by Fanny Blake
‘Did she actually say that?’ Of all the people in the world, Isla couldn’t imagine May opening up and confiding her innermost feelings to anyone. Not even to her husband. By the time Isla knew them, they were so buttoned up, so apparently incapable of strong emotion.
‘After David died, I moved in here. She was broken by his death and that’s when she told me. After sixty years of sitting on it together, he had left her with a secret that was too much for her to carry alone. She had to share it with someone. But she made me promise that I would never tell anyone. Of course I agreed. However difficult she could be, she was my sister and in trouble. When she died I wanted to tell you then but I was torn… so torn. To be loyal to my sister or to be loyal to you?’
As Isla was torn between Helen and Charlie. She understood.
‘But you’re right.’ Aggie nodded towards Charlie. ‘The living have to look after the living. There you have it.’ She stood up again but this time turned towards the house. ‘A drink? I think we deserve it, don’t you? I’m glad it’s all in the open.’
‘So the picture…’ Isla was slow to work it out.
‘The picture was a present from Céleste to David. The only thing of hers he had. She couldn’t give it to you without an explanation so she left it to you in her will instead.’
The picture was the only thing she had that had come from her birth mother, via David then May. It was the one thing that tied them all together. May must have understood that. And Tony had taken it with him.
36
When they got back to Lorna’s, Isla couldn’t face her sister or Andrew. ‘Just tell them I’ve got a headache. I’ll be down later. I’ll tell her then.’
‘Don’t leave me alone, Gran, please.’ Charlie grasped her hand and pulled her back from the staircase. ‘He gives me the creeps.’
‘I won’t be long. Promise.’ Isla’s hand was on the bannister. She didn’t want to show Charlie how devastated she had been by hearing the truth. Her emotions were all over the place. Mixed with the anger she felt towards her parents for their misguided secrecy and their assumption they could play God over her life was a grudging respect for her mother and a new understanding of sorts. If only they could have talked and May explained. Isla wouldn’t have thought badly of her. Times had changed but her parents had been locked in the past. She felt terrible sadness for them.
‘You look pale.’ Ian came into the hall. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Not really.’ But she did have the explanation she wanted. ‘Céleste.’ She said her name out loud. ‘Ma mère.’
All this time, she had been the cuckoo in the family nest and when she began to look and behave like her birth mother, May had almost tipped her out. ‘That’s the French in her.’ She heard her voice at last. So that’s what it meant. But May was the one who gave her a family, love, and who made her the person she was. Nothing could take that away. If only she had found the right moment to explain, perhaps some of the hurt could have been avoided. ‘Ian,’ she said, her voice unexpectedly unsteady.
‘What is it?’ He was all concern.
‘Can I talk to you?’
They looked at each other in surprise, then both smiled. Ian touched her cheek and looked her square in the eyes. ‘You’ve never said that to me before. Never.’
‘I’ve never wanted to till now.’ And she did want to. She couldn’t think of anyone else who would appreciate what this news meant to her more than he would. She didn’t need advice but a sympathetic listener who knew her and her family and, for once, he was the one. The way he was looking at her told her that.
‘Then we’d better make the most of it. A walk, I think, so we’re not interrupted. Charlie! Take your phone to your bedroom and make the most of it. When we come back, we’ll be back to business as usual. Hold Lorna at bay.’ He held out his hand like a policeman stopping traffic. ‘I don’t know what’s been going on, on top of everything else, but she can wait.’
Charlie shot upstairs like a rocket, feet barely touching the ground, her phone already in her hand. At the top, she turned round. ‘Can I tell Mum?’
Isla hadn’t got as far as thinking about Helen, but why shouldn’t Charlie break the news? After all it was all in the family. ‘Why not?’ Charlie had helped her and giving her that responsibility might be a good thing. ‘Make sure you tell her I’m fine and I’ll call her this evening.’
‘I will.’ And her bedroom door slammed behind her.
‘Tell her what?’ Ian’s hand was on her waist but she didn’t move away. His was the touchy-feeliness of his profession, not to be mistaken for the real thing. Not anymore. ‘Whatever it is, you’re not okay, are you?’
‘Today’s all been too much. First Tony – I’m upset but more than that I’m so angry, with him and with myself—’
‘My poor Isla. Don’t.’
‘And now this. Aggie’s just told us May wasn’t my mother.’ There, she’d said it. ‘That’s what’s behind all this.’
For once Ian was speechless. She felt the pressure of his hand increase but this time she walked away from it towards the front door. ‘Let’s get out of here. We’ll go to the Hermitage. I’ll tell you all as we walk. Jock!’ The old dog ambled from the kitchen (Lorna would be pleased) and waited for her to put on his lead.
They walked down the road, Isla talking all the way. At the coffee house, they turned left past its busy garden and into the welcome shade of the trees. Sticking to the main path, dappled with sunshine, they carried on until they reached a bench overlooking the stream. To their right a family crowded round a picnic table, staring briefly as Ian and Isla sat down.
Ian proved to be exactly the listener she knew he would be. He heard her out without asking too many questions. They sat for a while watching the water, listening to its shallow trickle over stones, contemplating all she had said. Being with him, Isla felt her equilibrium returning and was able to relax.
Eventually he spoke. ‘So you’re Eloise, and you’re half French by birth. That explains everything. French women definitely have something the Brits don’t.’
‘Idiot.’ She punched his arm.
‘Seriously. So she told Aggie that, as you got older and more like your real mother, it made her more aware of what she could never be. Or, more importantly, of what David would never have.’
‘Thinking she had to live up to a dead woman must have been so hard. I wonder how well she knew Céleste. I can’t even ask her about her. I’ve been presented with a mother that I could never have known. I can’t even mourn her.’
‘I know.’
The feel of his arm round her shoulders gave her the comfort she needed.
‘Do you think Mum and Dad were happy? You knew them.’
She couldn’t bear the idea of her parents’ marriage being under such pressure as the secret they shared drove them apart instead of keeping them together. No wonder he retired alone into his study so often while she took to her bed or withdrew into a mood.
‘I hate the idea of him yearning for something he couldn’t have.’
‘How difficult that must have been for her.’
‘Do you think they believed their own lie in the end? That can happen.’
‘Everything Aggie’s told you suggests that however hard they tried, Céleste wouldn’t let either of them go.’ His voice had deepened as if he were in an ad for a horror film.
‘You just can’t help yourself, can you?’ Isla teased.
‘That’s what first loves have a tendency to do: cling on. You know that. ’ He quickly looked away from her. ‘David was probably as happy as he was ever going to be with May. Whatever happened, he was going to be disappointed. That’s what happens. From what you’ve said, Céleste had already decided she didn’t want a life with him. Or with you.’
‘That hurts.’ She kicked at a stone by her foot. Except did it hurt? Did it really? Or was hurt what she thought she should feel? But this was a very different feeling from the inner turmoil and pain Tony had inf
licted on her. She watched a pair of Jack Russells chasing after each other and couldn’t help smiling at them.
‘Look at me.’ He waited for her to turn and face him, eye to eye. ‘You are who you are. You’re right. And you must hold on to that. If we don’t accept the cards we’re dealt, we’ll all go mad. May and David did their very best for you, and even if she did become jealous because of your increasing resemblance to the woman she imagined he still loved, well… that wasn’t your fault. Although loving a dead woman does sound a bit of a stretch.’
‘Just because you’re always looking to the future.’
His shoulders sagged. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say always.’
Her heart stuttered as he held her gaze for a few moments longer than necessary. ‘Oh, please. Don’t start.’
‘What?’ He held up his hands, all innocent. ‘You’re lucky Charlie got his measure.’ Where had this sudden desire to protect her come from? After all she’d managed without it for years.
Isla groaned. ‘I know.’ She wound Jock’s lead round her fingers. ‘I trusted him, like a fool. I even invested in his new business.’
‘Jesus, Isla! Have you learned nothing in your long life?’
‘Don’t. I’ve been looking after my own money for years and I thought I knew exactly what I was doing. But I took Tony at his word without doing any independent investigation into the company. Of course I did. We were going to be in business together.’ She hit her palm with her fist.
‘And the account’s been emptied and closed?’
‘According to the police. No. I’ve waved goodbye to my savings.’ She looked up to see Jock sitting too close to the nearby picnic table, eying up a piece of ham in a child’s hand. ‘Jock! Come here.’
The dog dragged himself away with as much reluctance as a hungry Labrador could muster.
‘Do you think I could trace my French family?’ she asked as they walked back towards the main road.
‘Do you want to?’ Ian stepped close to her to let a couple with their arms wrapped round one another pass. He was so close she could see the thin white scar he had gained from a sword-fighting accident when he was playing Tybalt.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Probably not. What would be the point? Even if any of Céleste’s generation are still alive, I won’t mean anything to them. They’d have come to look for me if I did.’
‘Maybe they did. Maybe they agreed to stay away. After all David was your dad and May was, as it turns out, your step-mum. Not so far from being a mum.’
‘Completely different, in fact,’ she pointed out. ‘You don’t have to protect her.’
‘But they had every right to bring you up. And, if I may say so…’ He nudged her in the ribs. ‘They did a pretty good job. And the French in you is definitely a good thing.’
* * *
Lorna took the news in her stride. ‘That explains everything, doesn’t it?’
The two sisters were making a start on the vegetable curry for supper, with a bit of sporadic help from Charlie who had to keep stopping to go and check her phone.
‘If only they were alive to ask what really happened.’
‘Would that help? You know what they did and that says everything.’ She put the knife down and leaned against the island. ‘We’re your family – me and Morag, Helen, Mike, Charlie and Aggie. We’re not going anywhere.’ She put her arms out for Isla to step into. Unlike the hug when they arrived, this one was full of warmth and love. Isla closed her eyes, surprised and pleased by the change, and returned the embrace. Lorna was right. There was no point digging up more of the past when there was nothing any of them could do to change it. Acceptance was what she had to work at.
When she opened her eyes Andrew was hovering in the doorway, still in his fishing gear, his face redder than ever from the sun. ‘Getting on all right then?’
‘Thanks.’ Isla stepped away from her sister. ‘Yes, we are.’ She looked at Lorna. ‘Better than for a long time I’d say, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Lorna turned away from her husband. ‘We just need to break the news to Morag.’
We?
37
The following evening, Isla was in the garden at Braemore again. This time Lorna came too. Isla guessed that was because she wanted to be sure they discussed the paddocks. To give her her due, she had kept quiet about her marital problems and her solution to them since Isla had been knocked sideways by Tony’s deceit and then Aggie’s revelations. Their relationship might never be easy, but they seemed to have come to an accommodation that would see them through. May might have driven them apart but she had also driven them back together again. Lorna had been only sympathetic and supportive when she found out they were half-sisters. Family did come first for her, when it suited. Her future with Andrew might be rocky; but if only a way forward could be found that didn’t involve breaking up Braemore.
When Isla had asked about her conversation with Morag, Lorna had been evasive.
‘Let’s just say we spoke. She was as shocked as we were by what Aggie told you. Like us, she’d never suspected a thing. They kept their secret so well.’
‘But you are speaking to each other?’ On top of everything that had happened, that would be the best news.
She frowned and screwed up her nose. ‘We both said things that can’t be unsaid.’
‘Even though we were all upset at the time.’ Wasn’t that a consideration?
‘Even though. I still want to sell Braemore and Morag doesn’t.’
‘Have you explained why?’ That would be the first step on the road to getting her way.
‘No. I don’t want her to know.’ Lorna clenched her fists.
‘But she’s the one person who needs to know.’ Sometimes her sister could be so short-sighted.
‘I said no. I wish I hadn’t told you now.’ Her face was set, her unhappiness plain.
There had been no budging her.
As the two of them sat with Aggie on the terrace in the early evening sun, reminiscing about the old days, talking about their mother, a sense of belonging and well-being stole through Isla, overtaking those feelings of hurt and loss that had been eating away at her. Or was that Aggie’s famously strong G ’n’ Ts? She didn’t care.
‘When you dropped the jelly just before Mum’s fiftieth party… the way the gate creaked so we couldn’t escape the garden without them knowing… those amazing costumes you made for our summer play that had a bullfrog in it – do you remember?’ And they kept on coming.
Eventually Lorna decided they should go. ‘You want to be at your best tomorrow, Aunt Aggie.’ Her opportunity to discuss the paddocks had escaped her.
‘I’m never less than at my best,’ Aggie said with a wink as she pulled her gaudy kimono top round her. ‘But Isla, dear, I do have one thing left to tell you. Perhaps I should have said something earlier.’
Isla sagged in her seat. ‘I’m not sure I can take any more.’
‘I don’t think you’ll mind this too much. Lorna, would you mind giving us a moment.’
‘Sure, I’ll go inside.’ She bent down to pick up her bag, but Isla stopped her with a hand on her wrist.
‘No. There have been enough secrets in this family. I’d rather we had everything in the open from now on so there can be no more misunderstandings. Lorna?’
Lorna settled her bag on her knee. ‘Okay.’
Aggie shifted in her seat, the sun catching the diamante on the arms of her specs. ‘Well, if you’re absolutely sure, dear.’
The sisters looked at each other and nodded. The temptation for Isla to change her mind was sharp but short-lived.
‘Perhaps I should have told you this yesterday. I made one promise to May that I broke then. But I made another that I fully intend to keep.’
Now she had the full attention of both women.
‘May left me half of Braemore so that I would have somewhere to see out my days. She couldn’t have been kinder, and she wanted me to have half of it so she could be sure that
no one would try and sell the place and siphon me off into a home.’ She winked at a startled Lorna. ‘But she had me promise that when I die, which I surely will in the not too dim and distant, that I would leave my share to you, Isla.’
Lorna gasped.
Isla swallowed. ‘But why?’
‘She wrote me a note that I’ve got here for you. I found it after the will was read and thought it was stirring up more trouble by telling you after you’d all fallen out, but I kept it and looked it out last night. She was just putting in writing what she had already asked me so that I wouldn’t forget.’ She passed Isla a small sheet of the blue Basildon Bond paper May always used for her letters. Beside her, Lorna was tense with anticipation. At least she was managing to stay silent until they had grasped the full picture.
Gingerly, Isla unfolded the letter.
Aggie – I’ve thought long and hard about this. I know it might cause ripples between the girls but Isla deserves this. Promise me you’ll leave her your share in the house when you go.
Isla looked at her aunt, who was fiddling with her rings, not engaging with either her or Lorna, then back at the paper.
I dare say this will seem perverse but I’m not leaving you and the girls a quarter share of Braemore each because I want you to have the major share so that you can live there for as long as you need. The girls shouldn’t be able to push you out – just thinking ahead! David’s family home has been very good to me and I’d like you to benefit too, before the girls do. You’ve been the best sister I could have wanted. Moving in here was the best thing you could have done for me when I was brought so low: companionship, laughter and your cooking! Love, too. You alone know most of the truth of what happened to me In Paris, how I met David and fell in love with him and Isla (Eloise). We didn’t want her life trailed by the gossip that would inevitably accompany her if we told the truth. Nobody needed to know. I’ve loved her as my own but I know I haven’t always been fair to her. I should have been able to shrug off David’s love for Céleste, but somehow it got harder, as you know and perhaps made me little bit mad. I hope that this will go towards making things up to her. Do this for me, Aggie. Mx
