault, please stop crying, I can’t bear it.’
‘You can’t!’ Cathy’s bitterness was like a blow in the face. Sophie winced.
‘Go away,’ Cathy said, then. ‘Leave me alone.’ The words were barely audible. Sophie had to bend to hear them.
Miserably Sophie said, ‘I can’t leave you like this.’ She pushed the tumbled hair back from Cathy’s face, touched her cheek, her skin chill as death under Sophie’s fingers. ‘Oh, you’re so cold,’ Sophie whispered. ‘I’ll get a quilt for you, shall I?’
‘I don’t want one.’
‘Can I get you a hot drink then?’
‘No! For Christ’s sake, just go away, will you?’
‘I want to do something for you.’
‘You’ve done enough.’
‘I know! Do you think I don’t realize what I’ve done? I wish to God I could undo it.’
If she had the chance to live this last week over again, she would do everything very differently. She wouldn’t come looking for Anya. Or would she?
She just didn’t know.
Cathy’s crying had stopped. She was listening, silent, unmoving, but listening.
‘I’m so sorry, I feel terrible . . . I should never have come,’ Sophie said, tears trickling down her face, the saltiness of them in her mouth, sounding in her voice.
‘Yes,’ Cathy said in that muffled voice, still face down on the bed. ‘Yes, you had to . . .’
She turned over and sat up, her beautiful face pale and ravaged, her skin blotchy, her hair dishevelled, her eyes drowned in tears, but looking at Sophie directly, wide and blazingly honest.
‘You had no choice. I don’t really blame you, I’m just angry. I’ve been hurt, and I want to hurt someone back.’ She laughed raggedly. ‘Not a very nice motive. I’ll get over it. I shall have to learn to live with what I’ve found out about myself. It’s like being born all over again, I suppose.’ She put her hands over her face. ‘Oh . . . I wish to God I could believe you were lying, but wishing never changes anything, does it?’
Sophie put both arms around her, rocked her gently as if she were a child. ‘Wishes do come true sometimes.’
‘Not this time. I’ve been living a lie all my life without knowing it. Well, now I know the truth, I have to come to terms with it.’ She pulled away from Sophie. ‘I don’t think I’ll have any choice, anyway – I think Paul . . . my husband . . .’ Her voice shook and a tear spilled from her eyes, ran down her cheek. ‘He doesn’t want me now.’
‘Of course he does!’ Sophie was appalled. ‘He loves you, I could see that the minute I saw him with you, and he’s a nice man – I liked him a lot, he was kind to me when I had a bad dream last night. You don’t need to be afraid he’ll stop loving you just because you aren’t Gowrie’s daughter.’
Cathy quivered, listening to that reassurance, wanting to believe it but deep inside herself aware of a chilling change in Paul’s response to her. Until last night they had been so intensely aware of each other every minute of the day and night. Even across a room full of other people they had always been in silent, sensual contact, their eyes meeting, their bodies aching to touch, their hearts beating in unison, their blood pulsing at the same fevered pace.
Or that was what she had thought. She had felt that way, at least. She had believed he did.
Now she no longer knew. Had he ever really loved her? You couldn’t switch off that sort of feeling in a flash, could you?
‘I think he’s in some sort of money trouble,’ she whispered. ‘He needs the Ramsey money. And now he knows I’m not a Ramsey, won’t be able to help him out, I’m no use to him any more.’
All her perceptions of herself were undergoing radical surgery. Once she had believed her father loved her – now she had been forced to recognize how he had used her, right from her earliest years. She had been a pawn in his power game, of no more importance to him than that.
She had thought Paul loved her, too. Now it seemed that he had married her for her family money, and he didn’t want her if she was likely to lose it.
‘Your father is busy persuading everyone not to tell,’ Sophie wryly said. ‘And I won’t, so don’t worry – I think you’ll still get that money, and I don’t believe for an instant that your husband will leave you, or doesn’t love you. I’ll go back to the States with Steve in a few days, and you’ll go on with your life here. Everything will be back to normal.’
Cathy gave a long, slow, agonized sigh. She turned her head and stared at the dressing-table, her own reflection. How could everything go back to normal? She no longer knew who she was – and even if nobody ever told the world the truth, how could she go on living a lie? And how could she ever be happy with Paul again?
She ran her hands over her wet eyes, pushed back her hair. ‘I look a mess. I must wash my face, put on make-up, do my hair. I might feel better then,’ she said brightly.
She got off the bed and went into her bathroom and Sophie wandered around the room, picking up silver-framed photographs, staring at them, recognizing Gowrie in some, with Cathy, Paul with Cathy in others. Like the photographs downstairs, these showed Cathy at all ages: a little girl in jeans, carrying a fishing-net or riding a pony, a teenager in tennis gear, holding a silver cup, on a platform with her father, and in frothy, foaming white, a bride on her wedding-day, standing between Paul and Gowrie, her face alight with happiness.
All those memories had just been blasted to kingdom come.
Mea culpa, my fault. All I thought about was my mother, dying, so thin and pale and weak . . . so little time left for her, I would have done an
ything to make her better. I just wanted to find Anya and bring her home, I never really thought of what I would do to Anya. Obsessed, stupid, thoughtless, selfish – I hate myself for what I’ve done to Anya.
The bathroom door opened again and Cathy came out, face enamelled, doll-like in its perfection, hair brushed until it shone, her mouth bright and smiling, wearing the armour of outward appearances.
Sophie looked at her uncertainly, guiltily. This Cathy was harder to talk to, to approach. The walls were up; you couldn’t get near her.
Falsely cheerful, she said, ‘Let’s go down and have some coffee, I’m dying for a cup of good strong coffee, I don’t know about you.’
‘I’d love some.’
Downstairs, Cathy rang for the housekeeper and ordered a pot of coffee. They sat down in the drawing-room and drank it, black, sweet.
‘What made you become a journalist?’ Cathy asked conversationally, with a stilted little smile.
Sophie gave her a wry look but recognized the sense of trying to put everything on a calmer footing, so she told her about her years at university, in Prague, how she had worked part-time, translating for Vladimir, to help pay her way through college, and then she talked about her brief attempt at school-teaching, her problems with her students, her boredom and the difficulty of living on a low salary in Prague.
‘You have to save up to buy clothes or shoes, or anything expensive, like electrical equipment – your salary just about pays rent, and for food and the usual household bills. We’re beginning to be more prosperous, especially people who work in tourism, in the hotels, or restaurants. Things get better all the time. But it is still a pretty tough life for most people.’
‘Very different from mine,’ Cathy thought aloud.
‘Yes, you owe Gowrie that,’ Sophie gently said. ‘He was right, he did give you a wonderful life, and I’m sure he cared for you. He couldn’t keep up that sort of lie for so many years.’
‘God knows! I don’t. I can’t think straight at the moment, I no longer know what I . . . I don’t know anything, even who I am.’ Cathy’s emotion welled up to the surface again. The tears weren’t far away.
Sophie put down her coffee-cup and moved to sit beside her chair, on the floor.
‘You’re you, that’s all – you’re the person inside your head, not a name . . . not Cathy Gowrie, or Anya Narodni – just YOU. You’re the person you’ve always known you were, the person your life happened to! This is just another part of your life, don’t you see? I realize you feel confused, even lost – but in a day or two everything will settle down again.’
‘And then what? Who will I be then?’ Cathy angrily demanded, looking down at her. ‘Cathy or Anya? American or Czech? Paul’s wife or . . .’ She broke off again, sobbing. ‘Can’t you see? I don’t know what’s going to happen next and I’m scared!’
Sophie quickly knelt up and put her arm round her. ‘I’m sorry, Cathy, I’m so sorry. I wish I could undo what I’ve done. I didn’t mean to hurt you, that was the last thing I wanted to do. When I heard you were alive the only thing I could think of was finding you – I didn’t stop to think what I would do to your life. Don’t hate me, please don’t hate me.’
Cathy put her head down on Sophie’s shoulder. They sat there quietly for several minutes, then Cathy moved away, got out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes, blew her nose.
‘Tell me more about your . . . our . . . mother,’ she said, getting up and going to the window to curl up in a windowseat.
Sophie gave a little exclamation. ‘Of course, yes, but first . . . could I please . . . would you let me use your phone? To ring Mamma? After what Steve said about Vladimir telling her someone had tried to kill me, I must talk to her, reassure her, or she’ll make herself ill worrying.’
Cathy nodded. ‘Of course, use the phone there now, if you like.’
Sophie got up eagerly. ‘Will you talk to her? Anya? Will you, please?’
Cathy looked horrified, shaking her head. ‘I don’t know her, what could I say? I can’t talk to her, I really couldn’t.’
Sophie turned pleading eyes on her. ‘She’s dying, Anya, and she desperately needs to hear your voice.’
‘I can’t!’ Cathy refused fiercely, and didn’t move as Sophie sighed and went over to the phone. The sad, reproachful eyes made her uneasy, yet she resented Sophie’s insistence. It was so easy to make judgements from outside but when it was happening to you it wasn’t a simple matter.
This strange woman was dying and Cathy was expected to feel deeply about that, to be sad, grief-stricken, to feel all the emotions a bereaved daughter should feel. But how could she? She hadn’t even known this woman existed. She had never seen her, she didn’t know anything about her. She still wasn’t certain she believed that Johanna was her real mother. Oh, she accepted all the evidence now, but knowing with your mind was one thing – feeling it in your heart was something very different, and her heart was not ready to believe.
She heard Sophie’s soft, husky voice talking into the phone in her own language. Cathy didn’t understand Czech, couldn’t follow a word of what Sophie said until she lapsed into English, which Cathy realized was done for her own benefit.
‘And guess who is with me? Anya.’ She laughed, looking at Cathy. ‘Yes, really, Mamma – I’ve found her, talked to her, I told her everything. Yes, she’s here, hold on . . .’
Sophie turned and held out the phone, her eyes begged. ‘Please,’ she whispered.
Cathy sat stiffly, unable to move.
‘She’s dying, Cathy,’ Sophie whispered, covering the mouthpiece of the phone so that her mother shouldn’t hear. ‘This may be the only chance she has of hearing your voice, and you don’t have to say anything much, just hello and ask how she is – that will be enough for her, to hear your voice.’
Cathy swallowed, unable to make up her mind, then she slowly got up and unsteadily walked over to take the phone.
Sophie gave her a quick, warm hug. ‘Thank you.’
Cathy held the phone to her mouth. ‘Hello?’ she said in a voice that wavered.
There was a silence at the other end and then a woman’s voice breathed. ‘Anya . . . my Anya . . .’
13
Cathy put down the phone a few minutes later and turned away quickly before Sophie could see her face; she stood by the window, staring out, her back to the room. Sophie waited, watching her with sympathy. How did you talk to a woman you had never met but discovered was your mother? What did you say? The gap was so enormous; a whole lifetime. Everything Cathy knew had happened since she was taken away; she didn’t remember anything about the years before that day, the baby years. They were strangers who yet had the most intimate of relationships – mother and child. And what could you say to each other?
Cathy had said very little. She had listened and murmured a few comforting words now and then, in the spaces when there was no whispering, sobbing voice at the other end.
‘Yes. Yes, Sophie told me. Yes, I know. I understand how it happened. No, I don’t blame you, of course I don’t. Please, don’t upset yourself. Don’t cry, please. Yes, I forgive you. I do. I’ll try to come soon, I promise I’ll try. Yes, soon. As soon as I can, I promise.’
Sophie had felt tears in her own eyes and had brushed them away. All the years those two had lost, mother and daughter, so long apart that they couldn’t even talk to each other now. Don Gowrie had boasted of having given Cathy a wonderful life, the life of a princess – but did it really make up for what he had taken from her?
She watched Cathy struggling to deal with it all, and wished there was something she could say or do to help.
‘Thank you for talking to her,’ she said at last, and Cathy found an angry noise.
‘Thank you for talking to my own mother?’
‘It was tough, I know it was hard for you.’
‘Not as hard as it was for her.’ Cathy took a deep breath. ‘She kept crying. I wished she would stop; her English isn’t very good and when
she kept crying it was harder to understand and I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed talking to my own mother!’ Her hands were clenched into fists, as if she wanted to hit something or someone.
‘Not surprising, after so many years,’ Sophie said gruffly. ‘She wouldn’t blame you. She understands how hard this must be for you.’
‘Does she? I wonder –’
The telephone began to ring and they both started violently.
‘Shall I answer that?’ offered Sophie.
‘Would you?’ Cathy said huskily without looking round.
Sophie picked up the phone. ‘Hello?’
‘Mrs Brougham?’
Sophie opened her mouth, but before she could say she wasn’t Cathy the man’s voice at the other end went on, ‘I’ve still got Mr Colbourne’s colleague waiting down here at the gate, ma’am – he’s getting impatient, shall I let him through now?’
‘Wait a minute.’ Sophie turned to Cathy. ‘I think Vladimir is here – can he come up to the house? Is that OK?’
Cathy nodded. ‘Why not?’ she said indifferently, then suddenly wheeled and began to walk to the door. ‘I have a headache, I’m going to take a pill and lie down for a while.’
Sophie told the man at the gate to let Vladimir through, then hung up and ran after Cathy, called after her.
‘Can I get you anything? Do anything?’
‘No, I just want some peace and quiet,’ Cathy said, vanishing up the stairs without looking back.
Sophie stood in the magnificent hall, listening to the solemn ticking of the tall grandfather clock, watching wintry sunlight strike the polished floors, striking fire out of some bronzed branches of beech which stood in a tall urn near the hearth. Such a calm, ordered atmosphere. Her eye travelled upwards to admire the great chandelier hanging overhead. Had Cathy been happy here? Of course she must have been – she had had everything anyone could want, and she must have thought her life would always be like that.
The front door stood partly open; through it she heard the men’s voices and the sound of their feet crunching on the gravel. They were returning to the house. Had they made the deal Don Gowrie wanted? Want to bet? she asked herself, mouth twisting.
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