Familiar Rooms in Darkness

by Caro Fraser

  ‘Just himself. No, I understand. I’m sure he’s as enlightened as the next person.’

  Bella scrutinized Adam’s face, wondering if she detected mild irony in his tone. But no, she didn’t think so.

  She rested one elbow on the table and propped her head up wearily. ‘I don’t know why I should feel surprised. People do get up to the strangest things. Even one’s parents. I don’t suppose it matters. It’s all gone now.’

  ‘Anyway, I thought I should tell you.’

  ‘It’s just… well, things one would rather not have known…’ She looked at him appealingly. ‘Do you have to put it in?’

  He decided to duck the issue for the moment. ‘Much depends on the detail.’ He still had no idea what names Compton-King might come up with, if any. He gestured to her almost-empty glass. ‘Another drink?’

  Bella shook her head. ‘I have to go.’ She paused. ‘Adam, I really hope you will think twice about putting it in the book. It could be pretty upsetting for a lot of people.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ he said. That was a lie, but he didn’t want to argue about it right now.

  She sighed and rose, picking up her canvas shoulder bag from the chair. ‘By the way, while you’re here–’ She delved into the bag and handed him an envelope, ‘–have a look at this.’

  Adam pulled out two handwritten pages and read them.

  Dear Bella Day,

  I am writing to you as Doreen Kinley’s sister in the hope that I can be of help. Derek has told me you came to see him in hopes of finding your ‘real’ family. It was a great shock to Derek to find out what happened all those years ago, though of course you had no way of knowing it would be. We have not told Doreen of your visit and who you are, it would be a tremendous upset and as you saw that day she is not a well woman. As your aunt I would like to meet you if possible and explain a few things that I am sure you are anxious to know. You can contact me at the above address or phone number, evenings are best.

  Yours sincerely,

  Joyce Barrow (Mrs)

  Adam folded the letter up and put it back in the envelope. ‘Have you talked to her?’

  ‘Not yet. It only came this morning.’

  ‘Well, I imagine it will help to talk to someone who knows what went on.’

  ‘I suppose.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I should be going. Give me a ring some time.’

  When she had gone, Adam sat with the remains of his wine, thinking. She hadn’t said a great deal, hadn’t really had time to absorb the full implications of what he’d told her tonight, but her instinctive reaction had been to ask him not to publish what he had found out. A mild request, just like Cecile’s, an appeal to his better nature. He wondered how long it would take before these gentle appeals turned into fully formed resistance from the entire family. Then he really would have a problem on his hands.

  A few days later, just before she left for the theatre, Bella rang Joyce Barrow.

  ‘Hello?’ The voice that answered was soft, and a little breathless.

  ‘Hello – is that Joyce Barrow?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘This is Bella Day.’

  ‘Oh. Goodness.’ There was a pause. ‘How are you? I’m sorry if I sound a bit surprised. I was expecting you to call, but I’m just a bit…’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Bella. ‘It’s strange for both of us.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You said you’d be happy to talk to me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The woman was so unforthcoming, Bella wondered whether she had begun to have misgivings.

  ‘Can we meet?’

  ‘Yes. All right. Just a moment…’ There was the sound of a phone being put down. After a few seconds, Joyce Barrow came back on the line. ‘I work Tuesdays and Thursdays… What about tomorrow? Would you like to come here?’

  ‘If it’s not inconvenient.’

  ‘Oh no, it’s not a problem.’ Her voice sounded a little more cheerful. She gave Bella the address, which was in New Cross, not far from where Derek and Doreen Kinley lived. ‘Shall we say around eleven?’

  ‘Fine. I’ll see you then.’

  She put the phone down. How extraordinary, to think that that was her aunt. Her aunt, by blood, by birth. Yet she had been speaking to a complete stranger. How odd this entire process of discovery was. That the deeply personal should be so utterly impersonal, that near relations should be at such a remove. It made her wonder what kind of truth she hoped to find out in the end, whether it would be of substance, or quite illusory.

  She put her things together and set off for the theatre.

  On her way to her dressing room she met Bruce, looking despondent. ‘Lance and Brian want to speak to everyone on stage in five minutes.’

  The little cast assembled on the set. Brian, the production manager, spoke.

  ‘This isn’t a happy thing for me to do. Everybody has worked tremendously hard, you’ve all put a lot into this play, but the fact is, attendances haven’t been good, and we have decided to end the run early.’

  ‘How early?’ demanded Bruce.

  ‘Next Friday. You’re all on a week’s notice. Sorry, everyone.’

  There was a collective groan. Not that it was entirely unexpected. As things stood, audiences were unlikely to pick up. Even though the play had only been scheduled for an eight-week run, news of the early closure hit everyone’s morale. At the end of that evening’s performance, the four cast members went to the pub on the corner for a drink.

  ‘Bloody marvellous,’ said Jeremy gloomily. ‘You come in Thursday and get told you’re finishing a week Friday.’

  ‘Only another week’s money,’ said Bruce.

  ‘And I can’t see any new work coming up in the near future,’ said Frank. ‘Not with the way things are.’

  ‘I’ve got some voice-over work coming up in August,’ remarked Bruce.

  ‘Lucky you.’

  They grumbled into their drinks for a few minutes, and then Bella, who had been silent, suddenly said, ‘Why don’t you all come on holiday with me?’

  Everyone stared.

  ‘It won’t cost anyone a thing,’ said Bella. ‘Well, just the air fare to Bordeaux. My brother and I have a house down there, and we have to sell it. I promised myself one last holiday before it goes on the market. I’m inviting you all to come with me.’

  Bruce lifted his glass. ‘Fantastic. Count me in.’

  ‘Southern France,’ said Frank. ‘I haven’t been there for years. Jenny and I used to go camping there, when we were younger.’ He debated. A holiday would be just the thing to lift his spirits. He smiled, raised his glass and chimed it against Bruce’s. ‘Bella, darling, I should love to come.’

  She looked at Jeremy, whose expression was wistful. ‘Afraid not, darling. I can’t leave the dogs. Besides, my agent’s lined up an audition for some murder-mystery two-parter in a couple of weeks. I can’t afford to turn work down.’

  ‘That’s such a shame.’

  ‘I know. I’m sure I would have loved it.’ Jeremy sighed. He glanced at his watch. ‘I must love you and leave you all, or I’ll miss my train.’

  ‘Hang on – I’ll walk down to Charing Cross with you,’ said Frank, and knocked back the remains of his drink. He gave Bella a kiss. ‘You’ve given me something to look forward to. Thank you.’

  When they had gone, Bruce said to Bella, ‘I suppose we don’t have to keep up our passionate romance any more, do we? Not much point.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Bella. ‘It was fun while it lasted.’

  ‘Would you like to stage a blazing public row, end it that way?’

  Bella sighed. ‘I don’t think I could summon up the energy.’

  ‘Maybe you should just find someone else.’

  Bella thought of Adam. ‘If only it were that simple.’

  10

  Joyce Barrow’s home in New Cross was a fifth-floor flat on a run-down council estate. Bella, rather than take the rancid-smelling lift, trudged up the dank s
tairwell to a walkway of front doors, overlooking a green where washing hung in rows.

  She knocked, and a few moments later a small, elderly woman in carpet slippers came to the door. Like her sister, Joyce Barrow had a sweet, delicate face, but her white hair was cut short, unpermed. My aunt, thought Bella. They smiled uncertainly, searchingly at one another. Bella put out a tentative hand and Joyce Barrow shook it.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, padding down the hallway ahead of Bella and into a small, stuffy sitting room, its windows closed despite the heat of the day. An old, very thin man sat in a large armchair in one corner of the room, opposite the television, a copy of the Daily Mirror on his lap. He had about him an air of distinct permanence, as though he did not move much from that spot.

  ‘This is my husband, Arthur,’ said Joyce. ‘I won’t introduce you, because he’s very deaf. He knows who you are, though.’

  Bella nodded and smiled at Arthur, who nodded back and scrutinized her carefully, before turning his attention back to the newspaper once again.

  ‘Sit down, do.’

  Bella sat at one end of the small sofa, and Joyce Barrow sat at the other, hands folded in her lap, inspecting Bella. Bella allowed herself to be looked at. Joyce Barrow shook her head, and Bella saw tears spring into her eyes. ‘This is such a lovely surprise. I never thought it would happen. Can I give you a hug, dear?’

  Bella and Joyce Barrow embraced briefly, awkwardly. The old lady smelled faintly of onions and furniture polish.

  ‘This is all very strange for me,’ said Bella. ‘I only found out recently that I was adopted. That my brother and I were. You said in your letter that Derek was a little shocked when I showed up on his doorstep, and I am sorry about that. I was rather working in the dark, you see, and I had no idea who knew…’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Joyce Barrow put out a hand and patted Bella’s. She made the gesture hesitantly, feeling somewhat awed by this very beautiful young woman, by the way she spoke and looked. She could see some resemblance to Doreen, even to their own mother, who’d been something of a beauty, but she felt no instant affiliation, no sense that this girl was part of their family. She seemed too remote, almost too exotic, to be connected to their life and world. But she had to be. There could be no doubt, from all that Derek had told her, that this was Doreen’s daughter.

  There was an awkward pause, and Bella said, ‘If you could tell me more about what happened when I was born, I’d be very grateful. I still don’t know much beyond what my mother – my adoptive mother – told me. I mean, I know why my mother and father adopted Charlie and me, and they’ve been wonderful parents, the most wonderful, but I have to know… I have to know why our real parents–’ Bella, who had resolved not to become emotional, felt helpless tears welling up, ‘–why they gave us up. It’s something I have to understand.’ She searched in the pocket of her denim jacket for a tissue and wiped her eyes quickly.

  Joyce Barrow shook her head sadly. ‘I’m very glad you’ve had a good father in your life, dear, because I have to say – and I don’t say this to upset you – your real father was not someone I ever liked. Nor Arthur.’ She glanced at Arthur for some kind of mute corroboration, and shook her head again. ‘Len was very much a bad sort, I’m sorry to say. I remember during the war, when he was in the army, he was always getting into trouble for being drunk, he’d come home on leave and not go back, and the military police had to come and fetch him. He was shiftless, could never hold down a job, would spend his money on drink and the horses before he’d see to his family.’ She paused, raising her eyebrows. ‘Not that he wasn’t a charmer, though. Very attractive, I’ll give you that. Doreen wouldn’t hear a word against him, even though it was she who had to go out to work to keep bread on the table.’

  Bella tried to make sense of what she felt at this information. It was oddly difficult, because it was like listening to an account of a stranger, not someone who was in any way connected to her. The word ‘father’ continued to conjure up images of Harry, of a warm past, a safe place, another person. Not this man.

  ‘I’m not saying he wasn’t a good father to Derek, in his fashion,’ went on Joyce, ‘but when Doreen fell pregnant again, quite unexpected… well, it was another story. He wouldn’t hear of her having another baby. He said if she had it, he would leave, and your mother believed him. Whatever the rest of the family might have thought of Len, he was the world to Doreen. I hate to think how she would have been if he had left.’

  ‘Couldn’t she – well, didn’t she think of having a termination?’ Even talking about the putative extinction of her own self, Bella felt only the dispassionate curiosity of an outsider. It added to the sense of unreality she felt about her immediate situation here, in this flat, with her aunt and uncle.

  ‘Oh, no, never!’ Joyce regarded Bella with dismay. ‘Can I ask you, dear – were you brought up a Catholic?’

  ‘I wasn’t brought up as anything much,’ said Bella. ‘C of E, I suppose, but not in a bothering kind of way.’

  ‘No, well, our family is Catholic, you see. Devout. No, Doreen would never have considered that.’

  Another small gulf… ‘How did the idea of adoption come about? Was it Doreen’s?’

  ‘No. That was Len’s idea at first. He found out about this doctor, you see, who would arrange things for girls in trouble, have babies adopted by well-off people, in exchange for money paid under the table, so to speak. It must have seemed like a dream come true to Len,’ added Joyce witheringly. ‘A way of getting rid of unwelcome responsibilities and lining his pocket at the same time.’

  ‘But Doreen can’t have wanted to, surely?’

  ‘I have to say, dear, that I’m not sure exactly what Doreen wanted at that time. When she told me about Len’s idea, we had an argument, and I wasn’t so much in contact with her after that. Not for a long time. But my guess is that Len persuaded her to do it, that once the bandwagon started rolling and your parents – you know, the people who brought you up – once they were involved, she wouldn’t know what to do to stop it.’

  ‘But what about the neighbours, other people in the family? Didn’t they wonder what had happened? It must have been obvious she was pregnant.’

  ‘As far as we knew, everyone was told she’d had a baby, but that it had been stillborn.’ She shrugged. ‘Like I say, we weren’t speaking at that point. I didn’t hold with any of what was going on. But Len would find a way to still wagging tongues. Len would think of what to tell people, and Doreen would have to say it. She was a lovely girl, Doreen,’ Joyce shook her head, ‘but she was ruled by Len. She would do most things he wanted.’

  ‘Even give up her own children.’

  The note in Bella’s voice must have touched Joyce, for she put her hand out once again to Bella’s. ‘I don’t blame you for thinking badly of her. I know I did, I thought it was dreadful. But it couldn’t have been easy for her. When we made up eventually, we only ever mentioned it once, and I know from the way she talked it was something she never got over. Not ever. But–’ Joyce drew a long breath, ‘you have to look at it this way. What happened, happened. Right or wrong. You were brought up by loving people, for which I am more glad than you can know, and you seem like a nice, happy girl.’ She gave a little laugh and added, as though to a child, ‘I’m very proud to have such a pretty girl for my niece.’

  Bella sat saying nothing for some moments, trying to construct a situation where there was so much love and fear and desperation that children could be bought and sold, futures handed over, lives closed. It lay beyond her own experience, her sphere of understanding. At last she said, ‘It’s just so strange and sad… I don’t blame anyone. As you say, it’s what happened. But don’t you think–’ She raised her eyes hopefully to Joyce, ‘don’t you think it might do her good to know that Charlie and I are – well, all right? To see us, know about us? If I were her, I think I would want that.’

  There was a long pause before Joyce spoke. ‘I’m not sure it wouldn’t do more har
m than good, dear. Who knows what she’s felt all these years? As I say, we didn’t talk about it. It’s one thing to tell yourself that it will make her feel better, that she’ll be glad to see you. But I don’t know. It might just bring back a tremendous lot of guilt. And you know, she’s not herself these days. She hasn’t been well these past weeks, and I don’t know that she’d be up to such a shock.’

  ‘I didn’t know she was unwell.’

  ‘Poorly, let’s say. It’s hard for Derek, coping.’ She gazed sympathetically at Bella. ‘It can’t be easy for you and your brother, any of this. I think it’s a shame your adoptive parents never told you the truth. A real shame. But I hope you understand the circumstances a bit better now.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I do. Thank you.’ Bella decided that the question of meeting her mother properly was best left alone for the moment. ‘I was just wondering…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you have any pictures? Of the family, I mean – of my mother and father when they were younger? Derek said he would send me some, but he hasn’t been in touch.’

  ‘I thought you might ask that,’ said Joyce, rising from the sofa and going across to a little bureau, from which she took a bulging photo album. Bringing it back to the sofa, she sat down, laid it on her knee and opened it. Bella drew nearer to look.

  There, as her aunt turned page after page, Bella saw captured the various images of the family she had not known. Black and white at first, very small prints of Joyce and Doreen as girls. Bella, making no connection with the old woman she had met, stared long and hard at her mother, at the pretty, fair-haired fifteen-year-old with the grave, reserved expression. At the turn of a page, years moved by and Len appeared. Bella studied the pictures of him closely. Len. Her father. Tall, fair, well-built, laughing or smiling in every picture. She searched his features for traces of weakness and unkindness, but could see none. She marvelled at how like Charlie he was. There was a photo of Joyce and Doreen sitting on a sea wall, skirts blowing about, Len and Arthur leaning by their sides, squinting into the sun. ‘We were a great foursome before the war,’ said Joyce. ‘Len wasn’t too bad then. Just a bit wild. We had some great times.’