He got up and went to the buffet car. The sandwiches were the same boring choice that had been presented to him on the train down – maybe the same as on the train down from Glasgow to Leeds, the first stage of his search for his birth family. He chose the inevitable BLT and went back to his seat. Four people in his compartment were talking into their mobiles – conversations of the most indescribable banality which made one wonder what God’s purpose in creating language had been.
Back in his seat he collected and revised his thoughts: the journey from Glasgow to Leeds had not been the opening round in his search for his birth family. That had been his mother’s injunction a month or so after the specialist had delivered her death sentence. It had been on one of her bad days, and when she was lying there, her face grey against the pillow, her hand in his, she had suddenly said: ‘Your mother’s name and address – they’re in my address book.’
The words stayed with Kit for the rest of the months remaining to his mother, though he avoided subjecting her to an inquisition. Nightmare images presented themselves of having to check out all the women’s names in the book – the detritus of a busy and successful life as an art historian. Genevieve read his thoughts, and towards the end she said: ‘You’ll find it without any difficulty. It’s in Leeds.’
Actually, Kit had been toying all those months with the idea that he might do nothing with the information that Genevieve had presented to him – might throw the address book away unopened. But that, he thought, would require still more strength of mind than following up the book’s information: he would be committing himself to not knowing for the rest of his natural life.
He couldn’t do that. Well, he’d done all he could: located his real mother, his brothers and sister, maybe his real father too. But everything that he had found, every person from his first three years of life, told Kit about himself but left one greater mystery unsolved: why was he abducted, why was he given (sold?) to another British family? What, if any, was the connection with the Nazi persecution, then murder, of Central European Jewry?
He could not abandon the investigation where it was now. On the other hand he did not see its future progress coming from the Novello family of Pudsey, or his birth mother. The future seemed to be more with Jürgen, his adoptive – but to him always his real – father.
He gazed out at the scenery. It was flat – very flat, although it was not Norfolk. He didn’t like to think of himself as the product of a flat landscape. He preferred to remember himself and his father and mother walking and motoring in the Highlands. He wondered if Jürgen had had any early memories of Bavaria and the landscapes around Munich. Holidays were probably unknown in Jürgen’s early years. Holidays in the Lake District and Scotland had left Kit with happy, contented, sometimes exciting memories, and Leeds had not presented anything that illuminated his soul as the north of Scotland did – not to mention the holidays he and his parents had had in Norway and Switzerland.
Leeds, he realised, meant nothing to him.
It also, he suddenly decided as he was biting into the boring BLT sandwich, represented a false trail, or at any rate a trail that was a subsidiary part of the total mystery. And pursuing that part had led him away from the important things that really should be occupying his mind and heart. He wondered whether it was time to shuffle off Leeds and take his course in the direction of the central mystery of his early life. It would mean shuffling off some very ordinary characters: Micky, in thrall to a stronger but limited wife; Dan, an ego-mad, second-rate football player; a father who denied his paternity and whose main interest to Kit was his peculiarities.
And when he had shuffled them off, he would be taking on someone whom even now he could not quite visualise. Was he an enterprising, various, exciting figure? Or was he unadulterated evil?
His adoptive grandfather.
Kit brought into his mental gallery a double portrait: one of his birth father, one of his adoptive father. ‘Look, here on this picture and on this.’ His adoptive father, Jürgen, was surrounded by an atmosphere almost entirely warm and bright – gilded by the love he and Kit had borne one another, the vivid interest each felt in the other’s activities. The memories included theatre visits as well as children’s Meccas such as Disneyland; it included walks too, and boat trips once his parents had found he liked them – and Genevieve had come too, even though boat trips didn’t like her. The three of them did everything together if they could. And they talked about the special treats in advance, and often discussed their memories later.
And Jürgen was careful that, when Kit hit adolescence, he was left to himself as often as he liked, never forced into family activities that he was in the process of growing out of – or thought he was. If it was an upbringing that was well thought out, much premeditated, it was also spontaneous. ‘Let’s go and see’ would be the cry of one or other of his parents and they would go and thoroughly enjoy an unplanned treat.
But what could you say of the other picture – that of his oh-so-clever birth father? Kit had had no clues as to what he might expect, and if asked in advance he would probably have said that he and his father would have to build up a relationship slowly, because they were building from almost nothing.
What he would never have guessed was that he would be totally rejected: that his father would deny that he was his son, with a ridicule of all Kit’s claims that, if Kit were honest, was a response that had hurt him. His father was ironic, sarcastic, totally unmoved by emotion – at least where the conventional emotions were concerned; he was only interested in cutting down, undermining, exploding by ridicule. Kit felt for his father no more of the conventional affectionate impulses than his father felt for him.
Except that he wanted to understand him, because that could be the precondition of finding out what had happened to him, Kit, when he was three, and of understanding not just how, but why it had happened.
He wondered if a similar contrast could be drawn up if a portrait of Genevieve was placed beside a portrait of Isla. No, of course it couldn’t. He was becoming fond of Isla, he felt he understood her, even to her reluctance to join him in his investigation of his abduction. She was an alternative mother, where Frank Novello was never in a million years going to be an alternative father. But as the spire of Doncaster Parish Church came into view he suddenly asked himself a question: was he beginning to love Isla? And then another one: did he really understand her reluctance to take up again the matter of his abduction? Did she have something to hide?
He wished he could talk to his siblings without his mother being there. Can one ever be totally honest about one’s parents when they are present to hear? He was willing to bet that the presence of siblings would not inhibit the Novellos. But being with their mother – the only parent to make a big contribution to their lives – had stopped a great many things being said.
When he got off the train at Leeds he went straight to one of the station’s payphones, found out the number of Ada Micklejohn, then rang it. She was probably deep into one of her Barbara Cartlands but she answered immediately.
‘Kit! Oh, my handsome toy boy! I got terribly mixed up last time, didn’t I? Your mother and I had an awful time sorting it out. You want to see my collection again?’
‘Unlike Dan, I’m not handsome, and I’m nobody’s toy boy, not even yours. And I don’t for the moment want to see your collection, but I am going to ask a favour of you.’
‘Oh, men! They’re always asking for favours, never giving them!’
‘Is that a piece of Cartland wisdom? I will prove it wrong by devoting the rest of my life to finding the missing titles in your collection. I love second-hand booksellers, you see.’
‘You won’t find my missing titles there. They don’t even acknowledge them as books. So what is the favour you want?’
‘Could you ask Isla out in the next few days? It doesn’t matter what it is – dinner, theatre, concert, whatever, though it would be best if it’s something in the evening.’
&
nbsp; ‘And what is the purpose of this invitation? What is she being got out of the way for?’
Kit decided to confide in her.
‘I think my brothers and sister would speak much more openly and candidly about the Novello family if she was not there.’
‘Ah! So you want Isla out of the way so that the family can dish the dirt on her?’
‘Not at all. Though if you’d said Frank instead of Isla Novello you would have been nearer the truth.’
‘But Isla being there would not stop them dishing the dirt on Frank. Quite likely she would urge them on.’
‘Would she? I wonder. They were married for ten or fifteen years. They must have things in common that they’d rather people did not know about. Anyway, I think it’s worth a try.’
‘Well, I will do it. For you, my handsome Scottish beau, I will take her to The Merry Widow at the Grand. Such gorgeous melodies! You don’t get such melodies from Mr Webber, do you? I don’t get the same thrill from songs sung by lonely cats on the tiles. Anyway, regard it as done, my preux chevalier – regard her as out of the way, at least until about ten.’
Kit was received with an enthusiastic embrace by Isla, but she did not follow it up by any enquiries about what he had been doing. Isla’s thoughts were taken up with the birthday of her grandchild and what she would do for her birthday if she could, but of course she wouldn’t be allowed to because Pat would make all the decisions, and there wouldn’t be any fun in them at all. It was all done in a resigned voice, as if she had long ago had to accept that any contest between her and her daughter-in-law had been conceded to the younger and stronger party.
‘I see the ashes of a long struggle for the post of matriarch,’ said Kit.
‘No such thing,’ said Isla. ‘I wouldn’t deign to struggle. And the mother was bound to win, wasn’t she?’
‘I’m not so sure,’ said Kit. ‘I’ve seen some pretty shameless grandparents among Jürgen and Genevieve’s Scottish friends. They practically seduce the little ones.’
‘What a word to use! I love them all, but I wouldn’t fight over them.’
The next day, at breakfast, Isla said to Kit: ‘I’m going out with Ada on Thursday. The Merry Widow – not really my cup of tea. I’d prefer Gilbert and Sullivan. But she was very insistent. Can you get your own dinner?’
‘I think I can manage that. Or I can get someone to come out and eat with me.’
‘In Leeds? You don’t know anyone except family.’
Kit smiled and didn’t say that wasn’t true, or that family was precisely who he wanted to have dinner with. Later Isla went shopping and he phoned an Italian restaurant he’d passed that advertised a large and a small function room and booked the latter for Thursday evening. Then he rang round to Micky and Maria, getting their agreement to come to a meal, and in the case of Micky to contact Dan and pressure him and Wendy to come as well. Then he arranged a menu with La Cena Italiana and sat back thinking his morning had been well spent.
When Thursday came, the party assembled in the function room two by two, with a certain false jollity about them. Dan, of course, was last, but Wendy was suppressing all sorts of ambitious schemes and this made her much more approachable. The room was not particularly cosy but there was a welcoming smell. Since spouses had been invited there were seven in all and they drank Martinis and gin and tonics in a friendly enough fashion, apart of course from Dan, who continued expressing himself in grunts and mutterings with everyone except Kit, to whom he did not speak at all. Drink made Wendy vocal, and from one or two of her remarks Kit got the impression that Dan’s ambitions to be the next Wayne Rooney-style football superstar were not going well. Wendy also made it obvious that, if this was the case, she was up for grabs.
After minestrone and before stufato genovese, Kit looked around the table and banged on a glass with a spoon. He then spoke in his normal voice, friendly, inviting, but perhaps less than warm.
‘I’ve asked them to hold back the main course for ten minutes. There are a few things I wanted to say to you all. As you know, I’ve assured you that I am not interested in the family money—’
‘Oh yes, you’ve said it,’ said Dan. ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’
‘You can only see the money after Isla’s death,’ said Kit, ‘and I’m sure we all hope that’s a long way off. But I’ve asked myself, since it was not money I was after, what I did want. Why did I not only track down my birth mother’s identity, but also come down to identify myself to her, and meet you all? And I’m sure that the obvious answer is the right one: I wanted to have a family again – including people of my own age, something I’d never had in the past.’
‘I think everyone understands that,’ said Micky. ‘And I think we’ve welcomed you.’
‘You have, most of you. But there’s been the shadow of a barrier between us. Dan here exemplifies it most obviously. That barrier means there are some doubts: if I’m really who I claim to be; if I’m on the make, whoever I am; if the family actually wants a new member.’
‘I certainly do,’ said Maria.
‘Thank you. But the fact remains: because I wanted to find a family, I assumed I would be welcomed by people pleased to have been found. But why should I be? All you three children of Isla and Frank grew up as a family. You all knew there was one brother who had been taken from you. You knew that Isla grieved for him and always would do. But you could not grieve for someone you barely remembered, if at all. The family unit did not include me, and though relationships and interest would always be polite, they would never be close or passionate.’
‘Where exactly is this heading?’ asked Pat.
‘Fair point. The point I think is that I’m saying I was a fool to think I could fit into a family unit that had been complete for so long without me. I hope we see each other when I come down to see Isla, but I doubt I will ever be more than a “friend of the family”.’
‘If that,’ said Dan.
‘If that,’ Kit agreed. ‘Now, the other thing I want to say follows from that. If we are not going to be close in the future, I need to know from you now anything that may have a bearing on what happened in Sicily all those years ago. There may be things so trivial you haven’t thought to mention them, or it may be they didn’t seem to reflect well on us as a family. Either way, please tell me now, or in the next day or two while I’m still in Leeds. Let me add whatever information you have to my little store of clues and indications – things that may eventually lead somewhere or may not.’ They all looked at him, some with calculation in their eyes. ‘Agreed?’
They nodded.
‘When shall we talk about this?’ asked Micky.
‘At the end of the meal – ah, here’s the main course.’
It was much later, after spoons were being laid aside from the inevitable dolce, and while Dan was licking his with an enthusiasm that suggested dieting was never going to be part of his regimen, that Kit once again looked around the table and said: ‘Well?’
From her position at the other end of the table Maria raised a finger.
‘Just one thing – one tiny little thing. I was having a good old confab the other day with Pat’s Auntie Flora—’
‘You know her well?’
‘Ah … you probably don’t realise: Micky and Pat have been going together since primary school. Pat used to come round and help him with his homework. All our family do’s included members of her family and vice versa – so yes, I do know her well, and she’s the best gossip of all of us.’
‘Just what we need,’ said Kit.
‘And Auntie Flora said that Mother – Isla – was always desperately in love with Dad. It’s not the impression she likes to give now. She suggests – even if it’s only by tone of voice – that the marriage went very flat and was destroyed by the kidnapping, and that she’s now totally disillusioned with Dad, which may well be true. But she was always, when Flora came to know her, besotted with him, completely under his thumb, and not in any way discontented
with her lot. The sun shone out of his … you know. We children probably just accepted it as the natural order of things, but in fact that sort of subservience in marriage had been out of fashion for decades.’
‘I think I caught some of that,’ said Micky. ‘Being the eldest, I was a bit bewildered. Other kids’ parents were not like that – Pat’s weren’t for a start. In our household Frank was the big panjandrum whose every wish had to be obeyed and whose comfort was everybody’s first priority. I didn’t notice any major change at the time of the kidnap, but of course, the disappearance of one of us children was what was on our minds for months afterwards.’
‘Interesting,’ said Kit.
‘One additional piece of info,’ said Ivor Battersby, stretching his long legs under the dining table. ‘I was dining with the Rotary Club the other night, and I was placed next to a solicitor. The talk came round to my father in-law … Well, the fact is, I brought it round. This solicitor had known him well. Said that in his time Frank was a first-rate legal brain: cautious, reliable even when he was dealing with hot potatoes like the Glasgow gang wars, which he got into because of his Italian background. He agreed that there was no great change in him at the time of the abduction and divorce. He set himself up in a posh flat near St Paul’s Square, had a succession of girlfriends – not usually live-in ones, had a good life to all intents and purposes. The change came later.’
‘Micky could add something to that,’ said Pat.
If Micky could have thrown his wife glances that could kill, he would have done so. Instead he just swallowed.
A Stranger in the Family Page 15