by Caro Fraser
‘I know you feel you have to be completely honest. I respect that. It’s the truth that’s important, I suppose.’
He sighed. ‘Thank you. Though as I’ve been discovering, there’s no whole and complete truth about anyone. Every individual is so many different things to so many people.’
‘Well, don’t expect any exciting revelations when you talk to me. He was just my father.’
Both paused, and Adam wondered if she was as aware as he was of the sense of intimate closeness he felt in their conversation. Perhaps not, he decided, because suddenly she said with a yawn, ‘Anyway, thanks for ringing. As I said, do look us up when you’re in France, if you get the chance.’
‘OK. Thanks.’
She put the phone down. She meant what she said. She hoped he would come to Montresor.
Three days before the play was due to close, Joyce Barrow rang Bella.
‘I felt I had to let you know–’ Bella could tell from the rapid, hushed tone of her voice that it was something serious, ‘Doreen’s been taken into hospital. She’s had a heart attack.’
‘How bad is she?’ News of a stranger, yet the danger that her most intimate connection might be severed for ever without having been properly made galvanized Bella.
‘Well, she’s serious, dear.’
‘Should I – can I go and see her?’
‘Well –’
‘I don’t want to do anything to make her worse–’ Bella suddenly realized she had begun to cry, and brushed tears away.
‘She’s unconscious. For the moment, anyway. Even if she wasn’t, I don’t think she would recognize you, not the way she’s been recently. She hasn’t known me, half the time. Only Derek.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Lewisham hospital. Carpenter Ward. Derek’s there. He’s been there since they took her in.’
Bella glanced at her watch. Ten past five. Could she possibly get all the way over there and still make it back to the theatre on time? It didn’t matter. She had to go. This was her mother. It might be the last chance that Doreen ever got to look at her daughter. To Bella, that seemed the most important thing of all.
The taxi across London took an hour. By the time Bella had negotiated the corridors and staircases of the hospital and found the nurse’s station on Carpenter Ward, it was nearly six-thirty.
‘I’m inquiring about a Doreen Kinley,’ Bella told the nurse on duty. ‘I believe she’s a patient on your ward.’
The nurse hesitated, then asked, ‘Are you a member of the family?’
For a few long seconds, Bella struggled for an answer. ‘I’m – I’m a family friend. Mrs Kinley’s sister rang me.’
‘And your name is…?’ Bella gave her name. ‘Just a moment.’ The nurse went down the corridor and through a door. After a moment she came out and beckoned to Bella. Bella went into a small room and found Derek sitting there on his own by the window. The room was furnished with blue carpet tiles, functional, mock-leather chairs, and a low table. It spoke of waiting, of emptiness, of dead hours.
‘Hi,’ said Derek.
‘Hello,’ replied Bella. The nurse closed the door and left them alone. ‘How is she?’
‘She’s gone,’ said Derek. ‘She died ten minutes ago. I’m waiting for Joyce to get here.’
‘Oh, God.’ Bella put her hand to her mouth.
Derek just sat there, folding his knuckles together, twisting the gold ring on his little finger. He seemed uninterested in Bella’s presence, or her reaction to the news.
Bella sat down. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘I’m terribly sorry.’ She put out a hand to his, and to her surprise he gripped it, pressed it. He began to weep, his broad shoulders shaking. Bella had no words to say. She was simply grateful for the fact that he held her hand, for without that she would have felt like the merest intruder. It was Derek’s mother who had died, not hers. His grief was for the sum of countless childhood days, the loss of a love which had begun at birth and gradually transformed and reversed itself, so that in the end he had cared for her, in a slow revolve of mutual feeling and dependency, son and mother, mother and son. Whatever loss she imagined she felt, it was not the same.
After a few moments, Derek wiped his eyes, shaking his head slowly as if to clear it of unhappiness. He relinquished Bella’s hand.
‘I’m just sorry I didn’t know her,’ said Bella.
‘That wasn’t her fault.’
‘I know that.’
‘After you came that day–’ Derek swallowed, composing himself, ‘I was really angry. Angry with you for coming. Angry with Mum for never telling me. Then I saw that it was pointless, being angry. I decided it was best just left alone. That’s why I never wrote, never sent you any photos.’
‘I remember thinking that you looked at me like you wished I’d never happened.’
‘Nah, I didn’t mean that.’ Derek shook his head again, as though inexpressibly weary. ‘The more I thought about it, I began to think it would be nice to get to know you. But it’s too late, don’t you reckon? I mean, too long a time.’
‘I don’t think so. But I don’t understand why you told Joyce. If you wanted to keep me at a distance, you need never have said anything to anyone.’
‘I told Joyce because I wanted to know what really happened back then, the adoption and all that. I reckoned she would have known all about it, if anyone did. I wanted to understand.’
‘That’s just the way I’ve been feeling.’
Their gazes met. Derek managed a small smile. ‘You had a bigger right than me to feel angry, I reckon.’
‘Oh, I think it’s just about even. But like you said, anger’s pointless.’
The door opened. Both looked up to see Joyce come in.
‘Oh, Derek, love – I’m so sorry,’ said Joyce, her voice wavering. Derek rose and hugged her. Bella sat for an uncertain moment, then she rose too, and exchanged a tentative embrace with her aunt. Joyce’s eyes looked searchingly, anxiously into Bella’s.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Bella. ‘Nothing happened. She didn’t see me. She died before I got here.’ Bella knew that even if she had got here in time, she wouldn’t have asked to see her mother. She wouldn’t, couldn’t have let anything happen to disturb those fragile last moments, whatever intentions she might have had when she left the flat.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Joyce. She stood close to Derek, who had placed a large, comforting arm round his aunt’s shoulders. ‘I’m sorry you never got to know one another. But I think it was for the best.’
Bella had nothing to say to this. The words, the way in which Derek and Joyce stood together, part of something to which she did not properly belong, made her feel like an interloper. ‘I’ll leave you two together,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I have to get to the theatre.’ Derek and Joyce both nodded. ‘Will you let me know when the funeral is? I might want to come.’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t know about Charlie–’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Joyce. ‘We’ll understand.’
Outside, Bella walked slowly to the nurse’s station. The same nurse looked up from notes she was writing. ‘About Mrs Kinley,’ said Bella, ‘I said before that I was a family friend. Actually, I’m her daughter. Was her daughter. Am…’ She stopped in confusion. ‘Could I see her, d’you think? It would mean a great deal to me.’
The nurse gazed at her for a few seconds, then nodded. She led Bella up the corridor and into a small side room. Bella entered. The nurse stood in the doorway, hesitated, then left, closing the door gently. Bella stood at the side of the bed and looked down at the frail shell of humanity lying there. She seemed so small, shrunken, nondescript. Any old woman, really. Just the way she’d looked when Bella had first met her at the house in Duffy Road. The house where she would have lived, had things been otherwise. She stared for a while at the wispy, white hair, the delicate features, waxy and slack in death, and tried to make the connection, feel the reality of her own mother lying beneath those sheets. But it refused to happen. A
ll she could think was that she could have passed Doreen Kinley a hundred times in the street and never known her. Would Doreen have known her, in any of the thirty years that had passed? She would never know.
Bella left the room a few moments later and walked quickly down the corridor to the lift. She knew now that whatever sense of loss or emptiness she felt, it was only for something that had never been. She suddenly found she could hardly wait to be out of the hospital building so that she could take out her mobile and ring Cecile. She felt an urgent need to talk to her mother, tell her everything.
She reached the theatre with only minutes to spare, not enough time to call Charlie. When the performance was over, she rang him at home from her dressing room.
‘Can I pop in and see you on the way home?’
‘Of course. What’s up?’
She hesitated. No, not on the phone. ‘I just want to talk. Not a marathon session. I know you’ve got work in the morning.’
‘That’s OK.’
‘Will Claire be there?’
‘No. She’s in Amsterdam all this week.’
‘I’ll see you in a little while.’
When she got to Charlie’s flat, Bella could tell from his flushed face that he’d been hitting the whisky most of the evening.
‘You shouldn’t drink on your own, you know,’ said Bella. She slung her bag on a chair.
Charlie gave a sloppy shrug. ‘I’ve been celebrating. I settled a case today. Very favourably. So Claire and I will be able to get down to France for a couple of weeks after all.’
‘You still shouldn’t drink so much. Anyway, pour me a small one. I’m wiped out.’
She went to the window, wide open to the summer night air, and leaned out. A faint thump of music came from a nearby garden. Someone was having a party.
‘Here you go.’ Charlie handed her a glass of Scotch with ice. Bella noticed he’d topped his own glass up.
They sat down together on the sofa.
‘So, what’s up? How are you?’
Bella took a sip of her drink. ‘Sort of OK.’
‘No, you’re not. I can tell from your face.’ Charlie put his glass down on the coffee table. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’
Bella hesitated for a few seconds, then decided it was best to come straight out with it. ‘Doreen died today.’
‘God. I see… Oh, Christ.’ Charlie leaned forward, head in his hands. Bella thought for one second he was about to be sick. She bent down next to him in alarm, hand on his shoulder.
‘Charlie, are you all right?’
Charlie didn’t move, just remained there, hunched forward. As she sat next to him, holding him, Bella suddenly became aware of the similarity of the situation with Derek a few hours earlier. Nothing so far had brought home to her so clearly, so forcefully, the fact that they were brothers. And yet, how different. Why was it, then, that she had understood completely the nature of Derek’s grief this afternoon, when she had no idea of what was passing through Charlie’s mind at this moment?
She waited. Eventually Charlie shook his head, lowered his hands and leaned back. His face was white.
‘I’m so, so sorry.’ Bella stroked his shoulder anxiously, gazing intently at his face. ‘I didn’t mean to shock you. I didn’t know how to say it.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Oh, bloody hell…’ He reached for his drink, and Bella put a hand on his arm.
‘No, don’t have any more to drink. It doesn’t do any good. Better to tell me what you’re thinking.’
Charlie took a couple of long, deep breaths and shook his head again. ‘It shouldn’t matter. It’s not even as though she figured in my life. I can’t… I’ve been going around hating this – this faceless person. This woman. For doing what she did. And you know what?’ He turned his gaze intently on Bella’s.
‘What?’
‘I’m glad she’s dead. When you said it, I wasn’t sure who you were talking about for a second. Then it was like having it brought home to me. Like she’d done it again. I never even knew her, and she’d done it again. Cut me out, kept me from her. And then I thought – good. You can’t do anything else to me.’ Charlie’s eyes were bright with rage and unhappiness.
‘I didn’t think you cared.’ Bella wiped away her own tears. ‘You told me she didn’t matter to you.’
‘She didn’t. She didn’t. How could she? She gave me away. She gave us away.’
There was a pause of several seconds, then Bella said, ‘I haven’t told you this, because you’ve been away, but her sister got in touch with me. Her name is Joyce – Joyce Barrow. I went to see her. She lives in a flat in New Cross. We had a long talk.’ And Bella told Charlie everything that Joyce had told her about their parents, and about Len in particular. ‘She gave me some photographs of them. I’ve got them here.’
‘I don’t want to see them.’
‘You do. I know you do.’ Bella got up and fetched her bag from the chair. She unzipped it and pulled out a brown envelope. She took out the photos and handed them to Charlie, who took them without protest. ‘I know it sounds strange, but it helped me to understand things a bit better, just to see their faces.’
Charlie looked at the photos one by one, not saying a word.
Bella sat next to him on the sofa, chin resting on one hand. ‘It’s like looking at a little piece of yourself…’
Charlie stared long and hard at a photo of Len in shirtsleeves, arms folded, blond hair combed back, leaning against the bonnet of a car. ‘I thought I didn’t ever want to know what they were like,’ he said slowly. ‘I thought that if I saw them, saw that they actually existed, then it would somehow make Mum and Dad, and everything about the life I’ve had, become less real. That it might take it away.’
‘But it hasn’t.’
‘No. They’re just people. She looks a lot like you.’
‘Mmm. You should meet Derek. You’re so alike.’
Charlie shuffled the photos together and put them back in the envelope. ‘I don’t want to meet Derek. This is as far as I want to go. I meant it when I said I’m glad she’s dead.’
‘It’s a horrible thing to say.’
‘I don’t mean for her, or the people who loved her. I mean, I’m glad I don’t have to think about her, or wonder if I should meet her, or any of that crap. No extra family. Just what I have. I don’t need a brother. I don’t have a brother.’ He gave the photos back to Bella. ‘If you go on trying to get somewhere with this lot, it’ll just turn into a big mess. You’re not going to get what you want. You’re not going to get some magical love you think you missed out on. It was never there.’
She put the photos back in her bag. ‘Maybe you’re right. I don’t know. I take it you don’t want to go to the funeral?’
‘Too bloody right.’ Charlie picked up his glass and emptied it in one swallow.
‘Well, anyway… That was all I came to talk about.’ She stood up. ‘Oh, by the way, I’ve invited Bruce and Frank down to Montresor for a couple of weeks. To cheer them up because of the play closing early. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Course not. The more the merrier. God knows, the house is big enough. When are you going down?’
‘At the beginning of next week. Tomorrow night’s our last night. We’re going to fly to Bordeaux and hire a car.’
‘Claire and I will probably get down around the end of next week.’
Bella picked up the envelope containing the photographs from the coffee table. ‘Shall I leave these? Perhaps you’d like to look at them again.’
Charlie shook his head. ‘No, thanks. That chapter’s closed. Finito.’
‘OK.’
Charlie followed Bella out to the front door, still holding his empty glass. As she was about to leave, she glanced at it. ‘Don’t drink any more tonight, Charlie.’
‘Don’t worry.’
When she was gone, Charlie went back into the living room and poured himself another drink, then sat down on the sofa. He sat there for a long time, drinki
ng, thinking, staring at nothing.
Joyce rang Bella to tell her the funeral would be on Friday. Bella couldn’t tell from her voice whether Joyce hoped she would come or stay away. In the event, she went. The day was warm and close, the summer sky leaden with the threat of rain. The service in Doreen’s local Catholic church seemed to Bella to go on for ever. She looked at as many faces as she could from her vantage point at the back, and found none of them interested her, whether they were family or not. Family. She felt these people were nothing to do with her. Even Derek’s broad back, his blond head, stirred nothing in her, no sisterly feeling. The very service, the dingy, lofty spaces of the large and unfamiliar church, increased her sense of alienation. She wondered what on earth she was doing there. As the coffin was borne to the front of the church, she stared hard at it, as if to penetrate the mystery of the death of the woman who had given her life. But all she could think was that the thing must surely be empty. There could be nothing there.
At one point, towards the end, her mind slipping into her own thoughts and concerns, she felt herself give way to tears. She knew that they had nothing to do with anything happening today. She was simply depressed. Depressed because the play was closing. Depressed because she found herself thinking about Adam Downing too much for her own good, considering he was living with someone else. Depressed because, ever since the day she had found out who she really was, she had been travelling hopefully along a road that seemed to be going nowhere. The discoveries she had made had not given her any sense of completion, or revelation. All she had encountered were uncertain strangers, like Joyce and Derek, who wanted nothing from her, and who had nothing much to give.
She had decided not to go to the crematorium. Already she was longing to find a taxi to take her back to west London and reality. As she stepped from the gloom of the church into daylight, she felt a hand touch her sleeve. She turned to see a girl, thirteen or fourteen years old, her long blonde hair tied back, dressed in a dark-blue school sweatshirt and jogging pants, an approximation of mourning.
