Between Two Seas (27 page)

I’m about to leave the office, when Hr Brøndum asks me to sit down again.

‘There’s a visitor here for you, Marianne. He’s asked to see you in private, so I’ve shown him into the far sitting room. Will you go to him now?’

‘A visitor? For me?’

I can’t imagine who would come and see me at the hotel. As I follow Hr Brøndum through the first two sitting rooms, I run through all the possibilities in my mind.

In the last sitting room, standing looking out of one of the windows, hands clasped behind him, is Christensen. As we enter, he turns. He nods his thanks to Brøndum, who withdraws, pulling the door shut behind him.

‘You,’ I state baldly, not bothering to conceal the dislike I feel.

‘Please.’ Christensen holds up a hand briefly in a supplicating gesture. ‘Allow me to explain. Take a seat.’

I hesitate a moment and then sit down on the very edge of an upright chair near the door. I’m as far away from him as possible without actually leaving the room. Christensen watches me and shakes his head a little. He looks sad.

‘I’ve made you hate me,’ he says heavily. ‘It’s hardly surprising.’ He pauses, and sits down, but then stands up again. ‘I don’t know where to start,’ he says, his eyes on me. ‘Perhaps I should tell you, first of all, that I read your mother’s letter.’ His voice shakes. I wonder what was in the letter. ‘I realize I have a great deal of explaining to do, Marianne. I do not think what I have to tell you will make you like me any better. Where to begin? I suppose it began the day when my son came home and told me a young English girl had arrived in Skagen, with the name of Marianne Shaw on her trunk.’

Christensen stops and shakes his head again: ‘No. It starts further back than that. Much further back. With a shipwreck, in fact. And yet that’s not the right place to start either.’

Christensen sits down again, and stares at his hands, clasping and unclasping them. I stare at him in surprise. He is so far from his usual stern, self-contained self that I can scarcely recognize him. His hair is windblown, his face pale, with dark shadows beneath his eyes. He’s wearing his Sunday best, though it’s a weekday, but he looks as though he’s dressed all by guess. Everything is slightly creased and crooked.

‘When you came to see me last Sunday,’ he begins, ‘you were honest and courageous enough to speak of the relationship that … exists between us.’

There’s a pause while he looks out of the window. The only sound I can hear is the faint buzz of a fly against the windowpane.

After a few moments, Christensen puts his head in his hands and gives a small moan. Then he stands up abruptly and paces the room. ‘I need to go back to that shipwreck I mentioned after all. We were two brothers. Lars and myself. My name is Per. We ran away from home together. Did you know that much?’ I nod, and he continues. ‘Our father was a stern man. Prosperous by Skagen standards, but miserly. He worked us hard, beat us often, and gave little reward. We were sure we could do better elsewhere. So we left.’

He pauses. How closely he’s describing himself when he speaks of his father. I wonder whether he’s aware of it.

‘We were young and foolish. We soon found, of course, that we could only get work doing what we’d learned: fishing. And there was no family standing by to make sure we were paid fairly. We got as far as Ribe before we found work on the freight ships which sailed to and fro to England back then. Ribe is right down in the south of Jutland in case you don’t know. It’s all changed now. Esbjerg is the biggest harbour, but that’s by the by.

‘It was on a trip to England that we ran aground. The tides and the sandbanks of the Humber estuary can be treacherous, as I’m sure you know. We were caught in a summer storm. My brother and I were sleeping below deck when the ship ran into a sandbank. We felt the tremendous lurch, the groaning and shrieking of the boat. Water began rushing in at once. We struggled up on deck to find the crew had already taken the lifeboat and left us.’

Christensen pauses in his narrative, and paces the room a few times. He picks up a napkin from the table and begins twisting it in his hands. He seems agitated. I wait for him to continue his tale, curious to hear what he has to say.

‘There are two occasions in my life when I acted neither honourably nor bravely,’ he continues. ‘And both occurred during that ill-fated England trip. I’ve worked hard throughout my life since, to atone. I’ve been stern and severe with others, but hardest of all upon myself. But I’ve never told anyone the truth as I’m about to tell you, Marianne.

‘The ship was sinking fast, listing heavily to one side and taking in water. We had only one life ring between us. My brother went below in search of the spare life-jackets we knew were stored in the hold. But while he was down there, the ship, with a great screech and groan, began to break up. Huge waves broke across the stern, pouring water over us. The ship was slipping down off the sandbank into the deeper water, and I knew she was lost.’

Christensen looks wild-eyed as he tells me this, and I realize he’s reliving the experience he has kept a secret for so long. Despite myself, I’ve become involved. I ask breathlessly: ‘What did you do?’

‘At that moment I had a choice,’ he tells me, and walks to one of the windows to look out. I wonder whether he’s seeing the garden outside or the storm of long ago. ‘I could have gone down and tried to help my brother out. Or I could have waited for him. Either would have been braver than what I did do. Taking the life ring, I jumped into the sea and struck out for shore.’ Christensen glances briefly at me, perhaps trying to gauge my reaction. I remain silent and he sighs.

‘I’ve gone over that moment so many times. If only I’d waited a little longer, if only I’d gone down for him. But I didn’t. As a member of the lifeboat crew I have helped save dozens of lives since then. But it doesn’t matter how many people I save: it will never be enough. Because I left my brother to drown.’

‘But … how can he have drowned? That doesn’t make any sense.’ I’m bewildered suddenly. ‘You left my father to drown?’

‘No,’ he says quickly. ‘Let me explain a little further. I barely survived the swim myself. It was summer, so the sea wasn’t cold. But I was caught by a current or the tide, I never knew which, and swept helplessly for miles. The wind was strong, and the waves huge. I often couldn’t even see the shore, and when I tried to swim towards it I made little progress. I have a vague memory of seeing the beach before me at last, and of being swept onto the sand by the surf. I was beyond exhaustion.

‘The rest I know because I was told rather than because I can remember it. I was found unconscious on the beach by a gentleman who was out for an early morning stroll on the sands. He had me carried home to be nursed. His name was Edward Shaw. Your grandfather, in fact.’

‘
You
were?’ I gasp. I know this part of the story from my mother, but it doesn’t match. ‘No, you can’t have been. It was Lars.’

Christensen shakes his head sadly and continues.

‘His body was never found. The bodies of the rest of the crew were however. They were less lucky than me. Their lifeboat overturned and they were all drowned. I have always seen it as a judgement on them for abandoning us.

‘I was in a fever for several days. When I came to myself, I found I’d been identified as Lars Christensen from the only document they had found on me that was still legible. I could have corrected them, of course. I should have done. But I was weak after the fever. I had no strength and little English for explanations. And it gave me some comfort at the time to be called by my brother’s name. Later, of course, I hid behind the name.’ He pauses for a long moment. ‘I’m afraid I’m the man your mother knew as Lars. I am your father.’

‘It can’t be true,’ I whisper, appalled. Whatever I had expected to hear from him, it wasn’t this. How can this possibly be the man my mother loved so devotedly all these years? My overriding emotion is one of sick disgust. ‘You
lied
to me,’ I accuse him. ‘And you lied to my mother.’

Christensen sits down opposite me. He scans my face searchingly, but I don’t want to look at him. ‘I did lie, Marianne. I was a coward,’ he admits. ‘God will punish me for it.’

‘So you’ve known all this time? And said nothing? Treated me like … ’ It’s my turn to jump to my feet. I, too, walk to the window. My eyes look out, but my gaze is inward, seeing the scenes he’s described, trying to fit all the information together. And it does fit, I realize reluctantly. Abruptly I turn back to face him. ‘You have more to explain,’ I say harshly. ‘You promised my mother you’d return. Why didn’t you?’

Christensen buries his face in his hands again, his fingers clutching at his hair.

‘I meant to,’ he cries in a muffled voice. ‘God be my witness, I intended to return.’ He pauses, and then raises his head. ‘Your grandfather threw me out of the house. Did your mother tell you that? I would have married her there and then. I wanted nothing more. But he refused. A great many hard words were said. He blamed me for engaging her affections.’

‘He didn’t know she was with child though, did he?’ My tone is hard and bitter.

‘How could he have done? I didn’t know myself.’

‘But you must have realized it was possible.’

‘I didn’t think … I was very young, Marianne.’

‘My mother was even younger,’ I say angrily. ‘You promised her you’d come back, you promised to write, and you never did. She had to cope with the consequences. And still she loved you. All her life. She trusted you’d come for her as you promised. She even sent me looking for you after she died. Looking for the wrong man, as it turns out.’ I’m furious, shaking with rage. All those years of hardship and loneliness are his fault. He did it to us.

Christensen—I can’t think of him as my father—is weeping now. Tears are trickling down his weatherbeaten cheeks into his beard. They don’t move me in the least.

‘When I reached Esbjerg,’ he continues, his voice unsteady, ‘there was a letter from my mother. It had been waiting for some time. She wrote that my father had died. She begged me to return. So I did. With my older brother dead, I was suddenly the heir to everything. The house, the boat, the land my father had owned.’

‘So why didn’t you write to my mother then?’

‘I meant to. From day to day, I put it off. In the end I thought perhaps she would have forgotten me, living in her grand house in Mablethorpe. I thought I might just have been a passing fancy for her … ’

‘As she was for you?’ I demand, horrified.

‘I didn’t say that,’ Christensen countered swiftly.

‘You didn’t need to. I see it all now. Meanwhile my mother was turned out of the house for expecting your child and spent the rest of her life in a shabby tenement room in Grimsby, working for her living. I never even saw this grand house you’re talking about. Meanwhile, you just happened to make a very advantageous marriage here yourself, didn’t you?’ I don’t try to hide my bitterness and anger. On the contrary, I take pleasure in lashing him with my words. He deserves it all. He looks both shocked and embarrassed. I look at him, bowed and tearstained, and wonder how I could ever have found him frightening.

‘Did you ever really love my mother?’ I ask him. ‘Even for a moment?’

‘Of course I loved her. I’ve had a lifetime to regret my decision. But it was too late. All too late.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ I say. There’s a long silence. He makes no attempt to convince me. ‘Shall I tell you something of my mother’s life after you left?’ I ask. He turns anxious eyes on me. I suspect he’d rather not know, but I tell him anyway.

‘Her father gave her an hour to leave the house when he discovered her condition. She was only able to take one bag and one trunk with her and was forbidden ever to communicate with her family again. The coachman had orders to drive her to a destination of her choice and leave her there. She only had money because her mother managed to disobey her husband and give her some before she left.

‘I don’t know where she went first, friendless and ashamed as she was, but I know that she ended up at Hope House in Grimsby. I don’t suppose you know it, do you? No, of course not. You could have no reason to go to such a place. It’s a house of Christian charity. They rescue “fallen women” and try to turn them to a better way of life. That’s where I was born. In a house full of prostitutes.’

Christensen is silent. I can see a dawning horror in his face. It’s clear he never considered this possibility. I feel a savage pleasure in his unhappiness.

‘I don’t know how mother managed in the first years, but in all the years I can remember, we moved from one sordid tenement building to another. We were reviled and despised. An unmarried mother and her illegitimate child. We made our living from sewing, which I learned as soon as I could hold a needle. We had no friends, we went nowhere. While you lived here in comfort, honoured and respected, my mother was called a whore, and grew sick in the smoke and dirt of Grimsby. You broke her heart.’

‘You are breaking mine now,’ Christensen replies hoarsely. He’s no longer crying his tears of self-pity. He’s pale and still.

‘Good.’ The word hangs in the air between us for a moment. The room is vibrating with my pent-up anger.

‘When I first saw you on the beach that day,’ he says quietly, ‘I had the chance to begin to repair the damage I had done.’

‘Did you know who I was, even then?’

He nods.

‘How could I not? For a moment I thought it was Esther standing before me. The years vanished in a flash. Then I saw your fair hair, your surprised look. I had heard your name. I suspected who you must be.’

‘But you said nothing.’

‘Another wrong decision. I denied the truth to myself. And I was afraid. I had built my life on my guilt. Buried it deep in reckless bravery and a reputation for stern morals. How would that look if the truth were known? I asked myself. For a time I believed you were waiting to expose me. Every day I awoke with a dread of what the day might hold. If someone spoke under their breath, I believed they must be discussing me. I thought I was standing in a trap that might snap shut at any minute. But gradually I came to realize you didn’t know. I decided you had to be discouraged from settling here. Then the truth could remain hidden. I could continue my life as before. And having once started down that route, it was hard to turn back. I saw you as a threat. In so doing I managed to forget you were my daughter. Esther’s daughter. Can you forgive me, Marianne?’