Familiar Rooms in Darkness

by Caro Fraser

  ‘I’m her only daughter! If I had had a daughter and given her away, I’d spend my whole life hoping she’d find me!’ Adam felt for Bella as she struggled to bridge the gap between her expectations and the reality which lay within this cramped little front room, filled with the mementos of a life unshared by her, unknown to her. She stared uncomprehendingly at the stranger who sat opposite her.

  A sound from outside made Derek look up. He went to the window. ‘Christ, that’s Mum now.’

  For some reason, Adam and Bella got to their feet as well. From where he stood, Adam could see two old women alighting from a Dial-A-Ride bus, one slightly stooped and the other more erect, a protective arm around her companion.

  There was the sound of a key in the front door. ‘Coo-ee! Derek! We’re back!’

  Derek went out into the hallway. Coats were being taken off, bags put down. Adam glanced at Bella. Her face looked stricken, pale. She met Adam’s eye.

  ‘I have to see her. I just have to.’

  Given the geography of the house, Adam didn’t see how an encounter between Bella and Mrs Kinley could be avoided. Even so, as Bella stepped towards the hall, he couldn’t help putting out a hand, as if to stop her, or protect her. The gesture got no more than halfway; he let his arm drop to his side. He watched from the doorway. The woman who was evidently Lil, Mrs Kinley’s friend, glanced at Bella and Adam.

  ‘Oh, I never saw you had visitors, Derek.’ Lil looked brightly and expectantly from face to face. Mrs Kinley’s stooped figure turned slowly, with difficulty, to face Adam and Bella. She was of slight build, like Bella, sweet-faced with confusion and age. Adam wondered what Bella had been expecting, whether she saw something, someone there that he did not. Bella’s mother might have been any other little old lady, dressed in a dingy blue raincoat, with her ragged halo of permed white hair, her bemused expression. It was impossible to tell, from the drooped and pouched features, whether she had ever looked anything like Bella.

  Derek gave Bella a rapid, unfathomable glance, and said to his mother, ‘Just someone come about their car.’

  ‘About their car?’ Mrs Kinley’s voice was high, a little lost. She looked at Bella. ‘I thought I knew you. You look like Beryl, that used to work down the rope factory. Doesn’t she look like Beryl, Lil?’

  Lil gave Bella a smile. ‘She does rather. Come on now, Doreen, let’s get you a nice cup of tea.’ Lil steered Bella’s mother towards the kitchen.

  Derek knew the moment was Bella’s. He said nothing, did nothing. But Bella, with eyes that seemed to Adam to be filled with either longing or hopelessness, made no move towards the slight figure shuffling in the direction of the kitchen. Lil and Mrs Kinley went into the kitchen, and the door closed.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt her.’ She shook her head, looked at Derek. ‘I didn’t come here to hurt anyone.’

  He nodded. ‘I know.’ In an awkward gesture, an attempt to recognize what they were to one another, he touched Bella’s shoulder. ‘What I said back there – I can’t stop you if you want to tell her. It’s up to you. I mean, like, you’ve every right, as such. I just think – maybe not today. Today’s not a good day.’ It was unspoken – no day would be a good day.

  ‘No,’ said Bella. ‘Maybe not. I wouldn’t like to upset her. I think it would, wouldn’t it?’

  Derek said nothing. From the kitchen the murmuring sound of voices, the opening and closing of a cupboard and the rattle of teacups seemed to suggest a closed world, one in which Bella could only be an intruder.

  At last she said, ‘I’d like to know what she was like when she was younger. And my father. Do you have any photographs?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Derek. He looked a little surprised, like someone just woken up. ‘I’d have to look them out, like.’ He paused, raised his eyebrows and sighed in a manner that reminded Adam again of Charlie. ‘This has all been a bit weird. I don’t want you to think–’ He stopped. ‘Like I said, I’ll have to look them out. Maybe I could send them to you.’

  Bella already had her address and telephone number written out on a piece of paper. She took it from her bag and gave it to Derek. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset things by coming here.’ Derek shook his head, yet another in a long line of gestures that seemed to mean something else entirely. ‘I suppose I hadn’t really worked out in my head how – well, how much of a shock it would be. I’ve been thinking about nothing else for weeks, you see. But for you, it’s straight out of the blue…’ She paused. ‘Are you sorry I came?’

  Derek gave this some thought. ‘I dunno.’ His expression was frank, apologetic. ‘No, I reckon not. I mean, a sister, and that…’

  ‘And another brother.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Derek glanced at the piece of paper. Then he looked up at Bella. ‘I just need time to get things straightened out in my head.’

  Bella and Adam walked down the street to the car. Bella unlocked it, took her sunglasses from her bag, and got in. Adam got in next to her. They sat in silence for a few seconds.

  ‘I thought it would be quite different,’ said Bella at last. ‘I don’t know what I thought it would be… Just different.’ Her voice sounded frail, detached. Adam suspected this wasn’t a good defence, as defences went.

  ‘Take off your sunglasses,’ he said.

  She took them off and let the first tears trickle down her cheeks. Adam tugged a wad of tissues from the box in the glove compartment.

  When Bella had eventually finished crying, she wiped her nose. ‘Thirty-five minutes. Just thirty-five minutes. I can’t believe it was so much, and so little.’ She sniffed. ‘He looked a lot like Charlie. Didn’t he look like him?’

  Adam nodded, uncertain what to say. Already he could sense her building connections, trying to establish links between the mystery of Derek and the long-established actuality of Charlie. Brothers. Hope was regenerating. She desperately wanted to put behind her any sense of anti-climax.

  ‘What do you think will happen now?’ she asked, as though she genuinely thought Adam knew the answer.

  ‘Wait and see what happens.’

  ‘I wish now I’d said something. To her.’

  ‘Doreen.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Maybe Derek had a point.’

  She put her hands over her face, a childish, blind gesture. ‘I don’t want to hear that.’

  ‘No, I know,’ said Adam. ‘Come on, let’s get going.’

  When Bella dropped Adam off in Baron’s Court, he asked, ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘Of course.’ She nodded. ‘I’m glad I’ve done this much. At least I’ve stopped shaking now. I was so cowardly, though… I should have spoken to her, said something. She is my mother, after all.’

  ‘There wasn’t much you could do. In the circumstances.’

  ‘Do you know what was the worst thing? I looked at her and felt so little. So little. I thought there would be some kind of… recognition. Some – some – oh, shit, I don’t know. Empathy? Perhaps Derek was right. Perhaps it would be better for her, easier for her, if she was never to know me… Anyway, so much for my fantasy. Nothing like that Mike Leigh film at all, no tears and laughter.’

  ‘That’s a lot to expect. You didn’t even know if your family would still be living there.’

  She shrugged. ‘I’m allowed my fantasies. I just didn’t expect – well, strangers.’

  ‘Derek?’

  ‘I don’t know… I think he was glad when I left. I don’t think he’d care if I never went near them again.’ She nodded. ‘That’s the honest truth.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure about that. You’re very different people. You’ve had very different upbringings. You can’t expect to connect just like that.’

  ‘Don’t give me that class thing. That’s bollocks. If he’s my brother, he’s my brother. I don’t care about that.’ She chewed a nail reflectively. ‘Charlie will. Charlie won’t like having a brother who’s a car mechanic and probable Millwall supporter.’

  ‘When are yo
u going to tell him?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s at Claire’s parents’ place for the weekend. He probably won’t want to know, anyway. Charlie’s way of dealing with it is to pretend nothing’s happened.’

  Adam opened the car door. ‘Let me know if you need me.’

  Because he sounded as though he meant it, Bella paused, one hand on the ignition key. Why couldn’t she just tell him that the thing with Bruce was a sham, that she had never felt so lonely and uncertain in her life, and ask him to make everything all right? She knew why. He couldn’t give her what she wanted. He had someone else. He was just being kind. And kindness wasn’t enough. No, let him carry on thinking she was in love, whatever, with Bruce. It was probably the safest thing.

  ‘Thanks. And thanks for coming with me today. It meant a lot.’

  Adam stood on the pavement and watched her drive away. When this episode was over, the biography concluded, he would have no real reason to see her any more. In theory, that was a good thing. In theory.

  8

  The next morning, Bella woke around eleven and lay in bed, thinking about yesterday’s events in Deptford. Apart from finding out that her brother was a car mechanic, and that her birth mother was gently losing life’s plot, the only real discovery she had made was that she hadn’t been wanted – not then, not now. She could see now that her arrival, plummeting into their lives like someone in emotional free-fall, had not been welcome, not from Derek’s point of view. He seemed like a decent bloke – not a fool, by any means. Was she right in thinking that he would have wished her out of existence, if he could? Well, that was something he and Charlie shared, that narrow focus. That hope that things would go away, if you just let them alone.

  Was she going to let it alone? If that was what the Kinleys wanted, maybe she should just fade quietly away. She found herself weeping again, inevitably, miserably. Everything she did, every step she took in an attempt to make everything clearer, only left her more confused. She found herself wanting very much to talk to her mother, to Cecile. It was a genuine need, one she would be stupid to ignore.

  Bella lay until her tears were finished, then got up, showered, and rang her mother to arrange lunch early in the week. Then she left a message on Charlie’s answer-phone, asking him to come round that evening for a drink some time after eight. The realization that Cecile and Charlie were the two people she most urgently wanted to talk to gave her pause. This was reality, this was family – why cast around trying to piece together non-existent relationships with people who had put her out of their lives long ago? Yet she couldn’t help hoping that Derek would be as good as his word, that he would be in touch.

  When Charlie arrived that evening, he poured himself a very large Scotch and slumped into an armchair.

  ‘How was the weekend?’ asked Bella.

  ‘Endless. Non-stop stuff about the wedding.’

  ‘It is your wedding too, you know.’

  ‘Oh, really? I get the feeling I’m playing something of a minor role, compared to Claire and her family. Jesus, they went on and on about seating plans, asking my opinion about people I’ve never even met, whether Florence should sit at the same table as her ex-husband…’ Charlie took a large swallow of his drink. ‘Claire’s mother even had the cheek to ask me to make sure my best man didn’t touch on certain topics, because there are sensitive areas with some of the bloody relatives.’

  Bella giggled. ‘Such as?’

  ‘No gay jokes, no Muslim jokes, no Irish jokes… As though that were likely.’ Charlie knocked back the remains of his Scotch. ‘Mind if I have another?’

  ‘Help yourself.’ Bella was putting little wads of cotton wool carefully between her toes in preparation for painting her toenails.

  ‘So, what kind of a weekend have you had?’

  Bella said nothing for several seconds. She picked up the bottle of nail varnish, about to unscrew it. Then she stopped suddenly, set it down, and clasped her hands between her knees.

  ‘I went to the address in Deptford.’

  Charlie sat down with his second drink, a knot of apprehension forming in his stomach. Bella watched his face closely as she went on.

  ‘I met someone called Derek Kinley, who’s our brother. And I saw, but didn’t actually speak to, our mother.’

  She watched Charlie swallow some of his whisky.

  ‘You’re saying nothing. Aren’t you curious?’

  Charlie turned his gaze to hers, his face expressionless. ‘What was he like?’

  ‘You. Tall, blond, well-built. He’s sort of–’ she reflected, ‘heavy. No, not in the way that sounds. Ponderous.’

  ‘What does he do?’

  ‘He runs a car-repair business from a yard at the back of his house.’ Bella picked up the bottle of nail varnish. ‘You haven’t asked about our mother.’

  ‘I know who my mother is.’ Charlie spoke with finality, the voice of someone who didn’t care to hear any more.

  ‘Her name is Doreen. She’s seventy. She looked at me and hadn’t a clue who I was. Derek didn’t want me to tell her. So I didn’t.’ Bella unscrewed the cap slowly. Her expression grew strained, sad. ‘Anyway, the situation was so odd that I don’t think I could have.’

  Silence, pregnant with conjecture, with unasked questions, lengthened. Bella painted her toenails, one by one, as Charlie watched.

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘I have no idea. I asked Derek to send me some family photographs. Of our father and mother, of everyone.’

  ‘I wish you’d stop calling them that. It’s unreal. I don’t know what you’re trying to create here.’

  ‘It doesn’t help to ignore it, Charlie. The past isn’t just going to run away because you want it to.’

  ‘Yes, well, if you’d left it alone, it wouldn’t be troubling me. That fuckwit Downing is to blame.’

  ‘No, he’s not. Harry and Cecile are, if anyone is.’

  ‘Fine, fine. I’m having trouble enough dealing with – with a load of things at the moment. I don’t want you adding to it by dredging up some run-down bunch in south-east London and expecting me to make a connection with them.’

  ‘Don’t you know how strange that sounds? How else are you going to sort it out in your mind if you don’t get to know your real family?’

  ‘Because it’s not going to help! I just know it’s not! So what if I go to Deptford and meet this woman and say, “Hi, I’m the son you gave away, can we talk about it?”’

  ‘Don’t cry.’

  ‘I’m not! I’m – I’m just saying I wish you hadn’t done this. It’s helped no one…’

  ‘You probably wouldn’t get very far talking to her, anyway. Derek thinks she’s suffering from early Alzheimer’s. She’s a bit wandered.’

  It took a few seconds for Charlie to steady his voice. ‘Well, fine. I don’t want to go anywhere near this, frankly. I’ve decided I have to try to accept who I am, as I am, by reference to all the things I’ve ever known and the people who brought me up, and that’s the end of it. Nothing else is going to help me.’

  ‘You keep talking about help.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘You’ve said the word a few times. It must mean something.’

  ‘Don’t do your analytical number on me, Bell. Stick to your own agenda. I want nothing to do with this.’

  ‘If Derek sends me photographs, you’ll want to see them. You wouldn’t be human otherwise.’

  ‘You don’t get it, do you? I don’t care! I mean, this person Derek – is he supposed suddenly to mean more to me than, say, a friend like Toby, or Colin, people I’ve known for years? Is he in any way important to me?’

  ‘Maybe you would be important to him. He lost something too, you know.’

  One by one, Bella pulled the little plugs of cotton wool from between her toes. She brushed away slight tears with the back of her hand. Charlie, sipping his second Scotch, noticed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Bell,’ he said gently. ‘I’m sorry if I can’t fe
el about this the way you do. Maybe it’s some form of self-protection.’

  ‘Cowardice.’

  ‘Very possibly. There is only so much I can handle, you know.’

  ‘Oh, leave it. Just leave it. We’ll talk about something else. Anything else. I don’t care.’

  After a short silence, Charlie said, ‘OK.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Let’s talk about the house in France. Claire and I are serious about buying this place in Sussex. We need the money.’

  Bella screwed the cap on the nail-polish bottle. ‘Then there’s not a lot I can do, is there? You’re effectively forcing my hand. I haven’t got the money to buy you out.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Bell. Look at it from the other perspective. If I say, OK, forget it, we keep the house, then you’re effectively forcing my hand.’

  ‘Please, let’s not have this argument again.’ A month or two ago, she knew, she would have fought tooth and nail with Charlie to stop Montresor being sold. But recent events had sapped her spirit, drained her strength of purpose. It was a place from her past, a past that had recently taken on an illusory quality. What possible argument could she use to make him keep it? She shrugged and said wearily, ‘If you want to sell it, then I suppose we have to. The upkeep was going to be horrendous, anyway. It’s just… parting with the place, after all the lovely times we’ve had there…’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well, if we do sell it, can we leave it for a few weeks? I was going to take a holiday when this play is finished, and it would be lovely to go to Montresor one last time. I can arrange to put it on the market when I’m out there. It’ll sell really quickly, you know it will.’

  Charlie gave a small smile. ‘Funny you should say that. I’d been thinking along the same lines. Take Claire there for a week or two, enjoy it while we’ve still got it.’

  Bella didn’t much relish the idea of a holiday with Claire in attendance, but she would like it if she and Charlie went to Montresor for the last time together.