Finding Secrets

by Westwood, Lauren

  - Chapter 24 -

  ‘Well, I must say, you look fantastic!’

  I feel a tiny bit perturbed because Tim’s comment immediately puts me off guard, and I know that I’m blushing. He seems to mean it though, and I’m glad that he appreciates the effort I made.

  ‘Thanks. So do you.’ It’s the truth – and I’m sure he knows it. Tim looks smart-casual in a pair of khaki trousers with a razor-sharp crease, and a pink Oxford shirt. The pink sets off the dark brown of his eyes – which I’m sure is deliberate.

  He laughs and brushes my hand with his finger. The touch resonates up my arm. ‘I hope you’re hungry. I’ve booked a great little French Bistro in Shoreditch – did I tell you? It’s called La Bouteille Rouge. It’s brand new.’

  ‘I’m sure I can find my appetite somewhere,’ I say teasingly.

  We walk together down the high street. It’s lined with cranes and buildings under construction, and the pavements are teeming with young, trendy professionals and arty types. Being neither arty, nor trendy, I feel out of place.

  ‘Alex?’ I realise too late that Tim is speaking to me about something – the weather? The sky has turned a threatening shade of steel grey, and drops of rain begin to speckle the pavement in front of me.

  ‘I don’t really mind the rain,’ I say, stabbing blindly for a response. I can tell right away that I’ve answered the wrong question.

  ‘Oh – well, that’s good.’ He frowns.

  We reach the restaurant – it’s intimate and delightful, with dripping candles set in old wine bottles on the table, and bread with garlic-flavoured olive oil. But for some reason, I can’t relax. Tim orders a nice bottle of wine: Côte de Nuit, I think. I drink two glasses in quick succession. Tim skilfully keeps the conversation going, but he seems a bit tense. I try to pay closer attention as he talks about his hobbies: rock climbing, windsurfing, and five-a-side football. My sense of dismay grows, as I know nothing about those things. But just as I’ve given up trying to think of something to say, he changes the subject.

  ‘So, have there been any more visits from your intruder?’ he says.

  ‘No,’ I say. Immediately I correct myself: ‘Well, actually, he’s been leaving letters for Mrs Fairchild that are upsetting her. Diary entries.’

  ‘Diary entries?’ Surprise flickers across his face. ‘Whose diary?’

  ‘An ambulance driver from during the war. He rescued her from a bombed-out building. The memories are painful, and it’s making her upset. I thought someone might be blackmailing her.’

  He laughs uneasily. ‘Has she done anything to interest a blackmailer?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  He pours the last of the wine from the bottle. ‘Though I suppose there are some unanswered questions about her father.’ His voice deepens.

  ‘Her father?’ I sit forward, startled. ‘You mean Frank Bolton.’

  ‘Of course. Who else?’

  ‘He’s actually her adoptive father. She was orphaned. But what do you mean?’

  ‘Hey, relax, I was only joking,’ he says. ‘I was remembering our first meeting – my question on the tour?’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ I laugh too, scolding myself inwardly. I really need to lighten up; try to enjoy myself. Tim deserves that, surely.

  He flags down the waiter requesting the dessert menu and two coffees. Then he leans forward and brushes a strand of hair back behind my ear, letting his finger trail along my cheek. Once again, I start to wonder what the rest of the evening might hold in store. Out of superstition, I bought a day return train ticket in the hopes the return part would end up being wasted. But I find him surprisingly hard to read. One minute he’s flirty, and the next he’s feeling the need to ‘educate’ me or ask me uncomfortable questions. Not something I take kindly to, if I’m honest. But then he melts me all over again with those eyes.

  ‘So Alex…’ he leans closer to me, the flirtiness back to the fore, ‘would you like to go for a walk?’

  ‘A walk?’ I swiftly realign my expectations. A walk isn’t exactly a taxi ride to a nice hotel, but it could be the one thing that leads to another. ‘Around here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay.’ I don’t normally think of Shoreditch when planning a romantic evening stroll, but I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise.

  On our way out the door, he chats to the waiter, as if to underline the fact that he’s a regular. When we’re out on the pavement, he turns to me with a white-toothed smile. ‘Thanks for a lovely time,’ he says.

  ‘Shouldn’t I be the one to say that?’

  He laughs and puts his hand on my back to steer me left down the pavement from the restaurant. I wait for him to take my hand, but he doesn’t.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I say.

  ‘You’ll see.’ His smile broadens.

  Something in his manner raises a tiny spectre of worry.

  Instead of walking towards the trendy bustle of Hoxton Square, we head down the main road towards Hackney. I look at the buildings we pass. At street level, most of them are down-at-heel takeaways, drycleaners, and betting shops. Above street level are brick flats, mostly 60s and 70s by the look of them. From what little I know of modern London history, East London was hit particularly hard by the Luftwaffe during the Blitz. It’s a shame they couldn’t have rebuilt with a little more architectural sensitivity.

  ‘This area was levelled during the war,’ Tim says, as if reading my mind.

  ‘It looks like it’s never really recovered.’

  He slows down. ‘Why do you say that?’

  I realise that I’ve offended him. ‘It just looks a bit… um… eclectic,’ I say, steering clear of ‘seedy’.

  But again he guesses my true meaning. ‘I suppose it is beneath what you’re used to, but this is near where I grew up.’ He sounds like a little boy being bullied. ‘I thought you might like to see it.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to offend you, sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay.’ He seems to recover. ‘I guess I’m just a London boy through and through.’ He finally takes my hand. ‘Come on,’ he says.

  A few blocks further on, he steers me into a dark residential road with a road sign saying ‘Larkspur Gardens’. The first few houses look old – Georgian. Then, it’s as if part of the terrace was sawn away, and the rest of the road is a long line of red-brick semis.

  ‘This way,’ he says. ‘We’re the last house on the right.’

  I stop walking. ‘We?’

  He chuckles. ‘Sorry, I should have warned you. It’s Gran’s house – she really wants to meet you.’

  He’s all charm and polish once again, whereas I feel like a caged animal is clawing its way out of my chest.

  ‘Your gran? No really…’ I fake a laugh, caught off guard. I really had thought he’d seen the better of this. ‘I don’t want to impose.’ I make a show of checking my watch. ‘I mean – it’s late. It wouldn’t be right.’

  My hand still in his, he draws me closer, his eyes soft and melting. ‘Come on, Alex. I’ve told her all about you. Just come in for a cuppa.’ Heat radiates from his skin as he leans down and brushes my lips softly with his. Adrenalin surges through my body, waking up long-sleeping parts. ‘And after that, we’ll see, shall we?’ His breath tickles my ears. Then he takes a very small, but very disappointing, step back.

  ‘Oh – all right.’ I hate myself for giving in. But, after all, what harm can it possibly do to have a cuppa with his gran?

  - Chapter 25 -

  My feet grow increasingly leaden as we near the end of the road. The house is tiny – the two semis together look like a small house that’s been chopped in two. On his gran’s side of the sickly hedge separating the two halves, there’s only the door and a small window on the ground floor, and an upper floor with the same footprint. In front, there’s a large wheelie bin and a black recycling crate that’s overflowing with empty wine bottles – she must enjoy a tipple or three. The net curtains are drawn, and I can hear the sound of
a TV. The green paint on the door is flaking off, and there’s a NO JUNK MAIL sticker above the mail slot. Tim walks up to the door and bends down to get a key from under a pot of dead geraniums. He unlocks the door and gestures for me to go inside. Somehow, because the place looks so unwelcoming, I know I can’t back out.

  ‘Gran,’ Tim calls out. ‘We’re here.’

  We go into a tiny hallway, barely wide enough for Tim to walk straight in without knocking coats off the wall rack. The house smells of cigarette smoke and deep-fried chips. In another room, the TV switches off.

  ‘Wait here,’ he says. He goes through a door into the front room, closing it behind him. ‘I brought Alex,’ I hear him say.

  All of a sudden, I have a strong urge to bolt.

  The reply is muffled, but I hear Tim say: ‘Now Gran, you said you’d be on your best behaviour—’

  ‘Bring her in – I want to meet Catherine’s granddaughter.’ An elderly female voice says. My pulse jolts. It’s a set-up – just like it was when I was locked in the loo and then arrested. Suddenly, I have the strong feeling that it’s all related.

  Tim comes out a moment later, all smiles. ‘Sorry,’ he says in a low voice. ‘I just wanted to remind her that you were coming.’

  ‘I heard what she said – she knows I’m Catherine’s granddaughter. How does she know that? I mean – I didn’t even know that until yesterday.’

  ‘Really?’ For the first time he looks concerned. He reaches out to pat my arm. I flinch. ‘Catherine and my gran are old friends,’ he says.

  ‘Old friends?’ I hiss. ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘I’m sure gran can tell you more. Why don’t I go make some tea?’

  I steady myself against the wall, trying to calm my breathing. The anonymous envelopes, the diary entries, and the ‘uninvited guest’ have made me jumpy and suspicious. And now, a relative stranger and his grandmother seem to know more about me than I knew myself. But maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe Catherine and this woman are old friends and she rang and told her what happened. It’s possible. I stare at Tim’s handsome face. His brow is furrowed in worry. Either he’s a very good actor, or else I’m completely off base in suspecting him of anything. Still, the whole situation is making me very uncomfortable.

  ‘Really, this isn’t necessary. In fact, I think I’d rather get a taxi back to the station. The trains only go every hour—’

  ‘Tim?’ the old woman calls out.

  ‘Just a minute, Gran.’ He spreads his hands in a pleading gesture. ‘Just say hello… please.’

  I sigh, feeling cornered. It would be rude to just walk out on an elderly lady, and if she really is a friend of my grandmother’s then I really ought to pop in and say hello. And then make a hasty retreat.

  ‘Some date,’ I mutter under my breath as I walk into the lounge.

  A woman is sitting on the sofa, covered up in a well-worn pink and green afghan rug. Her black hair is streaked with grey, and she’s wearing a purple velvet tracksuit and a pair of flip-flops – something I can’t imagine Catherine or any of her WI friends wearing. Her face is a map of wrinkles, and her nose has a reddish tinge of burst capillaries. Still, I have the feeling that she might not be quite as old as she looks.

  The room is shabby, crowded with a brown three-piece suite and a giant television. On one wall is a shelf full of knickknacks, and next to the sofa is a small table and a bookcase. There are overflowing ashtrays on every available surface. The only colour in the room is a large framed photograph of Tim in a robe and mortarboard smiling smugly, holding his law diploma against a background of Lincoln’s Inn.

  ‘Hello.’ I force a smile. ‘Mrs—’

  ‘Edwards.’ The woman looks up at me with deep-set eyes the same chocolate-brown colour as her grandson’s. But instead of looking warm and melting, hers look murky and unfriendly. Her hands quaver as she holds a cigarette to her mouth and lights it with a plastic lighter. Her lips purse around her cigarette as she considers me. ‘Have a seat,’ she says.

  I sit on the saggy brown armchair nearest the door, in case I need to bolt. ‘Nice photograph,’ I say, pointing to the photo of Tim.

  She blows out a thin column of smoke. ‘He was the first one in the family to make good.’

  I don’t even attempt to respond. I know Tim said he was from a humble background, but there’s an undercurrent of desperation and hostility here that I hadn’t expected.

  She ashes the cigarette and gives a rasping cough. ‘Graduated top of his class, he did. No one expected that, I can tell you.’

  ‘It’s impressive that he represents people in need,’ I say, at last on semi-firm ground.

  ‘Humph,’ she snorts. ‘People in need. That’s his mistake. Never try to help people in need – won’t get you anything but grief.’

  ‘I suppose it can be a bit thankless.’ Where is Tim to rescue me? How long does it take to boil a kettle?

  ‘Thankless! Yes – you could say that, Catherine’s Granddaughter.’

  For some reason, the way she says that sends a chill through me. I stand up, itching to leave – why did Tim bring me here? His gran seems to be a few cards shy of a full deck. Is he trying to test me – see if I could tolerate his family before things go too far? Right now, it’s a test I’m going to fail.

  ‘I think I should go see how Tim is coming with that tea.’

  ‘Sit down,’ she says sharply.

  I’m so startled, that I do as she says.

  ‘Most people think it was a long time ago,’ she says. ‘After all, I was only a bun in the oven when it all happened. I didn’t even meet Catherine till much later – when her dad forced her to come back to the old neighbourhood and look down on the rest of us. But it was a long hard shadow over my whole life, let me tell you. And my daughter’s life, and Tim’s life too.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ I don’t bother trying to sound polite.

  She stubs out the cigarette, and stares at me intently. ‘My father was a good man,’ she says. ‘A hero. He drove an ambulance during the Blitz.’

  ‘Oh?’ I feel an icy stab of concern. ‘That sounds very noble.’

  ‘Noble,’ she guffaws. ‘Yes, it was noble. He saved lives. People were screaming, burning, maimed. The bombs whined overhead, and most people went to the shelters. But my father didn’t. He was out there in the midst of it all, risking his life to save others. And where did it get him? Where did it get him, I ask you?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘It got him arrested, that’s what. Then they sent him to the Front, where he got a bullet in the back for his troubles.’

  I look at her sharply. ‘Really?’

  ‘Here, look.’ She levers up and takes a black leather-bound book from the shelf next to the sofa. It’s an old photo album. She opens it – I catch a glimpse of baby pictures in colour – most likely Tim. But instead of showing me photos of him naked in the bath or with Superman pants on his head, she flips to the back of the album where some old newspaper clippings are pasted on with flaking glue. The first clipping shows a heavy-set man with a mop of chestnut hair being led away in handcuffs. The date on the clipping is 1950 and the title reads: ‘Wartime looting cover-up exposed’.

  Feeling the weight of her eyes on me, I skim the article. According to the report, Winston Churchill himself hushed up arrests of looters during the Blitz in order to maintain public morale and the ‘Blitz Spirit’. The article speaks of a man who was arrested in late 1940 for looting, but his case never went to trial. His name is Harold Dawkins.

  ‘Dawkins?’ The name sounds familiar but I can’t place it.

  ‘Hal Dawkins. My father,’ the old woman says.

  I continue to look down at the paper so I don’t have to look at her. ‘I’m not quite sure I understand,’ I say.

  ‘No?’ she rasps, grabbing the book away from me like I’m unworthy to be granted access to her precious memories. ‘What exactly don’t you understand? My fathe
r was arrested but never tried. He couldn’t put up a defence; prove that he was innocent. Instead, they hushed it up. Sent him to the Front. And he was killed.’

  She shakes another cigarette from the pack and lights it.

  ‘He never lived to see his child born – me.’ She flips over another page. There’s a short telegraph pasted there, regretfully informing the next of kin of Harold T. Dawkins that he was killed in the line of duty.

  I stare down at the words on the page trying to imagine how it would feel to receive something like this about my own father. Unwittingly, my eyes fill with tears.

  ‘Yes, now you begin to see.’ Mrs Edwards sniffs. ‘My mum fell apart because of the whole nasty business. It ruined all our lives. But it won’t ruin Tim’s life. He’s made good, I tell you.’

  I swallow hard and turn to face her. ‘It all sounds very tragic, and I’m sorry for the loss your family suffered. But why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Tim says you’re a nice girl. That you know nothing.’ She flips the scrapbook to the last page and sits back.

  I stare at the grainy black and white photo on the page. It shows three men in some kind of uniform standing together, arms around each other’s shoulders. The man on the end is holding a bottle of beer – and I recognise Hal Dawkins from the other photographs in the album. But it’s the man in the middle that I look at. A man I recognise from numerous photographs kept in pride of place at Mallow Court. The beloved adoptive father of Catherine Fairchild…

  Frank Bolton.

  Somewhere deep inside of me, a light goes out. I force myself to look up at the old woman, to see the truth imprinted behind her eyes – her version of it, anyway.

  ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘that’s Frank Bolton.’

  ‘And?’ I struggle to keep my voice level.

  She shakes her head. ‘Everyone loved my father, Hal. He was a laugh – not to mention good-looking and smart. Always willing to lend a hand for a bit of graft, or spot a round of drinks with the last of his wages. He and Frank might have grown up together on the wrong side of the tracks, but my father was on the up and up. And Frank, well, he was jealous. He was one of those quiet types who kept his head down like a worm in the dirt. He could have made a clerk at the factory or maybe a civil servant. But instead, he stood on the shoulders of giants – my father – and heaved himself out of the muck. All the way to that fancy house in the country that Catherine’s so proud of.’