The Frances Garrood Collection

by Frances Garrood

  ‘Oh, well. If you’re sure.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  Eric greets our visitor, and offers him a drink.

  ‘I think perhaps I ought to be going.’ I edge towards the door.

  ‘No, no, Ruth. Do stay.’ Eric pours a cloudy liquid into glasses (the label has come off the bottle. I hope it’s not weed killer).

  ‘But this may be private,’ I tell him.

  ‘Nonsense,’ says Eric. ‘Now.’ He turns to Mr. Riley. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’ The man looks desperately round him, as though searching for some kind of assistance. ‘Is your name — Purves?’

  ‘Yes. Eric Purves.’ Eric tastes his drink and then holds his glass up to the light. ‘Parsnip, I think. Yes, I’m sure this is the parsnip. Not at all bad, as I recall.’

  ‘Well, I think you might be my father.’

  ‘Ah.’ Eric puts down his glass. He appears amazingly calm. ‘What makes you think that?’

  Mr. Riley explains about his mother, the mystery of his paternity, and the letter.

  ‘I’m so sorry to bother you with all this, particularly after all this time. It must come as quite a shock to you. But you see, I really need to know.’

  ‘Of course you do.’ Eric pauses. ‘And who — who was your mother?’

  ‘Mary Riley. She never married, so if you knew her, that would have been her name.’

  ‘Mary Riley,’ Eric muses, as though mentally going through a check-list of past lovers. ‘Yes. You know, I think there was a Mary Riley. It was a long time ago, of course. A very long time ago.’

  At this moment, Silas comes in. He greets Mr. Riley cheerfully, and then starts hunting for his frog.

  ‘I’m sure I put it down here somewhere,’ he says. ‘Ruth, have you done something with my frog?’

  ‘Silas, I think you’d better listen to Eric,’ I tell him.

  ‘Yes. Silas, Mr. Riley thinks I’m his father.’

  Mr. Riley is still apparently reeling from the identical twin effect, and I can’t help feeling sorry for him. After all, there are just so many shocks someone can be expected to cope with in one afternoon. I refill his glass, hoping this might help.

  ‘And are you?’ Silas asks. ‘Oh, here it is!’ He recovers his frog from under the tea towel and places it on the draining board.

  ‘I suppose I could be,’ Eric says. ‘He’s Mary Riley’s son.’

  ‘Mary Riley, Mary Riley.’ Silas says thoughtfully, ‘Oh, that Mary Riley! I remember. She was a lovely girl. Nice sense of humour.’

  I hope her son has inherited the sense of humour, for I have a feeling he’s going to need it.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ Mr. Riley looks pathetically from one to the other.

  ‘Well, we both knew Mary Riley,’ says Silas carefully.

  ‘Oh yes. We both knew her,’ Eric says. ‘Quite well, actually.’

  ‘How well?’ Mr. Riley has decided to be blunt.

  ‘Very well.’ Silas and Eric exchange glances.

  ‘What, both of you?’

  ‘Both of us.’

  ‘You mean you shared — relationships?’

  ‘Oh, not always,’ Eric tells him, ‘By no means always. But sometimes, when one thing ended, another would begin. You know how it is.’

  ‘Are you saying — are you saying that either of you could be my father?’

  ‘I think we’re saying it’s possible.’ Eric refills everyone’s glasses. ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Kent. Kent Riley.’

  ‘Why Kent?’

  ‘My mother said I was conceived in Kent.’

  ‘Surrey.’ My uncles speak in unison.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Not Kent. Surrey. If it — you — were anything to do with us, it was definitely Surrey,’ says Silas.

  ‘Perhaps she thought that Kent Riley sounded better than Surrey Riley,’ says Eric.

  There follows a discussion about Kent and Surrey, and what Mary Riley might or might not have been up to in either county.

  ‘You don’t sound very surprised by all this,’ Mr. Riley says, after everyone has decided that Kent is on the whole prettier than Surrey.

  ‘Oh, I think we’re surprised all right,’ Silas says, ‘but nothing’s been proved yet, has it?’

  ‘No. We need proof,’ says Eric.

  ‘Well, I’ve no problem with that,’ says Mr. Riley (Kent, I suppose we should call him, especially as it looks as though he may be family).

  ‘Of course, if you can prove that one of us is your father we’ll have to share you,’ says Silas.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Shared DNA. Our DNA is identical, so while we might find out that either of us could be your father, we wouldn’t know which one.’

  ‘Oh. Oh dear.’

  ‘Why? Does it matter?’

  ‘I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it. I’d resigned myself to having no father at all, and now it looks as though I may have two. It takes a bit of getting used to.’

  ‘And we had resigned ourselves to having no sons at all, and now we’ll have to make do with half each,’ says Eric, who has overdone the parsnip wine and is becoming pink-faced and merry. ‘Have you any children?’ I think this is greedy of Eric. Isn’t a son enough, without expecting grandchildren as well?

  ‘No. I never married.’ No-one points out that it is just been shown only too clearly that marriage is no prerequisite for the fathering of children.

  ‘Oh well. Never mind.’

  ‘I don’t, most of the time,’ Kent says, ‘but I think I’d like to have been a father.’

  ‘It’s not too late.’ Eric laughs. ‘Look at us! We never expected children, and now it looks as though we might have one after all!’

  While this discussion is going on, it occurs to me that Eric and Silas may not be the only ones to have discovered a new relation, for I may be about to acquire a cousin. Never having had a cousin before — never really having had much in the way of family at all — I am very pleased with this idea.

  ‘Mr. Riley — Kent — what do you do?’ I ask him. ‘For a living, I mean.’

  ‘I’m a piano tuner.’

  There follows a long, interested silence.

  ‘Not — not a blind piano tuner?’ asks Silas.

  ‘Certainly not a blind piano tuner. Many of us can see perfectly well.’

  Eric and Silas are clearly disappointed, and I feel enormously sorry for Kent. He has more than likely just found two possible fathers, and already he has proved to be a disappointment.

  ‘Well, I think it’s wonderful,’ I tell him. ‘We can play duets.’

  I think of the poor neglected piano in the room next door. Our new-found relation may be just the person to bring it back to life.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  It is decided that what with the approach of Christmas and the amount of work generated by the extra care needed by the animals in this most unforgiving of seasons, any DNA investigations can wait until the new year. But our new relation seems here to stay, at least for the time being.

  Meanwhile, it transpires that whatever Mary Riley may have been up to in her lifetime, she contrived to save quite a lot of money, all of which she left to her only son. Kent is now what he himself calls ‘a free man’. His piano tuning days are over. He has let his mother’s house, and bought himself a nice little caravan, which he has fitted up with all mod cons. With this in tow, he intends to tour the country, looking up friends (and putative fathers) and visiting those towns and cities he has never managed to see before. Kent says that he has ‘done’ abroad, and that it is wildly overrated. It’s time to reacquaint himself with the country of his birth. He admits that he was sad to leave his piano behind, but his inheritance wouldn’t stretch to a caravan large enough to accommodate it.

  Needless to say, Eric and Silas have invited him to stay on ‘so that we can all get to know each other’, so the caravan is now parked beh
ind the outhouses, and Kent is rapidly becoming one of the household. I’m delighted, my parents are slightly puzzled and Blossom is indignant (‘too many people,’ she complains, although Kent keeps well out of her way). Kaz is another story.

  When she first meets him, she’s polite enough, but after a day or two, she begins to show a suspicious amount of interest in him.

  ‘This Kent person,’ she says casually, while we are seeing to the pigs. ‘He’s rather nice.’

  ‘How, rather nice?’ I ask her.

  ‘Quite sexy, actually.’ Kaz bends over the bucket of swill she’s mixing.

  ‘Oh Kaz, you can’t!’

  ‘Can’t what?’

  ‘You know perfectly well what I mean. For a start, he’s too old for you. And anyway, aren’t you seeing someone else at the moment?’ For these days, it’s hard to keep up with Kaz’s love life.

  ‘Oh, him. He’s boring. I was giving him up anyway. No. I think it’s time for someone more mature.’ She winks at me.

  ‘Kaz, you can’t just use Kent because you want someone more mature. Hasn’t the poor guy had enough shocks for the time being?’

  ‘What’s got into you, Ruth? I’m not using anyone, and Kent is a grown man and can make his own decisions.’ She looks at me thoughtfully. ‘You know, I think you’re jealous!’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

  But in a way, she’s right. Having found this new almost-relation, I’m oddly reluctant to share him. Silas and Eric, as putative fathers, are different. But Kaz has no claim on Kent, and I want to keep it that way.

  ‘Well, nothing’s happened yet,’ says Kaz peaceably, as we return to the house. ‘We’ll just have to see, won’t we?’

  My parents have been given just as much information about Kent as Eric and Silas consider they need; they have been told that he is the son of an old friend (‘true, in a way’) and that he has come to visit. Further information will be forthcoming if the DNA results prove to be positive. As Silas points out, there is no point in shocking them unnecessarily. Both my uncles agree that my mother might well be pleased to have a nephew, but the circumstances (not to mention the confusion) surrounding his provenance might prove more difficult to explain, never mind accept.

  I am in a seventh heaven, for at last I have someone to make music with. While I clean up the piano, digging out everything from spiders’ webs to old socks and even a dead mouse from its dusty innards, Kent does his best to tune it.

  ‘I don’t think I can bring it up to concert pitch without breaking strings,’ he tells me. Fortunately, I am not blessed with perfect pitch, so I can just tune my violin down a fraction and we are ready to go. The piano is more honky-tonk than Steinway, but any piano is better than no piano, and I for one am not complaining.

  Kent proves to be an excellent pianist. I am unsurprised — I have come across many piano-tuners who are similarly gifted — but my uncles are amazed. Like many people, they have hitherto regarded piano tuners as second-rate musicians (if they can be counted as musicians at all), but Kent rapidly wins them over, and he and I entertain everyone with an evening of Mozart and Beethoven.

  Even my parents are impressed.

  ‘He plays very well. For a piano tuner,’ I hear Mum say to Dad.

  In addition to his music, Kent adds a great deal to the running of the household. He’s an excellent cook, bachelor-tidy in his habits, and good with the animals. He takes an interest in Silas’s taxidermy, and even assists Eric with his researches (although I suspect that he considers them to be a waste of time).

  As I watch him stooped over some task, or see his long fingers moving over the piano keys, I become increasingly convinced that he is indeed the son of Eric or Silas. In addition to the physical resemblance, he even shares some of their mannerisms. The way he shakes his head when he’s puzzled; the occasional amused lift of an eyebrow; the sound of his laugh. All these remind me of Eric and Silas. And while I was initially unsure as to whether having a son would be a good thing for my uncles, I’ve now been completely won round. I think that Eric and Silas are beginning to feel the same, for while they accepted Kent’s arrival with equanimity, I know they must have been disturbed by it. Now, it is as though they have always known him. He is, quite simply, part of the family.

  I am not the only one to have noticed a resemblance.

  ‘Family, is he?’ Blossom asks me, after Kent has been with us a week. It’s a question which she’s obviously been longing to ask, and the waiting’s finally got too much for her.

  ‘He’s the son of an old friend,’ I tell her. ‘She died recently.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘What do you mean, hmm?’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ says Blossom. ‘You know.’

  But now something happens to take my mind off life at Applegarth, for I have news of Amos. I’ve alerted everyone I can think of (friends, friends of friends, colleagues from the orchestra, even a dentist we once shared in London) and finally someone from the orchestra has received a postcard from Barbados, and has thoughtfully forwarded it to me. Palm trees and blue skies adorn the front, but on the back, the news isn’t good.

  Having a wonderful time in this amazing place. The people are so friendly that I feel as though I’ve come home. Even found a band to play in. May stay here for ever! December in England seems a very long way away. What’s there to come home to?

  ME! I want to tell him. There’s me to come home to, and our baby! Oh Amos! Please come home!

  But my tears fall uselessly onto the postcard, trickling across the sandy beach and the palm trees and smudging the ink of Amos’s handwriting. He has nice handwriting, and it occurs to me that I have never seen it before. There has never been any reason for us to correspond. And now, when there is every reason, I have no address to write to. Supposing Amos really does decide to stay on? Supposing he never comes back? He has always had a penchant for dark-skinned women. He could well settle down with a Caribbean wife and a brood of tawny children, with never a thought for (or come to that, any knowledge of) the child he’s left behind. Perhaps, in years to come, my son and I will voyage across the sea and try to find him. But of course by then it will be too late. We shall merely be an embarrassment; a cruel reminder of the life he’s tried to leave behind.

  I suppose I could try writing to the British embassy in Barbados. Do embassies concern themselves with such domestic matters? Almost certainly not. Perhaps I should go to Barbados now to search for him? But I haven’t enough money, and I wouldn’t know where to start. Also, the idea of travelling, once so attractive, has become daunting to me in my pregnant and vulnerable state, and the prospect of running the gauntlet of airports and queues and the complications of foreign officialdom on my own is not one I relish. I need my family and friends; I need continuity; I need to feel safe. Spinning across the world in search of Amos doesn’t sound at all safe, especially as it is more than likely that I wouldn’t find him. Briefly, I wonder whether Mikey would come with me. But Mikey is still sulking in the aftermath of the wheelchair episode, and in any case, it wouldn’t be fair to take him away from Gavin at this early stage of their relationship. I shall just have to continue waiting, and see what happens. I wish most fervently that I had never seen that postcard. My friend meant kindly in sending it to me, but it has done nothing to raise my spirits.

  ‘What’s up, Ruth?’ Kaz has come into the kitchen to make herself some coffee.

  I tell her about the postcard. Kaz already knows about Amos, and has been on the whole sympathetic.

  ‘Mm.’ Kaz pours hot water into a mug. ‘Are you sure you really want this guy?’

  ‘No. Not absolutely sure. But I think I do.’

  ‘Better to have no man than the wrong man,’ Kaz tells me.

  ‘Do you think you’ll get married one day?’ I ask her.

  ‘I might, if I could find someone like Kent,’ she teases. I decide to ignore her. ‘But probably not. The only married couple I’ve ever had anything to do with were m
y parents. They were a nightmare together.’

  ‘What was your dad like?’

  ‘Oh, mousy, hen-pecked. A miserable little man, he was. Though I blame my mum.’

  ‘Did she make him very unhappy?’ I have often wondered about Blossom’s marriage.

  ‘She certainly did. But then, he asked for it. He was such a wimp. And he wouldn’t fight back.’

  ‘Why didn’t he leave her?’

  ‘Search me. She told him to often enough.’

  ‘Wasn’t she at all upset when he died?’

  Kaz laughs.

  ‘Not at all. At least no-one can call Mum a hypocrite.’

  ‘And Lazzo? Was he — close to your father?’

  ‘No. In any case, Lazzo wasn’t Dad’s.’

  ‘Ah.’ I was wondering how it was that the combination of a mousy little man and Blossom had managed to produce anything as large as Lazzo. ‘How does she reconcile that with her faith?’

  ‘I told you before. Mum’s selective when it comes to her faith. She takes the bits she wants, and discards the rest.’

  ‘How handy.’ I pause for a moment, envying Kaz’s ability to look ravishing whatever she happens to be wearing (today, dirty dungarees, an old flat cap belonging to my uncles and a torn trench coat). ‘Who was Lazzo’s father?’

  ‘No idea.’ Kaz spoons sugar into her coffee, and props herself against the sink.

  ‘Does no-one know?’

  ‘Mum probably does, but she’s not telling, and Lazzo doesn’t seem to care. I’m glad she had him, though. He’s a good lad, is our Lazzo.’

  ‘Yes. He’s wonderfully straightforward, isn’t he.’

  ‘Heart of gold,’ Kaz agrees.

  ‘And is Lazzo a Catholic?’

  Kaz laughs. ‘Well, he was an altar boy when he was little, but he ate all the communion wafers and was dismissed. Sacrilege, they called it, and Mum was furious. But I think he was just hungry, poor kid. Our Laz was always hungry. But no. He’s not really a Catholic any more, though Mum does sometimes try to drag him to Mass.’

  After Kaz has left the room, I ponder on the subject of God. Do I believe in Him? I was force fed with so much religion as a child, that I used to think that I had been put off for life, but of course God and religion are not necessarily the same thing. Thinking about it now, I decide that I probably do believe in something like God. Wide night skies, an expanse of sea, the music of Bach, the poetry of Shakespeare — they all seem to come from something beyond a mere coincidence of genes or particles. But they also seem to me to have little connection with the petty rules and regulations and the repetitive hymns, often sung to the accompaniment of a guitar, which are the life blood of the church attended by my parents. These prettify and reduce God, like the paintings of Holman Hunt, making Him small and ever so slightly sickly. My God, if I have one, is huge and powerful and mysterious.