The Seafront Tearoom

by Vanessa Greene

“I think so. For a while, at least.” He smiled. “Although I did get another guidebook out of the library. Apparently Brazil is the place to travel to these days.”

  “You’re unstoppable.”

  He started humming “The Girl from Ipanema” to himself.

  “Stop winding me up!” She nudged him playfully.

  “What’s that you’ve got?” He pointed to her Thermos flask.

  “Hot spiced apple with cinnamon,” she said. “There’s yours.” She pointed to a mug on the kitchen table. “Can’t have you feeling left out.”

  Letty and Kat sat out on the terrace, the Closed sign hanging in the door of the tearoom behind them. Letty was wearing a red woolen coat, and Kat was wearing her parka, with the hood up. They held mugs of the apple drink Kat had brought.

  “This is good,” Letty said, taking a sip. “The cinnamon comes through nicely.”

  “Thanks. You sure you’re warm enough out here?”

  “Yes.” Letty looked distracted. “Nothing like fresh air after a long day.”

  “Are you OK?”

  “Kat, this isn’t easy. And there’s no right way to do it. I have something I need to tell you.”

  “You’re sounding very serious all of a sudden.” Kat laughed. She’d expected Letty to smile, but her expression didn’t change. She was calm and composed, but Kat saw a shadow of something else there, an uncertainty in her eyes.

  “What is it?”

  “I haven’t always been straight with you over the years.” Letty spoke slowly, with her hands crossed in her lap. “I haven’t been honest with you at all, in fact.”

  “What do you mean?” Kat asked, confused.

  “I had my reasons, and it seemed right at the time not to tell you the truth.”

  “And now something’s changed.”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t leave me in suspense,” Kat laughed nervously.

  “You know how much your parents wanted you in their lives.”

  “Aha.”

  “Well, in order for that to happen, someone else had to let you go.”

  “Right.”

  “But that doesn’t mean the other person didn’t love you too.”

  Kat looked at Letty questioningly, and she continued.

  “. . . Doesn’t love you too.”

  “Wait,” Kat said. “What are you getting at?”

  She looked at Letty again—her pale blue eyes honest and open, her expression earnest.

  “I’m your mother. I gave you away.”

  The words hit Kat like a blow to her stomach.

  “What?” she said, reeling. “No, you’re not.” She shook her head.

  Fragments of conversations, memories in snapshots, came back to Kat. But nothing fit together.

  “I wish things had happened differently,” Letty said. “You’re my daughter—or at least you were once, for a short while.”

  “Don’t say that,” Kat said. “I don’t know why you’re saying this, but I don’t believe you.”

  Letty stared at her calmly.

  Kat got to her feet silently, unable to process what she’d heard, then turned and walked away without saying good-bye.

  Kat walked through the backstreets to her house, Letty’s words playing on a loop in her mind. What reason could she possibly have for lying to her?

  The evening already felt like a blur. Kat struggled to remember how the conversation had even started. All she could recall was the final exchange, those words, the way they had taken the wind out of her.

  She climbed the stairs to her flat, putting one foot in front of the other on autopilot. She wasn’t going to be drawn into this. Letty was confused. It happened to people. They got older, and memories twisted and turned. It pained her to think of Letty being unwell, losing the sharpness of mind Kat had always admired—but that had to be what was happening. It was the only explanation.

  Kat settled on that thought. Devastating as it was to comprehend—it was the only thing that made sense. She had to stay strong. She’d find a way to support Letty, work through this. Nausea nagged at her, making the short walk home seem arduous.

  Her dad met her at the front door. “You’re home early,” he said brightly. “I’ve only just got the young chap off to bed.”

  Kat came in and took her coat off in silence, hanging it up in the hall.

  “He wanted a book after his bath, and then begged me for another, then another.” He laughed. “In the end, we got through nearly a whole library’s worth.”

  Kat stood, rooted to the spot. She felt powerless to move.

  “Are you OK, love? You don’t look well. You’re very pale.”

  She looked up at her father—his kind, crinkled eyes. The welcoming arms that had comforted her the other day, and so many times. He could make this better.

  “I think I need to sit down.” He held her hand and walked with her through to the living room, where they both sat down.

  “Letty was behaving very strangely,” Kat said. She could hear the words come out of her own mouth, but felt detached, as if someone else was saying them.

  “Was she?” her father said gently.

  “I think there’s something wrong,” Kat said. “She’s not herself.”

  “Oh dear. What makes you think that, love?”

  Kat had a lump in her throat, and found it difficult to form the words. “She said something that didn’t make any sense.”

  “She did?”

  A flicker of unease passed across his face.

  “It seems silly even repeating it,” Kat said. “Which is what I mean—she’s normally so sensible. Then she comes out with something weird like this.”

  “I think perhaps you should tell me.”

  “She . . .” Kat stalled. The words slipped away from her, superstitious thoughts creeping in. Perhaps if she said it she would make it real. She brushed the thoughts aside. It was ridiculous to think that way.

  She spoke quickly, and was matter-of-fact. “She thinks she’s my mother.”

  “OK,” Kat’s dad said slowly. “I wondered when this would happen.”

  “When what would happen?” Kat said, confused. “Has she said the same to you?”

  He put his hand on hers.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice soft.

  “This isn’t real—” She shook her head.

  “What Letty told you is true. I would rather have been the one to tell you, but she must have her reasons.”

  “It can’t be,” Kat said. But her certainty was fast evaporating. The denial was now nothing more than a weak attempt to shore up her fragile sense of reality.

  “Your mother wanted you to think of us as your parents,” her father explained. “If you’d wanted to trace your birth mother, this might have come out sooner. But you always insisted you didn’t want to know.”

  “I didn’t want to meet a stranger trying to take my mother’s place, no,” Kat said firmly. “I might not have known her for long, but I still feel loyalty toward her.”

  She hesitated, what her father had said slowly lodging in her mind. “But Letty? Letty?”

  She thought of her friend’s high cheekbones, the shape of her eyes, her chin. Flashes of her own features came to her. The similarities were undeniable. They must always have been, and yet only now were they becoming clear. How had she never noticed before?

  “It’s an awful lot to take in, I know,” her father said. “We didn’t want to deny Letty the chance to be part of your life. We didn’t bring the two of you together, you found each other naturally. It would have been wrong to stand in the way of your friendship.”

  “All my life she’s been there,” Kat said, dazed.

  “How did you leave things with her?”

  “I told her it wasn’t true. Then I walke
d out. I just left.” She rubbed her brow. “I didn’t even say good-bye. I should have at least said that.”

  “Don’t worry about Letty. She’ll be OK.”

  “I think I need to sleep,” Kat said. “I feel dizzy.”

  “Let’s get you to bed.”

  She walked into her bedroom and her dad put the bedside lamp on, giving her a hug and a kiss good night. In the dim light, alone, she felt safer. She wanted to stay in here. Not talk to anyone. She wanted to stay in her room, in bed, until the whole thing went away.

  The next day, Kat forced herself to get out of bed and get dressed, then she took Leo to the park. The ground was wet from the rain overnight. Kat’s dreams had been vivid, full of the storm, and flashes of her childhood, distant memories of her mother. She’d woken up in a cold sweat. There was a fleeting period of grace before memories from the previous evening had come back to her. The truth—concrete now—in the room with her. Letty was her mother. She was Letty’s daughter. They were tied together and always would be in a way she’d never imagined. Even now she didn’t want to imagine it.

  That morning she was grateful for Leo’s constant questions about the movement of the moon and sun, his dreams of space travel distracting her from the unsettling question of who she was. In the playground Leo went straight for the swings, and Kat pushed him. The rhythmic action lulled her.

  “Higher!” Leo called out, his Wellington boots kicked forward in excitement. “I want to get right up to the sun.”

  “I’ll push him,” came a voice. “I can do it super high.”

  Kat turned and saw Zoe by her side, smiling.

  “Hi, Zoe,” she said, making herself smile back.

  “Can I?” Zoe asked again.

  “Of course.” She stepped away. “Leo, this is Zoe. She’s going to push you for a while. She’ll get you to the sun.”

  Leo whooped in excitement.

  “You’ll be careful, won’t you?” she whispered to Zoe.

  “Yes,” she whispered back. “Don’t worry.”

  Kat looked over and saw Adam on a bench nearby. He waved. In spite of everything, her heart lifted to see his warm smile. “I’ll be on the bench over there,” she explained to Leo.

  She sat down next to Adam. “Morning,” she said.

  “Hi,” he said. There was a silence between them, and a gentleness in his expression that told Kat all she needed to know.

  “You’ve heard, haven’t you?” she said, pulling her coat more tightly around her.

  He nodded. “Euan told me last night.”

  “So he didn’t know either,” Kat said flatly. “I suppose he wouldn’t have.”

  “He knew he had a sister. But he had no idea it was you. I think he’s still in shock.”

  “Well, that makes two of us.” Kat managed a weak smile.

  “How are you feeling?” Adam asked.

  “Strange.”

  “Strange how?”

  “Do you really want to know?” Kat asked.

  “Yes.” His answer was so simple. Kat’s urgent longing for resolution, to know every part of the truth seemed to slip away when she looked into his eyes. Maybe it was too early to know everything. Maybe what she was feeling right then was the truth—the one that mattered.

  Kat thought of the way she’d felt when Letty had delivered the news—it hadn’t been one statement, but two. I’m your mother. I gave you away. It was the second one that had stayed with Kat, that had echoed in her dreams. Letty was someone she loved and admired—someone she believed had chosen her as a friend. But now, things were different—she knew the truth, that Letty had found her wanting. Not good enough. Letty had chosen to give her away. Her father, the man who’d always told her to tell the truth, no matter what—had lied to her for years. For her entire life. He might not have said the words, but he’d lied by omission, again and again.

  “You want to know how I feel?” Kat said again. “I’m angry,” she said. She bit the inside of her lip, but couldn’t stop hot tears spilling onto her cheeks. “I’m angry, Adam. The people I trusted most in this world aren’t who I thought they were. I don’t know what it is I should be feeling, but the truth is I’m furious with them: Letty, my dad—even my mum, who’s not here to defend herself.”

  Adam put his hand over hers and held it. She looked up at him, her heart beating harder in her chest. It felt natural, him being there.

  “Be angry,” Adam said. “I would be.”

  Her tears came faster. Here with Adam, she didn’t feel that she had to be strong.

  “It’s going to be OK, Kat,” he said. “You’re going to be all right.”

  52

  Sunday, November 2

  Charlie was sitting with Euan in his living room, his eyes glazed over, a cup of coffee in his hand that must have been cold by now. The night before, the two of them had been ready to leave the house to go out for a meal when Letty had called. She wanted to talk to him, and no, it couldn’t wait.

  Euan had questioned what could be that important. The restaurant booking would have to be canceled, he’d muttered, disappointed. He and Charlie had so little time together as it was, and now, because of this, they would lose an evening. It had been difficult for Charlie to keep quiet, knowing what she knew. She’d simply encouraged him to take his mother’s request seriously, and to go and see her.

  This—the news about Letty, and Kat, and Euan—was one of those revelations that come from nowhere, she thought. You start the day thinking that it matters which cereal you choose for breakfast, what the headlines are, or whether you’re five minutes late for work. She’d been there once, when she’d heard about Ben. That hadn’t been as serious, of course, but all the same, it had taken only a handful of words for the elements of her everyday life to be rendered mere trivialities.

  Now, for Euan and for Kat, two of the people Charlie cared about most, the cereal, the clock, the headlines, wouldn’t matter anymore. And they probably wouldn’t matter again for a long time.

  “I knew there was someone,” Euan said, his words coming slowly. “I knew I had a sister out there somewhere. But I never for one moment imagined it would be Kat.”

  When Euan had gotten home the night before he hadn’t wanted to talk. He must have known that Charlie knew. Letty would have explained, Charlie was sure of that. But when he came to bed, he’d simply asked Charlie to hold him. They’d lain in his bed, limbs intertwined, while the rain lashed against the window. Both of them had remained silent, their breathing steady, waiting for sleep to come. Charlie had resisted the urge to ask, taming her natural inclination to draw out all of the details of a scenario as quickly and fully as possible. She could sense that what he needed most was space to take it in. In the morning, however, he’d been ready to tell her.

  “Mum told me half of the story when she and Dad separated. She said she’d given away a baby girl, because she wasn’t my father’s child and she couldn’t face living a lie. I assumed the girl had grown up somewhere else, not here in Scarborough. Kat lived so close to me. We weren’t friends, but we could have been.”

  Charlie put her hand on his arm, looked at him to show she was still listening.

  “I feel such an idiot,” Euan said. “I look at the two of them and I don’t know how I missed it. You said you saw Mum in me—but the two of them are far more similar, aren’t they? The shape of their faces. Their eyebrows, the way they light up when they’re about to say something they think is funny.” The flicker of a smile came to his lips.

  “I know what you mean,” Charlie said. “I can see it too now. But of course you’re not an idiot. How could you have noticed something when you had no idea that it was even a possibility?”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Euan said, stroking her arm.

  “I’m glad I’m here too,” Charlie said. “I’m sorry I . . .” She searched for the words.
“Well, sorry I made this all happen.”

  “My mum made it happen, not you,” he said, shaking his head. “It was her choice. It was then and it is now.”

  “Kat must be a mess,” Charlie said, frowning.

  “You should go and see her.”

  “I know. I will. I don’t want to leave it too long. I’ll head round there now.”

  Charlie and Kat were in the kitchen of her flat that afternoon, while Leo watched cartoons in the front room.

  “So you’ve been out today,” Charlie said, looking at the wet anoraks in the hallway.

  “Yes, I took Leo to the park.” Kat’s voice was quiet and flat, as if she were only half there. It pained Charlie to see the spirit gone out of her. “I needed to clear my head. I’m guessing Euan’s told you everything.”

  “He’s told me about what he and Letty discussed, yes. In terms of you . . . Kat, there’s something I need to explain,” Charlie said. “I want you to know that I’m on your side, completely. But I’m part of the reason Letty spoke to you, why everything came out the way it did last night.”

  “You?” Kat’s eyes were wide, but the expression was blank rather than annoyed, as if she was too drained of emotion to respond. “You’re in on this too?”

  “I’m not in on it—”

  “You know what, Charlie, I don’t think anything you say would even shock me anymore. First Jake, then this with Letty and my dad.”

  Charlie took a deep breath. Even if it went down badly, she had to at least explain.

  “I found a note, from your mother to Letty. Thanking her, saying she’d always dreamed of being a mother, and now she was—to you. It didn’t spell everything out, but it was clear enough for me to put two and two together.”

  “Where did you find the note?”

  “It was mixed up with some other documents from the café. I wasn’t snooping—you may not believe that, but in this case it’s true. Perhaps deep down Letty wanted someone to find out the truth. Who knows.”

  Kat nodded for her to carry on talking.

  “I was torn—I wasn’t sure whether to come to you first. It felt wrong that I’d found out while you and Euan still didn’t know. But I didn’t want to give you, or both of you, a fragment of the story, with the risk that you wouldn’t want to find out the rest. Letty’s a good person—I felt certain she would have done what she did for a reason, and she deserved a chance to explain that to you both.”