The Thing About Clare

by Imogen Clark

In her brave new post-drinking world she had masses more energy than she’d had when her body was constantly trying to filter out the toxins that she kept pouring in. An exercise regime? Clare Bliss worrying about her fitness levels? She rolled her eyes. Oh my God! She’d be having her nails done next! Her jeans were getting a bit tight, though. That’s what came of working in a bakery and consuming her calories in solid form. Life, it seemed, was just one denial after another.

  Clare did feel healthier, though. She liked this new leaf. It kept changing colour, getting brighter and brighter. As she packed bags of burger buns into boxes ready to go out she felt positively cheerful. She tried a little whistle to express her new status as a happy person but it came out shrill and tuneless and so she stopped. Maybe she could have a party? Nothing big, just the family. She’d never had the space before but now she had the flat. She could get some crisps and stuff, some pop for the kids, no alcohol of course but the others wouldn’t mind that, not for one night. They’d be driving, anyway. It would be great to do something nice for them for a change.

  Yes, she could have sausage rolls and maybe get some frozen party food to heat up. By the time her shift ended, Clare so was so full of ideas that she felt like she might actually float down the street. Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she pulled it out. Anna.

  ‘Hi. Listen, Anna, I’ve had a great idea. What about a party at mine . . .?’

  ‘You think that’s a good idea, do you?’ Anna’s tone was sharp but her words weren’t. Was she drunk? ‘Turn your back on us all and then invite us round for a little get-together on the proceeds. Great plan, Clare. Fucking brilliant.’

  She was drunk. Anna never used the F-word sober. Clare was immediately unbalanced, her good mood of moments before evaporated and her heart snapped back shut like a Venus flytrap.

  ‘Chill, will you, for God’s sake. It was just a thought. And you don’t have to come if you think it’s such a crap idea. I can have the fucking party without you.’

  Clare cut the call, her heart racing. Who did she think she was? Princess bloody Anna with her superiority complex and her ‘you’re a walking car crash’ attitude. Well, she could get lost. Clare didn’t need her. She didn’t need any of them. She’d spent her whole life doing things by herself, making her own decisions, and nothing was going to change that. They could go to hell, the lot of them. She’d move away, get a new flat, a better job. She’d show them, the sanctimonious bastards. This was the start of something fantastic for her.

  But even as these thoughts crossed her mind she knew it wasn’t true. Yes, she was holding things together for now, but she was hanging on by a thread. It had only taken the reading of that letter from StJohn bloody Downing to send her spiralling off course. Move away and start again. Who was she kidding?

  She let herself into the flat. Flyers for pizza delivery places and Indian takeaways sat on the floor. She would normally have just left them there but that was the old Clare. This new, improved Clare picked up junk mail and threw it away. She bent down and gathered them up. Underneath was a letter. It was in a white envelope so nothing from the state. It was addressed to her. In the top left-hand corner there was a logo in green lettering. ‘Lancaster Laboratories’ underlined with two spiralling lines that looked a lot like a rollercoaster track.

  Confused, she looked at the envelope again but there was no doubt what it was. This was obviously a letter from the DNA lab but why would they be writing to her? She hadn’t contacted them, let alone sent them a sample, so they wouldn’t even know who she was.

  It took her less than ten seconds to work it out. The lab had clearly tested someone’s DNA and if it wasn’t hers then that left only one person who could possibly prove a link between her and StJohn Downing. River.

  Fury grabbed hold of her and shook her. How dare he? How bloody dare he?! He knew she’d decided not to take the test. They had talked about it, she had explained how she felt, made it perfectly clear. And yet, despite all that, he had totally ignored her wishes and gone ahead anyway. Clare’s jaw tightened as she thought it through. He must have sent the sample in pretending it was hers. Maybe he’d even taken something from her. She thought of all those police dramas. A glass with her saliva on the rim, a hair stolen from her hairbrush. The little shit.

  But he couldn’t get the lab to reply to him. It was one thing providing the sample pretending to be her but another getting the actual results. It was her details that the solicitor had. The letter was always going to come here. So what was his plan? To sneak in when she was at work and pick it up without her knowing? But he couldn’t get his hands on the money. It was left to her, not him. So he must be planning to tell her what he’d done at some point. Maybe he was going to get the result and then present it to her as a fait accompli. No point not claiming the money now, Mum, when the test’s already done. Was that his plan?

  She’d fucking kill him. She’d throttle him and then chop his body up into little pieces and feed it to the street dogs. Clare took her shoe off and threw it at the wall and then threw the other after it. She screamed her frustration out into the stale air of her flat and it felt good so she did it again.

  But then she took the envelope and sat on the sofa staring at it. So now what? Suddenly, she could feel how thin the veneer of resolve that she had wrapped herself in really was. She could scratch it off with her fingernail and it would just be the old Clare underneath. Because despite it all, the flat and the job and the sobriety, she would never amount to anything. She had been a waster all her life and in this envelope was the reason why, the explanation, everything that they had all known but never said out loud. The thing about Clare was that she just didn’t belong.

  She dropped the envelope on the floor and wept.

  II

  She must have fallen asleep because when she woke up it was dark and the streetlight outside her window glowed orange though the glass. It took her a moment to remember that she hadn’t been drinking. She moved her head delicately but there was no pain or sickness. Yes, she was lying on the floor in her flat, but there were no bottles surrounding her.

  Then she remembered. The letter was still where she’d left it, unopened. With shaking hands she picked it up and with one decisive movement slit the top of the envelope with her finger. Then she pulled the letter out and opened it slowly. Her eyes ran up and down the words without taking anything in. Her breath wouldn’t come. It stuck in her throat as her heart pounded in her ears. She swallowed and tried to control her breathing, remembering the techniques that she’d learned in India all those decades ago. Then she forced her brain to concentrate on the words.

  We have now completed our calculation of the probability of paternity as requested. Based on an analysis of fifteen independent autosomal DNA factors Mr StJohn Downing has been excluded as the biological father of Ms Clare Bliss.

  She read the sentence again and then the full letter. The words swam round in her head and it took three readings before she was sure that she understood. StJohn Downing was not her father. That’s what it was saying, wasn’t it? Her father was her father and her siblings were her siblings and all the horrible confusion thrown up by StJohn Downing meant nothing.

  Clare took a moment to register what she was feeling but she couldn’t quite pin it down. What was it? Relief? Joy? Something altogether less straightforward? Yes, the situation was as they had always believed it to be but so many questions would have been answered if it she had had a different father, had originated from a different gene pool. It might have given her the excuse that she needed for the disaster that she had made of her life so far. She would have been able to say that she was so different, so much less successful than the others, because she had been dealt a different card. Maybe a part of her had been hoping for exactly that scenario?

  But that presupposed that Downing had passed on genes that had influenced her lifestyle choices, forced her to turn down the wrong alleys. Nature not nurture, was that what she was claiming? That none of the de
cisions that she had made had been her fault, that she had been genetically predestined to fuck everything up. Yet from everything Anna had told her, it sounded like this StJohn Downing was a perfectly decent bloke. Even if he had been her father, he wouldn’t have been responsible for the litany of mistakes that trailed after her. No. Sooner or later Clare was going to have to accept that the only person responsible for how things had worked out was her. She had screwed her life up all on her own.

  Clare heard a key being slid into the lock, the front door opening and then her son stood in the doorway, his shape silhouetted by the light in the hallway.

  ‘It’s negative,’ said Clare without introduction.

  ‘Shame,’ he said. ‘Worth a try, though, eh, Mother?’

  Then he turned and let himself out of the flat.

  She couldn’t blame him, not really. He was just looking out for himself, for them, in the only way he knew how. It wasn’t just herself that she’d damaged through her mistakes.

  Clare looked at the letter one more time, just to be sure. She should let them know. They would want to know, wouldn’t they? Then again, they didn’t know that River had sent the sample off. She could keep it to herself, another secret. But she knew she wouldn’t. She wanted to share it with them, her siblings. She rang Miriam’s number.

  ANNA – 2017

  I

  Anna drew a line in Mulberry Magic around her lips. She’d started to notice that if she didn’t use a lip liner the overall effect was less convincing. It didn’t seem fair but there were lots of things about getting older that she wasn’t keen on. This was just the latest in a long line.

  She stood back from the mirror and took in her appearance. Not bad, she supposed, for a woman the wrong side of fifty, and anyway, it would have to do. The taxi taking her to the restaurant would be here in a couple of minutes. It had been a while since the four of them had been out together without partners and children in tow. This particular evening had been Miriam’s idea. A celebration of their life so far and of bringing Clare back into the fold. Not that she’d left the fold for long. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Sebastian’s little outburst, nothing would really have changed and Clare didn’t even know about that.

  Miriam was already sitting at their table when Anna arrived. Of course she was. She just couldn’t help herself. Never late for anything, her self-imposed standard of excellence.

  ‘I’ve ordered some poppadums and a tray of pickles,’ she said as Anna sat down. ‘And a jug of mango lassi,’ she added with eyebrows raised.

  Anna would have sold a sibling for a beer to go with her curry but Miriam, as always, was right to avoid it.

  The other two arrived shortly afterwards. Was Sebastian looking slightly sheepish or was Anna imagining it? Clare definitely looked much better. Maybe this time she really would sort herself out. Anna wasn’t going to hold her breath, though.

  They ordered food, all declaring that lassi was exactly what they fancied and wasn’t Miriam clever for thinking of it. They chatted and bickered and argued their way through the meal like they were still teenagers. It didn’t matter how old they were. The dynamics between them were set into the very workings of the universe itself. Nothing would ever change that. It was solid, a certainty, a given.

  It wasn’t until they were scraping round the bowls with the remains of the chapattis that the subject of Clare’s paternity finally came up.

  ‘It wouldn’t have made a difference, you know,’ said Miriam as she wiped her mouth with her napkin.

  Sebastian busied himself with the remains of his rice and didn’t meet anyone’s eye. Anna held her breath. Not this. Not now, when everything was going so smoothly.

  Clare looked at Miriam and shook her head.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Miriam,’ she said. ‘You talk some shite. Of course it fucking would. I’d have been loaded for a start.’

  Miriam was about to reply when she saw the twinkle in Clare’s eye. That was the thing about Clare. You never knew what she’d do next.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The Thing About Clare began life as a short story and was then a stage play before it grew into a novel. Having four children of my own, I have always been fascinated by the relationships between siblings, especially as I only have a brother myself. The dynamics and loyalties amongst my four are constantly shifting and they often seem to be part of a secret gang that no one else can join. From time to time they fight, of course, but when the chips are down they forget their differences and all pull together against the common foe.

  Whilst researching for the book I read a surprising article which claimed that over seventy per cent of mothers would admit to having a favourite amongst their children. I really don’t think that I do but this made me wonder what it might feel like to know that you were the favourite child and how that would look to your siblings. This led me neatly into the nature versus nurture chestnut and before I knew it I had the makings of a novel. I must say, though, that the personalities of the Bliss children bear absolutely no resemblance to my actual children and that child number three is not my favourite!

  I would like to thank Victoria Pepe at Amazon Publishing for sharing my vision for the book so completely, and to Celine Kelly for helping me get there.

  READING GROUP QUESTIONS

  Do you think parents really do have favourites? If so, how might that affect the lives of the children as adults?

  Miriam has to give up on her dreams to support her family. Was it fair of Dorothy to expect her to do that?

  By asking for the letter to Clare to be destroyed, Dorothy is choosing to take her secret to her grave. Do you think that was the right thing to do?

  Sebastian responds differently from his sisters to the news about Clare’s paternity. Do you have any sympathy with his point of view?

  Anna chooses to keep her mother’s secret even though it causes trouble with her siblings. What would you have done?

  Questions of nature versus nurture crop up throughout the book. How much do you think our upbringing rather than our genes shapes who we become?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2017 Karen Ross Photography

  Imogen Clark lives in Yorkshire, England, with her husband and children. Her first burning ambition was to be a solicitor and so she read Law at Manchester University and then worked for many years at a commercial law firm. After leaving her legal career behind to care for her children, Imogen turned to her second love – books. She returned to university, studying part-time whilst the children were at school, and was awarded a BA in English Literature with First Class Honours. Imogen loves sunshine and travel and longs to live by the sea someday.