Hugo pushed his chair back, his mouth set in a hard line. ‘Stop it, Pamela! If you want to think like that, you should never have agreed to take Tessa in the first place. It’s no good to anyone, this endless guilt and regret.’
‘Will Tessa ever forgive us?’
‘We should have told her. I always said that. But what’s done is done. She knows we love her, and that’s all that counts.’
Pamela shook her head, rubbing her hands around in her lap. ‘But this man …’
‘Her father.’
‘We know nothing about him.’
‘What does Erin say?’
‘I haven’t been able to get hold of her. She must be off on a trip. She hasn’t been answering her phone.’
‘Well, she obviously gave Tessa enough information to track him down. And if he is Tessa’s father, then we just have to focus on that, not on his conviction. He’s doing his time.’
‘You’re her father. It’s not fair on you!’
‘We have to leave Tessa free,’ said Hugo. He took hold of his wife’s hands again, trying to contain their restless movements, but she pulled against him, releasing herself from his grasp. ‘We believed before we were doing the right thing. We can’t interfere again.’
‘And what if this man has done terrible things before? Other crimes?’
‘Then that’s the way it is.’
‘What if she can be hurt by what he’s done?’
Hugo shrugged. ‘We’ll just have to hope that if she does contact him, he’ll feel as any father would.’
Pamela felt a surge of rage against Hugo’s reasonableness. Fearing her own anger, she stood up. ‘Ok. But I worry about you too.’
‘It’s not about what we want any more.’ He managed a weary smile, not meeting her eyes. ‘It never should have been.’
She bent to kiss his cheek and went downstairs to the kitchen in search of something to deaden her apprehension.
Later, she once again dialled Erin’s number in Sydney and once again got her answering machine. This time she left a message: ‘Erin, it’s me. I have news. Tessa has found Roy Weaver.’ Pamela paused for so long that the device automatically cut her off. She rang back before her mouth became too dry to speak. ‘Please call me back, Erin darling. Talk to me. This time I’ll hear whatever you want to tell me. I will listen to what you want to say. I promise.’
EIGHTEEN
The reply from the Prison Service arrived in early May. It supplied the name of the establishment, HMP Wayleigh Heath, and Roy Weaver’s prison number, LH5238. Over the previous few weeks Tessa had almost persuaded herself that Roy Weaver would not reply. After all, it was preposterous to expect him to entertain her claim nearly four decades after an event he must surely have forgotten. Indeed, she’d rather hoped not to hear back so that she could quietly let the whole subject drop, while telling herself she’d done all she could. Yet, as she read the sparse information, she was taken aback by the intensity of her relief. Her father had opened the way for them to meet. He did want to know her! Until that moment, holding this document in her hands, she had not honestly considered how she would react if he had refused, and could now admit how painful a rejection would have been. She had been naive not to believe that the instinctive need to know one’s paternity would overpower any argument against bringing this dubious man into her life.
In the grip of this emotion Tessa drew a sheet of the B&B’s headed paper towards her, and picked up a pen. It seemed far too formal to send a printed letter. She hesitated over the wisdom of giving him her address before reassuring herself that he was behind bars – she and her family were perfectly safe. What should she call him – Roy or Mr Weaver? Dear Roy, she wrote. You will already know why I want to contact you. I have reason to believe you might be my biological father. She paused: did ‘biological’ sound too cold? Or did it convey sanity and realism? She let it stand. My mother, who now lives in Australia, is Erin Girling. She has told me that you met one another in Felixham when you were on holiday there in the summer of 1974, and that you are my father. Tessa broke off to consider how she might lay her hands on a photograph of Erin in 1974, to jog Roy’s memory, then realised she would have to ask Pamela, and decided it could wait. She also brushed aside the rapid calculation that Erin, then only a year or so older than Lauren, had not in fact turned sixteen until the very end of August. She thought for a while, pondering what more she could add. I have very little information, so if this is not you, then I apologise for writing. If you agree that my mother is correct, then I hope we can correspond further. She signed off, With best wishes, folded the sheet into an envelope and copied out the address provided.
She locked the letter from the Prison Service into a filing cabinet and decided to take her own letter to the post immediately, so that neither Mitch nor Lauren could stumble across it and be curious about the significance of the address. She slipped out of the house and into spring sunshine dancing off the sea. White horses raced into shore and small white clouds scudded across a blue sky. Beneath the promenade a man was repainting a beach hut the colour of lemon sherbet. She posted her letter in the red box set in the wall by one of the many flights of steps that led down to the beach, and walked on along the front. She was not yet ready to go back to work, and there were some errands she could run in town. The preoccupation of the morning had blinded her to the outside world, but she also felt vividly alive, sensing some possibility of completion, of comfort and self-explanation, that lay waiting over the horizon. The world had only to keep turning in order to bring it to her: it was as natural as the tides.
Roy Weaver replied by return of post. Dear Tessa, he wrote on lined prison notepaper. The envelope was ordinary, cheap and anonymous, but the letter it contained bore his name and prison number in preprinted spaces in the top corner. I don’t know what to say! I do remember that long-ago summer in Felixham, and a lovely girl I was half in love with, so I suppose it is entirely possible that what your mother tells you is true. I have sadly remained childless, so the idea that you might be my daughter is thrilling – though goodness knows, I don’t deserve it. I enclose a Visiting Order. If you would care to come and see me, then ring and book a visit on any day that suits you. Warmest regards, Roy Weaver.
Tessa placed the letter down on her desk, aware that her hand was shaking. She took a deep breath, trying to identify what she felt. There was relief from uncertainty: Erin’s account of her conception was true – it had been a youthful holiday romance – and she had found her father. There was some excitement about the unknown, about having to rise to this challenge. And there was dread.
She picked up the letter again. The handwriting was distinctive, each letter clear and well-formed, the words precisely spaced and the date written in Roman numerals. She liked the apparent fastidiousness, telling herself it signalled an articulate, educated man. She noted how gracefully Roy Weaver acknowledged his offence – describing himself as undeserving – and the considerate way he suggested she might like to visit, leaving it easy for her to decline or postpone. She tried to imagine him as he must have been when he and Erin had met, the same as every generation of young men that she had watched come and go each summer, and to picture him promenading arm-in-arm with the admiring girl from the seafront boarding house, the sun shining as they went off in search of a grassy hollow at the edge of the marshes where they could be alone and private together. Unless she decided otherwise, this was the only part of his life that need concern her. And, she reminded herself, the decision was entirely hers. This thought gave her confidence: however much she could wish for a less uncomfortable father figure, Roy Weaver’s predicament unquestionably put her in control.
She did, however, freely acknowledge how disappointed she was to discover she had no siblings. She realised how she’d seen a meeting with Roy Weaver as a chance to relive her childhood, to retrieve an alternative identity as someone else’s child, as a member of a different clan. She’d enjoyed falling asleep recently already semi
-dreaming about the amazing bond that would exist between herself and a younger sister, or adventures she might share with a gang of brothers. She’d hoped to be introduced to a version of herself she had never known, to slip into a new constellation, another galaxy, another solar system. It was a compelling notion, and she let go of it now with regret. But, recalling Declan’s harsh realism, at least Roy would be free to welcome her into his life without fear of awkward complications with an existing family. And she consoled herself that his childlessness would allow their relationship to take centre stage.
As Tessa began to compose various possible replies in her mind, feeling her way into what action she might take, she was interrupted by the office door opening. It was Carol, with a brightly patterned make-up bag in her hands. ‘The guests in number four left this behind,’ she announced.
Pushing Roy’s letter out of sight under some other papers on her desk, Tessa took it from her. ‘Thanks. No doubt they’ll realise once they get home again.’
Tessa reached over to put it on top of the filing cabinet, then glanced at her computer screen, hoping that Carol wouldn’t want to stay and chat.
‘Got a bit more time to yourself now the kids are back at school,’ Carol observed from the doorway.
‘Yes. A lot to catch up on though.’
‘I saw Mitch made friends with Tamsin Crawford in the holidays,’ Carol went on. ‘They walk the Crawfords’ spotty dog together.’
‘Really?’
‘Did you not know?’
Tessa caught a glint of satisfaction in Carol’s eye and laughed. ‘Mitch is seventeen. I don’t keep tabs on him any more!’
‘Have you met Mr Crawford?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘You know I’m friends with Sonia Beeston, who works for him?’
‘Of course.’
‘He’s a generous employer, but she says there’s all sorts goes on at the house.’ Carol paused significantly. ‘Drugs and stuff.’
‘Well, I doubt the dog’s involved,’ Tessa observed lightly.
‘Cocaine, apparently,’ Carol persisted. ‘Sonia says they don’t even bother trying to hide it.’
‘Mitch and I have talked about drugs,’ said Tessa firmly. ‘He’s very sensible.’
Carol nodded. ‘All the same, you know what those people are like. If anything happens, a man like Mr Crawford won’t rush to blame himself.’
‘Thanks, Carol.’ Tessa tried to hide her irritation. Carol had watched Mitch and Lauren grow up and was undoubtedly fond of them, but all the same Tessa didn’t want to sanction Sonia’s gossip against her employer in case Carol reciprocated by running to Sonia with tales of her own. ‘I appreciate your concern.’ She turned back to her desk. ‘Call me if you want a hand turning the mattress in number three.’
Carol pursed her lips but accepted her dismissal. Relieved, Tessa waited until she heard her ascending footsteps before withdrawing Roy’s letter from its concealment. She looked again at the neat architectural handwriting, her father’s handwriting, a father thrilled to meet his daughter for the first time. Of course she would go! Ready for a life outside the petty, gossipy confines of Felixham, she dialled the number printed on the Visiting Order.
NINETEEN
HMP Wayleigh Heath was, like Whitemoor, a modern prison, set in an equally featureless stretch of countryside. Tessa parked and looked around. She’d been too flustered to ask for information when she’d phoned to book the visit, and was now unsure where she was supposed to go. The high concrete walls dominated the view, but off to one side was a single-storey building with large windows, all the woodwork painted red, green and blue like the forced cheerfulness of a primary school. Noticing an elderly couple leave their car and walk towards it, she decided to follow.
Inside was one large room with fixed rows of chairs. No one looked up when Tessa entered. Most of those already seated were young women, some keeping watch on a small play area where three or four toddlers eyed each other warily; the older people waited silently, as if both resigned and disappointed at having to be here. Tessa joined a small queue behind the couple from the car park in front of a desk where a man in a short-sleeved white uniform shirt sat before a computer terminal.
When it was her turn, the officer took her Visiting Order and asked for some ID, taking meticulous note of the details of her driver’s licence. ‘Do you want some tokens?’ he asked.
‘Tokens? I’m sorry. I’ve not been before.’
He looked at her without curiosity. ‘You can’t take money in, but you can exchange cash for tokens to buy tea and biscuits. You can take in reading glasses, tissues and essential medication. Everything else goes in a locker.’ He nodded towards the back wall, where she now noticed rows of grey metal doors.
‘I brought some photographs. Can I take those?’
She started to take the envelope out of her bag, but he looked at her wearily. ‘You can hand them in.’
‘Will I get them back?’
‘Ask the prisoner to return them on your next visit.’
‘Ok.’
‘You want to hand them in?’
Tessa thought quickly. She had told no one about having written to Roy, let alone visiting him, so had been forced to dissemble when asking Pamela for photos of Erin as a girl. Since Averil had never owned a camera, Pamela had only been able to produce half a dozen snaps, half of those annual school photos, and Tessa wasn’t ready to part with them. But equally she had to be sure that Roy remembered Erin, that he was her father. Impulsively, she handed the envelope over, signed where the officer asked her to, and exchanged a few coins for some bent cardboard tokens. The officer wrote a number on her VO and gave it back to her, then looked past her to the next person in the queue.
‘Sorry, but what do I do now?’
‘Wait for your number to be called.’ He was already reaching past her for another set of paperwork.
Tessa moved aside and found herself an unoccupied seat beside a restless little boy who was evidently with his grandmother. She felt bad about parting so recklessly with the photos. It had been terrible deceiving Pamela, especially when she’d seemed so pleased by Tessa’s interest in Erin. But Tessa had bolstered herself with the idea that she needed a little longer to explore the sensation of living with withheld knowledge, to taste the corrosive power offered by the possession of a secret and to match their silences with her own. She fortified herself now with the idea that Pamela and Hugo must have felt similarly empowered by not telling her the truth. If her secret was creating a rift between them, then it was they who must find a way to mend it.
The little boy kept kicking his chair, jolting hers, but she didn’t like to move elsewhere. In an attempt to distract herself, she took a proper look around. The walls were festooned with posters and welfare notices about help with drugs, alcohol, debt and housing, or other legal advice, many repeated in different languages. Covertly observing her fellow visitors, Tessa was guiltily aware of her great good fortune in being decently nourished and provided for. She chose not to think about what would have become of her if Hugo and Pamela had abandoned her to the Care system; the endless possibilities of the other adoptive parents and families she might have had were dizzying and pushed her sense of disloyalty to disquieting levels.
Beside her, the boy set his sights on the play area and struggled to free himself from his grandmother’s grip. Catching Tessa’s eye, the grandmother winked then turned to the boy. ‘If you don’t do as you’re told,’ she said, ‘that nice officer over there will take you away and lock you up with a great big key.’
The boy subsided immediately. Avoiding further eye contact with the grandmother Tessa made her way to the toilets, remembering that she wanted to freshen her lipstick before locking away her bag.
On every cubicle door and over the mirror and hand-dryers were more notices, this time about domestic violence and the penalties for smuggling drugs into the prison. Tessa dug in her bag for a comb. She’d had her hair cut the week be
fore and it fell into neat layers, framing her face. She applied lipstick, then stared at herself in the mirror, examining her bone structure, the colour of her eyes, the shape of her mouth: would the man she was about to meet look anything like this? She was horribly nervous. She had lain awake the night before, rehearsing what to say, fearful that, once they met Roy Weaver would dismiss her story or think her stupid. Even if he did accept that he was her father, she was unsure what more she really wanted from him. She looked again at her face, but the endless notices about drugs and violence reflected in the mirror bore down on her like the special effects in some old Hollywood film where the actor fears they are going mad. This was not her world, she did not belong here, yet she remained certain that she had to meet this man. What would her father think of her? Would he like her? To want a prison inmate to be proud of her was ridiculous and yet mattered desperately to her.
The door opened and a young woman with a fierce, pinched face, her thin bare legs mottled as if with cold but wearing little but a skimpy vest and a short skirt, slid into a cubicle and bolted the door. Tessa pulled herself together and went out. She locked away her bag and went back to her seat, relieved when a moment later the little boy and his grandmother had their number called and left to go across to the prison. Visits had begun at two o’clock, and although she had arrived ten minutes or so before, it now dawned on her how many other people ahead of her were still waiting. There were some tattered magazines and a discarded tabloid on a side table, and she despised herself for not wanting to touch them. She took a deep breath, resolving to imagine that she was at an airport waiting to be called for a holiday flight.
It was another forty minutes before her number was called. She followed the elderly couple the hundred yards or so across to an open door beside the massive main gate. Inside was a hive of activity as jackets, shoes and baby equipment were passed through an X-ray machine. Tessa took her turn walking through the metal detector and stood with her arms obediently outspread as an officer passed a wand around her body. She then took her place on a small plinth while a female officer patted her down, checking inside the waistband of her jeans and the neckline of her sweater before asking her to open her mouth and squinting inside. Tessa put her shoes back on and, following the example of the elderly couple, held out her hand to be stamped with a fluorescent dye. Her group was then marshalled into a transparent holding pen; the door behind them swooshed shut electronically and, watching themselves in the surveillance monitor bolted high in one corner, they waited until the door in front was opened to allow access to the secure area of the prison.
The Bad Mother Page 10
