A Hidden Life (46 page)

Matt said, ‘Still, after all, a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp – people were dying there all the time from diseases and hunger and what have you. That's true, isn't it? Mightn't he have – I don't know – dramatized the situation to make it more exciting? More of a shock to the reader?'

‘Perhaps, I guess,' said Jake. ‘But there's Rosemary's letter. The one you've just found.'

‘Sometimes people …' Matt paused, ‘dramatize things that have happened to them, or around them, to make themselves look more important. Perhaps Rosemary was mistaken?'

Lou shook her head. ‘No, you'll see if you read the book, Dad. It's so carefully described. Every single thing.'

‘In any case,' Jake added, ‘I don't think it makes any difference to the book. The story is there, in black and white, and soon everyone's going to be able to read it and the biography won't really come into it.'

‘I'm rather relieved that my father didn't live to see his work revived,' said Matt.

‘How can you say that, Dad? Grandad would be so thrilled,' Lou exclaimed.

‘Well, yes and no. Nowadays the press would have been all over him, asking him all sorts of intrusive questions: was your mother deliberately murdered by your adoptive mother or was that just something you made up? You can imagine the sort of thing I mean, I'm sure. He'd have hated all that.' Matt stood up. ‘I hope you forgive me if I go up now. I'm very tired suddenly. It's been a super evening, even if a little more, well, serious, than I'm used to on my birthday. And thank you, Jake, for the champagne, that was a kind thought. I'm delighted to have met you – and please don't feel you have to hurry off to your hotel. Do stay. Have another cup of coffee or something.'

Jake stood up to say goodnight. Lou waited as her mother, too, said her farewells and followed Matt upstairs. Jake said, ‘I'd better go too, I guess, but your dad's right … I wouldn't mind another cup of coffee, if that's okay.'

‘Me too. That crab sauce always makes me thirsty.'

‘I cannot believe,' Jake was saying as they went into the kitchen, ‘that your father didn't read the book years ago. Amazing.'

‘I know. I'd always assumed, when Grandad first read bits out to me when I was a child, that he'd made the story up. And now I think I remember – well, it was a long time ago and to be honest I'd forgotten about it till just a moment ago – isn't it strange how things come back to you? Like scenes from a film suddenly coming into focus.'

‘Remember what?'

‘Grandad sort of alluding to it.' Lou prepared the coffee and put it on the table as she spoke. ‘One of those conversations that start out being hypothetical. You know: there's a bear chasing two of you and you have to decide whether to run away as quickly as you can and save yourself or stay with your companion who isn't so fast and risk becoming the bear's dinner. That kind of thing. Grandad was always clear that he'd stay. He'd never, he said, abandon a friend. And then he said something I didn't understand at the time, but which … well, he said
unless that friend had something I really, really wanted and could only get if he died. That would make things different, I suppose.
I was about nine or so and I was very shocked. I argued with him. I said if he did that, it would be a kind of murder and he agreed with me, that was
the thing. He smiled at me and said
of course you're right. It is murder, isn't it? Very well, I wouldn't do it whatever happened. Satisfied?'

‘And that's it? No more than that?' Jake took a sip of his coffee. ‘This is delicious. Thank you.'

‘No. No more than that. Maybe what Dad says is true about Rosemary dramatizing her role. Even if she didn't actually murder Louise, even if Grandad made that bit up, he makes it obvious in the book that Dulcie – Rosemary – is obsessed with having a child, almost any child. The way he describes the events when they all come out of the camp; the way Dulcie takes him over, almost smothers him – that's true, I'm sure.'

‘Then there's this: would a child consent to being adopted by someone they reckoned killed their beloved parent?'

‘You've read it, Jake! It's made quite clear why he submits to that. What's the alternative? An orphanage? Being sent to live with someone he's never heard of? Rosemary was his mother's best friend. Before his mother's death he liked her. Admired her. He thought she was pretty and kind. Surely some of those feelings would survive? I don't think it matters. Not to the novel. Maybe to my dad. He might not like the idea of his grandmother being exposed as a murderer, so perhaps we'd better not emphasize the autobiographical element too much. I don't think Dad would like the press all over him any more than Grandad would have done. Let's just say it's a fantastic novel, that's all.'

‘And that's how I'm going to publish it. You'll be the one, as you're the copyright holder and a lot prettier than your dad, who'll answer any questions from the press.'

‘Will there be any, d'you think?' This hadn't occurred to Lou. Well, she wouldn't mind. She'd spend some of the advance on a few new clothes. That remark about her being prettier than her dad didn't mean he thought she was actually pretty, did it?

‘I hope I can drum up some interest. I'll do my best. There,' he finished his coffee in one long gulp. ‘I should go now. It's getting late.'

‘Okay. I'll come and see you out. It's a bit tricky reversing down that drive.'

The house was silent as they walked through the hall and out of
the front door. There was a three-quarter moon in the sky and the air was quite warm. Jake opened the car door and turned towards her.

‘I'll come by and fetch you and Poppy tomorrow – if you really want to go back to London. It's so pleasant here. I think I'd spend every weekend here if I could.'

‘No, I have to get back. A friend of Poppy's from nursery is having a party. Can you believe it? A birthday party for a one-year-old!'

‘Start as you mean to go on. When is Poppy's birthday?'

‘She'll be two just after Christmas.'

‘Right. I'm going now, Lou. I'll see you tomorrow. It's been great, really. Thanks.'

He took a step towards her, and before she'd understood exactly what was happening, his arms were around her. He didn't say a word, but kissed her. Nothing about this kiss reminded her of Harry, and how she'd felt about him. This was something completely different. It was over too quickly, before she'd had time to process what it had been like, how she felt about how it felt, what she thought about Jake … Fragments of incoherent ideas chased one another through her head during the few seconds that she'd stood there with his arms around her, and she could smell his skin, and taste his rather cool lips and most of all, be aware of his hands, one on her neck, holding her face close to his, the other on her lower back, caressing her as they stood there.

Then he was gone, with a grin and a wave and she was left on the drive with the honeysuckle that grew in profusion against the garden wall spilling its fragrance into the air, and making her feel a little drunk. I
am
a bit drunk, she told herself. Maybe it was a thank-you kiss.
Thanks for inviting me down to your parents' house. Here's how I do thanking.
I don't, she reflected, know anything about Jake's love life. Perhaps he's got someone, just as Harry had, and this was just … just something that might have been a handshake, if she'd been a man. For her part, she thought her relationship with Jake was a bit like the ones she'd had with her tutors at uni – the younger ones at least: a mixture of awe, deference, friendliness and admiration for their intellect. The ones who were fanciable she'd sort of fancied at a distance, without ever considering that anything might come of it and that was the way she'd been with Jake. Until tonight. Now she'd have to think again.

She turned to go into the house and was suddenly overcome by tiredness. Better get to bed fast. Poppy would be up no later in the morning than she normally was. Play it by ear, that's what I'll do, she decided. She would pretend it hadn't happened till she saw an indication from Jake that it had. But it had. She was still aware of how it had been, to have his hard, slim body touching hers. What was he thinking about now, on the way back to his hotel? And how old was he? Suddenly, it became important to know.

Phyl was snoring slightly and Matt got out of bed as quietly as he could. He stood at the window, looking out at the drive. The moon was not quite full, but he could see Jake's car clearly. He and Lou were in the kitchen, probably having a cup of tea. He wished he could go and join them, but knew it was out of the question. That crab sauce of Phyl's was delicious but it did seem to raise a thirst. There was a bottle of water on his bedside table and he fetched it. As he drank, he heard footsteps crunching in the gravel and returned to the window. Jake was kissing Lou. Had he been expecting that? Were they involved? The thought had crossed his mind a couple of times tonight, when he'd intercepted a smile between them at the dinner table, and once when he'd noticed how Jake was looking at Lou while she was talking to Nessa: intently, with a kind of wonder on his face. What about Lou, though? How had she been with Jake? Matt hadn't spotted anything he could have put his finger on, but he had seen that she was comfortable in his company. If they did have a relationship, was that a good thing? Would he hurt her?

The car had gone now and Lou was still standing there in the drive, staring after it. Matt looked down at her. He would, he knew, do anything, anything at all to guarantee her happiness. If he could be assured of that, he'd want nothing else in the world. The conversation he'd had with her and Jake about his own father's novel came back to him, and he wondered if John Barrington had ever felt about him as strongly as he felt about Lou. Certainly, he'd never shown it, but then he was a reserved man and Constance had been so much more in evidence as a parent, so much more
there
in his life that it
had scarcely ever occurred to the young Matt to wonder whether his father really loved him.

Children – even when they weren't your own flesh and blood – never stopped worrying you. There was never a time when you could relax and say let them get on with it, it's nothing to do with me. Look at bloody Justin – what he'd allowed to happen to Milthorpe House, to his mother's money – and the ghastly provisions of that last, mad will Constance had seen fit to draw up without consulting him: these things were still robbing him of sleep. No sooner had he more or less got used to a
status quo
he found hard to bear than something else happened.

What had irked him more than anything was the notion of Justin strutting around in possession of that property. Matt hadn't approved of the sale of the house, but at least it had meant that, in future, there was no chance of Lou having to visit her brother there as some kind of poor relation. So he'd made the best of the sale and after that what annoyed him was the fact that Lou was barely scraping along while Justin had millions in his bank account.

He wondered why he wasn't rejoicing now. He should be, by rights. Justin was no longer a millionaire, even though he wasn't quite down at Lou's level of income, so there was some justice in the world after all. And yet Matt found that he couldn't be happy about it. There was something stupid and wasteful about putting your money into something that went bankrupt. It showed exactly the sort of financial carelessness that he deplored. Never mind – Justin would have to work his own way back from that
debacle.

His thoughts turned to what Jake had asked him about his own grandmother. He'd told Lou that he intended to go back and read
Blind Moon,
even though he often wondered what it was about fiction that got people so involved with it. The few novels that he'd read seemed to him to take a long time saying things which could have been conveyed in half the time. He knew this was a failing of his, but he couldn't help it, any more than one could help colour blindness. Factual matters were different. If something was true, then it was worth learning about, worth consideration. Now that he had learned that his father was no more than a reporter, Matt could read it to find out what actually happened in the prisoner-of-war camp. Perhaps he
could ask Lou to help him; ask her to find the specific pages about Rosemary and the death of his real grandmother – save him the trouble of reading the whole thing. No, that was cowardly. He needed to read every word. He sighed and contemplated getting into bed again and then decided against it. He wasn't going to be able to sleep, and he didn't want to sit here in the dark. He left the bedroom and tiptoed downstairs. He noticed as he passed that the light was still on in Lou's room and almost knocked at the door, but then thought better of it. She'd be getting ready for bed and Poppy would doubtless wake her in the early hours. Better let her get some sleep.

In the kitchen, he helped himself to a glass of milk and sat at the table to drink it. He tried to recall his early memories of Rosemary Barrington but nothing very interesting came to mind. She was a bossy woman, rather boring to a small boy, and she seemed always to be at odds with Constance. He remembered a row between his parents which was about Rosemary, and the reason it stayed in his mind was because it was so rare for them to shout at one another in front of him. He hadn't thought about it for years, maybe not for decades, but tonight's conversation had brought it back to him. Generally speaking, the Barringtons had managed to keep their discord to themselves, hissing at one another behind closed doors, leaving Matt holding his breath in the hope of overhearing something. He rarely did.

This was the fight he remembered because they'd been in the car. There was no way they could have avoided Matt overhearing what they said and, looking back, it seemed to him that they'd forgotten about him altogether. His father had been driving and his mother's sharp profile was turned towards him so that she could lambast him more easily. Dad had failed to do something – what it was Matt had no idea – but it was clear that his mother had objected strongly to something Rosemary had said to her.