Forget Me Not (36 page)

‘Head up please, Anna!’ Kelly commanded.

Luke then said that when his mother was twenty, she’dhad an affair with my dad. Now I understood her objectionsto me. She clearly had unhappy memories of the relationshipand didn’t want to have a renewed associationwith my father, three decades later. I felt relieved that therewas a rational explanation for her dislike of me. But I toldLuke that it was a long time ago and that his mother shouldget over it for his sake. I added that she couldn’t stop usbeing together. But Luke blurted out that she could.Bewildered, I asked him why
…

‘Head up, Anna!’ Kelly repeated.

And he replied that the point was not just that they’d hadan affair, but that he was the result of that affair
…

I felt as though I’d been plunged into a bath of ice-water.

I stared at him in disbelief. I’d never known of my dadhaving any children other than me and my younger brother,Peter. I immediately rang my father and, after a fewmoments, he said it was true. The horror I felt was quicklyreplaced by a surge of relief that my relationship withLuke hadn’t yet become physical. Even so I was veryshocked and upset. Luke, for his part, was devastated. Hesaid it was as though a meteor had just slammed into hislife
.

I felt a sudden blast of hot air as Kelly began to blow-dry my hair.

When I discussed it with my father the next day, he admittedthat he wasn’t proud of his affair with Luke’s mother –not least because he’d been married. He said that she’dwritten to him, telling him that she was pregnant, but thathe hadn’t replied as he couldn’t be sure it was true
.

‘Bastard!’ I breathed. ‘As though she’d have lied.’

‘Sorry?’ said Kelly.

And when he heard, not long afterwards, that she’d becomeengaged to someone else he’d felt that it was better to keepaway. But he’d sometimes wondered whether he did haveanother child, so what I told him about ‘Luke’ came as ashock to him too
…

I stood up. ‘I’ve got to go.’

‘But I haven’t finished,’ Kelly protested as I pulled off the gown.

‘It’s OK, I’ve just remembered an appointment. I’m sorry.’ I opened my bag and gave her forty pounds. ‘Is that enough?’

‘It’s too much – I’ll get you your change.’

‘No, please don’t bother.’

‘But let me dry you a bit more – I don’t like you going out like this.’

But I was already halfway through the door.

‘Hi,’ Dad said when I got home. He was putting away the Playdough. ‘Milly’s having a nap – she seemed tired.’ He peered at me through his good eye. ‘Have you been swimming?’

‘No. I’ve been to the hairdressers.’

‘Don’t they dry it for you?’

‘There wasn’t time as I had to leave in a hurry.’ I handed him the magazine. ‘Would you read this?’

‘
I Say!
magazine? That’s hardly my kind of thing, Anna.’

‘I know. But I want you to read one particular story, this one here.’ I jabbed at it with my finger. ‘It’s really quite startling.’

Dad gave me an odd look. ‘OK.’ He put on his glasses and I watched his features contract with pain as he read the piece. Then he lowered the magazine.

‘Is it true?’ I demanded.

‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘It’s true.’

‘Well … thanks for telling me!’

Dad closed his eyes. ‘I’d started telling you yesterday,’ he croaked. ‘But then you had to rush off to Milly’s playgroup so I couldn’t finish. Then I tried to tell you this morning, but you had to leave. I was just about to tell you the whole story, Anna.’

‘Only thirty years late!’ I stared at him. ‘How could you and Mum not have told us?’ Dad didn’t reply. ‘And how could you and Mum not have told
Mark?
’

‘We should have done.’ He sighed. ‘We made a terrible mistake.’

I sank on to a chair. ‘So … when you first met Mum she was already pregnant?’

Dad nodded. ‘I met her in the Lyons Corner House that day and we chatted, then I asked her if I might see her again. I was very attracted to her, but I was also worried about her as she’d seemed so upset. And at that second meeting she told me why she was so unhappy – because she’d had a failed romance and was eight weeks pregnant.’

‘Poor Mum.’

‘She was extremely distressed. Her greatest fear was that when her mother found out she’d force her to have the baby adopted. She assumed that I’d want nothing further to do with her, but by then I was falling in love. So we talked some more, and then I took a deep breath and told her that one solution would be for me to marry her.’

‘She must have been…
gobsmacked
.’

‘She was. She thought I was stark, staring mad. She said I didn’t know her. I replied that although that was true, at thirty-two I knew myself and I knew that I was very drawn to her. I said that if we did marry, I’d bring up the baby as my own, but on one condition – that no one was told. I believed that would provide the most stability for us as a family, and would protect your mother from gossip. So, three weeks later, we were married in Chelsea Town Hall. All our guests knew that it was a shotgun wedding and there was the odd ribald remark, but we didn’t mind as that only strengthened the impression that the baby was mine. To make the dates fit, we pretended that we’d met six weeks earlier than we had.’

Now I understood why Mum had looked more than two months pregnant in the wedding photo. By then she would have been well over three.

‘But how weird to get married when you didn’t
know
each other.’

‘We didn’t,’ Dad agreed. ‘But, as I said to her, if things didn’t work out between us, at least she’d be a divorced mother, rather than an unmarried one, and her child would still have a “father”.’

‘But it
did
work out.’

‘Miraculously – yes. Although we had our ups and downs as I say.’

‘Hardly surprising, given the circumstances. But had you decided that you’d
never
tell Mark?’

Dad shrugged. ‘We hadn’t thought it right through. We’d talked about telling him when he was about eight. But by then we found it impossible to puncture the illusion of family unity that we’d created – especially as we’d just had Cassie, who needed special care for quite some time; so, to our shame, we kept putting it off.’

‘For so long?’

‘You’d be amazed at how quickly the years passed – and as time went on it got harder and harder to say. Plus we thought it might destabilise Mark at a critical time: suddenly he was taking his Eleven Plus, then he was doing “O” and “A” levels; then he was at university, then at medical school … We didn’t want to risk upsetting him when he was working so hard, taking exam after exam, so we let the issue slide. Then he went to Africa and not long after he came back he met Carol Gowing. The rest you know.’

I sat down. ‘So that’s why Mark left.’

‘Yes.’ Dad rested his head in his hands. ‘He couldn’t cope. Not just with the shock of it, but with the way he’d been told – the fact that it was all mixed up with meeting Carol. He was so angry. He said he no longer knew who he was – or who
we
were. He just took everything from his bedroom, as though he’d never lived there.’

‘Then he went to San Francisco.’

‘Yes. He said he needed the distance. I guess he’s been finding himself ever since.’

‘But once Mark knew the truth, why didn’t you tell Cassie and me?’

‘We were going to,’ Dad said. ‘But then your mother suddenly died and I had enough to deal with, so yet again I put the issue to one side. And now you’ve found out for yourself – as I always suspected you would,’ he added quietly.

I stared out of the window. ‘How weird,’ I murmured. ‘I’d convinced myself that Cassie was my half-sibling, because she’s so different from me. But all the time it was Mark …’

‘Who’s so like you …’

‘Yes.’ I looked at Dad. ‘Isn’t that strange?’

‘Perhaps you
wanted
to believe that it was Cassie.’

‘Why would I?’

‘Because she’s always been a bit of a thorn in your side. And so you’ve always focused on the dissimilarities between you rather than looking for common ground.’

I felt a wave of shame. ‘I think you’re probably right.’

I went to the dresser and picked up the photo again. Now I saw that there was only a general likeness between Cassie and Carlo – yet my prejudice had made me see more. And now I understood Mark’s rebuffing e-mail, and Mum’s prickly reaction when I’d pointed out that she’d been pregnant on her wedding day. Her embarrassment wasn’t out of coyness so much as guilt at the secret she’d been hiding from her children for so long.

And then this divine-looking man came along and asked
if he could share my table – and that was that!

No. ‘That’ wasn’t just ‘that’. Far from it.

‘What a deception,’ I murmured.

‘Yes.’

‘So this letter is the draft of a longer letter that Mum had sent you before you married.’ Dad nodded. ‘But she was so
lucky
– that you came along. How many men would have done what you did? No wonder she loved you so much.’

‘I believe she did love me,’ Dad replied. ‘Partly for myself I’d like to think, but mostly because it had meant that she was able to keep her baby. But then, ironically, we lost Mark as an adult through our own misjudgement. But I hope he’ll come back, Anna.’ Dad looked out of the window. ‘I miss my boy.’

‘I think he
will
come back,’ I said. ‘One day.’

I didn’t return to Eden Lane that afternoon; I was still so shocked at what Dad had told me that I didn’t trust myself to drive. Instead, I spent the afternoon on my own, looking at my old photograph albums, reassessing the images as I gazed at Mark’s face as a toddler, as a little boy, as a teenager and a young man. No one, looking at those pictures, would have guessed that he wasn’t Dad’s own flesh and blood.

At six, Xan came round to see Milly. He peered at me as he stepped inside. ‘Are you OK, Anna? You look a little … distraite if you don’t mind my saying so.’

‘I’m fine,’ I lied. ‘Just a bit tired.’ Xan was holding a big, inexpertly wrapped parcel. ‘What’ve you got there?’ I asked as Milly ran downstairs to greet him.

‘Something to cheer Milly up.’

Milly tore off the stripy pink paper. ‘A
scoo
-ter!’ Her eyes were like tea plates. ‘I got a scooter, Mum!’

‘It’s a get-well present,’ Xan explained.

‘Well, that’s very kind of you – say thank you to Daddy, darling.’

‘Thanks, Dad!’

I knew why Xan had bought it for her: because he’d discovered that Patrick had given her the bike.

‘We’ll have to play with it in the garden, Milly,’ I explained. ‘Until your chicken pox is better.’

‘Are you sure you’re OK, Anna?’ Xan persisted. ‘You look frayed at the edges.’

‘I am a bit,’ I said. ‘It must be the heat.’

‘But it’s cooler now.
You
haven’t got chicken pox I hope.’

‘No. I had it years ago. And what about your posting? Any news yet?’ He shook his head. ‘I should know by next week. But I was wasn’t joking about you and Milly coming with me.’

‘I didn’t think you were,’ I replied.

‘So … have you considered it – at least as a possibility, depending on where I’m sent, of course?’

‘I have considered it, yes.’

‘And?’ he asked anxiously.

‘It would be crazy.’

‘What’s crazy about a family being together?’ xan protested. ‘I’d like to live with my little family. I know that now.’

‘What a pity you didn’t know it three years ago.’

‘I wish I had,’ he replied. ‘Please will you think about it?’

‘But I already have. And I have commitments here, Xan – professional and personal – I have family and friends …’ I suddenly thought of Jamie. ‘Milly has
her
life here and
her
friends. You’re offering us this too late.’

I picked up Milly’s Magic Writer and wrote
Nowhere
on the slate, then beneath it
Now here
. That’s what had happened to me with Xan.

‘We’ll talk about it again,’ I heard him say as I pulled down the eraser. ‘But what shall we do with Milly this evening? We can’t go to the park as she’s in quarantine.’

‘I thought you could play with her, then bath her and put her to bed, then Luisa will babysit for the rest of the evening.’

‘Why do you need a babysitter?’

‘Because I’m going out.’

‘Oh.’ Xan rolled his eyes. ‘With Paddy I suppose.’

‘With Patrick,’ I corrected him. ‘Yes. With my very nice, long-suffering boyfriend, Patrick. We’re going to see a film.’

‘How romantic,’ Xan said bitterly.

‘But I have to do some work before then. Milly, Dad’s going to play with you for a while – OK?’

‘OK!’ She wheeled her scooter into the garden. ‘C’mon, Dad!’

I went up to my workroom, sat at my drawing board, with the window open, working on my sketches for the Moreas’ garden, hearing Milly’s laughter drift upwards. The design process is so absorbing that it enabled me to blot out the shock of what I’d learned about Mark, my anger with Dad and my anxiety about his future, my disappointment with Luisa and my worries about who would replace her. As I drew and planned and measured and mentally planted, I felt all these troubles recede.

I’d been sitting there for an hour, totally distracted, when I heard the doorbell. I ran downstairs, but Xan had already got there.

My heart sank. ‘Patrick?’ I said, as I stood on the bottom step. ‘I thought we were meeting at the cinema.’

‘We were. But I need to have a word with Xan.’

‘With
Xan
?’ I repeated. ‘About what?’ He and Patrick faced each other across the threshold. ‘Xan, will you kindly let Patrick in!’

Xan stepped aside, then leaned indolently against the sitting-room door.

‘Why do you want to talk to Xan, Patrick?’ I asked warily.

‘I don’t particularly want to, but I feel I have to because …’ He pulled a letter out of his pocket. ‘I got this from him today.’

I looked at Xan. ‘You wrote Patrick a letter?’ I murmured. ‘Why?’

‘Because I felt it was necessary.’