by Mary Hooper
I nodded slowly. It wasn’t now I was interested in, though. It was then. In 1984.
‘You would tell me, wouldn’t you?’ I asked suddenly. ‘You wouldn’t just let me find out for myself?’
‘If Dad and I were heading for the rocks?’ she laughed. ‘Of course I’d tell you.’
But I hadn’t meant that, of course. I’d meant, would she tell me if I was someone else’s daughter, and not Dad’s?
I didn’t go to the craft centre. Dad went off to play a round of golf and I said I was going to stay in and catch up with some reading for next term. I wasn’t going to read, though, what I was going to do was have a nose round the house.
I knew where my birth certificate was: in the middle drawer of the bureau in the sitting room. I’d had it out a couple of years before when I’d applied for a passport. I had a look at it again, though, just to make sure there was nothing I’d missed. It said:
Mother’s name: Alice Stephanie Devine, nee Ritchie
Father’s name: Gordon James Devine
I stared at it as if it could give up some secret. As if the words not really might suddenly appear under the ‘Father’s name’ bit.
I looked at everything else in the drawer. There were Mum’s and Dad’s birth certificates, their marriage certificate and a death certificate for my other gran – Mum’s mum – who’d died the previous year. There was a baby weight chart of mine showing my progress from 7lb 1oz upwards and also a pink wristband saying Baby Devine which they’d put on in the hospital when I’d been born. In a transparent envelope were all my baby congratulation cards. I’d looked through them before, of course; I’d loved looking through them when I was little because they said things like ‘To your beautiful baby girl’ and ‘Your baby girl comes with all the love in the world’ and gooey stuff like that. This time I searched through them just in case there was one from someone called Ben.
Of course there wasn’t. I looked through the rest of the stuff in the other drawers of the bureau, and then I looked all along the bookshelves and between the books as well. I didn’t know what I was looking for – as if I was going to find a letter from him, the madman, stuck between Ruth Rendell and Joanna Trollope. I did find something a bit funny, though: there was a book called The Poetry of Love and when I got it down and looked in the front for clues to see if it said ‘to someone’ or ‘from someone’, I saw that the first page had been torn out. I then found another poetry book where the same thing had happened. This led me to think that someone – it had to be Mum – had received the books as a present from a man she shouldn’t have done, so she’d torn out the front page where the man had written an inscription.
In the middle of all this research the phone rang and it was Ella.
‘You didn’t ring me!’ she said accusingly. ‘You didn’t ring to let me know how you got on last night.’
‘Sorry.’ I told her what had happened, more or less, and she said all the right things about him being a weirdo and a perve. When I’d finished, though, there was a long pause and she said, ‘God, it’s weird about you having the same eye as him, though, isn’t it?’
I sighed. ‘Yeah, I know,’ I said. ‘Look, I’ll meet you later. Mum and Dad are both out so I’m just doing a few investigations here first.’
‘Oh, get you, Sherlock,’ she said. ‘Good luck.’
I started looking upstairs, in Mum and Dad’s bedroom. I felt uneasy doing this because I didn’t want to find anything dodgy. Not about him, dodgy, but any condoms or rude books or anything. Earlier in the year Ella had found a basque in her mum’s room. Just on the chair, not even hidden. I hadn’t known what a basque was, and Ella had explained that it was a form of tarty underwear, red nylon with black trimmings, with a laced-up midriff that was supposed to push your boobs up and suspenders so you could wear stockings with it. We imagined her mum putting it on and prancing round in front of the pillock and screamed with horror at the thought.
There was nothing like that here, though, the room was all very stylish: pale-yellow walls washed over with white so that they looked patchy and tastefully faded, and a white cotton duvet cover piled with broderie anglaise cushions. There was an old pine table in the corner of their room and Mum had piles of coloured boxes on this, each containing various bits and pieces: craft stuff, cuttings from magazines, colour charts for the rooms, old bills, letters from relatives and friends, a few photos – stuff like that.
I opened a couple of boxes and leafed through, but it all looked quite boringly normal. In the middle of the big purple file labelled Household Bits, though, was a brown envelope, stuck down, with Stuff about water meter written on it in Mum’s writing.
This looked funny to me. Why put something like that in a brown envelope and seal it down?
Carefully, I lifted the flap. It wasn’t very well stuck – it looked as if she’d opened it herself a couple of times and glued it down again.
Inside were five things. Or six if you count the water-meter folder they were hidden in.
Horrified, legs wobbly, I sat down on the bed and looked through them. First there was a photo of him, much younger. He had very blond hair and quite a lot of freckles, and was wearing a black polo neck jumper. There were also the two front pages from the poetry books downstairs, one saying, ‘Page 18 sums it all up, darling’ and the other, ‘Love for always, Ben’. Lastly there were two letters addressed to the house on the other side of town we’d moved from ten years ago. They were postmarked Monterey, one had a date of 1984 and the other 1985.
I didn’t actually read them; I reckoned I’d seen enough without sinking quite that low. I looked at everything carefully once more, just to make quite sure I’d got things right and wasn’t hallucinating, and then I put each thing back carefully inside the water-meter folder and inside the envelope just the way I’d found them.
I sat down on the bed, shaking all over. I sat there for half an hour or so, absolutely immobile, just staring at a piece of fluff on the carpet. I felt I could stay there for ever, quite frozen, and that if I could do that it would be the best thing, because I wouldn’t have to take my place in the world again.
The phone rang, though, and brought me back to life. I didn’t answer it, but still trance-like, got my bag and a jumper ready to go round to Ella’s house. Going downstairs, I got the two poetry books off the bookshelf and put them on the table in the sitting room for a clue. I wanted Mum to know that I knew.
As I was doing this, though, I heard her key in the lock. My first thought was to run out of the back, but before I could do so the door opened and she breezed straight into the sitting room with her bag over her shoulder and two carriers.
‘It was so crowded!’ she said. ‘And I couldn’t decide on anything. I needed you there to make up my mind for me.’ She looked at me curiously. ‘You’ve got a funny look on your face. What’ve you been doing?’
I swallowed hard. ‘Not much,’ I said, and my voice sounded all strange and false. ‘Reading poetry.’
She looked puzzled. ‘What for?’
I tapped the two books on the table meaningfully. ‘From these poetry books here.’
‘What, for next term, d’you mean?’
She still didn’t get it.
‘These two books. Are they yours?’
She frowned and came over to look at them. ‘Mine? Yes, I suppose so. I haven’t looked at them for years. Why d’you ask?’
My heart thudded. ‘Did you have an affair in 1984?’
‘What?’ She looked insulted and confused. ‘What’re you talking about?’
‘An affair. You had one, didn’t you? With some bloke called Ben. He bought you these books.’
‘What utter rubbish!’ she said, but she went bright red and I didn’t think I’d ever seen her go red before. ‘That’s absolutely outrageous! Whatever’s made you say that? Who have you been talking to?’
‘I don’t need to talk to anyone,’ I said. ‘I’ve found the evidence.’
‘What ev
idence? What’re you talking about?’
‘I’ve been upstairs looking for stuff … ’
She stared at me in horror. ‘How dare you! How could you? I’ve always respected your secrets completely. I wouldn’t dream of prying into your private things.’
‘Yeah, well, very sorry,’ I said. I spoke all cockily but I was shaking inside. ‘Things like this are important, though. I had to find out, didn’t I?’
She let the bags drop on to the floor. She was breathing hard and fast, as if she’d been running. ‘What … what have you found out?’
‘You had an affair with some bloke called Ben Simmons.’
She moved towards the nearest chair and sat on it. ‘Dad’s not in at the moment, is he?’
I shook my head.
She ran a hand through her hair. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you. How could you possibly think such a thing? How … how could you think it of me?’
‘Quite easily,’ I said.
She opened her mouth to speak several times while I just stared at her dispassionately, biding my time before I moved on to the next bombshell.
She pulled at a strand of hair nervously. ‘Who’s been saying these things?’
‘Him, for a start.’
‘But how … ?’ She turned quickly to face me. ‘Have you met him, then?’
I nodded. ‘I have now,’ I said. ‘And now I know why you went so weird when we went to meet him. Why you drove off in such a hurry. You saw him standing there, didn’t you?’
She didn’t seem to be listening. ‘But why should he … after all this time? Why stir up old … ? I mean … ’
‘You did have an affair with him, then?’ I asked bluntly. ‘You betrayed Dad and had an affair.’
She started chewing at her inside lip. ‘Look, Holly, there’s a lot you don’t understand. About marriage and so on.’
‘Did you or didn’t you?’
‘It was a … just a fling. There was no way it was ever going to be more than that, and no way I ever wanted anyone to find out. It was over years ago.
‘How could you do that to Dad?’ I burst out.
She sighed. ‘You don’t understand. Dad and I weren’t getting on very well. He was working long hours and we just didn’t seem to have anything to say to each other.’
‘That’s no excuse.’
‘You don’t understand,’ she said again.
‘Too right I don’t!’
‘When you’re older and know a bit more about the world, you’ll be better able to deal with things like this. It’s a sad fact of life, but I’m afraid people do have affairs sometimes.’
‘Does Dad know?’ I asked bluntly.
‘No. He doesn’t. And there’s no need for him to know, either. Why should he be hurt?’
I drew in a breath and it felt harsh and raw in my throat. ‘He should know, though, shouldn’t he? He’s been looking after me all these years. He’s got every right to know.’
‘What d’you mean?’ she said, alarmed. ‘What’re you talking about?’
‘Dad’s not my dad, is he? He’s not my real dad.’
‘Of course he is!’
‘That bloke is. That Ben Simmons. Some stupid American!’
‘He is not!’
But I was getting into my stride now and wouldn’t be stopped. ‘You were married to my dad but you had sex with some bloke and got pregnant and thought you’d got away with it, didn’t you? You thought no one would find out your secret. What, did he go away and then you had some big reconciliation with Dad and – surprise surprise! – found you were pregnant?’
Mum was crying now, and so was I.
‘It wasn’t like … I promise you … your dad is who you’ve always thought he was!’
‘I don’t believe you! You’ve lied for years and years and you’re lying now!’ She got up and tried to put her arms round me but I pushed her away. ‘You’re just like Ella’s mum! You’re just a slapper. A slag!’
‘Holly! Don’t. Please don’t – ’
‘How many other men did you sleep with?’ I sobbed. ‘Are you sleeping with anyone now?’
‘Of course not. Don’t … darling … you’re just upsetting yourself.’
‘What’s Dad going to say? Are you going to tell him I’m not his daughter? I’m a bit of a mongrel, aren’t I? Mixed parentage. I bet you panicked when you found out you were having me. I bet you tried to get rid of me!’
I pushed the words out between sobs. ‘And that’s why you wouldn’t let me meet him that Sunday. You knew it was him. You saw him standing there!’
‘He is not your father, Holly! And neither he nor anyone else dare say that he is!’
‘He is my father! He wants me to take a test to prove it!’ I was lying, of course, but that hardly mattered right then. ‘And I’m going to! I’m going to prove that you’re a lying cow!’
‘Why are you doing this?’ Mum stood in front of me, crying and holding out her arms. ‘You’re my daughter and I love you.’
‘It’s a bit late for all that,’ I said bitterly. ‘You should have told me the truth. And you should have told Dad.’ I looked her full in the face and spoke coldly. ‘You’re a wicked liar as well as a slag!’
‘Don’t call me that!’
‘I’m going out now.’
‘Where?’
‘Does it matter? You care so little about me you won’t even tell me who my father is. How can it matter where I’m going?’
‘Holly!’
I picked up my things and made for the door.
‘Let’s talk about it!’ she said, making a grab for me. ‘We need to talk, Holly. Don’t just go off like this!’
‘It’s a bit late for talking,’ I said. ‘Sixteen bloody years too late!’
Chapter Eleven
I cried all the way round to Ella’s house, twenty minutes of solid crying, so by the time I got there I was a soggy mess.
The pillock opened the door. I hung my head so that he couldn’t see my face properly and asked if Ella was in.
‘Well, if it isn’t young Holly!’ he said. ‘And how is young Holly today? Not too cheerful, by the look of it.’
I sniffed long and hard and looked up at him. He was wearing blue nylon tracksuit bottoms and a check jumper, too short. His back-to-front hair was combed over his bald spot and looked as if it was stuck down. ‘Is Ella in, please?’ I said again.
‘I do believe she is. If that row from her bedroom is anything to go by.’ He opened the door wider. ‘Come in, come in! I can see you’re all set for a girlie afternoon. Problems with your love life, is it?’
I slipped through the door, trying not to let any part of me brush against him.
‘Yeah, something like that,’ I said.
‘Up you go then, Holly Golightly,’ he smirked.
Ella hadn’t heard any of this because of the music blasting out. Since the last time I’d been, her bedroom had turned into a jumble sale and her bed into bunk beds ready to share it on some weekends with the pillock’s nine-year-old daughter. Some of the daughter’s possessions (teddy, clothes, Barbie, books) were on the top bunk, and there were other things which I knew weren’t Ella’s (lava lamp, games, fluffy toy kitten) on the the floor.
Ella was lying on her bed. She jumped up when she saw me and stepped through the mess to turn down the volume on her CD player. ‘What’s up?’ She looked at me, gasped, pulled a wodge of tissues out of a box and handed them over. ‘Did you find out something awful?’
I nodded. ‘It’s all true. My mum did have an affair with him. She’s a slag,’ I said bitterly. ‘I found these letters and stuff … ’ I told Ella about the things I’d found in the box file. ‘And then just as I was coming round here she came home and I had it all out with her.’
‘You didn’t!’ Ella’s mouth dropped into an amazed gape. ‘Oh, gawd! What did she say?’
I slumped on to the bed. I felt exhausted and fed up with crying. ‘Nothing much. She more or less admitted it. Said
she’d had a fling with him.’
‘So he … that bloke is your dad? She said he was?’
I shook my head. ‘She wouldn’t admit that. She said she’d had the affair but swore that he wasn’t my dad.’
‘D’you think that’s true?’
I shook my head again. ‘Course not. All the dates match. And he’s got my colouring, and what about my eye and everything? There’s just too much,’ I added miserably.
For ages, Ella didn’t say anything, just sat down beside me and patted me on the shoulder. Then she said, ‘It’s not fair, is it?’
‘What isn’t?’
‘You’ve got two dads and I haven’t got any.’
I managed a weak smile. ‘What’s worse,’ I said, ‘two dads or none at all?’
‘None at all,’ she said straight away.
I shrugged. ‘I’m not going to fall out with you about it.’
I couldn’t think about Ella right then. After all, she’d had loads of time to get used to things – she’d grown up with a succession of uncles in the house so had had years and years of knowing her mum was a tart, whereas I’d only just found out about mine.
Ella put some music on and we stayed upstairs until about seven o’clock, and by this time I was starving. I wondered whether the new household arrangements ran to food and thought I could sniff something cooking once, but at seven her mum called up that she and the pillock were going down to their local for what she called a ‘livener’.
Ella pushed open her bedroom door. ‘Is there anything Holly and I can eat?’ she called down.
I craned my head to see over the banisters. Ella’s mum stood there in a short fake-fur coat. Her hair was in little blond corkscrews to her shoulders and at a glance, at a distance and if you were short-sighted, she could have been seventeen.
‘You’ll be lucky,’ her mum said cheerfully. ‘I’ll bring you back a bag of chips if you’re good.’
‘’S OK,’ Ella said. She glanced at me. ‘I expect Holly and I will go out for a burger or something.’
The pillock appeared and looked up at us. ‘Ooh, I’d forgotten you were there,’ he said, meaning me. ‘You two girls must have had an awful lot to talk about. All personal and private, was it? No naughty-naughties, I hope.’
