Holly

by Mary Hooper

  I wanted to say no, but I found myself walking up to Cody, saying there was a bit of an emergency and asking if I could have five minutes with a customer because of some quite exceptional circumstances. I said I’d work right though the afternoon without a break to make up for it. Cody, very intrigued, said OK.

  I sat down opposite him. ‘Five minutes, and then you’ve got to go,’ I said. ‘Do you promise?’

  ‘Promise.’ He stared at me. ‘You believe me now, don’t you? Believe that what I said is true.’

  I set my lips stubbornly. He wasn’t going to get anything out of me. I wasn’t going to confirm or deny a thing.

  ‘You don’t have to say, I can see that you do. Did you ask your mom?’

  I looked out of the window.

  ‘Yes, I can guess that you did. And I’m pretty sure she would have denied it. So I guess that you found some other sort of evidence, right?’

  I still stared, watching the doodles swarming across the street.

  ‘Look, I want you to tell her from me that I won’t make any demands, I won’t rock the boat, I won’t tell your dad – Gordon, isn’t it? – and I won’t do anything that will upset either of you.’

  ‘You’ve already done that.’

  ‘All I want is – well, I don’t even allow myself to pretend that you’re ever going to acknowledge me, but it would be fantastic if I could possibly see you next time I’m over here. You don’t have to look like that, it won’t be for another year. And if ever you could bring yourself to visit with me in the States then that would be … ’ His eyes lit up and I didn’t know what it would be because the words got choked up in his throat.

  ‘Visit you!’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t visit you if you were the other side of the street. And how am I supposed to visit you without telling my dad?’

  He looked at me pleadingly and shrugged. I glanced away. ‘You said you were going to explain about you and Mum.’

  ‘Yes. I just wanted to tell you that it wasn’t a sordid sort of thing. We thought we loved each other.’

  I winced. ‘And what about my dad? Where did he come into all this?’

  ‘He was working late hours – until ten at night sometimes. Your mom was young and lively and she was feeling neglected.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Look, I’m going to talk to you as an adult, Holly. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ I muttered. I hoped he wasn’t going to mention sex. The act. I didn’t want to hear where I’d been conceived or anything.

  ‘She and I just used to go out for a drink occasionally. And as we got to know each other and made each other laugh and so on, the more we liked each other. And then the inevitable happened.’

  I was silent.

  ‘And then – well, I knew I had this job in the States coming up, and I wanted your mom to come with me. She just couldn’t decide what to do. She didn’t want to hurt your dad and she didn’t want to move away from her home and friends, either. We had about two months of horrible indecision where neither of us knew what to do for the best, and then we had a weekend away together. In March 1984, that was. The following month she told me she couldn’t come away with me and so it had to be all over between us. I went abroad at the end of April.’

  ‘And that was that?’

  He nodded. ‘I wrote to her several times but she never replied. And then – well, life goes on, doesn’t it? Eventually I started dating other women and then I met Jennie and we married about twelve years ago. I’ve never forgotten your mom, though. I really loved her.’

  ‘So you didn’t think … she never told you she was pregnant?’

  He shook his head. ‘I never had the slightest idea. She never told me and it certainly didn’t occur to me. I guess she did what she thought was best for you, Holly.’

  ‘What was easiest for her, you mean,’ I said bitterly.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Your mom’s a good woman. She put you first.’

  ‘Huh!’ I said bitterly.

  ‘Holly, she’s brought you up well and the last thing I want to do is drive some sort of wedge between you.’

  ‘Consider it driven,’ I said.

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ He rubbed his hand through his hair vigorously. ‘Look, talk to her about it. Ask her what happened. Please.’

  ‘I don’t want to know what happened.’

  ‘It might help you understand,’ he said.

  At the back of the shop, I saw Cody look at me and pointedly tap his watch. ‘I’ve got to get back to work,’ I said. ‘And you promised you’d go after five minutes.’

  ‘OK.’ He managed to smile but it looked like an effort. ‘Thanks for talking to me.’ He stretched out his right hand as if he wanted to grasp my shoulder, but I stepped back from him and his hand fell. He reached into his pocket for a card. ‘This is my address,’ he said. ‘If – one day – you could bring yourself to contact me, that would be brilliant. And if you’re ever in any trouble … ’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath,’ I said.

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘Oh, it’s just an expression we have,’ I said, taking the card.

  ‘Don’t throw it away, will you?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. Might even … ’ I shrugged. I didn’t know.

  I watched him leave the shop and walk down the street. Bewilderingly – how odd is this? – I found that I didn’t hate him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘He came in the shop today,’ was the first thing I said. When I got in from work, Mum had been sitting at the kitchen table smoking, just slumped there, staring at nothing. I think it was the first time I’d ever come in and she hadn’t rushed to get me a drink or at least asked me if I’d had a nice day or anything.

  When I said that, she looked up at me and gasped. ‘No!’ she said, and then immediately started crying, putting her head down on the table and rocking backwards and forwards.

  I didn’t know what to do. I’d hardly ever seen Mum crying before, and never in such a hopeless, forlorn way. It took everything in me not to go and sit next to her and put my arm round her. It took a huge effort not to start crying myself.

  ‘What does he want?’ she said, looking up at me with a distorted, wet face. ‘What does he want?’

  ‘Not much,’ I said. ‘I mean, he doesn’t want to take me away or anything.’

  ‘What does he want, then? What’s he doing it for?’

  ‘He just wants it acknowledged, really. He wants you – us – to admit that he’s my father.’

  ‘I can’t do that!’

  ‘But he is, isn’t he?’ I said. ‘At least admit it to me, Mum. Don’t you think I’ve got the right to know?’

  She broke into fresh tears. I sat there for a while just looking at her, hating her, and then I pushed the tea towel along the table so she could wipe her eyes.

  ‘He is, isn’t he?’ I said again.

  After a long while she nodded. ‘I think he may be. I think he probably is.’

  I heaved a great sigh. ‘There. Now I know.’ It was a bit of an anticlimax really, because I think I’d known all along. From the first time he’d said it. People don’t go round making up things like that, do they?

  ‘But I’ve never been absolutely sure,’ she added. She rubbed her hand across her face, leaving a streak of mascara across her cheek. ‘I’ll tell you … ’ she said.

  I pulled out a chair and sat opposite her. I felt strangely cold and alien – and very grown-up. I felt like I’d matured about ten years during the day.

  ‘I wasn’t getting on very well with your dad – ’

  ‘Which dad?’ I couldn’t resist asking.

  ‘With … with Gordon,’ she said. ‘We were just going through a bit of a bad patch. Like all relationships do.’

  I stared at her stonily.

  ‘I met Ben and went out with him a few times and we got on very well. We started an affair.’ She glanced at me. ‘And you don’t have to look at me like that. I know it’s wrong, but not many people go throu
gh life being totally faithful to one person. I know it’s no excuse but – ’ she looked at me sadly – ‘we’re all human, you know. We’ve all got failings. Even mums and dads.’

  ‘It wasn’t just that, though,’ I said bitterly. ‘You passed off someone else’s baby! You pretended I was Dad – was Gordon’s child!’

  ‘I know,’ Mum said. ‘Wait. Just hear me out.’ She wiped her eyes again on the tea towel. ‘After we’d been seeing each other – ’

  ‘Not just seeing!’ I put in.

  Mum sighed. ‘After we’d been having an affair for several months, Ben got the opportunity to take this really good job in the States. It was something he’d been waiting for. He asked me to go there with him, and I had to decide what to do. I thought about it, talked to your gran and even went to a counsellor about it, and in the end decided that I wanted to stay here. That I really did love your – love Gordon. I decided that I’d make a real effort with my marriage. I spoke to Dad – I didn’t tell him about Ben, though – and we went for marriage guidance and gradually got back on the even keel we’d been on previously.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then halfway through all this, through the marriage guidance and so on, I found that I was pregnant.’ She glanced at me again, ‘And before you ask – I was overjoyed. I was thirty-four then and in those days it was quite late for a first baby, and I’d begun to think I couldn’t have one.’ She slid her hand along the table towards me, but I put my own out of the way in my lap.

  ‘Gordon was overjoyed, too. He looked upon it as the final seal on the renewal of our marriage. We even went and retook our wedding vows.’ She smiled a little. ‘How schmaltzy is that!’

  ‘But you must have thought – ’

  ‘I knew, of course, that there was a chance it could have been Ben’s baby, but I immediately squashed that thought down. Never allowed myself to dwell on it.’

  ‘But what about when I was born?’

  ‘When you were born – oh, it was sheer joy! Having a baby was the most blissful thing for us and we loved every moment of it. We boasted about you to everyone and took masses of photos and spoilt you rotten. Gordon was so good a dad that to have even suggested to him that you might not be his child would have been … ’ She shook her head. ‘Well, it would have killed him.’

  ‘But I don’t even look like him!’

  ‘Loads of children don’t look like their parents,’ Mum said. She added in a low voice, ‘Though I must admit when I noticed you had Ben’s funny eye – ’

  ‘And his colouring and height.’

  There was a long silence, then Mum said, ‘I just did what I thought was the best thing at the time.’

  ‘Best for you.’

  ‘Best for all of us. And I thought I’d got away with it.’ She paused and tried to reach out and touch me. ‘Do you think you can ever forgive me, Holly?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Shouldn’t think so.’

  ‘You’re the most important person in my life.’ Her voice went husky as if she was going to start crying again. ‘I can’t imagine life without you. I can’t bear it if you don’t forgive me.’

  Tears sprang into my own eyes but I didn’t want her to see them so I got up and looked out of the window. ‘I don’t know,’ I said again.

  ‘If you could just forget this ever happened … ’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ I said. ‘And even if I could, other people know now. I’ve told Alex about it. And Ella.’

  Mum gave a low moan.

  ‘You’ll have to tell him, Mum,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to tell Dad. Gordon.’

  ‘I can’t!’

  ‘He’s got to know. It’s not fair.’

  ‘It’ll kill him,’ she said dully.

  ‘If you don’t tell him, I will,’ I said, though I was lying. I couldn’t have told him myself in a hundred years.

  Mum got on with a meal and I went up and lay on my bed. It had been a weird day. First of all I’d found that I didn’t hate Ben. And now it seemed that I didn’t hate Mum either. It had something to do with the shock having retreated a bit, and then with having everything explained, and also something to do with what Mum had said about only being human. If I stopped thinking of Mum as Mum, and started thinking of her as a person, it was easier. I knew that Ella still somehow managed to love her mum. She thought she was a slapper and gullible and pathetic when it came to men, but she still loved her.

  But even if I did still love Mum and eventually forgave her, my life was an enormous, horrible mess. Suppose when Dad found out he chucked me out? Chucked Mum out? Suppose he told Nan and Grandad? What would everyone say?

  I got under the duvet and I rolled into as small a ball as I could. Whatever happened, Dad was going to have to know because I couldn’t stand to live with him – or with us as a family – until he did.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I hardly ate two mouthfuls of supper. And Mum didn’t either. The only one to eat was Dad, who tucked into a full plate of spaghetti not knowing he had a huge hatchet poised over his head.

  We went into the sitting room and Dad put the TV on. I didn’t watch the screen, just sat and stared at Mum, waiting to see what she was going to do. My stomach was still knotted and the smell of Bolognese sauce in the air was making me feel sick.

  Mum was white and looked droopy around the eyes, a nerve ticking away at the side of her face. I wanted to say, Sit down, Mum, and I’ll make you a cup of tea, or Don’t worry, Mum. You don’t have to say anything after all. I thought how lovely it would be to say that to her and to see her face clear and lighten.

  I couldn’t do that, though. I knew it wouldn’t be right. It would just leave things hanging in the air over us all. I needed to get things out in the open.

  We sat through a whole episode of EastEnders and no one said anything. At the end of it as the music was pumping out, Dad said, quite chattily, ‘Do I detect a chill in the air? Have you two had words?’

  I didn’t say anything, just got up and turned off the TV and he looked at me, surprised. ‘What’s up, then?’

  ‘Mum’s got something to tell you,’ I said. I looked at her. ‘Do you want me to go upstairs?’

  Mum shook her head and started crying, and I started crying as well, while Dad sat there looking from one to the other of us as if we’d gone completely off our heads. ‘What on earth is it? What … this isn’t just some tiff, is it? This is more than that.’

  I shook my head and tears flicked off my face on to my clenched hands. ‘It’s much worse,’ I said.

  ‘I get it. I see,’ he said sternly. He cleared his throat. ‘I take it that you’re pregnant, are you, Holly?’

  ‘No!’ I said, but at that moment I wouldn’t have minded that. Even being pregnant with ginger twins seemed preferable to what was actually happening.

  ‘It’s about me,’ Mum said.

  ‘What … what – are you ill or something? Seriously ill? For God’s sake tell me and stop all this carrying on.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ Mum said. She got up, took a tissue from the box on the table and blew her nose. She took a deep breath and then she said, ‘I would have done anything to save you from this, Gordon, but circumstances have changed and I now think … that is, Holly does … that you should know.’

  Dad frowned. ‘I still don’t know what the bloody hell you’re talking about. Please make yourself clear.’

  Mum took another breath in. ‘You see, years ago, I had an affair.’

  Dad stiffened, but didn’t say anything.

  ‘You and I weren’t getting on too well at the time,’ she said, ‘although I’m not trying to justify myself by saying that. It – the affair – was quite a temporary thing. Altogether it lasted about five months, and then the person concerned went abroad and went out of my life.’

  Dad stood up suddenly, put his hands in his pockets, went to the window and stared out. I couldn’t bear to look at him in case he was crying. ‘Is that it?’ he asked in a clipped voic
e.

  ‘No.’ Mum said. ‘I’m afraid … I’m very much afraid that it gets worse than that.’

  I pulled my legs up to my body, shut my eyes, put my head between my knees and hugged myself tightly, waiting …

  ‘You see, I got pregnant and I wasn’t completely sure whose baby it was. Yours or his. And I’m afraid … I just let it be thought that it – that Holly – was yours.’

  Dad was still silent, but he was making little puffing sounds under his breath, like he was having difficulty breathing. I started worrying what would happen if he had a heart attack. If he did, it would be my fault, because I’d made Mum tell him.

  ‘You see, I’ve never been really sure. Even now I don’t know for definite,’ Mum went on in a faraway voice. ‘Even when I saw things in Holly that I thought might have … come from him, it made so much more sense to keep quiet. We’ve always been happy together, as a family. I didn’t want anything to change that. Despite what had happened, I realised that I loved you – and I knew you loved us. I just couldn’t bring myself to destroy all that we had.’

  There was a long, long silence and I just stayed as I was, hugged in tightly, pretending it wasn’t happening, and then I heard a little choking noise and when I looked up Dad was doubled up with his head bowed low, crying. Mum was watching him with a look of such misery and longing on her face, and I knew she desperately wanted to go and comfort him but didn’t dare.

  I jumped up, ran over and tried to put my arms round him. ‘We do still both love you!’ I said.

  He wrenched away from me, as if ashamed to let me see him crying. ‘Why did you have to tell me now?’

  Mum said, ‘Because he … because the man who may be Holly’s father … came back here and saw Holly and put two and two together.’

  ‘Those presents?’ Dad asked.

  ‘That’s right. I didn’t know they were from him … not until I went off with Holly to meet him that time. And then of course I tried to stop her from having anything to do with him.’