Sins of the Fathers

by Anthea Fraser

  He started to protest but broke off, not knowing how to defend himself, and it was with an air of armed neutrality that they prepared for bed.

  Since the church was less than five minutes’ walk from Dormers, the family had elected to follow the hearse on foot and Sophie, who was clutching her mother’s arm, seemed grateful for Mark’s support. Florence, wide-eyed and wondering, trotted behind them holding the hands of her paternal grandparents, with Jonathan and Delia bringing up the rear.

  After Jon’s account of her reaction to Peter’s death, Mark had studied Delia more closely than usual, but although she appeared tense there was, thank goodness, no indication of another outburst.

  It was a bright winter’s day, with frost in sheltered places where the sun hadn’t reached and a clear blue sky, and there was an eerie quietness as they walked, the song of a bird the only other sound. Then, with shocking suddenness, the church bell began to toll. Mark felt a lump come into his throat and Sophie’s fingers momentarily tightened on his.

  As they rounded the corner they could see a long line of cars clogging the narrow lane and there was barely room for the hearse to pass. Then they were turning into the church gateway and the minister was at the door waiting to receive them. The coffin was removed from the hearse, bearing a single wreath of red roses, and they processed inside while the minister proclaimed, ‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord …’ As they were shown into the reserved pews, Mark noted that both Sophie and Lydia were pale but composed, and was proud of them.

  As had been apparent from the cars outside, there was a large congregation and the little country church was packed. Peter Kingsley had been well known and well-liked and his death had shocked many people. Apart from the village, which appeared to have turned out in force, Mark later learned there were representatives from Rotary, from the golf club and from the firm for which Peter and Charles worked, as well as a fairly large contingent of Kingsley relatives, most of whom he didn’t recall having seen before.

  The service followed its time-honoured ritual and Mark, who had tensed when his father rose to give the eulogy, began to relax as Charles spoke strongly and movingly about his long friendship with Peter, interspersing amusing anecdotes of misadventures they’d shared over the years. When he returned to his pew Lydia gratefully squeezed his hand.

  The final hymn ‘Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer’, a favourite of Peter’s since his rugby-playing days, brought the indoor proceedings to an end and the congregation moved outside to the prepared graveside. Most of the funerals Mark had attended involved cremations, and it was some time since he’d attended an interment. Standing among the gravestones and reading their heartfelt inscriptions added to his sadness, and he was glad when it was time to return to Dormers.

  The warmth of the house was welcome after the chilly graveyard, and those who had elected to attend the wake began to relax, helping themselves to the tempting array of food laid out by the caterers and, now that the serious part of the day was behind them, exchanging happier memories of Peter. Several of them were meeting for the first time in years, and were catching up on family news. Mark spoke to two couples who’d attended Peter and Lydia’s wedding and another who, along with his own mother and father, were Sophie’s godparents. It was some time before he realized he’d not seen his father for a while and, his heart sinking, went in search of him.

  He found Charles in Peter’s study, sitting in the chair behind his desk, a glass of whisky in his hand.

  ‘OK, Dad?’

  Charles looked up and gave a brief nod.

  ‘The eulogy was just right – well done.’ He paused, and when his father made no comment said tentatively, ‘Are you coming back to the sitting room? People will want to speak to you.’

  ‘They’re Peter’s friends, not mine,’ Charles said expressionlessly, ‘and they’d want nothing to do with me if they knew I’d killed him.’

  ‘Dad!’ Mark stared at him in shock. ‘What are you talking about? Of course you—’

  ‘I killed him,’ Charles continued over him, ‘as surely as if I’d strung him up on that shower rail.’

  ‘How can you possibly think that?’ Mark protested vehemently. ‘You were his oldest friend!’

  Charles gave a harsh laugh. ‘What I did was hardly indicative of friendship.’

  Though he’d much rather not have known, Mark felt compelled to press him further. ‘So what was that?’ he challenged.

  ‘You’ll despise me when I tell you. I despise myself.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Confession time? Very well.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘To my everlasting shame, I sent him an anonymous letter.’ He paused, holding Mark’s gaze. ‘The week before his sixtieth birthday.’

  ELEVEN

  Clapham, London; November

  ‘It’s just so unfair!’ Ellie said vehemently, pushing her untouched plate away from her. ‘One mistake when she was my age, and she paid for it the rest of her life!’

  Tom smiled. ‘I’m quite sure she didn’t consider you a mistake!’

  She brushed away his attempt at humour. ‘It was what she went through when I was born that made her a semi-invalid. She nearly died, Tom!’

  He took a long slow drink of beer. ‘She never gave any hint who your father was?’

  Ellie shook her head. ‘She always insisted it was a one-night stand and she was drunk, and I more or less accepted that. But something Gran said the other day made me wonder.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Well, I was on about what a rotten life Mum had had, and she muttered something about that’s what happened when you got involved with a married man. Then she looked shocked, as though she’d not meant to say it aloud, and I couldn’t get anything else out of her.’

  ‘So the odds are she knows who he was.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, and surely I of all people have a right to know!’ She brightened. ‘I suppose I could try to trace him. People do trace their birth parents, don’t they?’

  ‘I think that’s when you’ve been adopted.’

  ‘But there must still be ways. And if it was a married man, he ought at least to have made provision for her – us – accepted some responsibility.’

  ‘If he was drunk too he mightn’t even have known who she was.’

  Ellie shook her head. ‘I never really believed the drunk bit. Gran has often said what a shy girl Mum was, which doesn’t sound like the type to go out and get drunk, then sleep with a stranger. Or anyone, come to that.’ She paused, then added wistfully, ‘I’d much rather it had been someone she loved.’

  ‘Well,’ Tom said philosophically, ‘we’ll never know, will we?’

  She gazed reflectively into her wine glass. ‘I wish she could at least have been here for Christmas. She always loved it, insisted on having a real tree and everything. It’ll be horrible without her.’ Her eyes filled and Tom put a hand over hers. ‘Why do people have to die near to Christmas? It makes it so much worse, somehow. It was the same with Gramps, two years ago. Now there’s only me and Gran.’

  Which meant, Tom thought disconsolately, there was even less chance of Ellie moving in with him. He’d known her just over a year and inevitably had also come to know her family. Sybil Mallory, the grandmother, had on first acquaintance struck him as a capable, no-nonsense type of woman, but her attitude towards both her daughter and granddaughter betrayed deep affection for them.

  Fay, Ellie’s mother, had been harder to assess; he’d only ever seen her on the couch in the living room, often with a rug over her knees. Pale and thin, there had still been a trace of blonde prettiness about her and it was perhaps unworthy of him to suspect that she tended to play on her weakness. There was no denying she’d had a raw deal; according to Ellie, as a young girl she’d been keen on tennis and dancing, activities that, along with much else, had been denied her from the age of twenty following what had reportedly been a difficult pregnancy and a long-drawn-out birth. At twenty-two himself
, the thought of such restriction appalled him.

  And then there was the mysterious lover …

  ‘I’d better be getting back.’ Ellie’s voice broke into his reflections. ‘Gran wants us to start going through Mum’s things.’

  ‘God, it’s a bit soon, isn’t it?’

  ‘She says it’ll get harder the longer we leave it. To tell you the truth, I’m dreading it.’

  It was a Saturday afternoon and he’d assumed they would spend it together. However, Ellie’s dead mother had priority. ‘How about the cinema later?’ he suggested without much hope, and she shook her head.

  ‘Perhaps next week.’

  He walked her back through the dank November streets to her gate and they kissed goodbye. She had started up the path when she turned and looked back at him. ‘Tom, if I do try to trace my father, will you help me?’

  He made a movement of protest. ‘Oh, now look, El …’

  ‘Please?’

  Reluctantly he nodded. It would probably come to nothing anyway. ‘OK,’ he said.

  It was a gruelling few days. While carols blared remorselessly from radios and shopping centres, Sybil and Ellie, often fighting tears, went through Fay’s clothes and personal possessions, dividing them into piles for keeping, for taking to charity shops and for recycling. Not, Ellie thought sadly, that she’d had a great deal. Her trinket box contained only costume jewellery in outdated settings and, though she couldn’t bear to part with it, she knew she’d never wear it. There were one or two cashmere sweaters that her grandmother thought she should keep, but the memory of her mother in them was too recent, and she put them on the charity pile.

  ‘What are we going to do about Christmas?’ she asked at one point.

  Her grandmother tipped the contents of Fay’s makeup drawer into the bin. ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘Ignore it,’ Ellie said promptly.

  ‘Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll forget the turkey; I’ll get a nice leg of lamb, and you can watch some of your boxed sets instead of the television. I must warn you, though, we’ll still get cards, even if we don’t send them.’

  ‘Perhaps we should send just a few, to tell people about Mum?’

  ‘I’ve had some printed for that,’ Sybil said.

  They hadn’t a car, and it was necessary to make several trips to the charity shop, where their offerings were received with delight. After depositing the last load they returned home with the forlorn satisfaction of a job well done.

  Sybil immediately made her way to the kitchen to prepare lunch, but Ellie went up to the denuded room and stood dejectedly looking about her. It no longer seemed like her mother’s; the bed linen had been removed and a cotton spread covered the mattress, while the dressing table looked heartbreakingly bare, cleared of Fay’s bottles and jars. She sat down on the stool, glanced at her pale face in the mirror and mindlessly opened one drawer after another to stare down into its empty cavity. The bottom one on the right needed an extra push to shut it, and even then didn’t close flush with the rest.

  Frowning, she jiggled it about, but as there still seemed to be an obstruction she lifted it out and, feeling around at the back of the gap, her fingers closed on a thin piece of card. Drawing it out, she found herself looking at a crumpled postcard with a view of a promenade and a stretch of golden sand. Underneath it were printed the words Drumlee, Angus.

  On the flip side was a brief message, headed The Merlin Hotel, 6 July 1999 which read: Sorry to hear you won’t be up this summer. Perhaps this card will change your mind?! Best – Lexie and Callum.

  But it was the name and address alongside that accelerated her heartbeat. It had originally been sent to Mr and Mrs Douglas Crawford, The Beeches, Pendleton Drive, Knutsford, Cheshire. However, the words ‘and Mrs’ had been crossed out in biro and a London address substituted for the Cheshire one. Above it, in a more childish hand, were scrawled the words Please, Dad! H and three kisses.

  Ellie sat motionless, excitement building inside her. She had the feeling that what she held was momentous, if she could only decipher it. What did it mean, and how in the name of goodness did it come to be at the back of her mother’s drawer? 1999 – the year before she was born. Her heart set up a heavy, uneven beat. Douglas Crawford: was it remotely possible that he could be her father?

  ‘Ellie?’

  She jumped as her grandmother’s voice reached her.

  ‘Lunch is ready.’

  ‘Coming,’ she called back. Then, without analysing her action, she ran across the landing to her own room and, opening a drawer at random, slipped the card under a pile of handkerchiefs, resolving to say nothing until she’d had time to consider her find.

  The next day Sybil went down with a dose of flu – an emotional reaction, the doctor suggested, to the trauma of the last few weeks. The final clearance of her daughter’s room must have sapped the last of her strength.

  Fortunately Ellie was able to look after her, the secretarial college she was attending having granted her compassionate leave until the end of term. Though she’d no particular desire to learn word-processing, text production or business communications, both Sybil and Fay had decreed it would stand her in good stead while she decided what she wanted to do with her life. All it had achieved thus far, however, was to convince her she did not want to be a legal secretary.

  The daily tasks of attending to her grandmother, collecting her prescriptions, doing the shopping and cooking tempting meals meant she’d not yet had a chance to share her secret with Tom, and it was not until the following weekend, when he rang asking after Sybil and hoping Ellie might be free, that she was able to arrange to meet him. In the meantime, she had repeatedly taken out the hidden postcard, poring over it in the vain hope that it might resolve some of her unanswered questions.

  Tom looked up from the postcard, meeting her expectant gaze.

  ‘Oh, cripes!’ he said.

  ‘It could be him, couldn’t it, Tom? The dates fit.’

  ‘They could fit all kinds of things. Look, El, you’ve not a shred of proof this man has anything to do with you.’

  ‘Then why did Mum keep his postcard for nearly twenty years?’

  ‘It was stuck at the back of a drawer. She’d have forgotten all about it.’

  ‘But she must have put it there in the first place. Come on, Tom, admit it! It could be him, couldn’t it?’

  ‘So could the man in the moon.’

  ‘Now you’re just being silly!’ she said crossly.

  ‘All right, but I don’t see what you can do about it.’

  ‘I could contact him,’ she said.

  His eyes widened in dismay. ‘God, no, Ellie, you can’t!’

  ‘Why can’t I?’

  ‘Think about it! He’s obviously a married man, and that “Dad” means he has kids as well. You can’t just drop a bombshell into their midst after nearly twenty years!’

  She leaned towards him. ‘Tom, that man – if he is my father – is responsible for the miserable life Mum led! If it hadn’t been for him, she’d have been happy and healthy and able to lead a normal life.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Tom argued. ‘It might have been something to do with her insides that would have caused problems whoever she was or wasn’t married to.’

  ‘It might have been his genes,’ Ellie said, but she no longer sounded so confident.

  Tom shook his head. ‘My advice is to forget it. Throw the card away. No good will come of it.’

  She snatched it back from him. ‘Certainly not!’ She glanced down at it. ‘I looked up Drumlee on my old school atlas. It’s quite a long way up. I could at least find out if this hotel’s still going. It says sorry they’re not going up that year, so it sounds as though these people often met them there, in which case the owners might remember them.’

  ‘It might have changed hands,’ Tom said flatly.

  ‘Look it up on your phone!’ she said, excitement ringing in her voice. ‘You can get the internet, can�
��t you?’

  He moved uncomfortably. ‘Look, Ellie, I really think you should forget this.’

  ‘Go on! What harm can it do? The Merlin Hotel, Drumlee.’

  Reluctantly he typed it in and a moment later text appeared on the screen.

  ‘What does it say?’ Ellie asked eagerly.

  ‘Situated in the centre of the bustling town of Drumlee yet only five minutes from the beach, the Merlin Hotel is a family-owned hotel offering comfortable accommodation and first-class home cooking. Wide-screen television and WiFi in all rooms. Ample parking. Conference facilities. Private functions catered for. Championship golf course within easy reach. An excellent centre for walking and boating holidays.’

  He passed her the phone. ‘There’s a photo and a map.’

  Ellie studied the long, low building with interest. It had been photographed across a square, the centre of which was taken up with a colourful display of flowerbeds.

  ‘I wonder if he still goes there,’ she mused. ‘In which case, if it’s a family-run hotel, the owners probably do know him.’

  ‘They might know Douglas Crawford,’ Tom said deliberately, ‘but that certainly doesn’t mean they know your dad.’

  At supper that evening, Ellie took her courage in both hands. ‘Gran, is there really nothing you can tell me about my father?’

  Sybil, still pale from her illness, drew in her lips. ‘Ellie, how many times—’

  ‘But you said something once about a married man,’ Ellie burst out, unable to keep quiet any longer.

  Sybil drew in her breath. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she blustered.

  ‘Something about Mum bringing it on herself by going with a married man?’

  Her grandmother closed her eyes. ‘God help me if I said that. I certainly didn’t mean it.’

  ‘But was he married, my dad? If you know that much, you must know who he is!’

  There was a long silence. Sybil’s bony fingers were pleating the napkin in her lap. At last she gave a deep sigh. ‘All right, love, I’ll tell you all I know, but it’s very little. She began to get friendly with a man at the office – older than she was. She never told us his name, only that he lived up north somewhere and was here on a year’s sabbatical. We didn’t like the sound of it, especially when she finally admitted he was married.’