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Oh well—water under the bridge. You'll wish I hadn't mentioned it, I know. But how wonderful it was. I feel invigorated just by the memory of it. Have fun in your retirement, dearest.

With all my love,

Jean

Eve sat in silence with the letter in her hand as outside the sun went down and evening came on.

“Grant?”

The uncertainty in her voice had never been more audible.

“Eve! Hi! Why do you sound as if you wish you were talking to someone else?”

“That's not how I sound. But we did say we'd keep in touch as old friends who'd also been something more.”

“So?”

“This is . . . well, rather more than ‘old friends' stuff. Grant, my mother has died.”

“Oh, I am sorry. We didn't meet all that often, but I really liked her. And respected her as well. How come? Was it some kind of accident?”

“Breast cancer. It killed her quite quickly, though she kept quiet about it longer than I like. But I was able to be with her when she died.”

“That will be a comfort. But are you having problems coming to terms with it?”

“No, it's not that. Or not exactly. And everyone in
Crossley has been marvelous—telling me how much she meant to them, what a difference she made to their lives. And there's been a veritable deluge of letters, most of them just a bit personal, which has been nice. She would have been tickled pink . . .”

“But?”

“I got back from the funeral parlor this afternoon. There was another pile of letters and cards. One of them from someone—I don't know the name or handwriting, no reason why I should. Grant, could I e-mail it to you? I'd like to know what you think.”

“I'm flattered. Is it as a psychiatrist you're consulting me?”

“No, as an old friend with his feet usually on the ground. Would you ring me back when you've read it through and thought about it for a while? Really do
think,
Grant. I've done nothing but that since I read it. The number to ring is the old one: 0136 724163. I'll be in all evening.”

She herself had done all the thinking she could manage. She had first grasped at the straw that the writer was a Frenchman—Jean. She had grabbed the letter, and the reference to
Hay Fever
had jumped out at her, and then the handwriting: this was the sort of script instilled into one at a good girls' school, not that of any French man or woman.

Then she had wondered if it was some kind of cruel joke. Many grown-up people nourished grievances against their teachers. News of her mother's death could have aroused some such old grudge . . . Except that the old grudge should surely have been against
herself,
to take such a form. She, not her mother, was the one whom the
letter had hurt and bewildered. And who, in or around Crossley, where the news of the death would have spread, could have a grudge against Eve? She had left the place eighteen years before with, so far as she knew, a quite spotless reputation.

Now, having typed and e-mailed the letter, she let her thoughts stray on another path. Why did she mind so much? She had nothing against lesbians. She had known plenty, liked some, disliked others, as with any other group of people. Why should she mind if at some point in her life her mother had had an affair with someone of her own sex?

Eve had had enough experience—especially during the Grant years—of looking into herself and analyzing her feelings to come up with the answer quite quickly: she resented not knowing about this side of her mother, finding out about it in this way. Even before she had opened the letter she had been feeling guilt about not being closer to her mother in her adult years. Now the guilt was assuaged by this easy way of blaming her mother. But if they had had more time together as adults, her mother would surely have filled her in on her relations with this person called Jean, on this aspect of her life. Wouldn't she?

But thinking about it, that argument didn't seem watertight. During their weekends at arts festivals they had often enough seen or met up with obvious lesbian couples. Why had May not taken the opportunity to share her past with her daughter? If Eve had been a negligent daughter, it would seem that May had been a negligent mother.

Then another thought struck her. Her mother had hardly ever talked about her husband, Eve's father. Why not? And why had Eve herself shown so little curiosity about him?

This was followed swiftly by another thought. What exactly did the letter say about her father? She took up the flimsy page again. “The business with John that separated us.” What exactly did that mean? An
affaire trois
which had been won by the heterosexual partner?

Considering it in the cold light of evening, the statement even began to sound slightly sinister.

She was glad when the telephone rang. For all his shortcomings—and pomposity was the main one, the one that had killed their relationship—Grant was a comforting presence at times of crisis.

“That was a stunner,” his rich, calm voice said.

“Yes, it was.”

“And your first thought was: I should have known.”

“Yes, it was. You know me so well. Not put into words, but . . . Why on earth didn't she tell me? Just an off-the-cuff remark. ‘I tried it once, but it wasn't for me'—that sort of thing.”

“Perhaps she looked back on it with distaste, even shame.”

“My mother was never one for shame—not for wallowing in it, anyway. Pick up your luggage, learn from your mistake and pass on—that was more her line.”

“But if she was pressured into it—the sex—and found it unpleasant?”

“Pressured? My mother? Anyway, I didn't get the impression from the letter that anything like that happened.
It was more that she was pressured away from her natural bent.”

“Well, that may be your interpretation, but it wouldn't be how Jean viewed it, would it? If the affair was one of the emotional high spots of her life? She wouldn't want to acknowledge that your mother had had to be pressured.”

“It's so difficult at this distance of time. And Mother never having touched on the subject so far as I can remember.”

There was silence at the other end.

“Eve, I'm not sure this is getting us anywhere.”

“No, it's not. But what should I
do,
Grant?”

“You know what I think of your questions like that.”

“That they're preparatory to my doing exactly what I've already decided to do.”

“Precisely!”

“But in this case I haven't decided anything. I just don't know what to do.”

“Maybe. Still, I don't think you'll like what I would recommend. That is that you do precisely nothing.”

“I thought it would be that.”

“After all, why should you do anything? Your dead mother had a lesbian affair in the past. So what? She never told you. Tough, but that was her decision, one she had a right to make. So why can't you just move on?”

Eve thought.

“But what about the reference to my father?”

“Was that John? I don't think I ever heard his name. You didn't talk about him.”

“Yes, his name was John McNabb. I never knew him. Mother didn't talk about him.”

“You never asked her?”

“I expect I did. But not very urgently, obviously. You blame me for that, don't you?”

“You know psychiatrists don't much go in for blame. But it does surprise me.”

“Mother was obviously all I wanted, and I didn't need to imagine a benevolent, wise, lost father.”

Eve was silent for a moment before asking her next question.

“Did you get the feeling that the pair of them, Jean and May, had done or tried to do something serious, something perhaps to stymie John and his claims on my mother?”

“To tell you the truth, I didn't think much at all about that sentence. Probably I would have if I'd known your father's name . . . Yes, maybe you're right. What
do
you know about your father? All you've told me is that he is dead.”

“Yes—he died when I was about three or four.”

“Any memories of him in the house?”

“Hardly anything, and I don't remember anything that was there earlier on but is now gone. That I do find odd. Mother was not sentimental, but she wasn't ruthless either. Clearing him away like that seems out of character.”

“You actually remember asking her about him?”

“Yes, occasionally. Once I remember asking about him and I was shown a photograph. That obviously satisfied me at the time. Maybe her coldness on the subject was her way of shutting me up.”

“Seems to me there must be things of his, or things
about him, in the house. Some wives in unhappy marriages have a spring clean of everything that reminds them of their dead husband. Did you ever get the impression that your father was hated?”

“No, certainly not. But then, I never got any impression of him at all.”

“She could just have put any things of his away somewhere—the attic, a high cupboard—that sort of thing. Worth trying.”

“Yes. I've thought of doing that.”

“Don't you even know what he did for a living?” There was an edge of exasperation in his voice. Exasperation was his substitute for blame. He thought her lack of curiosity was blameworthy.

“Oh yes, I know that. He was a cartoonist.”

There was a moment's silence.

“Well, that's more interesting than a train driver or a bank clerk, isn't it? Who did he cartoon for?”

“Oh, I think it was
The Scotsman
. Or maybe the
Glasgow Herald
or
Tribune
or something.”

“Right. Were these daily political cartoons?”

Eve really had to think.

“No, I think they were human interest cartoons. Gentle.” Her voice brightened. “That's right. Mother said they were gentle and she went on: ‘He was a gentle man.' I remember now. There was a central family in the cartoons, and it was the funny things they did or said, and their comic dog and cat—that kind of thing. Sort of like the Gambols in the
Express
.”

“Oh,” said Grant, who was a taste snob: anything that had gone out of fashion was deplorable in his eyes. “Well,
let's hope that he was funnier. Do you realize you've just endowed your father with his first characteristic, his first human trait?”

“Yes, I suppose I have.”

“If these two determined women ganged up on him, he probably didn't stand a chance.”

Eve smiled to herself.

“I suspect you have just tried very hard to avoid using the word ‘dykes,' and not to suggest they must have been sergeant-major types in drag.” Grant laughed. He was usually honest about his prejudices with Eve. “Anyway, you're ignoring one thing.”

“What's that?”

“The fact that, as far as we know, my father won and the lesbian experiment failed. Does ‘Jean' sound like someone who enjoyed a great triumph all those years ago?”

“No,” admitted Grant. “She sounds like someone who suffered defeat, and has never been able to put it behind her.”

“Agreed. So granted I'm going to do something, what do I do?”

Grant pondered.

“No address on the letter. Presumably she didn't put an address on the envelope, as the Americans do?”

“No.”

“What about the postmark?”

“Terribly smudged, as they usually are these days. I think the post office doesn't want us to know when things were posted.”

“You could consult a philatelist. Postmarks are probably important to them. He might be able to give you an
idea of the length of the town name it was posted from, maybe even the initial letter.”

“Maybe. That doesn't get us awfully far though, does it?”

“No. But you've got a two-pronged approach now. Your mother's possible lesbian affair, and the ‘business with John' that Jean talks about. Plenty on your plate for a start. Do you know, for example, when your mother took the school job in Crossley?”

“Oh—when I was very young. No—before I was born, because I was born here. I never remember living anywhere else until I was grown up.”

“Pin it down. And where did she come from?”

“Melrose, in the Border country. She always said she took care to minimize her Scottish accent and vocabulary when first she came here. She thought the first priority was to be understood by the children.”

“Unfashionable but sensible,” said Grant. “And was your father still alive then? And if so, did he come with her?”

Silence from Eve for some time.

“I really don't know. My mother was here for such a long time that it seems like she was always here. But my father—I just didn't ask about the details, so I don't know.”

“Well, you'll pay for your lack of curiosity by having a mountain to climb. Still, there must be plenty of people in Crossley who remember when your mother arrived there. Get on to them, and see what they know—about your father and any other friends of your mother. Good luck. But remember I recommended you to do nothing at all.”