by Kiley Dunbar
‘Anyway,’ he forced out a big sigh. ‘What year are we looking for?’
‘Oh! Of course!’ Mirren awoke from the hazy pleasure of watching him. ‘Jonathan’s thirty-two, so he was born in…’
‘Eighty-eight,’ they both said at once, and Adrian searched the cabinet.
‘Eighty-four to eight-six… eighty-seven to eighty-eight. Got it!’ He pulled out two white boxes tied with string. ‘Here we go.’
He watched her, impressed, as she unwrapped the roll of film and set it upon the machine’s spinning spool, threading the end of the reel into the clamp and starting the slow scroll through the archived pages projected and enlarged on the screen, every page of the original editions long since disintegrated or destroyed and captured for posterity decades ago on the celluloid spool.
Mirren scrolled, searching for any mention of Wagstaff and Olivia Hathaway. Had the pair ever acted together, or even worked together in the same season of plays? Had they been photographed out on the town together at some premier or at a cast party? Had they done a press call together, or an interview? She relished hunting through the reel for evidence. This was what she was good at; finding the story, sifting through resources to get to the truth, with sharp eyes and sharper wits. The thrill of reporting was coming back to her, something that had been dulled writing up magistrates’ proceedings at the Broadsheet.
Adrian, Mirren noticed, had left the room, so she worked on, hoping she wouldn’t stumble upon any mention of Blythe and Wagstaff. She’d blurted out the mystery of Jonathan’s paternity to Adrian; she didn’t need to add details about Blythe’s potential love affair with the old rogue too. Jonathan’s story was delicate enough without adding another layer of intrigue and Blythe’s controversial pregnancy was no one’s business but her own – everyone deserved to keep their secrets, didn’t they? Her excitement ebbed a little at this.
She thought of how even the national papers would love this scoop. Famed TV and stage actor, John Wagstaff – the man who (probably) ruined Blythe Goode, sixties stage siren – reunites with his long-lost American son, also an actor reaching the height of his career and returning to the English stage for another triumphant season. She could see the salacious headlines and the clickbait sidebars already.
The thought of it was enough to make her hands fall to her lap, just as Adrian was returning with two empty mugs.
‘Let’s open that bottle, shall we?’ he said. ‘Hey, what’s the matter?’
‘Are we doing the right thing? What if we find out Wagstaff is Jonathan’s dad? That kind of information in the wrong hands could ruin his life. If it got out and in the news there could be a scandal all over again; we could hurt his mum’s feelings, humiliate them both. Is it worth it?’
‘Whatever we discover, nobody needs to know,’ said Adrian, pulling up a chair beside her. ‘You’re looking for proof, right? If we find it, your friend can break it to her boyfriend and then it’s up to him how he proceeds. He doesn’t have to act on it, but at least he’d know.’
‘If he wanted to know he’d ask his mum.’
Adrian swallowed, setting the bottle of champagne down again, thinking hard. Eventually, he made up his mind. ‘You’re right. Nobody likes to be reminded of family secrets left buried for generations. It’s not our place to interfere. We should leave it.’
‘Working late?’
They both quailed at the voice from the doorway. Adrian drew a martyred breath before he turned to face its source.
‘Mr Ferdinand? I was just showing Mirren the archives.’
‘Got a news story, have you?’ The editor peered at them, his nose raised, sniffing out an exclusive.
‘Nope, I’m just really into archives,’ Mirren said hurriedly.
‘Anything I can help you with?’ He wasn’t going to let this lie.
‘We were just leaving actually, weren’t we?’ Adrian said, surreptitiously placing the mugs on the floor where his boss wouldn’t see them.
‘Did I hear you mention Olivia Hathaway?’ Ferdinand pressed, leaning across the doorway and looking as frail and as sticky as a spider’s web.
The young reporters turned to one another, plumping their bottom lips in fake confusion. ‘Uh, nope, don’t think so,’ Adrian said, while Mirren shook her head innocently. ‘Grab those chocolates, Mirren, let’s get out of here. We’ll be off now, Mr Ferdinand.’
Mirren wound the film back onto its spool as Mr Ferdinand approached the machine. He was still talking in his nasal tones. ‘Because you know old Wagstaff got Olivia in a compromising position? She left town after that. Haven’t heard her name in years, actually.’
‘You knew them?’ Mirren blurted, giving up the pretence.
‘Everyone knew them. At least everyone in the theatre world. It was a minor scandal, I suppose, but soon forgotten. I was a handsome young lad at the time, of course. I was Brutus’ page in Julius Caesar. I got to hold the dagger, you know? On a little cushion.’
Mirren humoured him with widened eyes and an interested smile, all the while thinking it was easier to picture Ferdinand wielding a murder weapon than it was to imagine he was ever a handsome young lad. ‘Were they… in love?’ Mirren hazarded.
Mr Ferdinand pulled a face as though this were the oddest of questions, then ignored it. ‘So you weren’t researching a story?’ Mirren saw the quick lick at his thin, parched lips like a lizard tasting the air.
‘Goodness, no. Well, it was nice to see you again, Mr Ferdinand. Merry Christmas.’ She stood up tall in front of him, allowing Adrian to slip the reels back into the cabinet, making sure to smooth the row so nobody could know which boxes they’d picked out.
Mr Ferdinand, cowed by Mirren towering so close to him and smiling with her red-lipsticked mouth, took a step backwards. She’d known he’d be intimidated by the proximity – Mr Ferdinand didn’t look the lascivious, grab-a-handful-while-you-can type – and he’d slunk out the room, calling behind him something about making sure they didn’t leave a mess.
They followed him from the archive room, hearing the microfilm reader’s fan whirr down into silence again. Mr Ferdinand was standing awkwardly in front of his office door. ‘I’m leaving now too. I was just, eh, making sure we’d locked up properly for the holiday. See you early on the twenty-eighth, Adrian.’
‘Uh, sure. Merry Christmas.’ Adrian reached for Mirren’s hand and she instinctively clasped it, making their way from the building while casting cautious glances at one another until they were on the street and out of Ferdinand’s hearing.
‘He heard us talking about Olivia and Wagstaff; do you think he heard the bit about Jonathan?’ Mirren asked.
‘I don’t know. He’s deaf as a post when I’m asking him for petty cash or help with an article, but he definitely knows we were up to something.’
‘Hmm,’ Mirren worried her lip. ‘So that confirms it. John Wagstaff is Jonathan’s dad.’
‘I think so.’
‘What do we do now?’ Mirren asked.
Adrian cast a glimpse back at the Examiner offices just as the gap held open in the blinds in Mr Ferdinand’s office rattled shut. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said. ‘Find somewhere to drink this bubbly?’
Mirren was too shaken from Mr Ferdinand’s bombshell and from the heat of Adrian’s hand still clasping hers to stop the words flying from her mouth. ‘You can come back to mine if you like?’
* * *
Three hundred miles north, Kelsey and Jonathan were stepping out of their car into the moonlight and smelling the cold, salty air of the Scottish East coast.
The lights on the Forth bridges lit up the sky over the Firth towards Edinburgh. Inland, the fallow winter fields lay frosted and black and the gentle Lammermuirs lifted upwards into the dark sky, their roads barely passable in these icy conditions. Unknown to Kelsey and Jonathan, linking arms on the doorstep of Mari Anderson’s little grey stone house by the sea wall, the first snowflakes of winter were falling there and soon they’d make their way here t
oo to the water’s edge.
For now, all that concerned Kelsey was greeting Mari, Grandad and Calum and letting them take their first look at the newest member of their clan.
The door pulled wide open, the light and warmth spilled out and they stepped inside, screams of delight and hurried footsteps on the stairs drowning out their greetings.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths’
(Love’s Labour’s Lost)
‘Cheers,’ Adrian and Mirren clinked the steaming mugs together and settled back onto the bed at the back of the barge, making sure to keep a space between them.
‘No sofa,’ Mirren had informed him awkwardly as he cast his eyes around the low room following the even more awkward revelation that she lived on the boat they’d walked past only the night before and she hadn’t let on. He’d been generous enough to just smile at her embarrassment and didn’t probe her reasons. He’d even kept his sense of humour when she asked him not to pop the cork on the bubbly that he’d began peeling the foil from, and instead she’d flicked the kettle on. If they were going to hang out together she wanted to keep a clear head.
Adrian now sipped his tea, his boots and coat left by the little hatch in Kelsey’s gallery area, now cluttered with framed photographs waiting to be hanged. ‘Can we at least open the chocolates?’
‘Oh, go on then, let’s live dangerously,’ Mirren quipped, pulling at the ribbon on the box and all the time trying to sound matey and calm, even if her insides were fizzing like popping candy.
‘I can’t believe you’ve never seen this film,’ Adrian remarked as Mirren hit ‘play’ and It’s A Wonderful Life burst onto the laptop perched on the little shelf at the end of the bed and a bell tolled on screen and the jolly, festive title music played.
‘It always looked kind of sad to me, so I avoided it. I’m more of a Muppet Christmas Carol kind of woman.’ Mirren offered up the chocolates and Adrian took a soft centre, which she wasn’t going to read anything into.
‘Can’t argue with that. You’ve got to love Kermit’s Bob Cratchit, it’s the little guy’s best work, but honestly this is a great film too. I watch it every year. It is sad though, you’re right, but don’t worry, I won’t blub this time. At least I’ll try not to.’
‘I won’t judge,’ she laughed. ‘Tissues are just over there.’ She popped her choice of chocolate, the peanut brittle square, into her mouth and crunched happily.
The titles finished turning and the orchestra swelled and for the first time Mirren thought it actually felt like Christmas. In fact, it felt surprisingly like the kind of cosy Christmas evenings she used to have with Preston, warm and comfy, just a movie and some snacks, never anything too intense, just companionship. Yet there was a little something troubling her, keeping relaxation at arm’s length.
‘Adrian?’
He was intently watching the opening scenes. ‘Hmm?’
‘Are you sure you can keep Wagstaff’s baby-daddy news to yourself, even after I tell Jonathan when they get back to Stratford on Boxing Day? It’s a secret only Jonathan needs to know, right?’
‘Of course.’
Mirren took her eyes off the screen and quickly glanced at Adrian, who smiled back. ‘And you don’t think Ferdinand suspected anything?’ she added.
He hesitated before answering this time. ‘I don’t think so. If he says anything I’ll just act innocent.’ Seeing the crease form between Mirren’s brows he was spurred on to say more, turning a little to face her. ‘I promise I’ll keep it to myself, OK? I pinkie swear.’ He offered her his crooked little finger and, smiling, Mirren hooked her own around it.
‘OK. We’ll let Jonathan deal with the news in as dignified and private a manner as he can; it’s his news, no one else’s,’ she said solemnly, before pulling her hand back.
Adrian seemed satisfied with that and offered her another chocolate, rubbing his shoulders into the pillows behind him.
Maybe Mirren wasn’t aware of it but she too shifted so she was more comfortable, moving a little closer, cradling her mug of tea in both hands, her eyes now fixed back on the screen. ‘So what’s this movie about then?’
‘It’s about an angel sent from heaven to help this guy who thinks his life is a mess. He shows him what life would have been like for those around him if he’d never existed.’
‘Oh.’ Mirren took that in for a moment.
‘Am I talking too much?’ Adrian said suddenly, in a strange, slightly slurred accent.
‘What?’ Her eyes snapped to his, amused. ‘What the heck was that supposed to be?’
‘It’s James Stewart.’ He nodded at the screen. ‘Didn’t it sound like him?’
‘If he was doing an impression of Sean Connery, maybe. That was terrible.’ She couldn’t help laughing.
‘Aww, come on, it’s one of the most famous lines in the movie. I sound just like him.’ To prove it he tried again. ‘Am I talking too much?’
She screwed her face up playfully, but he was determined to go on, switching characters now.
‘Yes! Why don’t you kiss her instead of talking her to death?’
They both laughed but Adrian’s eyes darted back to the screen again, having fallen, just for a second, to Mirren’s mouth.
Excruciating silence followed; even the film score was quiet for an agonising moment.
Mirren couldn’t help smiling when she realised Adrian’s eyes were boring into the screen and he was smirking, both of them feeling the awkwardness dragging on until it was impossible not to acknowledge it with a sniffed laugh.
There was no hope of concentrating on the movie now. Mirren glanced at him. His thick, black-rimmed designer spectacles reflected the moving images on screen and she watched the soft blink of his dark lashes, long from this angle, longer even than her own. His lips were parted as he pretended to be rapt in the film.
‘You’re watching me,’ he said, still avoiding her eyes, and his lips tugged into a smile.
‘I was just thinking…’ she began.
This made him turn his head.
‘You told me you weren’t dating. Why is that?’
He reached a hand into his thick hair and mussed it with a deep exhalation, shifting to face her properly. ‘Umm, well. Let’s see. My ex told me I’m not great at being a boyfriend. In fact, not just one ex.’ He inhaled through gritted teeth like the words stung but his eyes were still full of humour.
Mirren tipped her head, listening.
‘Apparently, I’m a lot like my dad in that regard. My parents divorced when I was eight. They married really young and it just wasn’t going to work. Mum said he’d always been bloody-minded, focused on himself and his work and, I don’t know, based on my past relationships and my girlfriends’ helpful feedback maybe I take after him. In Dad’s defence I think he’s changed a lot. He remarried – so has Mum, by the way – and they’re both pretty happy now. Maybe Mum’s still a bit bitter about it. But I can’t help thinking that recently I have been too focused on work, you know? But I really thought the Examiner was worth saving. I’d do anything to keep that place going and make it the theatre paper it used to be. It’s too late now though.’ He shrugged, absorbed in his thoughts. ‘After my last girlfriend broke things off I decided to stay away from relationships for a bit. It was easier to be alone and just… work.’ The glaze over his dark eyes disappeared and he fixed Mirren with a penetrating look. ‘But then I met you and…’
They weren’t laughing any longer. Mirren’s hand strayed from the mug she’d been clasping for dear life and she touched her fingertips to his wrist and what felt like sparks burst from their touching skin.
‘Will you tell me about you, and why you’re avoiding love?’ Adrian said softly.
She shook her head at that word. It wasn’t love she was avoiding; it was herself, the very worst bits of herself, and the situations that brought out the worst in her, but right tha
t second her vow didn’t seem as pressing as it had in the days before. This didn’t feel like the kind of situation she’d ever been in, the kind that made her feel scared, or stupid, or both. Right now all she felt was warmth, so she put her mug on the windowsill by the bed and leaned closer to Adrian in his soft jumper and he lifted his arm so she could snuggle into his side.
‘This isn’t breaking your rules, then?’ Adrian said, as their eyes settled on the movie once more. Mirren didn’t answer but curled her legs up and let Adrian rest his hand over her hip. ‘You’re going to love this film,’ he said, smoothing his hand in a slow circle against her side. ‘Everyone gets a second chance at Christmas.’
For one drawn out thunderbolt of a moment Mirren listened to Adrian’s breathing before gathering a handful of his jumper across his chest into a fist and pulling him gently down the pillows until they were face to face. There was a disconcerting moment where Adrian nearly spilled his tea and Mirren had to rescue the mug, but somehow it didn’t matter because he was smiling with shining eyes, and it was Christmas Eve, and they were so close to kissing, and maybe this was her second chance. So she closed her eyes and let him hold her close to him, their mouths brushing with irresistible softness that felt like melting.
Chapter Thirty
‘Eat and drink as friends’
(The Taming of the Shrew)
It had been a perfect Christmas day, even though they’d both awakened stiff and uncomfy on the sofa after a night bundled in each other’s arms listening to the clanking of the radiators and Grandad snoring upstairs in what had been Kelsey’s childhood bedroom.
Mari had helped Grandad downstairs that morning and they’d all sat in dressing gowns and slippers drinking coffee and eating hot, buttered bran scones. Jonathan had never seen the rough brown savoury scones before but happily devoured two while everyone watched Calum tear open his presents.
