‘Because there were things… things that happened that Julian probably didn’t want to burden you with, that you might not understand,’ Frank said slowly.
She felt rather impatient with him now, she understood how difficult it must be for Frank to talk of his brother’s death but all she was asking was why, during twenty five years of marriage, Julian had never even mentioned his best friend’s name, let alone his death. She started to say this when Frank stopped her.
‘As you insist, I’ll tell you,’ he said, ‘though you are not to be judgemental.’
‘I won’t be… but…’
He carried on as if he must get it over with. ‘In the war, when soldiers were moving on, escaping from the oncoming enemy, they couldn’t always take the seriously injured with them, they couldn’t leave them to be humiliated, tortured by the enemy, so they made sure they were safe, made sure they were dead. It wasn’t easy but it was what they had to do. Henry and my father understood, and Julian helped them; I hadn’t the courage.’ Tears glazed his eyes. ‘We never told my mother, but it was the best way. If you had known Henry, you’d understand. He was a brilliant sportsman, an outdoor man, and to be chained to a bed or a chair by his injuries, to not even be able to feed himself or scratch his nose for the rest of his life…’ Frank’s face was haggard as he remembered it. ‘It was what Henry wanted and we understood.’
‘I see.’ Alice felt drained by the enormity of what Frank had told her, crushed by his grief, still so potent after all these years. She felt sick with the horror of it. No wonder Julian hadn’t told her. Had he… and Frank’s father committed a crime? The word murder lurched into her mind.
‘I shouldn’t have told you,’ Frank said. ‘I can see you are shocked but if you’d been there…’ He let the words hang in the air.
‘I’m sorry I made you tell me,’ she said at last, vowing to leave it now, not to dwell on this private act of love that she did not need to know. To change the subject she said, ‘But still it gave me a turn, seeing that young man so like Julian. I must have been thinking of when I first met Julian and he was younger, and then I saw that man… and it was quite dark then as it had been raining…’
Frank said nothing and his silence spooked her.
‘There’s something else, isn’t there, Frank?’ she said quietly.
‘You better know it all,’ he turned to her, ‘though this too happened long before he met you. I have a sister, Sarah, in between Henry and I. She spent a lot of time with Henry and Julian so it was not surprising that Julian fell in love with her. She’s such a lovely person. Their affair came to a natural end as she was going to study in America. When she’d gone, she discovered she was pregnant.’ He took Alice’s hand, held it close in both of his. ‘I thought he would have told you. Edward… Ned, he’s Julian’s son.’
‘No.’ His news was like an arrow to her heart. ‘His son.’ She could not grasp it, why had Julian not told her? Her mouth was dry, the news thudded round her brain, how could he have been so intimate with her… his wife, and not told her about such a monumental event? He, who was such a good father to his daughters, how could be have left his son? Though had he left him? Or had he lived his life between both families? Was that why Julian sometimes came back from business trips some days later than he planned? Or did he take trips to visit this son and tell her he was away on business? Her mind spun with questions. She wanted Julian here so she could interrogate him. So much he had kept from her. She’d thought she’d had the perfect marriage but she had not, it had been a marriage of secrets and he had deceived her.
Still keeping hold of her hand though she tried to withdraw it, Frank went on, ‘Ned was born and lived in New Jersey. Soon after she arrived Sarah met and fell in love with Greg. They married and Greg brought him up as his son, though Ned always knew Julian was his biological father and saw him from time to time. Ned stayed in London in my flat in Queen’s Gate for a few months here and there while he studied and did an internship, though that was mostly after Julian’s death. Had he been alive when he was here I’m sure he’d have introduced you all.’ He did not sound very convincing.
‘I don’t think he would after he’d kept him secret for so long,’ Alice said sadly, struggling to understand. ‘It was just a sheer fluke that I saw him in Queen’s Gate that day and if I hadn’t mentioned it to you I would have never known, would I? Or my girls that they have a half-brother?’ It hit her hard as she realized that her daughters had a brother, what would they feel about that?
‘You must not blame Julian, Alice, he loved you, more than he loved anyone. He met you after Ned’s birth and for some reason he didn’t tell you. When you asked me some time ago why I hadn’t introduced my nephew to you, I waited to see if you mentioned Julian’s son, but you did not. So I said nothing,’ he said quietly.
‘I wish you’d told me.’ She turned to him her face anguished.
‘It was not my story to tell. Perhaps Julian meant to tell you but time went by and he put it off and then it probably became too difficult, I don’t know, but you mustn’t hold it against him, he loved you and your girls and that is the most important thing.’
‘But Ned, is related to my girls and…’ She burst into tears. It was too much. All these years she’d been married to a man she didn’t know, their marriage, the marriage she thought she’d had, was a sham and she felt that Frank too had conspired in the betrayal.
32
To his relief, Frank saw the truck lurching over the rough ground to pick them up.
Alice saw it too and took a deep, shuddering breath, struggling to control her tears. He moved to hold her but she leant away from him, scrabbling in her pocket for a handkerchief to wipe her eyes. She turned her face away, watching the truck approach, adding to his pain and confused anger with himself for telling her so much, and with Julian for not telling her anything. And yet had not that been one of the reasons Frank had been reluctant to see her, afraid of the secrets he shared with Julian? He and Julian rarely spoke of them, though they both sometimes felt them hovering between them like ghosts.
He had fallen in love with Alice himself in those early days but he took himself out of the way by moving to France not wanting to be hanging around their marriage. Coming back all these years later, he found to his surprise that he still loved her. Now he was here, and she was alone he wanted to stay close to her, though the bombshell that Julian had left behind had now destroyed anything that might have blossomed between them. Even if he’d kept Ned secret, as Julian had done, it loomed too large between them for a loving relationship to flourish.
Ben was steering the truck with one hand and leaning with his free arm on the open window. He stopped beside them, jumped out, his face split with a grin, looking from one to the other. ‘So how was it? Did you enjoy it?’
‘Very much,’ Frank said. ‘Alice has just got to get her breath back,’ he added, hoping to save her having to explain her tears, but she had her back to them, bending down to sort out the tangle of seat, kite and ropes to hide her face.
She said, ‘Lovely, really enjoyed it.’
‘Good, you must do it again. No, leave that I’ll do it.’ Ben came over to her and yanked up the kite and its paraphernalia to bundle into the truck. ‘Great conditions today, hope to go up myself, later.’
Frank helped him load up. He longed to comfort Alice, hold her in his arms, but she had closed in upon herself and wouldn’t even look at him. He felt angry with Julian, why had he not told her about Ned before they married? He had not asked him about it himself, perhaps feeling that it was between Alice and Julian and now he thought about it, he’d just assumed that Alice knew about Ned and as he never saw her it was not discussed. He understood why Julian hadn’t talked about Henry, helping someone to die – even though Henry had begged them to do it and had dictated a letter outlining his wishes – was a crime.
It was the fact that Julian had not told her about Ned that infuriated him. She might have been upset at fir
st, but she was a sensible woman and would surely have seen that the relationship– which happened before they met – held no threat to her and their family. Hiding it like Julian had made it seem like there was more to it than there was. It was not as bad as Evie’s baby, openly fathered by a man cheating on his wife, who was too careless to bother with birth control. Ned had been conceived by mistake, Julian and Sarah had been in love but not enough to marry. Ned was well balanced and happy, knowing that he was loved and wanted, even if his conception had not been planned.
Sarah and Julian’s relationship had started soon after Henry’s death, both perhaps needing the other after the trauma of it all. They’d both known that Sarah was going to study in the US. She had no idea she was pregnant when she left Britain, indeed didn’t find out until she was over three months gone. Julian offered to marry her but by then she’d met Greg, who’d stood by her and accepted Ned. Julian then met Alice and for some reason he could not fathom, he had not told her about his son. If only she hadn’t – by some unlucky quirk of fate – seen him. Sod’s law that Ned was only in London for a few days and he’d come out of the flat just as she passed it. He glanced at her; she was watching a couple of kites circling above them, her hands clenched in her lap, showing her pain. He shouldn’t have told her. He should have brushed off her story of seeing Ned as a strange coincidence.
Ned had been in his life as his nephew so long Frank no longer gave his beginnings much thought. He wondered now if Ned knew about his half-sisters? He knew Julian was married but it was another life to him, he’d lived and was educated in New Jersey and had his doting family, friends and interests there. He had always seen Greg – who was there all the time – as his father, and although he was fond of Julian they never had enough time together to bond strongly as father and son. Now that his nephew was working in corporate law, the same field as he was, they had much in common and there were many interesting cases Ned wanted to discuss with him.
Ned, had just started work in a prestigious firm in New York so had not come over from the States to go to Julian’s funeral, and he himself was too far away and tied up with a difficult case to go either. He still missed Julian, but now he was furious that he’d left behind these secrets for him to break to Alice and surely ruin any loving relationship they might have had together.
Alice got into the truck beside Ben, who was chattering on, and Frank squeezed in himself. There was not much room in the cabin and they sat close together, their bodies touching. She did not move but stared ahead as Ben turned the truck and started back along the track, their bodies swinging against each other as the truck rattled over the dry, ridged earth. Ben talked all the time, which both of them found a relief.
They reached the clubhouse and Alice disappeared into the Ladies. They were supposed to be going to a good pub he knew for a decent lunch, but he’d lost his appetite and he imagined she had too. He hung about waiting for her to emerge, intently studying the photographs on the wall, taken of the landscape from the air.
She came out at last, she’d done her best to hide the ravages of her distress by re-doing her make-up, but it was there in her eyes, in the way she moved, and it crushed his spirits.
‘Do you feel like something to eat?’ he asked quietly. ‘I know it was a shock and I’m so upset that I was the one who had to tell you.’
‘I’m sorry, Frank, but I just want to go home.’ She moved towards the door and he followed her to the car. It seemed so long since their flight, the beauty and the calmness, the magic of floating together in the sky. He’d felt so close to her, as if they were the only two people in the world, their own world latched together as one.
He felt a surge of resentment against Julian. Had he imagined that, because Ned lived most of his life in the States with his family he need not tell her? Ned had been about four years old when Julian and Alice married and it was true Julian barely saw him at that time, but later when as a young adult he’d come to London to study, surely he could have told her then?
They reached the car and got in, he drove out of the club and up the road. ‘Look,’ he said to break the silence, ‘I assumed that Julian must have told you about Ned when you married but if there is anything you want to know please ask me. It happened long before he knew you, so it wasn’t as if it happened behind your back, not like… Nick and Evie. I know it’s been a shock, but when you’ve had time to think, you’ll come to terms with it, I know you will.’
‘It’s not that,’ she turned to him in anguish. ‘Of course if he had affairs and sex and… as Evie reminded me sex makes babies, I’d have understood, asked Ned round to meet the girls… his half-sisters.’ She gulped on the words. ‘What hurts me so much is that Julian didn’t tell me, didn’t include his son… introduce him to us. He lived – when he was in London – close by and yet we never had an inkling about his existence. Why was that? Was he ashamed of him, ashamed of us?’
‘Of course not.’ He clutched the steering wheel, his feelings in turmoil, not wanting such a conversation now when they were driving. ‘Julian was hardly a saint, he made mistakes like the rest of us and, for what it’s worth, I think he made a mistake not to tell you, but for whatever reason, he didn’t. Look, Alice, can we stop somewhere, talk about this quietly?’
‘No, I just want to get home, please Frank. I’m sorry… the flight was wonderful, I’ll never forget it and I’m sorry it ended this way.’
He was chilled by her words; did she mean she didn’t want to see him again? Banish the ‘messenger’ of such news. But he’d promised to be at Laura’s wedding to take Julian’s place. He was doing too much for Julian, he thought now sorting out the mayhem he’d left behind, which had ruined Alice’s opinion of him.
‘As you wish, Alice, but please don’t blame me for it; you can blame me for telling you about it, but not for what happened.’
He’d been in love with her so long, though when she’d asked him to come and give Laura away, he’d convinced himself that time would have changed her and that his love for her would have died a natural death. Besides, hadn’t he often thought that there were too many complications between him and Julian for them to have a life together? But when he’d seen her again, his feelings for her were as strong as ever and he kidded himself that the secrets that bound him to Julian were in the past and now she was alone they might have a chance to be happy together.
He struggled to bank down his fury; Julian knew that he loved Alice. He’d even asked him if that was why he’d upped sticks and gone to live in France to put some space between them. He’d been rather vague with his answer and to his relief they’d been interrupted before the conversation got too deep.
Had Julian set up these hurdles knowing that he would find them too much of a barrier to nurture a love between them when he’d gone? He’d known for years that his heart condition would kill him early and he was older than he was, had he, could he, knowing them both so well, stymied any hope of them coming together?
No, Frank scolded himself for thinking such a thing. He was overwrought with the ruination of the day and Alice’s pain, Julian would never think like that, would he?
33
Alice stared out of the window at the passing scenery as she and Frank drove back to London. She felt disorientated, as if she didn’t know herself, the person she once was, the wife, now widow of such a man. She wondered if Cecily had known about Julian’s past life too, kept them from her all these years? Alice had been young, barely twenty-one when she’d married Julian, but not so young as not to have understood about Ned, accepted that Julian had had a liaison that resulted in a child before he’d even known her.
Who was he really, this man she’d loved and married? He felt now like a stranger. Had she conjured up the kind and caring man who’d professed to love her? But he had loved her, she told herself, surely he had, for how could he have kept up the act for so long? And he loved his daughters there was no doubt of that. But why had be not shared this part of his life with he
r, did he not trust her, respect her enough to do so? Surely he loved his son too, but if so why hadn’t he told them about him, included him in the family, especially as he’d been here in London from time to time, living so close to them?
They drove in silence most of the way back, both of them reluctant to speak in case more disclosures would reveal themselves. Frank dropped her off home and as he stopped the car she tried to apologize for her mood, conscious that he was unhappy, disappointed in how the day he’d taken so much trouble to plan had ended. She wished now she hadn’t mentioned seeing Ned, had stayed in blissful ignorance about Julian’s past. For whatever reason he hadn’t wanted her to know or he would have told her.
‘The paragliding was wonderful, Frank,’ she said, ‘I’ll never forget the experience of floating together in the sky, it was every bit as wonderful, more so in fact, than I imagined. Thank you so much.’
‘Shall I come in with you or is Laura there?’ he asked, turning to her a moment, his face stern as he struggled with his emotions, dashing any hopes she had of feeling easy with him again.
‘No… thank you.’ She opened the car door, she wanted to be alone to try and make some sense of it.
‘Please ring if you need me, Again, I’m sorry I had to be the one to tell you all these things, but it’s better out in the open and I hope you come to terms with it.’ He said, inwardly cursing Julian.
‘I’ll be fine, goodbye and thank you for the paragliding, I loved it I really did.’ She got out quickly and shut the door, almost slamming it in her anguish. She couldn’t bear to hear another word, have Frank floundering on, making excuses for Julian adding more insecurity to her muddled thoughts.
Frank was out of the car too and came and stood beside her and she had to almost touch him as she made for her front door. She struggled with a sudden wish for him to hold her, comfort her, and take away the chill of Julian’s betrayal.
Mothers and Daughters Page 20
