Deception

by Marciano, Jane

  His voice was curt, almost as if he was insulted that the staff were leaving in droves. Yet at least he was talking, which was an encouraging sign, I thought.

  I said, “And Max’ll marry Anne Gagnier and he’ll start his new business, possibly with help from his obviously wealthy future in-laws. And Megan – well, truly I have no idea about Meg as I haven’t had the pleasure of speaking to her yet, even though I’m pretty sure she’s noticed that I’m here. Maybe she’ll deign to chat later, unless she’s also trying to avoid me, of course. That’s always a possibility. Anyway, the point is, I’m sure all of you have thought about what you’ll be doing once the sale goes through. I’m just sorry that no one thought well enough of me to have discussed it with me, too.”

  The look my father gave me was chilling and full of contempt. He said, “Don’t you realise just how pathetic you sound, Bailey? Like a small child, instead of a grown woman.”

  I had to bite my lip hard to stop myself from shouting at him. He was being so unjust. I simply didn’t understand it.

  I clenched my fists. “Oh, Dad. What happened to you? To us? I remember you as being a warm and loving father when I was a little girl. I know you loved me once, me and Jonti. I couldn’t have dreamed all that up, and I still hold dear all those memories and photographs of us together. I’ll always cherish them you know, no matter what you say. A child’s love for a parent doesn’t wither and die just because that parent goes away!” I hesitated, unsure if my next word would make him angrier than he seemed already. But I felt I needed to say them.

  I said, “I know you left us because my mother found out you’d been unfaithful to her. She made you leave, but I didn’t blame you, I’m sure my mother was very difficult to live with at times. But you know I never stopped loving you. Not even after you divorced mum and you married Gwen did I stop loving you. And I know you still loved and cared about us afterwards. Isn’t that true?”

  His jaw tightened. “You’ve got it all wrong.”

  “No, I haven’t. I can’t have. We were always special to you, even if you didn’t love mum anymore and can’t admit it.”

  Dad’s head was bowed, but I knew he was listening.

  Unsure what more I could say to him in order to get through, I simply stopped talking and waited for him to speak.

  And finally he did. And his voice was deep and full of anguish.

  “You’re wrong. About everything.”

  He looked at me then, and I’d never seen such pain on someone’s face before. It almost broke my heart.

  He said, “I never stopped loving your mother. She was the most beautiful, most exquisite woman I’d ever met. I love her still. I always will, I’m afraid. I didn’t want to leave, or get divorced. I never wanted to lose my family. But she broke me.”

  I held my breath.

  He said quietly, “Not even when I found out she was unfaithful to me could I stop loving her.”

  I think my heart must have stopped then, for I felt such a shooting pain under my ribs. I stared at him. I could barely see his features in the dim and flickering light.

  “That’s not possible,” I said tensely. “That can’t be right.”

  “Upset you, has it?”

  “She was sorry when you left. I remember her crying. I thought it was because she didn’t want you to go.”

  “She was the one who told me to get out.”

  “But she loved you!”

  He looked thoughtful. “Yes, maybe she really did love me once. At the beginning of our marriage, when it was just her and me. Before the children came along and ultimately ruined everything.”

  I stared at him in shock. His eyes had glazed over, and I wondered what he was thinking, what he was remembering. And then he seemed to come to himself again, and his expression changed. It grew cold and forbidding.

  He said, “Any love she once had for me soon stopped when she found someone who could give her what I never could.”

  Mystified, I said, “What are you talking about?”

  He lifted his head, and his gaze became almost challenging.

  He said, “We wanted children. Of course we wanted to start a family. She was desperate to have children. I was happy to oblige, it showed a maternal side of her I’d never seen before. But month after month passed, and she was having trouble falling pregnant. A friend recommended a gynaecologist specialising in fertility treatment. Unknown to me, they started seeing each other. And I don’t mean in the medical sense.”

  His lips twisted in a mockery of a smile.

  “I was often away travelling, and I admit I was often busy with my work. But I was never too busy for Lara. I always had time for my beautiful wife. But despite everything, cracks started appearing in our marriage. She started sniping at me, for no reason. When she finally fell pregnant, I was overjoyed and thought that she’d be happy again once she’d had the baby. Once you were born, I thought we should be content. That our life would go back to being good again. Not great, but good. I adored my gorgeous wife and my lovely little girl. Men envied me. I admit it felt good knowing that Lara belonged to me.”

  He paused, and I knew he was remembering the past, because he was looking straight through me.

  “Then, a few years later, just after Jonti was born, she told me she didn’t love me anymore and didn’t want to stay married to me. Just like that. She told me she wanted a divorce, and that our marriage was a lie and a sham. I couldn’t believe it. As I said, we’d had our troubles, all couples do, and she’d always been a tempestuous even wilful sort of woman, but that’s partly why I adored her. She was so exciting to be around. I never wanted to lose her, or give her up, I truly didn’t want that.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “Then she played her trump card and said she’d been seeing someone else. Been seeing him for years. She was quite open and unashamed about it. It almost seemed to be a relief to her to tell me.”

  A moth flew against the lantern, trying to get to the flame. I watched while it battered itself valiantly before giving up and flying away into the darkness, towards the sea. It seemed somehow rather symbolic of all that Dad was telling me.

  He went on, now speaking in a strange sing-song sort of voice. “Leaving her almost destroyed me. But short of killing her, what else could I do? I had to accept it. And I had my pride. So I agreed to give you all up and start a new life far away from her, from my beloved family. It was either do that or go totally mad.”

  I reached across the table, wanting to console him, but he ignored the gesture, and my hand fell back into my lap.

  I said uncertainly, “I honestly don’t know what to say, dad. She never really talked to us about it afterwards, so I always thought it was your fault.”

  His expression turned bitter. “Fault! Blame! You’d better wait until you hear the whole story, Bailey, before you start laying fault on one side or the other!”

  Rebuffed, and confused, I fell silent.He seemed to shrink even deeper into the chair, and the flickering candle threw weird shapes over the angular planes of his face. He carried on talking, and now the tone became dull and relentless, as if he was punishing himself as much as me by relating what had happened all those years ago.

  “I had business here in Jersey, and that’s how I met Gwen, a young widow. Her husband had been killed some years earlier. She came from a good family, and was kind and understanding. More than that, she needed a man around the place, and she wanted a husband. God, I so wanted to be needed again. And then, of course, she had two small children to bring up. Twins. And I knew all about having children and rearing them didn’t I?”

  There was something in his tone that made me catch my breath and shoot him an enquiring look, but he wasn’t even looking at me. He was staring up into space, as if the heavens above held all the answers.

  “So we got married. And, like before, in due course we started talking about having children. Why not? She was a ripe young woman, and I was more than willing to have more kids. What c
ould be more natural than for two people to raise a family to cement their marriage? So we tried. And the months passed. And still she didn’t conceive. So in all innocence, we both took ourselves off to doctors to get ourselves tested and checked out. I really only went along to oblige her, because of course I knew there was nothing wrong with me, didn’t I? Then the results came back. Nothing at all wrong with Gwen. She was as fertile as they come. No, the fault lay within me. I was shooting blanks. Turns out I was sterile, always had been, ever since I’d caught mumps as a boy. What did I know? I was a kid when I caught it. As a man I’d always felt strong and virile. Impotence had never been a problem, so why would I even have considered the possibility that I was infertile? It never occurred to me that I couldn’t father children… because I’d always assumed Lara’s children were mine, too.”

  I could feel his eyes on my face, as if he was waiting for me to speak, to react, but I said nothing, I was struck dumb. I couldn’t even move. A slow paralysis seemed to be creeping over me. I could hardly breathe. It was as if I’d been hit over the head with a shovel and was already lying in a ditch somewhere with my eyes open and my heart beating, but the rest of me frozen into a state of total immobility.

  He wheeled his chair around the table until he was seated right in front of me. Then he said harshly, as if it was necessary to emphasise the point, “Do you hear what I’m saying, Bailey? Do you understand? You’re not my daughter, and Jonti’s not my son!”

  His white face encompassed my whole vision and I reared back.

  Angrily I said, “I heard you, God dammit!”

  He nodded in satisfaction. The motor whirred again, and he wheeled away a foot or so, giving me space and time to process the news.

  I couldn’t look at my father. Except he wasn’t my father, he was just a man my mother had once married. An empty, bitter, unhappy shell of a man who still mourned his lost first love, and who had turned his bitterness at having been treated so unfairly by life against two entirely innocent children who’d only loved him as they ought.

  He was also a gutless coward. How different might I have turned out if I hadn’t spent all those years feeling rejected by the man who I’d thought was my father?

  How must my mother have felt when she was desperate to have children with him and been unable to through no fault of her own? And it was obvious she had wanted her own children very much, because apparently they had never discussed adoption, and she had never attempted to approach anyone about finding a sperm donor. So she had decided to have an affair to alleviate her distress. And had fallen pregnant.

  Maybe. Maybe that’s what had happened. I’d have to ask her outright to know the truth.What had Colin called her? Wilful? That sounded about right for my mother. Now a number of questions were eating away at me and turning the insides of my brain to mush. Had she had affairs with other men besides the gynaecologist?

  Worst possible scenario was that Jonti and I had different fathers. Would it really matter if we were simply half brother and sister? People had often remarked on the fact that I resembled my mother. Jonti had not looked like Colin in the slightest. He looked like Oliver Miller.So did that make our mother’s new husband our real father? Was that why he was so keen to be kind to me now? Because I was his daughter?

  Oh, Lord. This was becoming unbearable!

  I put my elbows on the table and rested my head between my hands. The pressure in my skull was increasing by the second. I thought I was going to burst my temples were pounding so much.

  Interrupting my reverie, Colin said, rather formally, “So, to get to the heart of the matter, you know you’re not entitled to anything after I’m gone, you do realise that now, don’t you? You’re not family, we’re not related. The hotel belongs entirely to Gwen, a condition of the legacy from her father and his father before him and so on and so forth.”

  I blinked, and tried to concentrate on this new direction the conversation was taking. Frankly, it was all getting a bit much. He leaned in closer almost as if he wanted to make sure I heard and absorbed every word.

  He went on, “Because I’ve made my Will, and I’ve named Meg and Max as my beneficiaries, along with their mother, of course. That goes without saying. She’s a saint, that woman. A bloody saint.” He paused, and then added in a rush, almost like an afterthought, “You probably aren’t aware of it, but I adopted the twins and officially became their father some years ago. It seemed the right thing to do at the time, given all the love and support I’ve had from them both over the years.”

  I couldn’t have been more stunned if he’d slapped me across the face. And for a moment I was too choked to speak. How can I be so completely misunderstood, I wondered? And then I thought: How could I have been so stupid?

  How else could he inflict hurt on his ex-wife except by getting back at her through me? By turning up like this out of the blue I’d conveniently placed myself in the firing line, and this was his method, his final revenge, on the woman who’d betrayed him and broken his heart. I was merely the pawn in this nasty little game of pay-back.

  Speaking very slowly and deliberately, I said, “It was never about money. I only ever wanted to be a part of your life again. I thought you understood that. Obviously I was as wrong as you are misguided.”

  He said with some satisfaction, “Now I see it! The outrage at having been deceived all these years. Well, now you can appreciate how I felt, first finding out my wife’s been cheating on me, then later finding out that I couldn’t father children. Can you understand how something like that puts a strain on a marriage?”

  Wearily I raised my head. “Of course I can’t…”

  I jumped as he suddenly thumped the table with his fist. The candle in the lantern jumped, and then carried on flickering. I don’t think anybody noticed. Everything carried on just as before, but for me, the sounds of the party, the laughter, the chattering conversations around us, the music, all the gaiety had receded into the background until I was almost unaware of any of it any more. All I could hear was the sound of Colin’s voice going on, and on, and on, as if he needed to pound it into my head.

  “You wanna know who your dad is, you should ask Lara.”

  “Yes.”

  “I guess it’s Miller. She actually had the gall once to tell me that she’s always been faithful to him. And once his sickly wife died, they were free to marry, so maybe she was telling the truth after all, if you can believe her that is.” He gave a sudden snort. “Your mother’s not exactly the type of woman you can trust, is she?”

  At that, I got angry. “Does it still matter so much to you, even after all these years?”

  His mouth suddenly turned down at the corners, making him look old and ugly.

  “It’s eating me up inside.”

  He stared up into the blackness of the sky. No moon that I could see, but millions of stars.

  He said, “I’m dying, you know.”

  I didn’t say anything, and he smiled wryly.

  “Did Gwen tell you not to say anything?”

  I shrugged, and said, “I’m not getting involved. You know, I used to think I was a pretty good judge of character, but it’s turned out I’m a walking disaster when it comes to avoiding crap because however hard I try I keep putting my foot in it.”

  I stood up and gazed down at the man in the wheelchair. He only looked up at me mutely.

  I said, “So before any more of the proverbial hits the fan, I’ve decided to leave you all to it.” I picked up my handbag. “I’ll leave after breakfast tomorrow, and I’ll be out of your hair for good. And you can rest assured I won’t bother you again.”

  “Do I have your word on that?”

  I smiled back politely. “Have a nice life, Colin. Enjoy it while you can.”

  I didn’t bother looking back.

  There are times when you’ve just got to let it go.

  Chapter 16

  I didn’t see anyone else from the family after I made my exit from the terrace.

&nb
sp; No surprise there then.

  Considering all that had just passed, it might’ve been better to have checked out of the hotel immediately, but it was impractical. Besides, it was late, I was tired and upset, and in no mood to start finding out about ordering taxis to the port, and worrying about timings and ferry reservations back to mainland Britain.

  It could all wait until the morning, I decided, as I stepped into an empty lift that took me up to the fourth floor. A good breakfast would see me on my way, and then I’d be out of there. Back to… well, I suppose I could go anywhere I wanted, but I knew I’d go back home. Back to London, and the people who knew me best and understood me.

  Too bushed to even fold my dress neatly, I slung my clothes in a heap on one of the tub chairs and climbed into bed. All in all, I slept surprisingly well that night, and awoke fairly late in the morning, feeling remarkably refreshed for one who’d spent the entire evening learning that her father wasn’t her father, and her mother was somewhat promiscuous with her favours.

  I was the solitary customer in the dining room as I ate a lonely cereal. Even the coffee was tepid. Presumably most of the visitors who’d arrived yesterday and who were at the party last night had departed earlier. Anne Gagnier was the only person I saw at the reception desk as I walked by, and she was at least civil as I said good morning. Seeing her once again in her official capacity I wondered if I ought to double check whether the family were going to ask me to pay for my stay. I wouldn’t have put it past them. And then I thought to myself, stuff it, if they want to charge me for two nights, they can damn well send me the bill. C/o Mrs Lara Miller, of course.

  I expected to receive the same kind of lukewarm send-off that I’d received on my arrival - God, was it only a couple of days ago that I’d stepped up hoping to begin a new life? It seemed I’d packed a lifetime of knowledge in just that short time. But I didn’t kid myself there’d be any goodbyes from the family, and when Anne informed me that the family were all out, that put the lid on it. But it was OK with me, too. I didn’t want to see them any more than they wished to see me.