Eleanor gathered up everything in her arms: papers, photographs, letters, and took them downstairs. Together, she and Marion went through everything.
‘You know,’ Eleanor said as they began, ‘Dad’s the executor. Surely he should have gone through all this lot?’
‘Not necessarily. There are no bank statements here, no cheque books, any of that stuff. He must have all of those. And the will.’
‘That’s right,’ Eleanor agreed. ‘He said there were shares and building society accounts, and there’s no evidence of that here. This is all just personal stuff.’
‘He’s been through these as well,’ Marion pointed out. ‘Or someone has. Perhaps Mamie.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The tape is wrinkled – look, as if the knot was somewhere else before.’
‘Goodness, you’re very observant.’
‘Slow, that’s all,’ Marion smiled. ‘I can’t go at your speed.’
‘It’s like being a detective, isn’t it?’ Eleanor said. ‘Except it’s too … I don’t know. I feel terribly anxious suddenly. I want more … proof.’
‘What, that David is really Alice’s son?’
‘Did Mum and Dad adopt him?’
‘Maybe. Or maybe he just came to live with us. He certainly lived with us from when he was very, very tiny.’ Marion thought of the baby taken from the pram, held out for her to see. Your new brother.
‘Why didn’t Alice keep him?’
‘She was single. I suppose the guy made off.’
Eleanor held out the photograph of the man leaning on the bridge. ‘I think this was him.’
‘Goodness,’ Marion said. ‘I see what you mean.’
‘David?’
‘Oh yes.’ Marion took the photograph from Eleanor. ‘David’s father, all right.’
Eleanor thrust the other photograph at Marion. ‘It was in the locked cupboard along with this – Alice, with David, I assume.’
Marion took this photograph from Eleanor as well, and gazed at it in silence for a moment. Then she murmured, ‘She’s like – I don’t know. It reminds me of something.’
‘I know. I think it’s just a family likeness – Dad and her. David as well, I suppose.’
‘Maybe.’
‘There was this letter too. I haven’t opened it yet. It’s to Alice at another address – Viewfield Road?’
‘That was her flat, I think,’ Marion said. ‘Where she lived before Mamie came back to stay with her.’
Eleanor was sliding out a single sheet of paper. ‘Eric,’ she said. ‘It’s from someone called Eric.’
‘What does it say?’
Eleanor’s fingers trembled a little as she passed it over. Her eyes were filled with tears. ‘Oh dear, oh Marion.’
Marion read it. ‘Not a love letter then,’ she said.
‘What a sod. It was him then, this Eric, got her pregnant. Then left her.’
‘But Eleanor …’ Marion bit her lip, then went on: ‘Eleanor, she was over forty by then. Forty-two, in fact. Not a young girl.’
‘All the worse,’ Eleanor said, knowing this, thinking Marion was too safe in marriage to understand.
‘All these other letters.’ Marion picked up a bundle of them. ‘No love letters here, either? They’re wartime ones. Some from Dad.’
‘And women friends. And someone called Jack, or it could be Jackie, so that might be a woman too.’ Eleanor peered at a signature. ‘But they’re just friendly letters all of them. Nothing romantic.’
‘It must have been awful for her.’ Marion took up the photograph of the man again.
‘He doesn’t look like an Eric,’ Eleanor said.
‘Maybe not, but this is him, David’s father, isn’t it?’
‘Oh yes,’ Eleanor agreed. ‘Now I know, I can see it. The jawline, the hair … I bet he never settled anywhere either. Men like that – do so much damage.’ She was thinking of Gavin, not sure if her tears were for Alice or for herself, but all her pity was for Alice, caught in an age when illegitimacy was a scandal, full of shame.
‘I recognise this name.’ Marion was still reading. ‘It was someone she was in the WAAFs with – these letters and postcards are all from her. And letters from Mamie. One about Uncle Tom – look.’ Marion sat back, one of Mamie’s letters in her hand. ‘Eleanor, when did Mamie move back to Aberdeen?’
‘I’m not sure. Around the time David was born, I think.’
‘We’ll ask Dad. But I think it was before that. She came because Alice was pregnant, didn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ Eleanor said. ‘That’s what you or I would do.’
‘And they were like sisters,’ Marion realised.
‘There’s an awful lot of unanswered questions here, though,’ Eleanor pointed out.
‘Look,’ Marion suggested, ‘it’s going to take ages, if we go at this rate. Why don’t we take all the papers and the jewellery—’
‘Oh, the locket. I have to show you the locket,’ Eleanor broke in. ‘Wait a minute, I’ve left it upstairs.’
‘Hang on – there are the clothes as well. We should sort out everything today that has to go to Oxfam or wherever. Then we can parcel up what we want to take back to Pitcairn to go through more slowly. Or take home, perhaps.’
‘Yes, you’re right. Do you want any of the clothes, Marion? She had very nice jackets and blouses, for someone of eighty.’
Marion laughed. ‘Oh dear, it seems so weird, doesn’t it?’ She got to her feet. ‘I’ll make us a cup of tea, and you start on the clothes. I’ll be up in a minute.’
In the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, Marion thought of Alice and Mamie living here all these years while Alice’s son was brought up by someone else. She wondered if Mamie had wanted to keep David with them. Who had made the decision? And her mother – Marion could not imagine how it had all happened. As if, she thought, when Ian died, Eleanor had a baby and I took that baby to live with me. Or no, if she had a baby now, and this Gavin disappeared … But this was so far beyond imagining she gave it up and made the tea, taking it up to Eleanor with a tin of chocolate biscuits.
So they worked on together, the sisters, packing up clothes, talking, laying aside a blouse or a jacket, but conscious that what mattered of Alice was lying on the living-room floor below, telling a different story from the cool bedroom, the plain clothes, the spinster’s life.
The question now, of course, was whether David knew, and if he did not, how – or whether – they should tell him.
23
‘Somehow,’ Marion said, as they drove to the hospital later, ‘when you find out something like this, however much of a shock it is, you feel, in a way, you’ve always known it.’
‘I still can’t imagine what we’re going to say to Mamie,’ Eleanor sighed. ‘I mean, she’s only just had a major operation, and she’s quite frail.’
‘We could wait, speak to Dad instead,’ Marion suggested. ‘But we’ll see how Mamie is first.’
Mamie was sitting up in bed, pink with the heat in the ward, wearing a lacy nightdress. Her lipstick was slightly smeared, but the wearing of it was defiant and cheerful. Her hair stood up in a white fluff, and she apologised for it the minute they arrived.
‘You canna keep yourself nice in hospital,’ she complained. ‘Look at me, I’m nae presentable. I winna get my hair washed e’er the morn.’
‘You look great,’ Eleanor said, bending to kiss the soft cheek, smelling illness, sourness, under a waft of flowery perfume. Indeed, she looked better than Marion who had sat down at once on one of the plastic chairs, white faced.
‘We brought you some flowers and a magazine.’ Eleanor laid them on the bed.
‘Lovely, dear. Your dad was in this afternoon. He said you were coming.’
Eleanor and Marion glanced at each other. Then Eleanor went to fetch another chair. When she came back, Mamie said, ‘You’ve been at the house today?’
‘Yes, I hope it’s all right with you. Dad said you wanted us to
sort out Alice’s things.’
‘I’ve been putting it off, and that’s the truth,’ Mamie admitted. ‘Eh dearie me, it’s a sad business, getting rid of a body’s belongings.’ She patted the bed. ‘And now look at me. What a silly auld woman, eh? Tumbled a the wey down the stairs.’
‘You could have been killed,’ Eleanor said.
‘Ach I’m nae so easy to kill.’ She chuckled and lifted the flowers to sniff at them. ‘Oh, I aye liked freesias.’ She laid them down again. ‘Now then, did you go into the bureau?’
‘Yes,’ Eleanor said, ‘we took everything out.’
‘And what did you find?’
She knows, Marion thought, she knows what we found. She and Eleanor looked at each other again, not sure what to say.
‘Ach, I telt your father. I said it was high time he said something. You were bound to find out by and by; indeed, if Alice had had her way, he’d have gone into it all when your mother died. But he wouldn’t go against your mother’s wishes. She couldn’t persuade him to that.’
‘Mamie, what happened?’ Marion asked. ‘We found David’s birth certificate – it was an awful shock.’
‘Of course it was. Daft, to keep it hidden all these years. Not that it was all your mother’s doing. Alice was just as determined. But oh, I often thought, one wrong word – it was like walking a tightrope sometimes, but the trouble is, the langer a secret’s kept, the mair difficult it is to let it out.’ She looked sharply at Marion. ‘Poor lass, it’s been too much for you, I can see that. You’re not up to hospital visiting. Away you go, the pair of you. Come in tomorrow afore you set off home. They’ll let you in, I’ll speak to the ward sister.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Eleanor began, ‘we do have to go home tomorrow.’ She would have liked to stay on, to question Mamie. She was sure it was Mamie who could best make it all clear, and she was afraid of upsetting her father, who would find it more difficult to talk. But Marion looked ill, and must be got back to Pitcairn, and bed.
As they prepared to leave, and Eleanor leaned down to kiss her aunt again, she could not help asking, ‘Auntie Mamie, does David know?’
‘Ah,’ she said, and for the first time in their visit, looked old and weary, ‘that I canna say. But you could maybe take a guess yourselves about that.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Marion said as Eleanor negotiated traffic, getting them out onto the Deeside road at last. ‘We should have stayed and talked. But –’
‘It’s all right, you’re worn out. No wonder. All these bloody secrets – it’s exhausting.’
‘I still can’t believe it.’
‘I know this is silly, but I’ve only just realised – David’s not our brother.’
‘Somehow,’ Marion said, ‘that’s the least surprising thing about it.’
‘Oh, Marion.’
‘Well, he’s always been different. Remember all that fuss about his Highers? He was perfectly well able to pass them. And the way he just ran off? I’ll never forget those awful days when no one knew where he was. Well, weeks, really, before he got in touch. It was only because poor Stanley changed his mind at Newcastle and came back that we knew anything at all. He didn’t just have to face his dad, and that dreadful Irene, it was our parents as well. I think a lot of Stanley for coming to tell Mum the way he did.’
‘It was the year you got married,’ Eleanor said.
‘That’s right – graduated in July, married in September. And not a word from David till just before the wedding. It was years before I could think about that without being angry. He absolutely ruined that summer. It should have been so lovely.’ The anger was rising again, as she thought of it. ‘And look at the mess he’s made of his life since then.’
‘It’s not a mess – well, no more than mine is.’ Eleanor still felt she and David were twinned, belonged together. Impossible to accept he could have known this unbelievable thing, without telling her he knew. Marion thinks I’m like her, she thought, but I’m not, I’m like David.
‘Oh nonsense,’ Marion said. ‘Your life’s not a mess. You’ve had awful things happen – losing a baby, then Ian. But you’ve been brave and strong: made a life for yourself and Claire, managed on your own. I’m only concerned this Gavin isn’t good enough for you. Another drifter like David. That’s what I’m afraid of.’
The road was quiet; the car coasted. On either side there were trees, then fields. It was easy driving, but for Eleanor it was almost too much. Her hands gripped the wheel, and she leaned forward, tense.
‘Do you think so?’ she said. ‘Do you really think I coped well?’
‘Whereas David,’ Marion went on, ‘has drifted about from one place to another, had dozens of jobs, and moved from one woman to another as well, I’m pretty sure. I’m not altogether convinced he hasn’t actually been in prison during one of his long absences.’
‘Oh no, Marion.’
‘Well.’ Her sister fell silent, looking out of the window.
‘He’s still our cousin,’ Eleanor said, after a moment.
‘I wonder what his father was like, this Eric,’ Marion mused.
‘He looked quite a strong character, in the photograph.’
‘He left her flat.’
‘Maybe she wouldn’t have him,’ Eleanor suggested.
Marion laughed. ‘Well, knowing Alice, that’s certainly a possibility.’
‘How did it all come about?’ Eleanor wondered. ‘I somehow can’t picture it – the discussions they must have had. Was it Alice’s idea, to give him up for adoption? Then Mum and Dad said they would have him?’
‘I suppose it must have been something like that,’ Marion nodded. ‘Och, there’s no point speculating. We’ve got to ask Dad.’
But they continued to speculate, all the way back to Pitcairn.
As they drew up in front of the house, Marion said, ‘Are you going to say something?’
‘Me?’
‘Well, I will then. But what? It might come better from you.’
‘Why?’
‘You were the one who found it.’ Marion shrugged. ‘I just feel so awkward. Not the kind of thing it’s easy to speak to your parents about.’
Eleanor switched off the engine, but neither made a move to get out of the car.
‘He must know, anyway,’ Eleanor pointed out. ‘He was so keen for me to go through everything.’
Their father was watching television. He rose and switched it off as they came in. ‘Sit yourselves down. How was she tonight?’
Eleanor hovered by the door as Marion went to an armchair near the fire. It was not cold, but their father chopped wood all year, and liked to keep the open fire going. And he, Marion realised, had always been the one to clear out and lay the fire in the morning, before he went to work. David used to watch, wanting to do it himself, wanting to be the one to strike the match, and light it. But by the time he was old enough to be allowed, he had lost interest, and would have nothing to do with it. He had given up, she saw now, playing with matches.
But this memory, like all the others, might have to be adjusted. He was not their brother.
‘Do you want tea or coffee or something, Marion?’ Eleanor asked.
‘A cup of tea, if you can be bothered.’
‘Dad?’
‘Aye, fine. There’s cake in the tin. Mamie made me take it from the house. She said it would go to waste.’
Left alone with her father, Marion was silent, gazing at the fire.
‘How did you get on?’ John Cairns leaned forward to take up the poker and stab at burning logs. They fell apart, a red-hot glow appearing between, and he placed another log on top.
‘Oh, we’ve parcelled up all the clothes. Eleanor’s taken the locket, and I have the pearls. Is that all right?’
‘I’m sure it is. Mamie wanted you to have the things.’
An awkward silence fell between them. Then Eleanor came in with the tray. ‘Kettle’s nearly boiling,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring the tea in a minute.’ She laid the tr
ay on the table by the window and went out again. Their father made a remark about the weather, and Marion agreed. There was silence again, till Eleanor came in.
The cake was dark and moist, full of fruit, but none of them could eat it. They drank tea, all three conscious of the unspoken thing that was with them in the room.
‘So,’ their father said, setting down his mug, ‘did you look in the bureau? I took out the bank books and so on, but I left everything else she had in there. There were photograph albums I thought you girls might like to have. They go back before Alice was born – they belonged to your grandparents. You’ll hardly mind on them, I dare say. But there’s snaps of their life, when they had the smiddy. Did you recall your Granda Cairns was a blacksmith?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘And Mamie’s mother and father, Alex and Rose. You’ll maybe mind on them, Marion. They used to visit us when we first moved here.’ He seemed to muse for a moment on these long-finished lives. ‘Then Alex died, and Rose went into a home,’ he began again.
‘Dad,’ Eleanor broke in, unable to go on with this. ‘Dad, I’ve got to say it. You know anyway, don’t you? We found David’s birth certificate.’
John Cairns leaned back in his chair, one hand in front of his face, shielding his eyes. He rubbed them hard, then pushed his hand back over brow and scalp. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘It’s bound to have been a shock to you. You didn’t know, then? You had no inkling?’
‘How could we?’ Marion burst out. ‘How could we possibly know?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m very sorry about all of this.’ His face looked grey. A surge of pity swept over Eleanor.
‘Oh Dad,’ she cried, ‘why did no one tell us? We’re not blaming you, it’s not that.’
‘Was it Alice?’ Marion asked. ‘Did she not want anyone to know?’
David's Sisters Page 28
