by Lyn Gardner
“Right,” said Alicia, “we need to get you all somewhere warm and dry, and since Jack isn’t here to make any decisions, he’ll have to live with mine.” Olivia and Eel knew from the set of Alicia’s mouth that Jack was in big trouble.
Their grandmother stepped outside and was soon talking quietly and urgently on her mobile. Shortly afterwards, the minibuses turned up and they all piled in, clutching what remained of their possessions.
Alicia asked the drivers to put their heaters on full blast, and soon the Swans grew so warm and toasty that several of them dozed off. Not Olivia. Her mind was racing. Where were her dad and Pablo? Were they in trouble, and what would they think if they turned up at the campsite and found the smashed tents and the Swans gone? She wanted to ask Alicia where they were going so that she could text Jack and let him know where to find them, but there was something about the grim line of Alicia’s mouth that made her reluctant to speak to her grandmother. In any case, Alicia seemed to be doing a great deal of texting herself in her rather laborious fashion that made Olivia want to snatch the phone out of her gran’s hands and do it for her. Alicia found texting particularly difficult because of her arthritis, so Olivia guessed that if that was what she was doing, it was because she didn’t want her conversation overheard. She sent another text asking Jack to call her urgently.
The little convoy of vehicles rumbled over the New Town cobbles. Olivia thought she glimpsed the street where Kasha’s aunt had her flat and wondered if that was where they were all heading, but she wasn’t surprised when they kept on going – she’d paid the boys a visit with Georgia and Aeysha, and the flat was tiny, smaller even than the B&B where Alicia was staying. Maybe they were going to a hotel, although she wasn’t sure what kind of hotel would welcome the Swans in the middle of the night looking like drowned rats.
The minibus turned into a street full of cafés and delis, continued a short way through an area with a village feel, turned down another street and stopped outside a large house with black railings, wide steps and a big front door with a large lion’s head knocker. Everyone climbed out of the buses and taxis, and stood sleepy and subdued in the street while Alicia paid off the taxi-drivers from a wad of cash, walked up the steps and knocked gently on the door.
The door opened immediately, as though someone had been waiting for them. They walked into an entrance hall so large that it easily contained a sofa, several chairs and a large bookcase. A staircase curved elegantly into the hall from above, and Olivia could see it spiralling up at least three floors to a domed atrium. It was the grandest house she’d ever been inside.
“Through there are flasks of hot chocolate, coffee and sandwiches, and blankets all ready for you,” said the man who’d opened the door, indicating a room off the hall, where a fire could be seen crackling in a huge fireplace. The Swans, shooed along by Lydia, sleepwalked into the room, but Olivia hung back in the hall, holding Eel’s hand. She saw Alicia and the man kiss each other on the cheek and murmur something to each other, and then the man moved away from behind the door, which he hadn’t quite closed properly, and for the first time she could see him quite clearly. He was in his mid-thirties and very good-looking in a dark, brooding way. He looked so familiar she wondered if he was an actor she’d seen on TV or on the stage.
“So,” he said with a smile, turning his attention to the girls, “you must be Olivia and Eel. Alicia has told me so much about you both. I’m Michael.” He was about to speak again when there was the clatter of feet on the stairs and a small figure appeared, then stopped abruptly halfway down. Olivia and the boy-magician stared at each other in amazement.
“You! The high-wire girl!” said the boy, his eyes round with astonishment. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”
“Alfie!” breathed Olivia, but it came out as a froggy croak. So she had been right all along! If Alicia had brought them to this house, then she must know that Jack was Alfie’s dad! It all fitted together like the pieces of a jigsaw. Michael and Alicia looked surprised.
“You two know each other?” asked Michael uncertainly. Alfie nodded.
Olivia felt a little hot coal of fury and misery flare into life in her stomach. “Oh yes,” she said sarcastically, “we know each other. Although I don’t think anybody has ever bothered to introduce us.” The anger was running like molten lava through her whole body, making her both rude and recklessly brave. Her face was burning with fury. She stuck out her hand very formally towards Alfie as he walked down the stairs, a puzzled expression on his face. He looked at her hand warily.
“Hello, Alfie Marvell,” she said. “I’m Olivia Marvell. What nobody has bothered to tell you, and they certainly haven’t bothered to tell me, is that we’re related–”
There was a sudden hammering at the door. It burst open, almost knocking over Alicia. A wild-eyed Jack barged into the hall just as Olivia announced: “–and you and I, Alfie, we’re half-brother and sister. Your dad is my dad…”
There was an appalled silence as the adults all looked at each other. Eel’s mouth dropped open and she said indignantly: “Nobody told me I had a brother! Even half a one. What’s going on?”
Alfie looked totally bemused. He kept shaking his head and looking questioningly from the grown-ups to Olivia and back again.
“Liv…” said Jack urgently, reaching out for her. Olivia took a step away from him and backed into her grandmother’s arms. Alicia held her protectively.
“Keep away,” Olivia snarled.
Jack looked as if she’d struck him. “Oh, Liv, chick, I’m so, so sorry. I’ve made a real mess of things,” said Jack. “Liv, please, it’s not what you think, I promise…” He tried to give Olivia a hug, but she pushed him away very hard. He looked desperate. “Alfie isn’t your brother, Liv, he’s your cousin.”
Olivia looked at her father in bafflement. “Cousin? How can I have a cousin when I haven’t got any uncles or aunts?” she demanded.
“Because you do have an uncle. Me.” Michael put out his hand to Olivia and said: “Jack’s my wayward little brother. I’m very pleased to meet you, Olivia. I’ve always wondered what Jack and Toni’s daughters would be like, and now I know.” He paused and a wistful look came into his eyes. “You look just like your mother, Olivia. She was a beautiful woman.”
Olivia noticed that Alicia’s eyes were shining with tears. “But I don’t understand,” she spluttered. She turned indignantly to Jack. “You’re always keeping secrets from us! Why didn’t you tell us you had a brother, and that Eel and I had an uncle? And a cousin.”
Jack looked anguished. “Because Michael and I fell out a long time before you were born and we haven’t spoken since. Not for years.”
“Why did you fall out?” asked Olivia, determined to get to the bottom of the secrets. “That day when the Swans arrived in Edinburgh. I heard you say to Gran that you’d done something that was a betrayal, something of which you were really ashamed.”
Jack closed his eyes for a second as if experiencing a sharp pain, then he looked at his brother. He turned to Olivia and said very gently, “You’re right, Liv. I did do something very terrible, something that hurt Michael very much indeed.”
He glanced at Alicia, who appeared to be holding her breath. “It hurt other people, too.”
“What was it?” whispered Olivia. She’d thought she’d wanted to know the truth, but now she was about to get it, she wasn’t so sure. The urge to put her hands over her ears was huge, but Jack was already speaking in a low voice.
“Michael…my brother, the brother I loved very much and who I knew loved me because he had always looked out for me since we were boys, was going away for a few days. He asked me to look after the woman he loved, and who he intended to marry, while he was gone. When he got back, Toni and I had run away together. I’m ashamed to admit that I was too much of a coward to face him.”
Olivia stared at her uncle. Now she knew what Sebastian Shaw had meant.
“So you were in love
with my mum?”
Michael nodded.
“You were going to marry her. You were engaged?”
He nodded again. “It was a very long time ago, Olivia. Soon after Jack and Toni eloped, I met Ginny, Alfie’s mum, and I loved her very much, right up to the moment of her death.” He looked at his son. “If I’d never met Ginny, Alfie would never have been born, and he’s the best thing in my life. Hearts do mend, Olivia, even badly broken ones like mine. I’ve long got over losing Toni, but I’ve never got over losing my brother.” He gave Jack a long, serious look. “It’s good to see you, Jack. I’ve missed you more than I can say.”
“I’m so sorry…” blurted out Jack, but Michael just stepped towards him and enveloped him in a hug.
When they broke apart, after a long time, Jack said, “I think what we all need is a family chat, and Michael and I will tell you everything. No more secrets. Secrets tear families apart.”
Eel considered Alfie with a beady bird-like gaze. “I’ve never wanted a brother, because really one sister, particularly one as moody as Livy, is quite enough,” she told him confidentially. “But I know I’m going to love having a cousin.”
“Good,” said Alfie solemnly, but with a twinkle in his eye. “I think I’m going to love having cousins, too.”
Chapter Nineteen
“When we were boys,” said Michael, “Jack and I did everything together. Jack was three years younger than me, but we were more than brothers, we were best friends. We put on shows together in the garden with our friends. But Jack and I were in charge. We did everything ourselves. Writing the scripts, creating the music on an old cassette player, making the scenery. Jack was always very good with his hands. The shows were always rather swashbuckling affairs, and they always had two essential ingredients.”
“What were they?” asked Alfie.
Jack, the girls, Michael and his son and Alicia were packed closely together on the two big sofas in the drawing room. Pablo had disappeared to help Lydia settle the rest of the Swans upstairs in some of the many bedrooms. Georgia and Aeysha were sleeping in a four-poster bed that had room for at least six. But Olivia, Eel and Alfie insisted that they weren’t tired and that they wanted to hear what Jack and Michael had to tell them immediately.
“Better out than in,” advised Alicia. “We don’t want Livy jumping to any more conclusions.”
So they had all settled down on the sofas, interrupted only by a text from Evie to Jack saying that she and Tati were safe and were on their way. Michael and Jack talked and talked. They started with their lonely childhood. They had busy parents who had little time for their two sons, who took refuge in each other’s company and putting on shows.
“But what were the special ingredients in the shows?” repeated Alfie insistently.
“We each had a speciality,” said Jack. “Mine, of course, was acrobatics and later the slack rope and tightrope. I eventually went off to join a circus in Europe when I was barely seventeen. But your dad did magic tricks. He was a really brilliant stage magician.”
“Just like you, Alfie!” said Eel.
Alfie turned bright red and looked worried, and Olivia added quickly: “He’s amazing. He’s got a real talent for it – like father, like son.”
Michael was looking intently at his son. Alfie took a deep breath. “I found all this conjuring paraphernalia and books in the attic years ago,” he said to his father, “but when I tried to show you my first trick after weeks and weeks of practice, you got really angry and told me to put it all back where I found it and never ever touch it again. But I couldn’t let it alone. I’ve been practising in secret ever since.”
“You must have been,” said Eel, “because you’ve got really good.” Then she added sagely: “That happens when you practise a lot. It’s happening with my dancing.”
“Are you angry with me?” asked Alfie, looking at his dad anxiously.
“Oh, Alfie, of course I’m not angry,” said Michael. “Just ashamed that I was cross with you when you first found all the conjuring stuff, and tried to stop you from doing something you obviously really love. You clearly have a real talent.”
“But why did you get so angry?” asked Olivia, who was increasingly beginning to think that all grown-ups were mad.
“Because it reminded me of a self I thought I’d long buried.” He looked at Jack. “Shall I continue?” His brother nodded.
“I first met Toni at a post-show party for a West End production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. She played Viola.”
“Viola’s one of my middle names,” said Olivia excitedly. “I’ve read the play. Viola gets shipwrecked with her brother and she thinks he’s drowned, but he’s not, he’s still alive. But she doesn’t know that.”
“That’s right,” said Alicia softly, “and Viola dresses up as a boy and the great lady Olivia – who you are also named for – falls in love with her. It’s a play about mistaken identities, illusions, deceptions and misunderstandings, about people not seeing what they think they see or only seeing what they want to see.” Then she added drily: “A bit like this family, really.”
“I’d been employed by the producer to do a magic show to entertain the cast and guests at the last-night party,” said Michael. “I was a struggling playwright in London at the time, I’d just had my first play accepted by the Royal Court but not yet produced and I was supplementing my income by doing conjuring shows. That was the night I met Toni. I made her disappear.”
“You made our mum disappear!” said Olivia breathlessly.
“Yes,” said Michael. “She asked me to.” Then he added with a twinkle: “But only after I’d sawn her in half. I noticed Toni at once. Who couldn’t? She wasn’t just beautiful. She had an aura about her, as if she lived just a little more intensely than anybody else.” He smiled. “Maybe a bit like you, Olivia. I’d been to see Twelfth Night twice, buying cheap seats right up in the gallery, and like everybody else in the audience I was already a little bit in love with her, or at least with Viola.
“At the party she was like a bright shimmering light attracting everyone towards her, so I was surprised when she suddenly detached herself from a group of famous theatre people and came over to talk to me. After all, I was just the hired help. A nobody. We chatted for a bit and I told her about my play, and then she asked if I could really make people disappear and I laughed and said it was all an illusion, that of course I couldn’t really make somebody disappear but I could make people think that I had. Then she said that sometimes all the constant attention made her wish that she could disappear. I remember her saying very clearly: ‘Tonight I wish I could be anywhere else but here.’ So I said that if she would act as my assistant for the night I would arrange it.”
Olivia and Eel were wide-eyed.
“How?” they asked in unison.
Michael glanced at Alfie. “Do you know?” he asked his son.
Alfie nodded. “I found the box for that, too. I’ve been working on it. I’m not perfect, but I almost managed to make Angus McMillan disappear when he came round for tea, but he got claustrophobic and wouldn’t let me do it again after the first time, even when I promised him my school pudding for a whole week.”
Michael put his finger against his nose and said to Olivia and Eel. “I can’t tell you, it’s against the magician’s code to give away secrets, isn’t it, Alfie?” Alfie grinned and nodded. “So,” continued Michael, “I made your mum disappear that night. She walked into the box, and when I opened it a few minutes later she wasn’t there. All that was in the box was the costume that she had worn in the play when Viola had dressed up as a boy and called herself Cesario. Everyone was amazed, but I think they all understood that it was her way of saying goodbye to the play and to them. That she was moving on.”
“Where had she disappeared to?” asked Eel.
“Only to the pub around the corner,” said Michael with a grin, “and I soon joined her there. Before the evening was over I’d fallen in love and six months l
ater we were engaged.”
“She was nineteen,” said Alicia quietly. “She had the world at her feet. Both of you did. Your play became a massive success. The two of you were going to be the toast of the West End, you both had such glittering careers ahead of you.”
“Then what happened?” asked Olivia.
“I came back,” said Jack.
Chapter Twenty
A pinky glow in the sky could just be spotted through a crack in the thick curtains. The first birds were beginning to sing. Jack was talking in a voice so low that Olivia and the others had to lean forward to catch his words.
“I’d been in Europe travelling with a couple of circuses since our parents had been killed in a car crash. I missed Michael so much, but I was getting a real education in walking the high-wire, and I didn’t have any money, so trips home weren’t an option. Then I heard that a circus needed a tightrope walker for a show in London. It was only a three-day gig, but it was a chance to get back to the UK and see Michael. I knew he was engaged to be married. We tried to write to each other, but I was always on the move and it was in the days before mobile phones and an Internet café on every street corner. We hadn’t had much contact.”
“I was thrilled to see you,” said Michael, “but then I had to go to Edinburgh because the Traverse Theatre was about to put on a play of mine. I was starting to do really well, and I was in the middle of writing my first Hollywood screenplay. It meant I wouldn’t get a chance to see Jack perform, but I knew that we’d have time together after I got back. He was going to be staying on for a couple of weeks. So I gave him the keys to my rented flat, got Toni two tickets for the circus so she could go and watch him, arranged for them to meet up afterwards, and told him to look after her for me.”
“I remember the night Toni and I went to the circus as if it was yesterday,” said Alicia, a look of great sadness etched on her face. “Toni was tired. She was in rehearsal at the National. She was going to play Nina in Chekhov’s The Seagull. I told her we didn’t have to go. I was never very keen on the circus, I thought it vulgar and always loathed all those not very funny clowns, but she said it would be rude not to turn up. So we did. For years afterwards I regretted it. She was entranced by everything, but she was most entranced by you, Jack. When you stepped out on the wire, it was as if she was stepping out there with you. I could see it in her face. It was closed and dreamy, and afterwards when everyone else was clapping she sat as if in a daze and she just said four words, and I’ll always remember them, because they were so strange and yet so utterly right: ‘He inhabits the air’.
