State We're In (45 page)

‘Because of you, my mother drank herself to death, my sister and I were brought up in children's homes,' Dean muttered coldly.

‘I know. Well, at least I knew about you being in a home.'

‘How? How could you know that?' yelled Dean furiously.

‘I've been to see your father. We talked about you.' Fat silent tears slipped down Clara's face.

‘Why? Why couldn't you have left him alone?' Clara was unsure whether Dean meant now, or years ago when the affair began. It didn't matter; either way she had no answer. She'd asked the question of herself, many times.

She bravely met Dean's eyes. ‘I am so deeply and completely sorry for all the hurt I have caused you.' She enunciated every word carefully. She'd been rehearsing them all her life; still, she doubted they were adequate. Dean clearly could not trust himself to reply. He nodded sharply. Clara didn't think it was absolution; she assumed he was simply acknowledging her. She watched as he pieced together the sequence of events, just as she had. ‘You look a lot like your father.' Dean threw her a look that was the equivalent to flicking the finger. She stuttered, ‘I simply mean, when I saw you on the step, I immediately started to make the connection, but I thought I was imagining things. Then when you said your name, I knew there was no doubt.'

‘Well this was a wasted bloody journey,' spat Dean. ‘Because Jo was right about one thing: we can never, ever have a future.'

Clara looked aghast. Desperate. Any beauty she had preserved flooded away in an instant and was replaced by ugly self-hatred. ‘Why? Because of my past?'

‘Exactly.'

‘But that's insane, Dean. It doesn't have to be that way,' she protested.

‘It does. It just does. I could never look at you without thinking about him. How would we gather round the table for Sunday lunch or at Christmas or Easter? How would I be able to marry the girl whose mother had ruined my life so that she could selfishly keep her own life cushy?' Dean spat out the words in a blur of confusion and anger.

Clara was taken aback that he had mentioned marriage, even if he had done so in the context of saying it could never happen. It was obvious that this man was serious about her daughter. Clara had had just one conversation with Jo since she'd arrived back from Chicago. They'd spoken on the phone last night. Jo had been very quiet and thoughtful, almost pensive, not her usual self at all. It was as though she had left a girl and returned a woman; the only problem being that she had left as a hopeful girl and returned as a heartbroken woman. Clara had realised this instantly. She had thought that Jo's seriousness and silence was to do with the fact that Martin was married and another avenue had closed. True, Jo had described the new man she'd met as ‘perfect', but she had given this slick endorsement to many unsuitable men before; she'd described debtors, philanderers and cross-dressers as perfect in the past before their true natures were revealed. Clara hadn't thought that Jo was grieving for the perfect man she'd left behind, but now she understood, she understood completely. She knew herself how difficult it was to walk away from these Taylor men. Physically magnificent men. Dark, brooding, big and gripping. Men who crawled up under a woman's skin. Then she remembered. Jo had also said that Dean was the most interesting and courageous man she'd ever met. Clara had never heard her endorse anyone else in that way. Something was different. Perhaps this embryonic romance was greater and more advanced than she had imagined. Perhaps it could have consequence and significance. After all, Dean had travelled all the way from Chicago for Jo, and Jo had given him up when she thought staying with him would cause him more pain than it would ease. These acts seemed a lot like love.

Clara felt nauseous with the threat of more loss. She scrabbled around her brain, desperately wondering how she might fix this. Was it in her power at all? She stared at the wall, painted a predictable Farrow and Ball red; the colour caroused with the blood pumping around her body and head. She wished Lisa had picked a soothing vert de terre. Clara always thought very carefully about what she was going to say. This time she was particularly vigilant.

‘I understand that you are angry that I had an affair with your father. It was very wrong of me, obviously. I'm sorry. But you need to know I never asked him to leave his wife for me. I didn't want that.'

‘Exactly, it was just a bit of fun to you, an inconsequential little bit of fun, but for me it was a life-changer.'

‘It wasn't inconsequential.' She knew she had no right to justify or offer excuses. ‘But I just couldn't leave Tim,' she explained.

‘Yet you've left him now.'

‘Yes.'

‘Why now? If not then?' Dean challenged.

‘Because I couldn't leave the girls then.' The words pit-pattered around the room like summer rain. Dean nodded stiffly. That he would understand and respect. Clara sensed she'd caught him. ‘We both know that none of this would be any better even if I had left Tim then. There would simply have been more pain, more waste. Dean, does it make any difference if I tell you I wanted to leave? I wanted your father so, so much, but not above everything, not above my girls. And I'm sorry that he left you. I'm not asking to be forgiven for my part in your past, but I want you to know that I've paid. I've paid every day of my life, because I
did
want him.'

Dean remained mute; Clara hoped he was considering what she'd told him. They both listened to the sounds of the house; a wall clock ticked, the fridge hummed. ‘You chose to do the right thing,' he stated finally.

‘I wanted to keep my family together.'

Throughout the weekend Jo had entertained Dean with countless stories about her glittering and happy childhood, and he'd thought he understood, he'd thought he could imagine the privilege and pleasure. However, it was only now that he was speaking with Clara that he began to get a true sense of what it really was. Jo had truly had it all; besides the music lessons and the tennis camps, the foreign holidays and the home-cooked organic dinners, she'd had this – a parent who put the child's needs first. Something in his face shifted. He looked microscopically less angry.

Clara wondered whether a grain of a thought might have begun to occur to Dean. She hoped that he could see that having Clara in his life didn't have to mean he'd always be full of anger and resentment; perhaps he too could be swept up in her warmth. His in-laws (because possibly one day, why not?) would love him too, protect him and value him. He would finally have the parents he deserved and longed for. And his children, they'd have
doting
grandparents. The thought was a good one. Of course it all depended on whether he could get past the anger. If Jo's love was enough. If his trust in her and in himself was infallible.

‘I used to spend a lot of time wondering whether meeting your father was for the better or worse,' ventured Clara.

‘What did you decide?'

‘I still have no idea. I'm not sure life is ever that neat, Dean.'

She hoped that he could see she was not the devil incarnate; she was an old woman who had made mistakes and then held her hands up, who was trying to put things right. Eddie Taylor had shaped her life too. He was a force, that much was certain.

Dean sighed. He looked so weary. ‘What did you talk about when you went to visit him? Did he give you what you wanted?'

‘There were no declarations of love, if that's what you mean,' replied Clara carefully.

‘
Is
that what you wanted?'

‘I don't know. You?'

‘No declarations of love.' Dean didn't quite swallow his bitter fury. Clara wished feverishly that she could tell him that whilst visiting Eddie, he'd announced that he was proud of his son, that he deeply regretted leaving him, that every moment apart had been hell, but she respected Dean too much to lie to him. She couldn't heal him that way.

‘My father told me that he'd wanted more than staying with my mother could give him.' Dean sighed, threw himself back on his seat and stared at the ceiling. ‘He said that you were his more.'

Clara realised Dean was offering her a gift by sharing this knowledge. It was hers to do with as she pleased. Perhaps he thought she might find comfort in it, but she was too aware of the reality of Eddie Taylor to do so. ‘It might have been the case that if I had left with him he would have tired of me too, sooner or later.'

‘Probably.'

Clara decided to take the plunge. She thought he was following her, that she was taking him with her, but she wasn't certain. She had no idea how much had to be forgiven and forgotten, but her love for Jo and her extreme sympathy for this man gave her the courage to push on. ‘Is Jo your more?'

Dean looked wary. ‘I'm concerned that this is all moving too quickly. We might not be right for one another. I mean, we only met a few days ago, and only then because she was on a plane going to the US to try to marry another man.'

‘But she didn't stop the wedding. She fell in love with you.'

‘I know, she told me. I didn't know what to do with her declaration, so I just pretended to be asleep.'

‘You can't do that any longer.'

‘Her life has been so very different from mine. She's coming at love from a totally different direction.'

‘That's true. But you could end up in the same place. It's your call, Dean.'

Dean looked panicked. ‘How do you know that I won't tire of her eventually too? Break her heart? How do
I
know that? How can you trust me? I don't trust myself. What if I'm just like him?'

‘You're made of better stuff, Dean. You're his son, but you're your own man.'

Dean let his head fall into his hands, and Clara's mothering instincts made her dash around the coffee table that separated them. She sat on the arm of his chair and carefully put her hand on his shoulder. She wanted to wrap him in an enormous hug, but she knew she hadn't earned the right. She was suddenly so certain that she wanted to gain that right to familiarity; she wanted this man to be in her life, to love her daughter, to visit on a Sunday for lunch. She wanted the chance to make up, in some small way. She was grateful that Dean did not shrug off her touch.

‘I set off on this journey to find out why my father left me.'

‘Have you found any answers?'

‘Not from him.'

‘But you do have answers?'

‘I realise now that it wasn't anything to do with me. It wasn't my fault.'

‘Quite so.'

Dean paused, and then brought his head out of his hands and turned to her. ‘I don't think it was your fault either. It was,' he sighed, ‘simply a bad call. His bad call.'

Clara thought he was a brave and forgiving man. To reduce his life's experiences to a bad call – so that she could wriggle away from the guilt that plagued her – was beyond generous.

‘Before all of this,' she waved her hand in the air, ‘the letter, Jo going to Chicago and me leaving Tim, I'd been struggling to work out whether I'm old.' A flicker of shock registered on the polite young man's face; he did his best to hide it almost immediately, but the instant gave it away. Clara smiled wryly. ‘Of course you know the answer: I am old. You don't know why I'm struggling with something so obvious.' She wanted to giggle to herself. ‘But my point is, I don't always feel old. Sometimes I feel exactly like the young woman I was when I gave birth to the children, or younger still – the girl I was when I met Tim. However, I admit that other times I feel ancient. It goes by so very quickly, Dean. Time. It's possible not to notice it flying past. I recommend that you don't waste it.'

‘Are you going to go back to your husband?' Dean had seen what her own children had yet to pick up on. Her fallibility. Her good sense.

‘Yes, I think I am.'

‘Good.' He smiled, a brief but definite smile. ‘I don't want my father buggering up anything else.'

‘Yes, it is good. We made one another happy in our own way, and it's too late for me to start again. Dean, I've punished myself every single day. Never forgiving myself, never living the life I wanted. Your father was the opposite extreme; he never considered another living soul. He was the cancel and continue sort. There has to be middle ground. You should start living the life
you
deserve. Today. Now. Trust yourself. If you need me to, I'll stay away. I'll give you both space. I won't hang around to be an eternal reminder, but I won't let you mess this up. You deserve one another in a way your father and I didn't deserve one another, and you can have one another too. You really can. There's nothing to stop you but your own fear.' Clara was unsure whether she'd ever before made such a long and emotional speech; she paused to see if it had had the desired effect.

D
ean had stared at Clara Russell for minutes, maintaining an absolute silence as he'd tried to weigh it all up. She'd said there was nothing to stop him but his own fear. He knew she was trying to be inspirational and motivational, but a cold slither of dislike had shimmied up his spine. He wondered, was it permanent? What did she know of his fear? Perhaps she knew and understood more than he was giving her credit for. Maybe she was trying to challenge him because she'd somehow sensed that he was the sort of man who rose to a challenge, the sort of man who conquered and lived another day.

But this was different. He thought he had made the biggest emotional leap he'd ever have to make. He'd started down the path of loving someone. Trusting someone. But look what had happened, almost instantly; through no fault of her own, loving Jo had led to this hideous pain. Loving was a risk. He was terrified that he couldn't love her enough. Love led to love, but he hadn't been trained up in it the way she had. The way Clara Russell seemed to be. There had not been enough love in his life for him to be sure. Clara did not seem to be the hellcat he'd imagined; he was grown up enough to admit as much. She was not totally responsible for all his troubles, of course. But would he be able to forgive her fully? Forget at all?