Forgive Me

by Lesley Pearse

  The horror of the scene in the bathroom was as sharp now as it had been when she found her mother. She suspected it was going to haunt her for ever. Yet she hadn’t really cried about it – well, except this morning with Olive. Perhaps that was because she was angry at what had been done to the family. But there was also bewilderment, and anxiety that she may have unwittingly done or said something that had pushed her mother over the edge. But she didn’t feel grief as such, at least not the way she’d read about it in magazines. Was that because her emotions were frozen by shock?

  She had asked the doctor about grief on that morning when he called round. She was expecting to find she was abnormal in being relatively calm and being able to do normal chores. His response was that grief affected people in many different ways. Drinking and staring into space, like her father was doing, was one way. Ben’s silence was another, and Sophie’s hysterical outbursts still another. That made Eva feel ashamed that she believed her sister was just milking it for attention, and she resolved to be kinder to her. The doctor had added that some people went into denial and acted as if nothing had happened for a while, but it usually caught up with them sooner or later. Eva didn’t seem to fit into any of those camps, and she wondered if she could ask Olive her views on it.

  But her overriding distress was the way her dad was treating her. He had never been a warm person; Mum had often said that he lacked empathy. But to all intents and purposes Eva could have been an uninvolved lodger. The day after it happened he had gone to both Sophie and Ben’s rooms to talk to them. As she passed the doors she saw him cuddling them and telling them that it would get a little easier every day. But he’d barely said a word to her.

  As she drove home she decided that tonight she was going to make him talk to her. If he had some issue with her, she wanted to know about it. He was not going to shut her out; she didn’t deserve that.

  Eva sighed as she saw the state of the kitchen. She had cleaned it up the previous night but now it was strewn from end to end with dirty dishes, saucepans, food packets and tins. It was almost laughable that the rest of the family were all at home because they were grief-stricken, yet they could still stuff their faces with food.

  Music was coming from upstairs, and when she looked in the sitting room there was more mess there – cups, empty Coke cans, plates and crisp packets.

  Wearily she went upstairs and found Sophie wearing her dressing gown, sitting on her bedroom floor drying her hair and listening to a Madonna cassette blaring out. ‘I see you found your appetite again,’ she said. ‘Would it be too much to expect for you to tidy up after yourself?’

  Sophie switched off the hair dryer, looking contemptuously at her elder sister standing in the doorway. ‘I suppose you think you’re in charge now?’ she shouted over the music.

  Eva went into the room and turned the music off. ‘Someone has to act responsibly,’ she said. ‘Where’s Dad?’

  ‘Dunno,’ Sophie said sullenly. ‘He went out around two. He said something about making arrangements.’

  ‘And Ben?’

  ‘He’s in his room.’

  ‘I am not the enemy, neither am I the housekeeper, and we’ve all got to pull together now to get through this. Now come downstairs and help me clear up.’

  ‘I can’t, I’m getting ready to go out,’ Sophie retorted.

  ‘Going out where?’

  ‘Meeting my friends, if you must know.’

  ‘Do you think it’s appropriate to go out at such a time?’ Eva asked.

  ‘You’ve been to work!’ Sophie sounded indignant now.

  ‘That’s different, and you know it,’ Eva knelt down on the floor beside her sister. On Sophie’s bed a short red ra-ra skirt and a skimpy top were laid out. ‘Just look at how that would seem to people, you gadding off dressed up for a night out so soon after –’ She broke off, unable to actually say, ‘Mum’s death.’

  ‘Did Mum think of our feelings? Does she deserve any respect?’

  There was such hurt in Sophie’s voice that Eva took her hand and held it between both of hers. ‘No, she didn’t consider our feelings and that makes me as sad as it does you. But we have to behave in the right way, to try to keep some semblance of dignity.’

  ‘She’s ruined my life,’ Sophie pouted. ‘Everyone is talking about it. I hate her now. She was a selfish cow.’

  Eva wriggled nearer her sister and drew her into her arms. It was tempting to point out that people only knew about it because Sophie had told them but, as irritating as her sister could be, she was only seventeen and she hadn’t stopped to think before she spread the story around.

  ‘Yes, she was selfish, and I don’t understand it any more than you,’ Eva said, smoothing back the younger girl’s dark hair from her face. ‘But don’t say you hate her; she may not have been able to help herself. We might find out that she had a good reason, and then you’ll feel terrible that you said such a thing. You’ve still got me, and Ben and Dad. I’ll cook us some dinner and maybe we can all talk about stuff, decide what we’re going to do.’

  Sophie clung on to her, crying softly. ‘Didn’t she care about us?’ she said brokenly.

  ‘Of course she did,’ Eva said soothingly. ‘I’ve heard that sometimes the verdict at inquests is that they “took their life while the balance of their mind was disturbed”. That’s like being crazy for a short while. It doesn’t mean she couldn’t bear us any more. Her note said “Forgive me”. I think we should.’

  ‘You’d forgive anybody for anything,’ Sophie said. But for once there was no scorn in her voice.

  ‘I won’t forgive you if I come home tomorrow night and find such a mess,’ Eva said teasingly. ‘Now finish drying your hair and come and help me get the dinner.’

  Eva was just mashing the potatoes when her father came in. She was pleased to see he looked the way he used to before this happened, in a navy-blue suit with striped shirt and tie, no stubble and his hair combed.

  ‘Did you go to the office today?’ she asked.

  ‘Fleetingly,’ he said. ‘Amongst other more pressing things.’

  His curt tone made her wary. She decided not to comment on his appearance.

  ‘I’ve made sausages and mash,’ she said. ‘I hope that’s OK. I’ll need to do some food shopping tomorrow. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  He didn’t reply and walked through the kitchen to the sitting room. She heard him pouring himself a drink.

  A few minutes later she heard him pour more into the glass. She looked at Sophie, who was laying the table; Sophie shrugged, as if to say, ‘Here we go again.’

  ‘Will you go and tell Ben that dinner’s ready, please?’ Eva asked her.

  Ben came down with Sophie, and Dad came back into the kitchen. He’d taken off his jacket and tie, and his glass was filled to the brim with whiskey. He sat down at the table and Eva dished up the food.

  Nothing was said by anyone for some little time. Ben and Sophie were eating eagerly, but Dad only took a few mouthfuls of his dinner between gulps of whiskey.

  Suddenly he put down his knife and fork and looked pointedly at Eva. ‘Can you tell me why your mother would leave you her studio?’

  ‘Studio?’ she asked, frowning in puzzlement.

  ‘Don’t play the innocent,’ he said sharply.

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ she said truthfully. ‘Please explain, Dad. And don’t be nasty, I’ve done nothing to deserve that.’

  ‘You’ve done nothing to deserve being left a studio in central London that must be worth a small fortune, that’s for sure.’

  Eva’s mouth dropped open. Ben and Sophie looked equally shocked.

  ‘I really don’t know anything about any studio. Are you saying Mum owned this?’

  ‘Well, of course I am,’ he snapped. ‘She lived there with you before we got married.’

  Eva could only stare at him in consternation. Instinct and the spiteful look in his eyes told her he was out to hurt her. A cold shudder
went down her spine.

  ‘You mean, you, Mum and me?’

  He sneered at her. ‘Your mother was living there with you when I met her.’

  She understood the implication in what he’d said, but she couldn’t really believe it was true. Or that he was cruel enough to say such a thing just because he was angry.

  ‘I thought I was born a year after you married,’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘That’s just what your mother wanted everyone to believe. She never did like the truth too much.’

  Eva looked into his dark eyes and saw utter contempt for her. She had a gut feeling he’d been waiting a long time to drop this bombshell.

  ‘Loads of people have a baby before getting married.’ Ben spoke out defensively, clearly not really grasping what his father meant. ‘Don’t be mean to Eva, Dad. It’s not her fault.’

  ‘It is her fault. I know she was in cahoots with Flora over the studio.’

  Eva was shocked and bewildered. She knew nothing about a studio, and she couldn’t imagine why her dad believed she did.

  ‘Dad, if Mum had a studio, I promise you I knew nothing about it. Are you saying she’s left a will with this in?’

  ‘Yes, I bloody well am,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘I went to see the solicitor this afternoon. It was bad enough having to explain to him about Flora, but then I found she’d betrayed me. We wrote wills years ago, both of us leaving everything to the surviving partner. But the sneaky bitch had another one drawn up for herself, and in it she’s not only left that studio to you, but she also left her half of this house to Sophie and Ben. That means I can’t even bloody well sell it and move on if I want to.’

  All three siblings looked at each other anxiously. None of them really understood legal matters, but the fact that their normally calm father was so angry told them this was something really serious.

  Sophie broke the silence first. ‘Does that mean we have to leave here?’

  ‘Of course it doesn’t,’ Ben said, reaching out to pat his sister’s shoulder.

  ‘I’ve worked my socks off for this house,’ Dad raged, growing flushed in the face. ‘Your mother wanted for nothing, and never did a day’s work. I even took her kid on and brought her up as my own. This is how she repays me. I can’t even claim on the life insurance because she topped herself.’

  Only one line of that bitter tirade really registered with Eva: I even took her kid on and brought her up as my own.

  ‘Are you saying I’m not your daughter?’ she asked in a shaky voice, hoping against hope he’d only said it in the heat of the moment.

  ‘Are you stupid along with being conniving? Of course you bloody well aren’t,’ he said, taking a long swig of his whiskey. Then, putting the glass down, he glared at her balefully. ‘Anyone with only three brain cells would’ve worked that out years ago.’

  Suddenly the reason she looked so different from her brother and sister was clear. It had been commented on by other people, but Mum had said Eva took after her side of the family.

  The enormity of it, and to be told in such a spiteful way, felled Eva. All she could do was flee, running out of the kitchen into the courtyard and then on down the drive and out into the road beyond.

  Her mother had gone and now she was just a worthless stepchild, only there on sufferance.

  She kept on running until she came to fields. Seeing a farm gate, she climbed over it and slumped down on to the grass behind the hedge, crying her heart out.

  Earlier, she’d told Sophie they should forgive their mother. But how could she forgive this? How many times had they looked through photo albums together? Always Mum had said stuff like, ‘Look at you, Daddy’s girl,’ when she was in his arms or on his lap. Taking her first few steps, or on a climbing frame or riding a tricycle, Dad was almost always there with her. In later pictures, when Ben and then Sophie had arrived, it was still the same. Maybe she was now too big to be in his arms – the new baby had that place – but they were happy family pictures, and she looked as right in them as the other two did.

  She had often asked why Sophie and Ben were taller, darker and thinner than she was. But Mum always said that was how it was in families sometimes. Perhaps that was true, but by the time she was six or seven she was old enough to be told she had a different father.

  Eva really didn’t know anything about a studio. She knew from old photographs that they lived somewhere else before Ben was born, but Mum had never said where it was, just as she’d never said anything much about her own childhood, or her parents.

  Eva had asked her about them once. Granny, Dad’s mum, was ill in hospital, and though Eva was only nine she sensed Granny was going to die soon by the way Mum and Dad talked. By then she knew most children had two sets of grandparents, and she asked where her other set were.

  ‘They died before you were born,’ Mum said. ‘They lived in Cornwall.’

  That was it really. Scanty information which, if today’s revelations were anything to go by, might not even be the truth. All she really knew for sure about her mother was that she had gone to art college in London during the 1960s. There was one of her paintings in the sitting room – a view of a beach which Mum said was in Cornwall. Perhaps it was close to where she had lived as a child, but she never said.

  It had been dusk when Eva went into the field, but now it was pitch dark. She only moved because her teeth were chattering with the cold; she didn’t want to go home, but she had no money on her. And in just the sweatshirt and jeans she’d changed into before she cooked the tea, she’d be frozen stiff by morning. She hoped that Dad would apologize and talk to her about things in an adult way. But she didn’t hold out much hope of that.

  She had only walked about a hundred yards when she saw headlights coming towards her, and as it got closer she recognized the car as hers. Ben was driving it. He’d passed his driving test a short while ago, but he wasn’t insured to drive. Spotting her, he did a U-turn in the road, and jumped out.

  ‘Where have you been? I’ve searched all over for you,’ he said frantically. ‘I’ve been so worried. Dad was horrible, I’m ashamed of him.’

  Ben had always been sensitive and caring about others, and Eva was so touched by his anxiety for her. She felt she had to make it better for him. ‘Yes, he was horrible. But I suppose he’s hurting and needed to lash out at someone. I just wish it hadn’t been me.’

  ‘I shouted at him and said he should be ashamed of himself.’ Ben put his arm around her awkwardly. ‘I said if he felt he had to tell you, then he should’ve picked a better time.’

  ‘Did you and Sophie know all along?’

  ‘Of course we didn’t. It was as much of a shock to us as it was to you. But as far as I’m concerned, nothing will change between us. You’re still my sister,’ he said as he wiped his damp eyes with the back of his hand.

  ‘Thank you, Ben, that means a lot,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do now, though. I think it would be better if I moved out. But I really don’t know anything about this studio. Do you?’

  Ben shook his head. ‘Nothing at all. But if it helps, I think Dad was ashamed when you ran out. He said he’d been telling Mum for years she should tell you the truth. Sophie said he was cruel too. She said it was bad enough losing Mum and she didn’t want to lose you too.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘Yes, she did, and she meant it. But come on home now, you’re like a block of ice.’

  Eva got into the car, and as they drove she told him what she’d been thinking while she was in the field. ‘What else is there we don’t know about? It’s scary, thinking you know someone well and then you find out you don’t know anything.’

  ‘I wish I’d never found out Dad could be like that,’ Ben said tartly. ‘It’s as if everything we believed in has collapsed. I’d better warn you that Sophie is freaking out again too. She thinks Dad wants to move away. She’s an imbecile sometimes; Dad never said he wanted to sell the house, only that he couldn’t. He isn’
t going to dump us.’

  ‘It looks like he wants to dump me,’ Eva said glumly. ‘We haven’t even got through the funeral yet. I dread to think what else will come out of the woodwork then.’

  Chapter Three

  On the morning of the funeral Eva woke to the sound of heavy rain.

  She got up and went to the window. Her room looked out over the garden wall on to the estate of new houses. She could see that the patio on the nearest one was awash.

  The last few days had been really spring-like with warm sun, and she’d hoped it would remain that way for the funeral. Now the thirty or more people coming back here afterwards would have to be indoors; the house was big enough for that, but it would have been less stressful if some of them could have been out in the courtyard.

  Flora’s post mortem had shown she had no medical problems. Eva had been hoping against hope there would be something, as at least that would make sense of why her mother chose to end her life. If there was another man in her life, that hadn’t come to light either. But then Eva had known that was never a possibility because Flora rarely went out on her own. She was always at home.

  Her death had been the most terrible thing. Just thinking about it made Eva’s chest so tight she could hardly breathe, and she wondered how she would ever get over it. Then for Andrew to tell her he wasn’t her father in such a nasty way had crushed her even more. He had made an apology of sorts the following night, his excuse being that he was upset and had drunk too much. But however much she wished she could forgive him, she found herself running his words over and over in her head, just as she was constantly dwelling on how she’d found her mother.

  She had never had the kind of affectionate, jovial relationship with him that she’d observed other people seemed to have with their fathers. He had always been stern and critical, and had never invited any kind of confidences. Her mother had often rolled her eyes at his lack of compassion and sense of humour and told Eva that she must make sure before she got married that her man had both those important qualities.