My eyes widened in horror. My stomach tipped. ‘She’s here? Sinead’s here, with her children, is that what you’re saying?’
Footsteps padded quickly down the passageway, and in another moment, the door burst open. A girl of about ten shot into the room wearing pink jeans and a white T-shirt, her long dark hair flying.
‘I can have a drink, can’t I?’ She ran across to Mum. ‘Mam says I can’t, but I can get one by myself from the kitchen. I’ve done it before!’ Her voice was high, lilting, unmistakably Irish. Her eyes very blue. Unmistakably Rupert’s.
‘I’ll get it for you,’ said Mum, quickly taking her shoulders and ushering her out as the child, with round eyes like blue marbles, twisted around to stare at me, at the stranger she’d been hurried away from.
‘Now,’ I heard Mum say as she ran the tap, ‘drink up, and then straight back to Mummy.’
She tried to hurry her back, but then there were more footsteps, firmer this time, and then another voice joined her in the kitchen.
‘I’m sorry, Audrey, I couldn’t stop her.’
My heart seemed to halt for a moment. I looked at Andrew. He met my eyes, then glanced away, down at the carpet. I held my breath. The seconds ticked by. There was a whispered discussion in the kitchen, then moments later, she appeared.
She came through the doorway holding her daughter’s hand. She was tall, slim and very pale, with thick dark hair to her shoulders which hung in her eyes in a heavy fringe. Attractive, but not in a pretty, fluffy way. This was a strong face, a direct pair of hazel eyes under dark brows, and a square jaw. As she came into the room, I noticed she had a slight limp. Another child darted into the room behind her, a boy of about seven, and she held out a hand to steady him, to stop him careering ahead. He saw me and darted shyly behind his mother, peeking out.
‘I’m Sinead,’ she said simply, stopping just inside the room.
I nodded. Tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, blood rushed up my neck to my face, staining my cheeks. An awful, shaming blush.
‘It’s all right, I know who you are.’ She regarded me a moment longer, then bent to see to her children.
‘Go on now, Tom, get your coat. You know where it is, we’re going now.’
‘We’re going?’ His voice was high and reedy. ‘You didn’t say we were going out.’
‘Well, I’m saying now, so go on with you. Don’t touch that,’ she admonished as the girl darted across the room to the bureau to pick up a china rabbit of Mum’s. Sinead followed and took it from her hands. ‘Go on now, Hetta, get your coat.’
‘Hetta?’ I said, despite myself. I’d been called that on occasion. My mind whirled. ‘Short for …’
‘Henrietta, that’s right. But we call her Hetta.’ She looked at me defiantly. I met her eyes. Clear and direct. I nodded mutely. Jesus. Henrietta.
She turned to Mum. ‘The children have rested now, Audrey. Tom slept for over an hour, so thank you for that. We’ll be going to see their father now.’
‘Daddy!’ The girl jumped up and down on the spot. ‘We’re going to see Daddy?’
‘Is that wise?’ asked Andrew, stepping forward anxiously. ‘Without, you know. Letting him know?’
I was conscious that everyone was very aware of me. Standing, listening.
Sinead gave a wry smile. ‘If I were wise, Andrew, I wouldn’t have let you persuade me to come over in the first place. But now we’re here, yes. I must.’ She kept her eyes on him. ‘And I’d like to go when I know for sure he’s alone.’
I inhaled sharply.
‘Will you be back?’ asked Andrew. ‘I mean, will you be coming back here, or …’
‘I don’t know,’ she said simply. ‘I’ll have to see how it goes.’
Her voice, which up to now she’d kept steady, was slightly strained, aware of her audience. I watched dumbly as this scene was enacted before me, like a play I was watching but not participating in.
‘There’s always a bed for you and the children here, dear,’ said my mother softly.
I turned to look at her, astonished. She met my eye, and suddenly, I felt humbled. She was right. Of course she was right.
‘Thank you,’ said Sinead. ‘You’ve been very kind.’
My heart still hammering, I watched as she chivvied her children into their coats. They were older than I’d imagined, and where was the youngest, the baby? Must have left it behind. She made her son pull his anorak zip up before he went out, and told her daughter to find her trainers.
‘Now, please, Hetta.’
‘I don’t know where they are.’
‘Back in the bedroom, I expect,’ said Mum, bustling away.
‘Well, go on with you, child,’ chided the mother. ‘Don’t let Audrey get them, go look.’
‘Take my car,’ said Andrew suddenly, fishing in his pocket and holding out his keys. ‘I don’t need it, and at this time of night you can park anywhere, even on a yellow line.’
‘Thanks.’ She looked up from struggling with her son’s zipper and smiled. Grateful that this stiff, formal man, her father-in-law, was going out of his way for her. He hadn’t met his grandchildren before, but through no fault of his own. Now he was making up for it. Making up for lost time. She straightened and took the keys.
‘Goodbye, Hetta,’ Andrew said as the child ran back into the room in her trainers. ‘Tom.’ He nodded at them awkwardly, as was his way, but they were demonstrative children, delighted, no doubt, to have found a brand new grandfather they didn’t know they had, and Hetta ran to him and put her arms up for a hug, a kiss. Tom too.
I saw Andrew flush, delighted, as he bent to return their embrace.
‘And you know where you’re going?’ he said over their heads to their mother. ‘You know Albany? It’s off Piccadilly, you can’t go wrong.’
Sinead laughed. A light, musical sound. ‘Andrew, I’ve never set foot in England before, let alone London, but don’t worry. I’ve got Audrey’s A to Z. I’ll find it.’
Andrew looked troubled. ‘Why don’t you let me drive you? I can do that. And I can wait, if needs be. Bring you back later.’
‘You will not,’ she said. ‘Jeez, in Rupert’s eyes you’ll have interfered enough just by getting me here. He won’t thank you for driving me to the door and loitering outside his flat. No, I’ll find it.’
My being, which up until this point seemed to have been frozen in time whilst this scene was being played out, crackled into life at this moment. Something uncoiled within me at his name. I opened my mouth.
‘I’ll show you,’ I heard my voice saying. ‘I’m going that way. I’ll come with you and show you where it is.’
Chapter Twenty-six
Sinead had crouched down again to tie her son’s laces. She glanced up at me. I was aware of my mother’s and Andrew’s eyes on me too. She rose slowly in the silence. Regarded me a moment.
‘OK,’ she said softly.
Another highly charged silence followed. Even the children seemed aware of some development and were quiet. The air felt thick, heavy. I swallowed and moved into it, going purposefully across to a chair to pick up my coat. My hands were shaking as I did up the buttons, and I bent my head in studied contemplation of them to avoid my mother’s eyes. A moment later, the children began their chattering and clamouring as Sinead ushered them towards the door, and the atmosphere was broken.
Mum found my ear as she opened the door. ‘Is this wise?’ she murmured anxiously.
‘I don’t know,’ I muttered back. I caught a glimpse of Andrew’s face as we left, tense and worried, but moments later – it was too late. I was in that familiar stairwell with the flat door shut behind me, walking downstairs with Sinead by my side.
Hetta ran ahead of us, but Tom, a live wire, waited behind to slide down the banisters. His mother turned, exasperated as he shifted his bottom onto the rail and slid towards us.
‘Off, Tom. Now!’
She hoiked him off and he laughed. She admonished him agai
n, but it was something to do, I felt, to chide the child, to hold his arm and march him down, and we were both glad of the distraction. Hetta waited at the bottom for us to catch up.
‘Who are you?’ she asked, falling into step beside me and turning round eyes up.
‘I’m …’ I faltered.
‘This is Audrey’s daughter,’ said Sinead easily. ‘She’s going to show us the way to Daddy’s.’
‘Will we see Buckingham Palace?’ asked Tom.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ his mother replied. ‘But I’ll show you tomorrow. We’ll go see it then.’
‘With Daddy?’
I felt my throat tighten again. Daddy.
‘Maybe.’
‘We haven’t seen him for six months,’ volunteered the girl beside me as I reached up for the doorknob.
‘Seven,’ corrected her mother.
I felt my head bow. I seemed to be getting smaller by the minute. I opened the door for them.
‘I thought you had three children?’ I said as she went through. ‘I’m sure Andrew said three.’
‘Rupert has three children. I have two,’ she said. I watched her back as she exited. Felt frozen with shock.
‘You mean …’
She turned to look at me, outside in the dark now: a shadowy figure in the front garden.
‘He has another daughter in Kosovo. She’s about eleven, I believe. Also called Henrietta.’
I felt the blood leave my face as I let the door go. I forced myself to walk on after her, down the path to the pavement, my heart pumping. I was aware of her just ahead of me; aware of the shocks she knew she was calmly delivering. Zap. Zap. Zap.
‘Right,’ I breathed as she paused beside a blue Audi.
‘Rupert was out there for a year or so. He struck up a relationship. These things happen.’
She eyed me as she opened the Audi door. What things? I thought. Her husband having relationships, or him having two daughters called Henrietta? The children scrambled in the back and Sinead showed them how to put on their belts, then made to get in herself.
‘D’you want me to drive?’ I asked, still reeling. Three children. Different mothers.
I saw her hesitate. An unfamiliar car in an unfamiliar city.
‘No, I’ll drive,’ she said firmly.
And I would have done the same. Would have wanted to be in the driving seat for this particular excursion. This particular tête-à-tête.
I directed her down the hill to the Finchley Road, my head still spinning. What was this, Soldier Soldier? A girl in every port? And were there more children she didn’t know about? More bloody Henriettas?
‘That’s it,’ she said, reading my thoughts. ‘No other children.’
‘And you believe him?’
‘Oh, he’s always been honest. Scrupulously. He’s never lied to me once.’
Well, he has to me, I thought. Or had he? I tried to remember if I’d ever asked? Asked if he was married with kids? Or just assumed he wasn’t?
‘But …’ I struggled to comprehend. ‘Andrew said you’d been married for six years. I thought your children would be younger.’
‘Did you?’ She turned to look at me from behind the wheel. Eyes clear, challenging.
‘Well …’ I faltered.
‘We have been married for six years. But I’ve known Rupert for fourteen.’
‘Fourteen!’ I looked at her, astonished. Fourteen. I’d known him for sixteen.
‘So …’
‘I know all about you, Henny,’ she said softly, her eyes trained on the road now as she navigated the car around the Swiss Cottage to Avenue Road. ‘I picked up the pieces.’
I remembered Tommy saying that Rupert had been posted to Ireland soon after the wedding. That he’d gone to Hong Kong as planned, but after a few months, had been promoted, got an attachment somewhere grittier.
‘The pieces were of his making,’ I said steadily. ‘He left me. At the altar.’
‘I know. And he never got over it.’
‘Well, funnily enough, it took me a while too,’ I said tersely.
‘But you met someone quite quickly, didn’t you? Fell in love and got married within a year.’
‘Yes, I fell in love and got married. And he met you!’
‘Yes, he met me. Except …I could never quite match up. Never quite be what he wanted. Because he always wanted you.’
‘He could have had me!’ I said angrily. ‘But he jilted me.’
‘I know. He flunked it – lost his nerve. And that’s shaped his life. That’s why his life is as it is. Dangerous, uncertain, unsettled – he’s tested himself ever since, to make sure it never happens again. He’s been blown up twice, got the VC in Iraq – he’s desperate to make sure he doesn’t flunk again. And he didn’t want to tie himself to me, either – and not in case anything happened to him, nothing so altruistic as that – but in case you ever came back. But I made him, after Tom was born, and when Hetta was about five. She was starting school, and doing that without a father’s surname in a small, rural Catholic community is not easy. There was shame in it. It wasn’t fair on her. Wasn’t fair to have her taunted, teased.’
‘So …that’s why he married you?’ I was shocked by her candour.
‘That’s why he married me. For the children.’ She gave a wry half-smile. Looked straight ahead. ‘Oh, he was fond of me all right, I’m sure of that, but I’m under no illusions either. He always hoped you’d come back. Leave Marcus. Always mentally kept me in reserve.’
‘He told you that?’ I said, aghast.
‘Not in so many words, but in the way …in the way that he never completely gave himself to me. Couldn’t. I told you, he’s honest. And you have to be true to yourself, to your own heart. You can’t live a lie. Right here?’
‘What? Oh yes. Right here, then left at the top. But … you accepted that?’
‘I loved him,’ she said simply. ‘That was enough for me. That was being true to my heart. I even let him call my daughter after you, although I drew the line at Henny.’ She glanced at my shocked face as we sat at the lights at Baker Street. She sighed. Went on in a slightly gentler tone. ‘Many people “settle” for a marriage, Henny, don’t you know that? Settle for a partner who’s not their ideal. We can’t always have what we want. But not many are as honest about it as Rupert.’
Or as cruel, I thought privately, my heart pounding.
‘Henrietta Tate,’ she said quietly as we moved off from the lights. ‘Sitting here beside me in this car.’ She shook her head in wonder. ‘Who’d have thought?’
I shifted uncomfortably.
‘I’ve lived in your shadow for fourteen years,’ she said, a slight smile playing on her face. ‘Lived with your ghost, and always wondered …well, if I’d ever meet you one day. What you’d be like.’
‘Nothing special,’ I muttered awkwardly.
She shrugged. ‘Special to Rupert. He never got over you.’
‘Or perhaps …’ I gazed into the lights of Oxford Street ahead. ‘Perhaps he never got over what he did to me. What it meant to be a man who leaves a girl shattered and distressed at the altar. What that made him. In his eyes. In other people’s eyes. In the Army’s eyes. Perhaps this is more about him, than me.’
She considered this. ‘Maybe.’
We cruised quietly down the wet black streets towards Piccadilly, each lost in our own thoughts. On a Sunday night the traffic was relatively light. At length, I cleared my throat.
‘If you go left down here it takes you to the back of Albany. You can park and walk round to the front.’
I glanced into the back seat. The children were quiet now, heads lolling back, eyes round and glazed as they stared out of their respective windows at the lights, their unfamiliar surroundings. Slightly different from the fields of Dundalk, I imagined.
‘Here will do,’ I said, indicating a space behind a lorry in a side street. She tucked the car in and switched off the engine. I turned to her.
‘Will you find your way now?’
‘I will, but I want you to do something for me.’
My heart jumped. ‘What?’
‘I want you to go on ahead and tell him we’re here. That we’re coming. I’ll wait in the car.’
My mouth dried as I looked at her. ‘Why?’
‘Because he hasn’t seen us for seven months. And I figure you’ve seen quite a lot of him lately.’
I held her eyes for a minute, then buckled and looked away.
‘I’m guessing,’ she went on quietly, ‘that you might have unfinished business here, too. I’m asking you to resolve it. Either take him, or leave him. But resolve it.’
I looked back at her. Swallowed. ‘And if I take him?’
‘Well, then I’ll know for sure. Finally. My story is resolved too.’ She gave a half-smile, a hint of a shrug. ‘And all is not lost. My children still have a surname; they still have a father. Rural Ireland we may be, but there are plenty of children of divorced parents. There’s no shame in that. Obviously I’d prefer it to be different, but I don’t have the whip-hand here. Never have had. You do.’ She paused. ‘It’s up to you, Henny, and let me tell you, I’m relieved. I’ve wanted this day for a long time. Looked forward to it. I’m glad I’ve met you.’
I regarded her in the driver’s seat, dimly lit from the street-lamps. Her hazel eyes were steady, clear. This was a strong woman. A resilient woman. A woman who’d done her best with the life she’d been offered. Who’d tried to mould it, shape it into something she could be proud of. I thought of her in her cottage in Dromiskin, prowling around downstairs when the children were asleep, wondering where he was, what he was doing. Wondering, more recently, if he was with me. Hoping in a way that he was. That she could have her day of reckoning.
‘I’m glad too.’
I got out of the car, and stood still for a moment, steadying myself. Then I walked quickly in the direction of Albany. It had stopped raining, and the air was damp and still. I went around the corner and turned into Piccadilly, my clicking heels contrasting sharply with the relaxed stance of a clutch of tourists peering at a poster outside the Royal Academy. I turned left into the forecourt, pushed through the main front door, then inside the lobby – stopped, and took a deep breath. I stared at the row of bells. Then I raised my hand, and rang Rupert’s.
Not That Kind of Girl Page 36