The Confirmation

by L G Dickson

  ‘Nothing special. Such a gorgeous night we were just going to go for a stroll before dinner. Why? Do you fancy joining us? Just down to St Bernard’s Well; we’re practically passing your door in any case.’

  Annie was tempted. The old well was an ornate construct that sat by the Water of Leith. The supposed health-giving waters were encased within a beautiful circular temple with a marble statue of a healing Greek god at its centre. Could be just what she needed but Annie decided to decline Virginia’s offer. She just wanted to sit and gather her thoughts for a while.

  ‘Actually, I just wondered if you’d like to come round here. I’ve just got salad stuff but I thought maybe we could have dinner, a few drinks and Gordon could give me the annual compost lecture.’

  ‘Okay, lovely. Does the hedge need trimming? He always loves to get his hedge clippers out. Oh, and I’ve just baked a brown rice asparagus quiche so I’ll bring that round, shall I?’

  ‘Oh well, if you’re sure. You don’t need to bring anything – honest.’ Annie was sure she sounded less than convinced at the prospect of brown rice anything.

  ‘No, no. It’ll just go to mush if we don’t eat it tonight. We’ll nip out now for our walk and then come round later – around six okay?’

  Lovely, Annie thought. Saturday night supper is going to be something that readily turns to mush. ‘Yes, yes that all sounds great.’ Annie paused. ‘Gin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I got a letter from Geneva today. Céline. She’s written back to me.’

  ‘Oh, Annie, that’s wonderful news. Just wonderful.’

  Virginia at her enthusiastic best. Positive thoughts were what Annie needed right now and who better to encourage and bolster her than Virginia.

  Annie set out little bowls of olives and crisps and started to prepare the salad. She pulled out a tray of ‘continental cheeses’ from the fridge still tightly wrapped in cellophane. It was clearly enough of a marketing strategy to indicate to the British consumer that these cheeses were continental; enough to distinguish this little tray of produce as ‘foreign’. No need to identify country of origin. What was the point? It was cheese and it wasn’t British and that’s all anyone needed to know.

  Shortly after six, the doorbell went and Annie opened the door to a beaming Virginia.

  ‘My, this is exciting news.’ She flung one arm around Annie and with the other offered up a large canvas bag containing a bottle of wine and some potted cuttings alongside a square plastic box, which Annie guessed held the intriguing proposition of a brown rice quiche.

  ‘Thanks, Gin, that’s lovely.’ And off they strolled into the kitchen.

  ‘Gordon’s just gone back to get the hedge clippers. He’ll be here shortly. We’ll let him get on and then you can tell all.’

  ‘I know. It’s exciting, isn’t it? I’m a bit of a mess to be honest. Just all these thoughts going through my head. I really just want to get on a plane now but I can’t really and of course I have planned to travel over there with James in any case. Anyway, will Gordon want a beer? I put some bottles in the fridge.’

  Gordon appeared shortly afterwards brandishing a set of hedge clippers in one hand and holding a book on composting in the other.

  ‘Thought I’d just leave this with you,’ he whispered.

  ‘Thanks, Gordon, that’s great.’ Annie smiled. After years of failing to make an impact talking about compost he was going to make her read about it.

  He made his way to the far end of the garden with his bottle of Grolsch and the girls knew that would be him happily occupied for the next hour or so. They retired to the lounge with glasses of wine and Annie retrieved the letter from the desk drawer.

  ‘Here it is, Gin,’ her outstretched hand inviting her friend to share the news.

  ‘No, Annie. I don’t think I should. Just you tell me, in your own words, what it says. I think that’s better.’

  So funny how different her friends were. Kirsty would have practically torn the thing from her grasp before she’d had the chance to say anything but Virginia just wanted to hear her take on what was in the letter and what it meant.

  ‘We’ve just been at cross-purposes, I think. Dad knew from the very outset that Céline was having his child and had made all the necessary financial arrangements to support her. She hadn’t wanted to just assume that he’d be involved in his son’s life but she was very careful to ask if he wanted her to keep in contact. He did, for however long he had left, and he’d apparently discussed the situation with my mother. Oh, Gin, I just can’t imagine what Helen’s reaction would have been. I think there were moments when she tried to tell me but then I suppose she just couldn’t open all that up again. I would never in a million years have known that there was anything wrong, anything new or different. I mean the focus was really on Dad and his illness – but then she had perfected the art of evasion.’

  Annie thought back over the years when her father was away and how her mother slowly and deliberately built and then gradually shored up her defences. Nothing was allowed to get through until, faced with the man she loved, still loved, faced with his imminent demise, the facade had simply crumbled.

  ‘She could be a really tough cookie, darling. I mean, I don’t know all the rights and wrongs of your parents’ relationship but she was very good at putting up a front. Well, I thought so, anyway.’

  Virginia smiled at her in a way that just made Annie want to lie down with her head in her friend’s lap and simply open up about everything she was feeling. Virginia was the psychiatrist’s couch.

  ‘Yes, you’re right. Anyway that final letter from Céline to Dad, you know the one with the photo in it?’ Virginia nodded. ‘Well, there was a bit missing and I’d said as much when I wrote to Céline. So she replied that she’d told my father…’ Annie paused for a second. ‘Well, she just wanted to say that she’d always make sure their son knew everything about his father, what a good man he was.’

  Annie’s voice broke. She had become quite adept at putting feelings into little compartments, something she’d clearly inherited from her mother, but now they were simply pushing at doors and tumbling out from their dark recesses.

  ‘I think Mum must have destroyed that bit of the letter.’

  ‘But why not just destroy the whole lot after your dad died?’ Virginia looked confused.

  ‘Honestly, I’ve gone over and over that in my head. Sometimes I think she wanted me to find it, Gin. Maybe she was going to tell me – eventually. Well, I like to think so or was she just going to leave it for me to find? I don’t know, I’ll never really know.’

  It was Annie’s turn to feel confused.

  ‘Thing is, Céline seems to have assumed that either he would have shared all of this with me while he was alive or that after his death my mother would have. She’s been labouring under the complete misapprehension that I knew everything and that it was just too painful for me to acknowledge. When I wrote to tell her that Hugh had died, well, she just assumed I couldn’t even contemplate reaching out to her or her son. Maybe because it would have hurt my mother too much.’

  Annie took a large sip of wine. Courage, Dutch or otherwise, was required.

  ‘And now, after all this time. Oh, Gin, she so wants me to meet him and to be part of his life. Can you believe it?’ She clung on to her friend and they looked at each other, laughing and crying.

  ‘Well, that’s a good job done even though I say so myself.’ Gordon had just come in through the French windows and stood holding a bag full of hedge clippings. ‘What’s been going on here then?’ He looked quizzically at his wife and her friend as they sat still clinging to each other on the couch.

  ‘Oh, Gordon. Thank you. Thank you so much.’ Annie had got up and flung her arms round him. He responded by nervously patting her on the back.

  ‘That’s alright, Annie.
Just the hedge. I do it every year.’

  CHAPTER 11

  Annie sat with case notes covering the writing desk. She had carefully transferred James’s papers onto the coffee table, a move that had proved too much of a temptation for the cat who was now sitting atop one small pile, staring at her. That cannot possibly be comfortable, she thought to herself but turned away unwilling to give him the satisfaction of any kind of reaction. She looked at her watch. Six thirty. James was a bit later than normal but she knew he was throwing himself into work and even entertained a vague notion that he might be socialising with some of his new colleagues.

  She had been worried that he would be disappointed with an early return from Assynt but she needn’t have been. He’d gained a lot of kudos from his work with the crofters. He was enthusiastic about the agency he was now with and about working with a handful of estate managers and landowners who were much more forward thinking than some of the old guard and who were at least keen to try out some of James’s new ideas. He couldn’t get anywhere near the large shadowy corporations that owned so much land but that was fine. Small steps, he kept saying.

  Small steps working in land reform perhaps but pretty big steps for Annie and James. They were living together. It hadn’t been the easiest transition in the world. She’d had to make room for him, not just his clothes but also some of his things. Although they’d decided he would leave all his furniture behind at the Great King Street flat, the one thing he’d desperately wanted to bring with him was an oversized watercolour of a sprawling Highland landscape. It appeared inordinately bleak and harsh to Annie but his mother had painted it and so she had agreed that it would indeed look wonderful above the fireplace. Her shining gilt-edged mirror was removed and replaced by the dark monstrosity. At first it seemed to cast a dark shadow across the whole room but as time wore on the painting mellowed and gradually began to meld into its surroundings. Annie found herself sitting contemplating the brushstrokes, the textures and warmed to the thought that James’s mother was now part of their everyday life. The things that had really worried her – different routines, different likes and tastes – only occasionally surfaced but not enough to make any real waves. She found herself compromising in some areas but then so did he. All the worries about being with someone just seemed to fade away. They had of course been spending an awful lot of time together before he’d journeyed north but even so Annie couldn’t have imagined that actually living with someone, full time, could be this straightforward. Something has to give, she kept thinking. He’s bound to need to get away from me at some point.

  Just then she heard the key in the door.

  ‘Just me.’

  ‘Who else would it be,’ she wanted to say but instead got up from behind the desk to greet him. There was still that slight feeling of giddiness, excitement even, when she moved from one space into another, knowing he was there. She wondered if that would ever leave her. She hoped not.

  ‘I’ve booked our flights to Geneva, looked at places for us to stay and arranged the car hire to take us down to the Lakes.’ He looked very pleased with himself as he handed her details of hotels and guesthouses.

  ‘Great, well done you.’ She took his hand as they walked into the lounge.

  ‘And you’re sure you don’t want to stay with Céline?’

  Céline had invited them to stay but it felt like too big a step all at once for Annie.

  ‘No, it’s fine. She understands and it’s just a couple of days. I just want to tread carefully, for everyone’s sake really. So we’ll look at hotels tonight and get that organised and then we’ll be off.’ She squeezed his hand tightly. ‘Just four weeks, James. Just four weeks and we’ll be there.’

  After changing clothes, they made a start on dinner.

  ‘I meant to ask how your day went, you were a little bit later tonight.’ She was in the fridge looking for the asparagus.

  ‘I met Duncan, actually.’ James had his back to her vigorously scrubbing at a pile of new potatoes. ‘He’s really anxious to get me working with him on the estates the Drummonds manage. You know, once they move up there. Sounds really promising. There’s a new landowner who’s really interested in diversifying, doing things in a more sustainable way and he’s also interested in sorting out a better relationship with the tenants and local community. Well, that’s certainly Duncan’s take anyway.’

  He turned round to see Annie looking all wide-eyed.

  ‘Well, that does sound good, James, but it also sounds like it’s a done deal. The Drummonds, I mean – moving.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Have I got that wrong?’ He looked anxiously at her, obviously worried that he’d either divulged a state secret or completely misunderstood Duncan.

  ‘No, probably not. It’s just Kirsty doesn’t seem to have quite got on the Duncan bandwagon yet. She doesn’t want to think about any of that stuff until after baby’s born.’

  ‘Oh right. Oh dear. Probably shouldn’t have said anything.’ James turned sheepishly back to his Jersey Royals.

  *

  The beginning of September arrived and Annie and James sat in the departure lounge at Heathrow waiting for their connecting flight to Geneva.

  ‘I had no idea there was so much history to Geneva. For some reason I’ve just thought it was some modern, brash place filled with drugs companies and tax avoiders.’

  James didn’t look up as he spoke. They were surrounded by different nationalities all heading to the same destination and he was immersed in a heavy hardback book charting the development of the city from sixteenth century to present day. Anyone else would have just bought one of those Berlitz travel guides but not her man. Heavy hardbacks were his thing. Annie was imagining the seating arrangements on the flight as he sat elbows out, book propped up on the small foldaway tray, and prayed that the person sitting beside him would not be too inconvenienced. She could of course offer him the window seat but she loved sitting at the window so – no, that wouldn’t be happening.

  ‘Birthplace of John Calvin, Annie. Did you know that?’ Now he looked at her, peering over his reading glasses. The incessant background noise of tannoy announcements, raucous laughter from the bar and crying children had made no incursion at all into his sensory world.

  ‘Nope, can’t say I did.’ Annie had a newspaper on her lap but she couldn’t concentrate. She was rehearsing her meeting with Céline after all these years and was trying to think about what on earth she could say to a ten-year-old boy she’d never met before. Not just any boy – her brother. What if he’s a little horror? What if he hates me? No, banish such thoughts immediately. Okay, but how do older sisters relate to younger brothers in any case? So much younger. She had no reference point.

  ‘Yes, well, apparently John Knox lived there for a while, studying at the feet of Calvin. The Scottish Reformation started right there.’ He let out a yelp. ‘Says here Calvinism made Scotland the moral standard of the world. Bloody hell.’

  Annie smirked. So her father, pillar of the Scottish Presbyterian community, left his birthplace to live in the place where it had all started and to all intents and purposes threw their morality right back at them. Well, what exactly would Calvin have made of modern-day Geneva in any case, she thought. Her father’s lapse in moral standards was nothing in comparison.

  Their flight was on time and after picking up their luggage, they jumped into a taxi and headed for the Old Town. James had booked them into a small hotel very close to the Place du Bourg de Four, the oldest square in Geneva and where they had arranged to meet Céline the following afternoon. It was nearly dark when they arrived and Annie just wanted something light to eat, a bath and then bed.

  ‘Don’t you fancy exploring?’ James was perched excitedly on the edge of the bed, surrounded by numerous maps kindly provided by the pretty young receptionist.

  ‘Really, James? I just thought a quick bite to eat i
n the hotel would do us for tonight. We’ve been travelling all day.’

  ‘Okay. Compromise. Let’s go into the square and grab something to eat, soak up a bit of the atmosphere and then straight back here.’ He had moved up behind her as she started to hang things up in the ancient old wooden wardrobe and began kissing her neck.

  She stopped for a second. The thought of sitting out in the still warm night, enjoying a romantic meal and a glass of chilled wine suddenly sounded rather appealing.

  As she nodded in agreement, James grabbed Annie’s hand, picked up the pile of guides and maps and before she knew it she was standing in the middle of the square beside medieval fountains and surrounded by restaurants and cafés teeming with tourists and locals alike.

  He picked out a small restaurant with the words ‘typical Swiss food’ emblazoned across its canopy. ‘Let’s try here.’ Although still reasonably warm, there was a slight chill to the air, so they decided to eat inside at a wooden table surrounded by paintings of old Geneva buildings. Annie plumped for a simple dish of ham and potato rosti while James went all out for steak tartare.

  ‘Are you okay, darling?’

  ‘Yes, fine. Just a bit preoccupied. You know – about tomorrow.’

  He looked concerned. Any other time Annie would have lapped up the atmosphere of the place, the different languages, the cuisine. She would have loved to explore again the cobbled streets and hidden courtyards; it had been such a long time since she’d been here. Just not this trip. Maybe next. ‘It’s okay, I’m fine – honest. It’s a lovely meal.’

  The following morning, it seemed to Annie that James had decided it was best to keep her busy and so they went on a relentless tour of museums. The Reformation and clock-making seemed to be at the heart of most things and Annie trundled along happy to absorb whatever she could by osmosis – it certainly wasn’t by intently listening to James or any of the tour guides. Then, finally, she noticed that they had somehow made their way back to the Place du Bourg de Four. She looked at her watch. It was nearly two. James took her hand and they walked toward the café, their pre-arranged meeting place. She found herself pulling his hand back, trying to slow their pace. She wanted to see them before they saw her.