Where the River Ends

by Jacqui Penn

  Simon switched back. ‘Yes, now go and have another ten minutes in the pool, then we’re going.’

  He should talk to Sophia, but how could he tell her how he felt when he didn’t understand himself. He’d thought he loved her so much, but now all he felt was confusion. How could he break her heart? He’d got his promotion and she didn’t want to go to Spain. If he had an ounce of decency, he’d turn it down, but he’d already accepted it.

  He had to keep his thoughts to himself and live the lie. Little Giorgia was so sweet. He wanted that burning love for her to rip through him, but the more he looked at her the more he knew it just wasn’t there. He must be losing the plot!

  Chapter 27

  Sophia chopped onions, making her eyes water. Giorgia needed feeding, but she needed to get dinner underway first. The doorbell rang. ‘Damn! Who’s that? Charlie, can you answer the door, please?’ She ran her hands under the tap and wiped them down her shirt before lifting Giorgia from her rocking chair.

  Charlie turned from the man at the door as she came up behind him. ‘He wants Sophia Wallace.’

  ‘Thanks, Charlie.’ She glanced at the suited man sporting a wide smile.

  ‘Hello there. I’m looking for Sophia Wallace or it might be Jacobs now.’

  ‘You’ve found her. What can I do for you?’

  He held out his hand. ‘Pleased to finally meet you.’ His shake was firm. ‘Robert Taylor-Swift. I’m a private investigator and represent Ballard and Butler solicitors. Is there somewhere we could talk?’

  Sophia felt a lump in her throat. She swallowed. ‘Yes, but what’s this to do with?’ She didn’t have any business with solicitors.

  ‘Do you think I could come in? It’s to do with your father.’

  She felt herself stiffen. ‘Oh… Yes, of course. Come in.’ Her heart raced as she led him into the kitchen. ‘Sorry, I was just getting dinner ready, but at least we’ll get some peace in here.’

  ‘That’s fine, shall we?’ He pointed to the table.

  She sat opposite him and waited while he pulled papers from a folder. He cleared his throat. ‘I believe you lost contact with your father some years ago?’

  ‘Many years.’

  He nodded and focused on her eyes. ‘I’m afraid your father passed away, nearly two years ago.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

  Sophia felt nothing for the loss of the man who’d abandoned her. ‘I hadn’t seen him since I was a child.’

  ‘He bequeathed you his house in Birchington.’

  The news hit her like a bullet. She drew a breath. ‘Oh! I wasn’t expecting that.’ All that time he’d still been in the same area as her.

  ‘If you’d like to phone the office and make an appointment.’ He pushed a business card across the table towards her, and then slid the rest of the papers back into his briefcase.

  She picked up the card and stared at the embossed writing for a moment. ‘Yes, I will. So he died two years ago?’

  ‘Next month, it will be two years. We’ve hit a few dead ends looking for you. Your date of birth and forenames came up when you applied for child benefit.’ He stood and held out his hand. ‘Thank you for your time.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She closed the front door and stood for a moment biting her lip. Georgia started wriggling. Sophia absentmindedly went back to the kitchen sat at the table and fed her daughter; her mind whirled from one thought to another. So he disappeared from her life, totally abandoned her, and then left her a house. She shook her head in disbelief.

  She waited until the children were asleep before she told Simon. ‘You must have been his next of kin. Maybe he didn’t stay with the second wife.’

  ‘It feels so weird. I never, well rarely, think about him, and now he’s all I can think about. I just hope I don’t have to wait weeks for an appointment. I don’t feel anything for him, is that awful?’

  ‘After what he did to you, no, not at all.’ Simon looked down and picked at a thread hanging out of the side of one of his shirt buttons. ‘Sophia, I’ve accepted that promotion.’

  Sophia stared at him. What was happening to her today? She screwed up her face in disbelief. ‘We haven’t even had a proper conversation about it.’

  He flinched. ‘Sorry. It was too good an opportunity to turn down. I really want this.’ He sounded like a right chauvinist and tried turning it around. ‘I’m sure you’ll love it, once we’re there.

  She could feel the anger welling inside. She had no right to be angry after what she’d done. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  ‘Sophia, we need to talk.’

  ‘What about?’ She headed for the door. ‘Sounds like all the decisions have been made already.’ She slammed the door behind her, feeling childish, then tutted as Giorgia cried out. What else could today throw at her? She needed it to be over.

  Raindrops covered the windscreen. The swishing of the wipers was somehow comforting, as she drove towards Birchington, Giorgia asleep in her car seat.

  Mr Kenneth Butler, her father’s solicitor, had been kind, but professional as he’d read her father’s last wishes to her. Sophia was his only family, and he regretted losing touch with her. The words tore into her. If he regretted it, why not do something about it when he was alive? It was cowardly. The loss of her sister, Kara, had been hard, and if he could take back what he did, he would. He was too ashamed to get in touch. He hoped she could find it in her heart to forgive him. Those words brought tears to her eyes; she tried to fight them back.

  There were papers to sign, and the house deeds would have to be officially changed into her name, but in the meantime, she’d been handed a few keys, on a shell keyring, and told the house was hers. Hanging from the fob was also an address label.

  As she took the turning off the carriageway for Birchington, she felt a surge of nervousness. The house might be derelict or have squatters. She saw a garage ahead and stopped for fuel. A middle-aged man filled the tank and gave her directions to the road she needed. ‘Turn right just before you get to the seafront,’ he’d said. She thanked him and headed off again. A house near the sea; she smiled to herself, feeling more hopeful.

  The houses in the street were old, quaint even. Various sizes and styles. She scoured for a number and suddenly spotted number thirty-four. A sudden excitement washed over her. Eighteen was only a few doors away. She muttered to herself as she saw the front garden of what must have been eighteen. Two foot high with weeds, which was going to make getting down the path with the pushchair a challenge. She parked and climbed out of the car. She could see a red front door with a bay window almost blocked by branches of a tree.

  ‘Come on then, Giorgia. Let’s go and see what we’ve inherited.’ She decided to carry the car seat, rather than try and get the pushchair along the path. She checked the address label once more to make sure she hadn’t got the wrong number. Pushing the key into the lock felt weird knowing her father would have done the same thing with the same key, many times before her.

  The door was stiff to open. She put the car seat on the ground and gave the door a shove, almost falling into the house when it opened. She picked up the still sleeping Giorgia and stepped into the hall. A musty smell hit her. The first thing she saw was a small wooden table, with a photograph of her and Kara, taken not long before Kara had died. A pain in her chest gripped her. She picked up the picture and stared into her sister’s eyes.

  She replaced the picture onto the dust-free line it had come from and continued with Giorgia into the house. She felt awkward like she was trespassing into someone else’s life, which when she gave it more thought that was exactly what she was doing, but with permission; that permission didn’t make it feel any less intrusive.

  The first door led into a lounge. Dustsheets covered all the furniture. She pulled at one, revealing a black leather sofa, the next a corner cabinet with more pictures of her and her sister. Those pictures must have haunted her dad, staring at him every day. An armchair and a coffee table were under m
ore dustsheets.

  At the back of the house was a kitchen-diner. She opened a couple of cupboard doors, taking in the china, glasses, tinned food and jars, and felt suddenly overwhelmed. She didn’t have a clue who this man, her father, was, and yet she knew he drank Yorkshire tea and liked ketchup, or at least used to. Giorgia woke and looked up at her. ‘We’ll get you fed and then go upstairs.’

  As Giorgia ate, Sophia took in more of the room. A picture of the river in Sandwich where Kara died. Not the exact spot, but definitely the river. It was like her father lived in the past and never got over what happened. She felt his pain. Her mind went back to that awful day as she tried to pull Kara free of the branch. The sirens, and her own screams as she tried to get help. She shuddered.

  It felt eerie as she climbed the stairs. She didn’t know how long her father had lived in this house. Had he lived here alone? What had happened to Kara’s mum, Jean? So many questions and no answers. She’d given him little thought over the years. He hadn’t earned the right to be missed after dumping her like he did. Now and again, when other people spoke of their mothers and fathers, she wished she could have known that love.

  She turned the handle on the first door she came to and pushed it open. She wished she hadn’t come alone, the silence was deafening. A small office. Books lined the shelves, another picture of Sophia and Kara, this time when they were much younger, on the wall next to a desk. A neat stack of paper, a glass jar housing pens, and a filing tray. She walked over and scoured the top sheet. A list of obscure names: Pennypot Princess, Hugh’s Scally, Willow… She shook her head. One day she’d go through the papers properly. Another picture of Sandwich on the wall to the right. This time the cobbled streets and quaint shops; there was the chandler’s she remembered well.

  The next door she opened was the bathroom. Clean, white, a flannel folded on the side of the sink, and a solitary towel hanging on the rail. ‘Shall we look in the next room?’ She should have left Giorgia downstairs, her arm ached with the sleeping child. It felt strange to leave her where she couldn’t see her in an unknown house.

  A familiar scent hit her as she pushed open the next door. An empty fragrance bottle lay on the floor, its lid a few inches away. She closed her eyes and took in the faint smell of Kouros, her father’s favourite. How strange to remember that all these years later. She laid Giorgia on the single bed and stopped to pick up the bottle, bringing it up to her nose. A small amount of the liquid had remained in the bottle. She replaced the lid and put the bottle on the dressing table. Her mother’s old dressing table, the one that had been in her bedroom at home. A comb, glasses, and a leather wallet lay on the table. She felt the smoothness of the wallet, and a flash of being close to her father flitted through her mind. Inside a wad of money, must have been a few hundred pounds. His driving licence. She stared at the picture of her father, years older, of course, but the same. Hair grey, wrinkles, but still her dad. Her chest heaved and tears filled her eyes, falling silently down her cheeks. ‘Oh, Dad! Why?’

  She pulled open the double wardrobe doors. They also looked familiar, but she couldn’t place them. His clothes hung neatly, the tops covered in a film of dust. Everything was so neat and tidy, so proper, nothing out of place apart from the Kouros bottle that had spilled. Stupid cow! She shook her head at her stupidity. Mr Butler had told her, her dad had a massive heart attack and he was found on the floor in his bedroom. He must have been getting ready to go out. A normal day. Where had he been off to? The bookies! Yes! How could she have forgotten? Those names were Greyhounds or horses. He always kept form records. The wad of cash—he must have been on a winning streak. She’d put the wallet back where it was; maybe she should take it with her. Was it hers? In the will he’d left everything to her; just possessions.

  The last room was bare, with only a single bed and a few boxes. He hadn’t ever lived here with Jean by the looks of it. Who had found him after the heart attack? Her eyes were drawn to the bay window. This must be the room above the lounge. The people from the house opposite were getting into their car; had they known her father? She’d like to talk to them; not today, it was all too raw, but in time, maybe. She picked Giorgia up and headed back downstairs.

  A glance at her watch told her it was nearing time to collect the boys from school. The door closed with a click and she made her way to her car with mixed feelings. A man she never knew, well, only as a young child, her father, gone forever, but he never got in touch. She’d always thought he hated her for what happened to Kara, but he didn’t. He’d kept her picture, he could have found her, and he could have left a forwarding address. The solicitors had looked for her for two years. Maybe he had tried or maybe he thought she wouldn’t want to know him after being abandoned. How different it could have been. She was sure Jean had forced him to take her to the children’s home. In his depression over Kara, he might not have had the strength to fight or did he really believe Sophia could have done more?

  All the questions she would never know the answer to. The only thing she could be sure of was that she would have rather had him in her life, no matter what he did. She clipped the car seat into place and looked at Giorgia for a moment. As she drove to the school, on autopilot, she had a surge of guilt for depriving Giorgia a relationship with her real father. Simon was good with her, but that’s where it stopped.

  Now she knew what she had to do. She felt hot and she could feel her heart thumping in her chest. She had to find Gio. He had to know he had a daughter and Giorgia needed to know her real father.

  Chapter 28

  Sophia had been back to the house a few times and not really accomplished much. The most she’d managed was three black sacks of her father’s clothing, which she’d delivered to a local charity shop. Each visit was a little easier to manage. She was now familiar with the house and had even ventured into the garden amidst weeds a few feet high. There were two trees, but little else salvageable.

  The move to Spain was drawing closer and she still hadn’t managed to locate Gio. She’d sent a letter to the base where he was stationed with the Airforce, but as yet hadn’t heard back. She’d used her father’s address for the correspondence. She felt confident that once she had told Gio about Giorgia, she would have the strength to tell Simon the truth. It had occurred to her that she’d inherited her father’s cowardice. She still didn’t know the outcome she expected or wanted. In her wildest dreams, she still had visions of herself, Giorgia and Gio living happily ever after, but that ending was for fairy tales.

  She wasn’t unhappy, she was just unsettled, and knew she’d feel better once the secret was out. She wasn’t sure what difference Gio knowing would make, and more than once she’d berated herself for using it as an excuse for putting off telling Simon the truth. Sometimes she hated herself for her infidelity, but other times she put it down to human error, but never once did she regret having Giorgia. Some days she thought it would be okay to carry on as they were, no one hurt, no tears. The next day her mind would flip around, and she knew she had to admit the truth and allow Giorgia to know her real father.

  They were only taking clothing and a few personal items to Spain. Simon’s firm had paid for a rented, fully furnished house for a year. The boys insisted the first thing they were going to do was jump in the pool.

  The furniture had been covered with dust sheets. Numerous bags of rubbish had gone to the tip, and several more to charity shops in an effort to leave a clutter-free house in case they decided to sell at some time in the future.

  Sophia had made little impact on her father’s house; it had stood neglected and empty for two years, so it didn’t seem important to get it sorted out anytime soon.

  She’d gone to the house the day before they were flying to Spain, hoping to have heard from Gio, but there was still no letter.

  Sleep evaded her that night, her mind flitted from one thing to another. She felt the tension as she turned from one position to the next, willing herself to sleep. Eventually, at three o’clo
ck, she gave in and went down to the kitchen. She filled a mug with milk and watched as it rotated in the microwave. The newspaper was on page five before she realised she hadn’t read or at least taken in one article.

  Her life didn’t feel like her own anymore. She hadn’t made any life plans and now she seemed to be drifting along in Simon’s dream. Anna had said she was mad not to be looking forward to such an adventure. To Sophia, there was no adventure. She didn’t care about the villa and swimming pool in Spain. Simon had Spanish phrases and quite a vocabulary under his belt now, but she hadn’t had the inclination to learn the language. She’d start when she got there. These days, she didn’t seem to be able to take anything in. Another mum she’d met at the clinic had said it was the same for her since she’d had her baby, but other mums didn’t have the added worries of living a lie like Sophia did. Her own fault and she needed to get a grip and tell the truth; she just couldn’t!

  Sophia went through the motions of breakfast, packing last minute items, and felt somewhat dazed as she glanced around for the last time before locking the door and hurrying towards the taxi where everyone else had been waiting for the last five minutes or so.

  ‘Here we go then. Off to our new life in Spain,’ Simon said as the driver put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb.

  Sophia spent most of the journey to the airport staring out of the window. Simon and the driver were chatting about Spain. The children had dozed back off to sleep and as dawn approached little lights begun to appear in the distance as people woke up, about to start a new day. How many were going to work, or getting their children ready for school as usual, like every other day of the week? She wanted that school rush. The packed lunches and trying to feed Giorgia while directing the boys where to look for lost football boots or helping with homework that hadn’t been completed the previous evening. She wanted that normal morning feeling. Nothing inspired her about moving to Spain. She felt like she’d left something behind that was really important. She glanced at Giorgia and stroked the sleeping child’s forehead.