The Long Way Home

by Fanny Blake

  ‘Bilbo, my faithful companion,’ said Aggie, introducing the animal as she reappeared with a trolley on which was a pot of tea, and plates of tiny sandwiches, drop scones and slices of fruit cake. ‘He’s a Russian blue.’ She began to unload the contents of the trolley onto the table. ‘There’s no point having tea unless you go the whole hog.’

  Once they all had full cups and plates, and had covered all the bases, Aggie sat back and gave Isla a once-over. ‘So? You said you wanted to ask me something? Not about May again, I hope.’

  Isla had been deliberately vague when she had phoned her aunt the day before, given her reaction the last time they spoke about her. She hadn’t wanted to give Aggie time to think about what she was going to say. So much had happened since then, she didn’t have the energy to question her. But, having come this far, she couldn’t give up now.

  ‘I’m afraid it is,’ she said.

  ‘We think you might know some answers,’ said Charlie. ‘Otherwise it’s a mystery forever, and that’s not fair on Gran.’

  Isla was surprised but grateful. Charlie had read the situation so well.

  Aggie’s beady eyes studied her. ‘Mmm.’

  With a strong sense of foreboding, Isla ploughed on. ‘You were always so good to me when Mum was being difficult.’ She chose her words carefully. ‘Do you remember? Your flat was a special place for me.’ A place she would love to be at that very moment – where she could escape from the real world.

  ‘Of course I remember.’ The warmth of her smile was the same as it had always been. ‘I didn’t like the way she picked on you sometimes. I didn’t think it was fair. Anyway, it was lovely for me, on my own and no children, to have you in my life. I was being quite selfish, I assure you.’

  ‘But why did she pick on me? Why didn’t she like me?’

  Aggie looked as if she was about to say something, but Isla hadn’t finished. ‘I’ve got a note that was hidden in the picture she left me. It’s in French, from someone called Céleste.’ She didn’t miss the flicker in Aggie’s eye that showed the name had registered. ‘I know Mum was in France, working as a nanny, and we know she met Dad there but I can’t put the pieces together. Aunt Aggie, you must be able to fill in some of the gaps.’

  The teapot rattled against the cup as Aggie poured. Isla watched as her aunt quickly regained control.

  ‘I hoped you might be coming to terms with her will.’ Not even she could sound convinced.

  ‘How could I? I don’t think I ever will unless I understand. I’ve tried to remember an incident, something I said, anything that would explain her attitude towards me. But nothing so far makes me forget or forgive so I need an explanation. Please.’

  Aggie put down the pot and offered Charlie a sandwich. Charlie was so intent on what was being said that she almost didn’t take one. She reacted just before the plate was removed, examining the one she had chosen.

  ‘Cucumber,’ said Aggie briskly. ‘I used to make them for rehearsals. The actors always loved them. Once—’

  ‘You’re the only one who might know,’ said Isla, bringing her back to focus.

  ‘I can’t.’ Aunt Aggie lifted her cup to her lips. ‘I promised.’

  ‘You promised?’ So she did know something. Just as Ian had been sworn to secrecy. But why? ‘Who did you promise? Mum? Dad?’

  She gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  ‘But they’re dead,’ said Charlie, not intimidated by Aggie’s glare. ‘They won’t know what you say now, and Gran badly needs to. If I can get that, then you must too.’

  They both looked at her, surprised. Isla wanted to hug her, but limited herself to what she hoped was a grateful smile.

  ‘You’re a very astute young woman.’ Aunt Aggie put her head to one side as she considered her again, taking in the ripped jeans, the teeny T-shirt, the purple-tipped hair and the subtle but present make-up. ‘And of course you’re absolutely right.’

  ‘Is there something that I ought to know? That perhaps Lorna and Morag should know too?’ Isla felt she was on the brink of discovery.

  ‘There is.’ The words were exhaled as if they cost her aunt a huge effort. ‘But May made me promise under pain of death. Even though she’s gone now.’ Her voice was heavy with sadness.

  ‘Paris,’ said Isla, encouraging her. ‘Is that where it began?’

  Aunt Aggie nodded. ‘You know too much now and you’re not going to give up until I tell you, I see that.’

  ‘If she gives up, I won’t. Not now,’ said Charlie.

  ‘I see how much you need to know but it’s a long story.’

  ‘We have all the time.’ Dread tempered Isla’s excitement. What if what she was going to hear made her feel worse still? But, she swiftly rationalised, any explanation would be better than existing in the limbo of not knowing. Whatever it was couldn’t make her feel worse than she already did. When all the participants were dead, nothing could be that bad. Could it? ‘Please.’

  ‘Yes. Please,’ echoed Charlie who couldn’t hide her impatience.

  ‘Very well.’ Aggie cleared her throat. ‘I hope we won’t regret this. You’re sure?’

  ‘Quite.’ Isla made herself sound more certain than she felt.

  ‘Definitely,’ said Charlie, wincing as the other two stared at her. ‘Sorry.’

  Aggie took a deep breath and settled back in her chair. She clasped her hands as if she was praying, her eyes shut. ‘Very well then. When we were young, May was sent to Paris to be a nanny and to learn French.’

  ‘We found that out at Morag’s.’ Charlie was triumphant.

  ‘The idea was that she would learn French, then go to London to find work as a translator. I’ve no idea how the family was found but they put a roof over her head, gave her a job and some money in her pocket. Afterwards, our Aunt Jess, who lived in London, would have helped her find work and digs of some sort. But May never went. I went instead a couple of years later and that’s where I got involved with the theatre. I had a lot to thank her for really. Have I told you about my interview with Joan Littlewood?’

  ‘Yes, several times,’ said Isla, keen to get her back on track. ‘Why didn’t she go?’

  Aggie waved a heavily ringed hand in the air. ‘I don’t know much about what she got up to in Paris but she told me snippets – the most memorable bits perhaps. She worked for this family, looking after their little boy. He was called…’ She looked to the sky for inspiration. ‘No, it’s gone. She loved Paris from the moment she got there. She and an English girl called Wendy got in with a couple of American boys, students I think and they fell head over heels for them. Wendy went to America and married hers. She and May stayed in touch for years afterwards. What happened between May and her boy…?’

  ‘Max?’ asked Charlie, just ahead of Isla.

  Aggie shrugged her shoulders. ‘Mebbe. I think so. She wrote to me about him once or twice but when she came back she wouldn’t talk about him. She was very good at keeping her own secrets, was May. But I could tell something had happened and that it mattered a great deal to her. We’ll never know what it was. Men come and go at that age. Later too.’

  ‘Speak for yourself!’ Isla teased her.

  ‘Oh I do, my dear. I do.’ She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin, smudging her lipstick into the creases at one side of her mouth.

  Charlie’s eyes were wide.

  ‘Yes, well.’ Aggie gave a winsome smile. ‘Enough said!’

  ‘So she met Dad there?’ Isla nudged her back to the story. ‘But the passport Lorna found said he went there the year before her.’

  Her aunt raised her eyebrows. ‘You have been doing your homework.’

  ‘We tried, but the clues have been pretty thin on the ground.’

  ‘Yes, she did meet David in Paris. He was there before she arrived. They must have met soon after she finished with the American boy because about a year later she was back here, married to David.’ She stopped as if that was the end of the story. ‘There.’

 
She paused for dramatic effect.

  ‘But it’s not as simple as that, is it? Something else happened, I can tell.’ Isla had rarely felt impatience like this but was aware that if she pushed too hard her aunt might clam up completely. She had the stubborn streak that ran through the family. She poured her another cup of tea to keep her going. But Aggie enjoyed a good story and, once started, was ready to go on.

  ‘The fuss it caused, you’ve no idea. Mummy was so upset that they hadn’t even been told. May wrote to them to say they were coming home but not that they were married. She calmed down a bit when she realised David was an Adair. If the marriage was good enough for them, it had to be good enough for her.’ Aggie ran her fingers through her hair so it was more unruly than ever. ‘The neighbours were impressed all right, once the gossip had died down.’

  ‘Who was Céleste?’ So far, nothing Isla had heard explained her mother’s will or the picture. She felt, if not in the dark, in the shadows still. ‘I saw you recognised the name. There was a note from her hidden behind the picture Mum left me. Does she have something to do with any of this?’ Her hunch that it all tied together somehow was still strong. ‘It must be significant, otherwise why single it out for me?’

  ‘Perhaps she was someone May met in Paris,’ offered Charlie. ‘A friend.’

  ‘But how will we ever find out?’ Isla put down her cup. How could a painting be a clue to the way her mother had treated her? That didn’t make sense and yet something told her it was important.

  ‘It might not mean anything,’ said Charlie, reaching for a slice of fruit cake.

  ‘I promised,’ Aggie said again. She stood up and walked to the edge of the terrace, looking down her garden to the old oak tree at its end.

  Isla and Charlie stared at her, the cake halfway to Charlie’s mouth.

  ‘For God’s sake.’ Isla couldn’t bear the suspense any longer. ‘Don’t do this to me. You’ve always been there for me. Don’t let me down now. If there’s something you know that I should know, please tell me.’

  Aggie sat down, a hand clutching the beads round her neck as if they were a lifeline. ‘You may not like it.’

  ‘But it’ll be better than not knowing,’ said Charlie.

  Isla had had almost enough knowledge for one day but she wanted everything Aggie could tell them all the same.

  ‘All right, I give in. I always told May she was wrong to keep the truth from you, although I won’t be responsible for what happens next.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Céleste was David’s girlfriend.’

  ‘Dad’s girlfriend?!’ said Isla. She had been so sure she couldn’t be. Equally, she had never considered her father’s life before he married May. Wasn’t their young marriage when his adult life began? Whatever he had got up to before that can’t have mattered that much.

  Aggie’s eyes were shut, her hands now twisting together in her lap. ‘Yes. She was French. A very beautiful model. May told me that he’d met her here in Scotland on some kind of assignment, long before May met him. They were in love. He followed her back to Paris…’

  ‘In 1953,’ said Charlie.

  Aggie nodded. ‘He absolutely adored her and believed they would get married there.’

  ‘Je t’aime de tout mon coeur, pour toujours,’ whispered Charlie. ‘Didn’t last long then, did it?’

  ‘Once she was back in Paris, she didn’t want to know. There wasn’t a place for David in her world, a world she didn’t want to let go. Think of the time, Paris was the centre of fashion thanks to Dior and his New Look – such thrilling times. Imagine David being part of that scene. No, you can’t.’

  ‘Poor Dad.’ Isla could easily imagine him lost and lonely in Paris, a fish out of water.

  But Aggie hadn’t finished. ‘And then she got pregnant. Getting pregnant wasn’t part of her plan at all. By then she was already having an affair with a photographer she worked with and David was clinging on as best he could. He had found a job in Paris and he believed she would come back to him. Poor man. He worshipped her.’

  ‘A baby?’ Isla was shocked. Somewhere in the world she and her sisters must have a half-sibling that no one had told them about. Why would her parents keep something like that a secret from them? How could their parents have thought they wouldn’t want to know?

  Aggie nodded. ‘Eloise.’ She gripped the edge of the table, pressing her fingers into the crisp white cloth.

  Isla looked down at the paper-thin skin of her aunt’s beringed hand, marked by age, knuckles slightly swollen. ‘What happened to her?’

  Aggie looked as if she was summoning up every bit of strength she had to finish the story.

  ‘Céleste didn’t want anything to do with her baby. She was too young, too beautiful and too successful to be tied down by domesticity and motherhood. There wasn’t room in the world she inhabited for a baby. How exciting Paris must have been then. It was her time. Those dresses… Givenchy, Dior, Patou – can’t you see. And the city itself… a far cry from Dunfermline.’

  ‘But what happened to them?’ Isla imagined her father rejected and morose, hidden away in a rooftop garret somewhere, his heart broken. ‘How does Mum fit in?’

  ‘You’ve asked me to finish the story but let me tell it my way.’ Aggie clicked her fingers as if she was summoning memories on command. ‘Céleste was killed in a road accident in the south of France. She had gone on an assignment with her photographer lover and never came back.’

  ‘That’s sad.’ Charlie spoke. ‘But the baby? Where is it now?’

  Isla put her arm round her granddaughter’s shoulders and hugged her as they waited for Aggie to tell them.

  ‘By then, David had met May and she was helping him by looking after Eloise. He needed her even more then.’

  ‘What about Céleste’s family?’

  Aggie shrugged. ‘No idea. They were never mentioned. And this is the difficult bit so let me…’ She closed her eyes. ‘Were they both on the rebound? I don’t know. Did they ever really love each other? I don’t know that either, although May told me she loved him. They decided to marry and to bring Eloise home to Scotland. They married in Gretna on the way and told everyone the baby was theirs. They lied about when they met, and nobody bothered to work out the dates, and if they did it was better not to say. What was the point? He had made an honest woman of her. Done the decent thing. And of course Céleste was never part of the story. Years later, after David died, May told me the truth.’

  ‘But what happened to Eloise? She couldn’t have been that much older than me.’ Isla’s head was spinning, her heart racing.

  ‘Come on, Gran.’ Charlie’s voice broke through. ‘If I can work it out, you can.’

  Eloise. Isla. Not such different names. But that was impossible. It had to be.

  ‘I’m the baby, aren’t I?’ she asked in a small voice. ‘Céleste was my mother.’

  ‘I did say you might not like it.’ Aggie put her hand on her knee. ‘But yes, there you have it.’

  Isla took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, to slow everything down. ‘So I could never have known my real mother if she died so young. Mum stepped in and pretended I was hers.’

  Charlie was staring at her. ‘Wow!’

  ‘They told no one and nobody suspected a thing. But Isla dear, she adored you as if you were her own. People were shocked that May would get pregnant before being married but they were pleased David had done the right thing. Some thought it was romantic.’

  Thoughts and memories were rushing through Isla’s head so fast that she was finding it difficult to hold on to any of them. ‘So she left me out of her will because I wasn’t hers?’ The explanation didn’t lessen the pain that came with such rejection. ‘I don’t understand. Why take me on and then reject me? What happened?’

  She was aware of Charlie sitting absolutely still beside her, listening to every word. For once, her phone had remained in her pocket all the time they had been there.

  ‘I’m afraid what happened was that she gre
w jealous of you – is jealous even the right word? I don’t know.’ Aggie looked to the sky as if she might find the answer up there, before continuing. ‘As you got older, you grew more like Céleste. Your face and your figure. Though you had your dad’s red hair.’

  Isla raised a hand to her head. She could hear her father’s voice. ‘Call it Titian, May. Such a special colour.’

  ‘May believed Céleste was the love of David’s life. Whatever she did, she could never quite measure up. However hard she tried, however many children they had together, however devoted she was, the ghost of beautiful Céleste was always there. Competing with a dead woman who will never be anything other than beautiful and young was impossible because she was never going to win. You were a constant reminder. If Céleste hadn’t run away and been killed, her life might have been very different.’

  ‘Why? She would still have met Dad, wouldn’t she?’ Isla was reeling, at the same time trying to imagine what it must have been like for her mother.

  ‘Maybe, but he would never have asked her to look after you. She would never have fallen in love with you – and she did, you know – or David. She wanted a family of her own but she would have gone to London as planned and things would have been very different. For her and for me. Aunt Jess could only take on one of us. She made that clear.’

  ‘So I stopped her from having a different life.’ But plenty of women could blame their families for that. Except they didn’t.

  ‘They made a pact not to tell anyone the truth about you. No one.’ She threw her hands in the air. ‘Their first thought was to protect you.’

  Isla couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her life was based on the most fundamental of lies. She had been brought up believing May was her mother when all the time, she was not even related to her. No wonder she looked so different from her sisters. No, half-sisters. She had no idea how to react.

  But Aggie wasn’t waiting for a reaction as she carried on, the wind in her sails now the truth was out. ‘May couldn’t help herself. When she saw David looking at you, she imagined he was remembering your mother. When you went into your mother’s world of modelling and acting – that was another blow. Especially when he was the one encouraging you. She wanted David for herself, but Céleste never let him go. Or that’s what she believed.’