by Julian Clary
It seemed that while Catherine had condemned me to a life in prison, she was determined to make that life as comfortable as possible and was constantly delivering goods she thought I might need or enjoy via her corrupted prison staff. The governor himself came to admire my stereo and spent fifteen minutes cooing to the pair of rare lovebirds I kept in a decorative bamboo cage. (These, I assumed, she had sent in the spirit of irony.) But from Catherine herself I heard nothing.
My mother was the only person who ever applied for a visitor’s permit. One month she turned up wearing a maroon beret with a sprig of chamomile flowers behind her right ear.
‘I’ve been meaning to bring you this for ages,’ she said, after we’d exchanged the usual hellos and caught up on the state of her garden. She held up a slightly battered white envelope. ‘It’s a birthday card!’ she cried.
‘It’s not my birthday,’ I said, surprised.
‘I know. Just look at it.’
I took the envelope and opened it. It was a drawing of a happy-looking boy fishing by a river, holding what might or might not be a glass of beer in his hand. Now you are a man! it proclaimed on the front. Happy thirteenth birthday.
‘Oh! Is this …?‘
My mother nodded. ‘It’s the card your grandmother refused to give you all those years ago. I wrote something in it that I felt you ought to know. Later she persuaded me that I shouldn’t tell. In light of what’s happened, I don’t know whether that was right or not. I was going to take the secret to my grave. But Grandma particularly wanted you to have this card after she’d gone, and she’s always known best. She went on about it, rather, before she died, and I’ve made my mind up. So here it is.’
Inside, underneath, Happy birthday, angel-cake! was written and your daddy is … Peter St John McDonald. Many happy returns, love from Mummy.
‘Who?’ There was a distinct sense of anti-climax. Was that it, after all these years? The name meant nothing to me. I wished she hadn’t told me.
‘You’ll find out,’ she said mysteriously. ‘I met him at a folk festival.’ My mother had that faraway kook in her eyes, but for once I sensed she was telling me the truth. ‘He was a beautiful, kind mandolin player, come to welcome in the summer solstice. It was love at first sight for both of us. We smoked opium and went swimming in a lake at midnight. He told me all about his family, particularly his sister, who he loved, but who had married unhappily. He wanted to marry me, truth be told, and I wouldn’t have said no, though I was very against the whole institution at the time. But his family utterly forbade it, egged on by his sister, the one he loved so much. It seems she didn’t want his happiness as much as he wanted hers. He never knew about you, my darling. He left me before you were much more than the size of a thumbnail, and went to travel the world. I never heard from him again.
‘It was only coincidence that led me to live in the same village as his sister. I never laid eyes on the horrible woman but it gave me a distinct thrill when I realized our two sons had fallen in love …’
I gasped. ‘You mean …’
‘Yes. You’re Tim’s cousin. His uncle was your father.’
‘Bloody hell.’ I tried to think through the implications of this.
‘Don’t worry,’ soothed my mother. ‘It’s not close enough to be incest. Not really. Cousins can get married, you know — though, obviously, not you two. What a shock it gave me when Tim turned up at our cottage! He looked nothing like your father, who was shorter, like you, and dark with your dreamy brown eyes and olive complexion. Nevertheless, he was a connection.’
I felt as though my whole life story had been twisted up with the Thornchurches, in all sorts of strange and quite gruesome ways. From my own father, through his sister, Hilary, Tim and Lord Thornchurch himself, to Sammy, who had brought me down to punish me and protect his true beloved.
‘Thank you for telling me at last,’ I said quietly. ‘Everything seems to make sense now.’
‘Does it? Oh, I am pleased. I should have told you ages ago, probably. But you were always so busy. Still you’ve got plenty of time on your hands now, haven’t you? How are you, by the way?’
‘Oh, very comfortable.’ I didn’t want to go into detail but it wasn’t at all bad in my cosy, well-equipped cell. The latest little present to come through my door had been a Gaggia coffee machine and I had lots of fun frothing organic milk — sent in from a farm in Dorset — to make my own cappuccinos. I had a tidy business selling them to other inmates, too.
‘And you’ll be out in twenty-five years, I expect. Just when you’re entering your prime. Must be on my way now, my little Scotch egg! I’m going to pop into Tiffany’s to see if they can make me a platinum bird-feeder. My tits are ravenous this year, and it’s no more than they deserve. I’ve got to get shot of Grandma’s money somehow, after all. Cheery-bye!’
I went back to my cell and relaxed into my new Parker Knoll recliner. The final piece of the puzzle had fallen into place . I was at peace. I felt resigned to my life in prison — after all, I had killed three men, so I couldn’t really complain — and determined to make the best of it. Now that I’d discovered the secret of my identity and accepted that I would be spending some years behind bars, everything was a great deal easier. I felt happier, far happier, than I had in years, in fact. I even had the occasional fling, just to keep my hand in. (One with a rookie prison officer who looked just like Brian Harvey, with the lights out.)
I occasionally heard of Tim through the social pages of the broadsheets — I saw over the years the birth announcements of three children, two boys and a girl. I just hoped, for their sakes, they were all heterosexual and conservatively minded. I guessed that his law career had flourished but he must have given it up eventually for I saw his father’s death notice in the paper, then references to the young Lord Thornchurch began to appear. He was becoming a little more radical now that his father had died, and there was talk of his fronting protests against GM crops, then turning his entire estate organic and carbon neutral — all those modern obsessions .
I wished him well. I loved him still, even if he never gave me a thought.
As for Catherine, I was no longer angry with her. My feelings of forgiveness took me by surprise — after all, she had been double-crossing me from the start. But she knew I would get the joke. Cruelty could be hilarious if you saw things through Catherine’s eyes and her complete destruction of my existence was all the funnier for its scale and grandeur. Besides, somehow I’d always known that my deeds would catch up with me eventually. So I cheered her on her way. At least one of us was free and rich. ‘Go, girl,’ I whispered each night, when I heard them lock my cell door.
A year into my sentence, I received a postcard from Dubai. The picture was of a beautiful, sandy, sun-baked beach. On the back Catherine had written, in wobbly pink fibre-tip:
Hi, Cowboy,
This might be a holiday hotspot for some, but it’s a way of life for me. I knew you were on the way out and I had to look after myself I’m sure you understand. It’ll all be waiting for you when you get out. Miss you.
Hope you’re getting as much cock as I am.
From Catherine xxx
PS.
‘Thus, though we cannot make our Sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.’
As you read this, I am still in prison, albeit a pleasant enough open one. Ironically, I’m working as a gardener once more. Otherwise I have filled my time with writing and this is my attempt to explain my story on my own terms, away from the media, the courts, the prison-gossip grapevine, and their warped interpretation of events. I want everyone to know the truth, because only those in possession of all the facts could begin to understand.
The person I most want to read it is Tim. Maybe once he has, he will think kindly of me in the knowledge of how it all came to pass.
I feel at one with the world now. I’d go so far as to say I feel cleansed. I no longer expect to live happily ever after with Tim. I know that will not
happen. But I know what did happen. That he loved me once is enough. Life may disappoint, but its brilliance is that it teaches you the value of such meagre offerings. It is all we have.
The ring is worn, as you behold,
So thin, so pale, is yet of gold:
The passion such it was to prove;
Worn with life’s cares, love yet was love.
