by Imogen Clark
Then one day he bought a proper picnic – a blanket and some sandwiches, a pork pie and what have you. And a bottle of wine. I wasn’t used to drinking. With your dad never home and Miriam so small, I had got out of the habit and it was the middle of the day.
Anyway, the wine went straight to my head. I was as giggly as a schoolgirl. I never meant for it to happen. I don’t think he did either. It was just one of those moments and what with the drink and me being so low . . . But I loved Frank and I knew that I would never do anything else to hurt him so I told the man I couldn’t meet him again and tried to forget all about it. He understood that. He knew that I was in my marriage for keeps. I missed our chats, though, missed him.
When I found out I was expecting, I was beside myself. I had no way of knowing who the father was for sure and of course there was no one to talk to except the man. He was amazing when I told him, so kind when he could have been so cruel. But in the end, I knew there was a good chance that you were Frank’s baby so I just carried on as if nothing had happened. And I loved you, Clare, right from the start I loved you.
I wish I’d had the courage to talk to you face to face about this, to tell you myself, but as the years went on it just got harder and harder. You looked so much like Miriam that no one ever questioned it. Why would they? I was a perfectly respectable married woman. But then you started to kick back in a way that the others never did and I began to wonder whether there was something special about you, my darling girl.
None of this matters to me, Clare. You are my baby. You always will be. I couldn’t have loved you any more than I have. But I know that there are tests and things that you can do nowadays and I think you ought to have the choice to find out for yourself.
I didn’t see the man again after you were born. He moved abroad not long after that but he used to write to me occasionally, just to make sure that I was okay. His name was StJohn Downing.
My darling Clare, I love you more than you can ever imagine. You must never doubt how much you were wanted and treasured. But I can’t in all conscience go to my grave with this secret. I owe it to you to tell you the truth.
Your ever loving
Mum x
VII
Shit.
Anna sat with her mouth open and stared at the kitchen wall. Shit. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting when she opened the envelope but it wasn’t that. Her mum had had an affair. No, not an affair exactly. More like a one-afternoon stand. Her mum! Her Irish Catholic salt-of-the-earth mother had had sex with someone that wasn’t her husband. If Anna hadn’t read it in black and white in her mum’s handwriting herself then she’d never have believed it.
Really, though, that particular piece of tittle-tattle was just the aperitif, the warm-up act before the main event. The actual story was much, much worse. Clare might not be their full sister. Clare! Anna couldn’t take it in. The four of them were a gang, a gang that fought like cats and dogs, who could cheerfully have murdered one another at various points, but a gang nonetheless. It couldn’t be right that Clare wasn’t Dad’s daughter. She looked so much like Miriam. People used to mistake them for twins when they were young. They had obviously been swimming in the same gene pool. Hadn’t they?
But what if they hadn’t been? What if the shared looks were only half the story? Could Clare and Miriam look alike without them being full biological sisters? Cousins often looked similar, after all. Maybe there were differences between Clare and the rest of them but no one had noticed them because no one had been looking.
And, of course, there were some differences. Despite her appearance, Clare had never been quite the same as the rest of them. She had kicked against what they accepted. She had personality traits that none of them shared, a different set of values, an alternative moral code. Anna had always assumed that that was just how Clare had turned out, but what if it had more to do with nature than nurture? What if the more challenging aspects of what made Clare Clare were nothing to do with Frank and everything to do with StJohn?
Shit.
Anna knew at once that she had made a massive mistake in reading the letter. What was she supposed to do now that she knew the whole sorry story? This was definitely one of those moments where something that seemed like a great idea at the time went on to become a full-blown regret the instant it was too late to change it. Why hadn’t she listened to her mother? Her mother had made her promise to burn the letter so why hadn’t she? Anna knew exactly why. It was because, as usual, she thought she knew best. She was the favourite child and so it stood to reason that she could do no wrong. And now look. She’d unlocked the biggest Pandora’s Box that her family was ever going to face and all because she thought she knew better than her mother.
She felt sick. She read the letter through again, just in case she might have got the wrong end of the stick the first time. She hadn’t. The only doubt here related to exactly who Clare’s father was.
Slowly the panic started to subside and Anna began to think clearly again. There was only one thing for it. She would do what she was supposed to have done in the first place. She would destroy the letter like her mother had told her to do. And the will would have to go too so that there was no reference to the letter ever having existed. That wasn’t so hard. The others would just have to accept that their mother had gone to her grave without writing a will. They wouldn’t like it but what could they do? And Anna’s punishment for not doing as she was told would be to carry the secret all her life and never be able to tell anyone. All she had to do was burn the documents. And yet . . .
Anna turned this idea over in her mind. There were worse things, she supposed. People kept secrets all the time. Her mother had carried this one with her for fifty years, for goodness’ sake. Anna would do the same. The others need never know. And the chances were that Clare was Frank’s child anyway. Presumably her parents had been having sex more regularly than just once in a park. Anna deliberately chose to ignore what the letter said about Frank working away and Miriam being a difficult baby. Those factors would have had absolutely nothing to do with the chances of Frank being Clare’s father. Absolutely nothing. Shit. Shit. Shit.
VIII
When Anna had come up with her solution to the problem that she had accidentally created, it had seemed like a brilliant idea. She would visit StJohn Downing, have a look at him, see if he could possibly be Clare’s father, and then leave. How hard could it be? She had the excuse of her mother’s recent death. He’d sent them a note, after all, with his address helpfully included. It was a shame she’d already posted her reply but that couldn’t be helped. She’d go round and introduce herself, get the measure of him and then leave, and if he looked nothing like Clare she could stop feeling guilty, destroy the letter and get on with her life. It was a simple plan.
Now, as she stood on the street outside his bungalow, the plan felt less bulletproof. She was tempted to turn tail and drive home but then she’d have to live without ever knowing. She wasn’t sure she could do that either. After all, it was her insatiable curiosity that had got her into this mess in the first place. And anyway, how hard could it be? A brief conversation with an elderly man who was expecting her. She could manage that for the greater good, couldn’t she?
StJohn Downing’s bungalow was small and neat. It was surrounded on all sides by a garden which, on first impression, looked just like any other, but which on closer examination was filled with unusual and exotic plants. The hedge that separated it from the next house along was bamboo and there were tall structural shrubs in the borders that Anna didn’t recognise. There was no grass either, just paving and waves of gravel raked into curling patterns. No grandchildren, then, thought Anna as she imagined what destruction her nieces and nephews would wreak on such regulated order. The front door was a dark, bold red with the house number painted on to it in an Asian-style font. If it weren’t for the fact that she had the address written clearly on a piece of paper in her hand, Anna would have thought that she had come t
o the wrong place. It really didn’t look like the kind of house where a man in his eighties would live.
She walked up the drive, stood on the doorstep and rang the bell before she had the chance to change her mind again. Moments later StJohn Downing opened it. He was very old, that much was obvious from his face. His wrinkles reminded her of the concentric circles in the gravel, cutting deep and even furrows across his face. His hair still grew strong and white with no sign of receding but his eyes were hooded and very dark. If Clare’s genes were in there, then they were buried pretty deep. He was also in a wheelchair, which Anna hadn’t expected. It wasn’t your run-of the-mill standard-issue kind of chair: more lightweight, state of the art, expensive.
‘Good morning,’ he said. His voice was still strong despite his appearance and had a hint of a local accent. ‘Do come in, Anna.’
He reversed the wheelchair skilfully to allow Anna to step inside and then indicated a room on the right.
‘Please. Go through.’
Anna did as she was told and found herself in a light and airy sitting room which was full of green, healthy-looking plants. It looked like something you’d see in a magazine, very minimally furnished with grey cord chairs and a pale wooden floor. On the walls were some block prints and line drawings of long women in elegant kimonos. She was getting the Japanese vibe loud and clear.
‘Sit down, please, Anna. May I call you Anna?’ he asked politely.
‘Er, yes. That’s fine.’ She was never quite sure about the alternative. Miss Bliss? Honestly!
‘Can I get you a drink? Tea, perhaps? Coffee? Something cold?’
Given the decor, Anna wondered whether the tea might come with a ceremony attached. She fancied coffee but she was curious. Again.
‘Tea would be great,’ she said. ‘Do you need any help?’ she added awkwardly and then instantly regretted it. This was his house. He could presumably make drinks without too many problems.
‘I think I’ll be fine,’ he said, and the chair hummed away to the kitchen.
Anna was perching right on the edge of the seat. She pushed herself back into it and tried to look relaxed and confident, neither of which she was feeling. The house was gorgeous, not at all what she had been expecting. She looked for signs that there might be someone else living here but there were so few things out on display that it was difficult to find any clues at all.
She could hear the kettle being boiled in the kitchen, cupboards opening and closing.
‘Your house is lovely,’ she shouted through. ‘Have you lived here long?’
‘No. Not so very long. I did some travelling in my younger days but when my lifestyle had to change, I decided to settle down and I came back here. I’m not sure why, other than one tends to be drawn to one’s roots, doesn’t one? Especially when you get to be as old as I am.’
He appeared at the door with a tray resting on his lap. Anna half-stood with a view to relieving him of it but he had got to the table and set the tray down on it before she had the chance to move.
‘Are you from round here originally, then?’ she asked.
‘Questions so soon and I haven’t even poured the tea,’ he said. ‘It’s green – sencha. I hope that’s to your taste.’
Anna preferred builders’ with plenty of milk but she nodded as if sencha, whatever that might be, was her absolute favourite.
StJohn poured the tea into white bone china bowls and then wheeled across and gave one to her without a drop being spilt. She wasn’t sure that she had as much control. Her hands were shaking madly. She concentrated hard on not slopping into the saucer. He then went back to his spot by the table and turned the wheelchair round to face her.
‘So, you’re Anna,’ he said, and looked at her as if he were examining every detail of her face. ‘Dorothy’s girl.’
‘Yes. That’s right. Dorothy’s third girl, actually,’ she added. And possibly Frank’s third too, she thought, although that particular fact was rather up in the air at the moment.
Anna had sort of planned out what she wanted to say but now that she was here, she found herself suddenly and inexplicably shy. This wasn’t like her. She could generally hold her own in conversation but then this wasn’t a general kind of conversation. And he was so closed, giving nothing away. Did he have an idea what she was here for? Probably, but there was no way Anna was going down that particular avenue. She just had to stick to the plan, scan his face for any traces of Clare and then forget all about him.
‘Thank you so much for your letter,’ said Anna, her voice gushing out over-loudly in the peaceful room, her words tripping over one another. ‘It was very kind of you to write. We all appreciated it a lot.’
‘I was so sad to hear that your mother had passed away. She was a fine woman and I was most fond of her. You must all be very upset about her loss.’
‘We are,’ said Anna, feeling her throat thickening a little. ‘But it wasn’t a surprise. She’d had a stroke, which meant that she couldn’t look after herself, so by the end it was almost a blessing.’ Anna’s conversation with the old woman in Oak’s Reach flew through her mind. ‘I mean, a blessing for her. Not us,’ she added, flustered now. ‘Obviously, we were all devastated.’
‘Obviously,’ said StJohn. There was something about the way he spoke that Anna found disconcerting. He made her feel young and foolish, like a senior and not very tolerant don at university.
‘And your father?’ he continued.
‘He died a while before. Cancer. It was very quick. Mum had been on her own for a few years.’ Anna thought she could hear an accusation in her voice which surprised her. What was she trying to say? If you thought so much of her then where were you when she was left all alone? But if StJohn noticed it, he didn’t react.
Anna took a sip of her tea to fill the awkward silence. Green tea really wasn’t her thing. It was so thin but she had to get to the bottom of the cup out of politeness if nothing else. She seemed to be perching on the front of her chair again. She tried to shuffle back without spilling the tea. There was no table nearby where she could put it down. She had another sip. She seemed to have lost all ability to speak. God, what was happening to her?
Eventually, StJohn filled the silence.
‘And you have three siblings, is that right?’
Grateful to be on familiar territory, Anna perked up.
‘Yes. Miriam is the eldest. She’s an English teacher. Then Clare.’ Years of having to explain away Clare meant that Anna had fine-tuned her replies to almost nothing. ‘Then me. I’m single. No kids. And then Sebastian. He has two little boys. They’re a handful. All doing well,’ she added as if she were having to justify their lives to this total stranger. It was only a little lie.
StJohn nodded his head and then took some tea, giving Anna the chance to snatch a closer look at him. She searched his face for anything that might give her a clue but found nothing obvious. Maybe something around the eyes, the mouth? It was so hard to tell. With a face as old as his, all clues were buried deeper than a cursory look could dig. As if conscious that he was being examined, he lifted his eyes from his teacup and looked straight at her.
‘And why are you really here, Anna?’ he asked.
Wow. She hadn’t seen that coming. She could feel a blush rising up her neck. It was all she could do to stop herself squirming in her seat or wrapping her legs one around the other. His question was so direct, so knowing. She took a deep breath.
‘Well,’ she began slowly. ‘I wanted to say thank you, obviously, for your letter. From all of us, I mean. It’s very kind of you to write and everything. And also . . .’ She paused. To see whether you could be the father of my wayward sister. She didn’t say this last part out loud.
He looked at her expectantly but didn’t prompt her.
‘And,’ she continued, ‘if I’m totally honest, I suppose I was curious. I mean, there aren’t so many of Mum’s friends still alive and those that are I’ve either known all my life or at least know where she pic
ked them up from. You were a bit of a mystery. Your letter arrived out of the blue and it made me wonder, that’s all.’ Whilst she had been talking, her eyes had been flitting around the room, but now that she was quiet she focused on his face, but there was nothing to read, or at least nothing that she could see. His dark eyes remained fixed on her.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I see.’
That was it. Nothing else. Anna didn’t speak, giving him a gap in which to give her more details, but nothing came. He just continued to look at her. If it weren’t for his behaviour thus far she might be tempted to think that he was losing his marbles but actually it was all too apparent that StJohn Downing was entirely in control of his faculties. Was he really going to give her nothing?
‘Have you read your mother’s letter?’ he then asked, his directness making her start. ‘The one she wrote to Clare about me?’
His gaze didn’t falter. Anna felt like he had opened up her skull and was staring straight into her brain, watching it work, knowing all her most private thoughts. It was very disconcerting. There would be no beating about the bush, which Anna liked, but she still felt slightly wrong-footed by his question. Yet wasn’t this exactly what she had come here to find out about? In an instant she decided to just follow his lead and see where he took her.
‘Yes,’ she answered simply.
‘And Clare?’ he asked.