by Minna Howard
She glanced at her bedside clock. The time – 4.30 a.m. – shone back at her. It would be lunchtime in Singapore. She’d ring him now, she decided. She should have rung him late last night, but part of her felt wary of disturbing him.
This fiasco he was dealing with in Singapore was doubly difficult for him as the man involved was an old friend.
She must not dwell on this now, she must tell him before his mother got to him; she couldn’t trust Delia not to bombard him with her take on the story. She knew his office number by heart and sitting up in bed she stabbed it into the telephone on the table beside her. As it rang, she realised he’d panic, knowing the time in Britain and think something terrible had happened and for a moment she hovered with the receiver over the phone to shut it off but then she heard his voice.
‘Verity, is everything all right? It’s the middle of the night for you.’
‘Yes, the boys are fine. I couldn’t sleep and I need to talk to you.’ She heard the concern in her voice and knew he’d pick it up and it would worry him. ‘This sounds strange, but I feel I must tell you as soon as possible. I could have told you earlier today, but it was such a shock then it was your night-time… Oh, how I wish I was with you,’ she gabbled.
‘What?’ He sounded scared. ‘Is someone ill? Dead? Delia?’ He never called her Mother.
‘No, nothing like that.’ She took a deep breath. ‘A young woman came here yesterday, and she said… I know it sounds mad, but she said that she’s your daughter.’
‘What? I… I don’t understand, Verity. I don’t have a daughter. Whatever do you mean?’ He sounded exasperated, a tone he’d come to adopt when he spoke to her these days. She ignored her feeling of hurt and pushed on.
‘It was when you were in Greece before we met and you had a fling with a woman out there, well, apparently you had a daughter and now she, I mean the mother, has died, so she told Saskia… her… your daughter about you, where you lived and everything. She even gave her your surname.’ She threw the words at him.
‘Are you sure, Verity?’ He sounded anguished. ‘I mean… why didn’t she – I can’t even remember her name now – why didn’t she tell me before, when she first found out? This girl must be a grown woman by now?’
‘Helen is the mother’s name.’
‘Oh… yes that’s it. It was a holiday thing, pleasant but not serious. After the summer we both went our separate ways, I never heard from her again – why didn’t she tell me we were having a child? She knew the name of the firm I was going to work for, she could have reached me there.’
‘I don’t know. She sounded quite independent. Anyway, I understand that you didn’t keep in touch, exchange phone numbers and things. It’s so much easier to keep track of people today, with the internet and all. Oh, how I wish you were here, and we didn’t have to discuss it over the phone.’ Despite his new impatience with her demands since his promotion, she wanted him close to help her deal with the situation.
He made a quick excuse as obviously someone had come into his office and she heard him talking to them saying he’d be free in a moment.
She felt anxious, wishing the whole thing would go away and they could be just them as they used to be and their boys without Saskia like an unexploded bomb between them.
His voice changed now into what she called his ‘no nonsense’ voice – probably because someone was in the room with him or he had to go and deal with some drama, as if this wasn’t drama enough. ‘I’ll have to give this some thought; I’ll ring you later when I’m free. There’s so much going on here.’
‘I know and I hate to bother you, but I had to tell you straight away. I told your mother; well she rang last night, and I needed to talk to someone in the family. She’s nice, this woman. Jen saw her and said she had a look of you about her. I wish you were here…’
‘Me too… but sorry, I… I must go. Go back to sleep, love, speak soon.’ He put down the phone and she felt bereft. She should not have rung him in the office, told him like that. She should have waited until the evening, but then he might be in a restaurant or with other people, or not even answer. And what about the boys? They wouldn’t be home for a while, so she would have to go up to Nottingham to see them, and anyway, her appearing there so soon after they’d gone back would freak them out. It was all so difficult and the idea of having Saskia here with the baby made her feel ill with panic.
There were two days before she started her term. Being the start of a new year, she would have to deal with a new intake of students starting the course, as well as the ones in their second year. The college was off Queen’s Gate, and the students would be new. They were teenagers who for various reasons were taking their A levels in a college, with very small classes. Some had been ill, others excluded from their school, or they had problems like dyslexia, or just needed a quieter environment. She enjoyed teaching these young people who needed extra care and understanding, though the fees were steep, and she wished the same education could be given to children whose parents could not afford them.
Verity thought studying history was a gift for life. It opened a fascinating world to anyone who wanted to enter it. Galleries and museums were free in Britain and London was full of them, besides being one of the oldest cities in the world, founded by the Romans in 43 AD. They were so lucky to be studying in the heart of it.
She tried to go back to sleep without success, so she got up had a shower and set to cleaning up the boys’ bedrooms feeling she had to do something physical to stop herself being overtaken by the thought of having Saskia, virtually hijacking their family. And yet, a nagging voice reminded her that Saskia and her coming child, if she was Nathan’s daughter, would be part of their family now.
She had no baby things, all long gone, though she had kept the pretty Moses basket her mother had made her, perhaps hoping for another baby in the family. Now there was another baby coming into the family, though not in the way she hoped it would be – some years down the line to her happily married sons.
EIGHT
Toby rang at lunchtime while she was going through her notes for the coming term. ‘My duvet’s gone walkabout, please could I have some money for a new one, Mum?’
‘Are you sure it’s not in a cupboard or somewhere?’ she asked and then feeling now was the time to tell him about Saskia as he was on the phone, she added, ‘Is Marius there?’ There was a year between them, and they shared this house in Nottingham with others.
‘No, why should he be, Mum? I just need a new duvet, it’s freezing here.’
‘Yes, you can have one, but have another good look first, but listen before you go… I’ve something to tell you, I’d have liked to tell both of you at once, so you’ll have to tell Marius.’
‘What is it? Dad’s okay, isn’t he?’ She heard the fear in his voice.
‘Yes, yes, it’s nothing like that; it’s just that, well, you have a sister.’ She knew she was doing this wrong.
‘What, you’ve had another baby?’ He sounded incredulous.
‘No. This girl, young woman, turned up after you’d left, she… well, when Dad spent a summer in Greece before we married, before I even met him, well, he…’
‘Dad… no way.’ He was laughing now as if unable to imagine his father young and fancy free, let alone having an exciting sex life.
‘He had an affair and it ended and he came back here, and we met and married but unbeknown to him he’d fathered a child; her name is Saskia.’
‘No… are you sure, Mum? I mean are you sure?’
She knew it sounded incredulous especially as Toby found it difficult to imagine his father having a sex life before marriage and then probably only having it twice to make him and his brother.
‘No, I’m not completely sure though she could look a little like him. Poor girl… Saskia, her mother has died and…’ She paused. The whole thing sounded so farfetched. She wished she was with Toby so she could see how he was taking this absurd story.
‘Well, the
thing is, she too is having a baby. She’s with the father but he’s in the States for a while. He will come back when it’s born.’
‘You’re sure she’s not having you on, Mum?’
‘I don’t think so, it’s what her mother told her anyway just before she died.’ She heard someone calling him, and he replied that he was just coming, reminding her of his father just a few hours ago. Her menfolk seemingly had more important things to do than take in the fact that their family had just been gate crashed by a new member.
‘Anyway, I feel you both ought to know. I’ve told Dad so please tell Marius. I’m sorry I can’t tell him myself but get him to ring me.’
‘Okay. Hold on, Liam, I’m just coming… so, my duvet, Mum?’
‘I’ll put the money in your account but please have another look for it first.’
‘Will do. Bye. Thanks.’ He rang off.
She sat a moment holding the phone in her hand as if she could keep him close. There was still a strand of umbilical cord between them. Toby hadn’t sounded upset by the news that he might have a grownup half-sister. He seemed more amazed that his father was, like most other man, capable of having love affairs. At least it had happened in the past before they’d met. How would she feel if Nathan had had a child now with someone else, someone younger and perhaps more fun and pretty, as a friend of theirs had done?
*
Verity put in a load of the boys’ washing, scooping up socks under the bed, underpants fallen behind the laundry basket and stripped the beds. The phone went as she sat down for a late snack. It was Marius
‘What’s this, Mum, about Dad having another child?’
‘It was long before I knew him,’ she said quickly, hoping Toby had explained it properly. ‘This young woman arrived just after I got back at dropping you both at the station and told me that Dad was her father too. She’s twenty-three and… very nice. It happened before I met him,’ she repeated. ‘You know he spent a summer in Greece, just after uni and before starting work.’ She went on explaining as if it were quite a normal state of affairs.
‘So, she’s our half-sister and she’s going to live with us – but what if she is not and it’s a scam?’
‘It could so easily be true, and Jen was convinced there was a likeness. I felt sorry for her, just losing her mother fairly suddenly. She’s nowhere else to go. She won’t be with us for long as her boyfriend is coming back from the States soon and they’ll set up home together.’
‘Tobes said there was a baby.’
‘Not yet, but she is having one later.’
‘So, we are going to be uncles. Honestly, Mum…’
She sighed. ‘It’s quite a shock I know. I wish I didn’t have to tell you over the phone, but if I’d come up to tell you, you might have been too busy. Anyway, my term starts in a couple of days and I’ve got to get ready for that. It’s given me quite a shock too, but we can’t just leave her to get on alone. Her boyfriend will be back soon and then she’ll go and live with him,’ she said briskly. ’It will only be for a few months.’
‘But she’ll still be Dad’s daughter,’ Marius said, ‘so does he know?’
‘I’ve just told him. He’s quite shocked, but we’ll do the right thing. She’s part of our family,’ she added blithely to appease her son though she got no comfort from it.
When he’d rung off, fairly sanguine about it, the thought hit her. I will have to deal with it all as the boys and Nathan are away, so it will all fall on me. So much for a peaceful month left to her own devices.
NINE
It was hard to know what to keep and put into storage and what to chuck from her mother’s flat. They had lived in the country near Alton for many years and then when Saskia was sixteen, they had moved to this flat in Hammersmith, after her mother found a well-paid job in hotel reception.
Her mum had a talent for doing up a place beautifully on a shoestring budget. They’d painted the dun-coloured walls in strong clean colours, and her mother made the curtains, but now in the cold light of day, the flat felt empty and unloved with her mother gone.
Saskia now worked five, often six days a week designing the clothes for the shop in Fulham, off North End Road. Through a friend who worked there, Annabel had managed to get a couple of their party dresses into Queen Magazine and orders were coming in. The article also brought in more clients who sought out their shop, and so to her relief she was getting more money herself, though she still kept her job at the wine bar. Her time in the clothes shop was quite flexible. She could bring her work home as she did when her mother was ill, but now with all these new orders and the wine bar, she did not have much time to clear out the flat.
Two of her best friends, Meg and Paul, who’d been an item forever, came round with their mixed-breed dog, Stan (short for Stanislaw), to help her pack up.
Paul took over, ruthlessly stuffing things into the bag for the charity shop, while Meg and Saskia were more hesitant, sometimes even taking things out again.
‘I’d like to keep the curtains for when Darren and I find somewhere,’ Saskia said.
‘False economy,’ Paul said cheerfully. ‘They probably won’t fit – and he might not like them, want you to choose new ones together. Anyway, they are hard to store and make a cosy base for moths. Far better to sell them in a second-hand curtain shop I know of.’
‘She’s still living here a few more days, she’ll need the curtains until then.’ Meg put her hand out to stop him pulling the ladder towards them to take them down. ‘It’s these books we need to go through. Have you read them all, Sas?’
‘No, they are mostly Mum’s. The paperbacks can go. Somewhere I’ve an address of a women’s refuge that likes to have them, though I’ll keep the hardbacks, especially the art ones. They were her favourite and they are full of such wonderful pictures.’ Saskia remembered how her mother had found them such a comfort when she was really ill and reading novels became impossible.
‘I’ll put them in this box, they can go into storage.’ She sighed. ‘I think I’ll keep most of the furniture for Darren to see for our flat. I know he has some of his own with his parents, so we can choose what fits and what doesn’t and get rid of what we don’t want.’ If only he was here in London, she thought, and they could move straight into a flat together and bypass her living with Verity and her as yet unknown father.
‘So, when do you move in with your new family?’ Meg guessed her thoughts. She sat back on her heels as she stacked the books in a box. ‘It’s all so strange isn’t it, finding your father like this?’
‘Mum paid up to this coming weekend, and then, as you know, the rent goes up. Anyway, even if I could afford it, I want to move on. It’s too sad to stay here without her,’ Saskia said.
‘But it won’t be for long, will it? When did you say Darren comes back?’ Paul asked.
‘Around April for good, but he’s coming over in January for the baby.’
‘So you’ll stay with your father’s family that long?’ Paul regarded her, his usually cheerful face now more serious. ‘I mean, can’t Darren come back sooner and help you find a flat where you can live before he joins you for good in April?’
‘No. Saskia will be staying with her father’s family, until Darren gets back,’ Meg said in exasperation. ‘Do keep up, love.’
‘Oh… fine, I just thought…’ Paul shrugged and tossed more paperbacks into the box for the charity shop.
Saskia felt a sudden bolt of fear. What if things didn’t work out as they planned? If Nathan was not her father, or even if he was, what if he didn’t want her in the house? What if Darren got held up with his job and was not able to come over for the birth, or even come home for good in April?
Meg noticed her change of mood. She squeezed her hand. ‘It will all work out, love, though I admit it’s a bit daunting having a new family to get used to at our age. But you are definitely going there next week, aren’t you? If not, you can squash in with us.’
‘That’s sweet of you,
but no, I’m sure it will be fine,’ Saskia assured her, dampening down her own fears. Paul and Meg lived in a tiny flat in Clapham and she’d have to sleep on the sofa, and that would not work for long.
She had not yet heard directly from her father though Verity had rung her a couple of times asking how she was and when, exactly, she was moving in, as she wanted to be there to welcome her.
‘As you can imagine, it’s been a great shock to Nathan and he wishes that your mother had told him sooner, but of course you must stay. As I told you, he is very tied up with things in Singapore, but he’ll contact you soon,’ Verity had explained. So she’d planned to move in on Saturday. It would be hard leaving this flat even though she no longer felt her mother here, now that her last belongings were all packed away.
A stab of loneliness hit her and she turned away from her friends so they wouldn’t see her anguish. If only her mother had not died and was here to help her. She would have welcomed her and the baby and offered support and love, until Darren came back.
Meg was now trawling through the paperbacks and grabbing a few. ‘I love this author and I’ve never read this one. Do you mind if I snitch them? I’ll send them to the charity shop when I’ve finished.’
‘Of course, take what you want,’ Saskia said.
Stan, standing up on the sofa, with his paws on the back of it, looked out of the window and began to bark at some pigeons mooning round the pavement and the falling autumn leaves blowing around them. Paul told him mildly to get down and urged Meg to see to packing up the art books that Saskia wanted to keep. Saskia felt better; she was lucky having such good friends and perhaps a father who would care for her. If he was as kind as Verity seemed to be, all would be well.
‘Live your life well, darling,’ had been her mother’s last words. She was determined to do so. If only Darren were here, and they could start their life together with their coming baby, it would be so much easier.
