Where Have You Been? (6 page)

‘Birth dates, Susan? Addresses? There's hardly been time for her to launch a full-scale investigation. The notices only went in a month ago. And anyway, how else
could
she know – who would she ask?'

‘But you say she's got no documents, no identification. No proof.'

‘Susan. Your sister ran away from home twenty years ago. It's not unusual for people who don't want to be discovered to get rid of anything that might connect them to their old
lives. It's not – and it certainly wasn't back then – before photo IDs and hundred point identification checks – as hard as you might think to become another person.'

‘I suppose not.'

‘I think that at this point, Susan, we should be taking this woman's claim very seriously.'

‘Oh?' Her resistance is as confounding to Susan as it is to the solicitor. She wants it to be Karen, wants it desperately, but somehow (what if it turns out to be a joke? a hoax?) she just can't grasp it, is finding it impossible to give in – to trust that what he is saying is true. That it could possibly be the truth.

‘But it's not really a matter of what I think, is it?' he says. ‘Because from here on in it's in your hands, not mine.' Mr Hamilton splays out his fingers as if to illustrate the point. ‘It has to be your call, Susan.' He leans back in his chair, waits.

She capitulates. ‘Okay.' Reluctantly. ‘What's next then?

What do we do?'

‘What do
you
do?'

‘What should I do, then? Should I meet her? Should I meet her now? Or should I wait?' She tries hard to tamp down the panic, the terror.

‘Look, I have to say, given the facts, I'm confident that this woman is your sister. So, what are you waiting for? You must be desperate to see her again. Why not meet up with her now? That is, if she's willing to make contact. What I'd suggest is that you organise a meeting somewhere. For lunch, or for afternoon tea. Meet somewhere neutral. A cafe, a restaurant, a park. But not at home. Not this first meeting, anyway.'

‘What about my husband? I guess this affects him too. Should I take Ed?'

‘Oh.' Mr Hamilton looks a little put out by her question. ‘Ed?' He rubs his hand over his jaw, considering. Hamilton
is a short man, barely taller than Susan, but strong looking, wiry. His eyes are heavy-lidded, deep-set, his lips full, firm, his cheeks, despite his relative youth – he's not much past forty, Susan would guess – already heavily etched. His pale skin has a greenish tinge. Thick dark hair coats his wrists, the backs of his hands and fingers, curls above his collar. Already, even though it's still morning (surely a lawyer would shave before work?), there is a slight raspiness, the beginnings of a dark shadow under his chin. She wonders if, despite his name, he might be Mediterranean. Greek, Spanish. He has the characteristic dourness, anyway.

‘No,' he says finally. ‘No, I don't think that'd be a good idea. Meet her alone.' He smiles then, and somehow it's an unlikely smile in that sculpted facial landscape, loose and slightly snaggle-toothed. He looks younger, less predictable. Less lawyerly. ‘I know it's harder to do these things by yourself, but really,' he says, scraping his hand across his chin again, ‘you're the only one who'll know for sure. Aren't you?'

On the way home Susan drives slowly past her mother's old house, turns at the end of the street and drives back, parks on the other side of the road. She sits and watches, though there's nothing to see.

The house has been rented out for ten years, the money used to pay for her mother's hospitalisation. In all those ten years Susan hasn't been inside once. Until his death, her father had managed everything to do with the property, and for the past five years it's all – from the signing of leases to the organising of repairs – been left in the hands of real estate agents and solicitors.

It is a red brick and tile house in a street of other, almost identical, red brick and tile homes; its only claim to singularity being an extraordinarily large block of land – almost twice
the size of most of the neighbouring homes. The acme of late fifties respectability. Solid, suburban, dull. Built for ease of maintenance rather than beauty or comfort. Secure against the corrosive ocean breeze, against the summer sun, against the whims of exterior paint fashions. Nothing about it has changed (what is there to change? How could you change it?) The walls are orangey red, the roof a darker shade. Oh, maybe the charcoal paint on the porch railings and window frames is a recent alteration (wasn't it a sickly pastel green once?). The guttering – the same charcoal colour – could be new, Susan supposes. And the front garden – though it barely warrants the term garden: a couple of frangipani trees, some ragged hibiscus, the innocuous dusty leaves of the deadly oleander – maybe the plants have grown a little, but they haven't been added to or cultivated in any way. The lawn is overgrown, full of weeds, and a jaunty
For Sale
sign is nailed up beside the mailbox.

Susan sits in the car outside the house for an hour, watching, waiting. She is trying to discover something – anything – that will give her some kind of clue to the life she once lived here, the life she once shared with both her parents, with Karen. There are half memories; she can see herself jumping down the front steps, swinging on the small square iron gate, collecting the deliciously fragrant frangipani flowers, balancing carefully along the low brick fence. The way the sun falls across the porch leaving one half in shade gives her an odd sort of pang. Inexplicable. Inexpressible. She winds down the car window and breathes in the familiar breeze as if the substance of her childhood might be contained within its particles. There's nothing solid here, nothing consequential. Nothing as fully formed and complete as a real memory would be. Just impressions. And they're solitary impressions – the games children play to occupy themselves when they're alone. She can recall nothing.

She starts the car, drives past the house one more time, slows down. A curtain twitches in the front window. A pale face peers out, sees her watching, disappears. A child's face. There are no clues here. She drives home.

She calls Ed from home. ‘So,' he asks, ‘is it her? What does the solicitor say?' His voice is calm, careful, they have not spoken since the night before.

‘The solicitor doesn't know for certain,' Susan tells him, ‘but he thinks it could be her. She's got nothing that proves it – no documents or anything. And she's changed her name – Carly something or other, he said. But she says she's Karen.'

‘What do you mean she says she's Karen? Anybody could turn up and...'

‘Hold on, Ed.' Susan's voice is remarkably even. ‘She says she's Karen and he says she seems to have a ... a surface knowledge at least about the family.'

‘Oh?'

‘You know – names, important dates, that sort of thing. She knows all that. And Mr Hamilton, Howard, says there's a certain resemblance. Going by the photograph I gave him, anyway.'

‘Oh.'

‘And anyway, Ed, there'd be no real reason for an impostor to turn up – you know Howard worded the notice so there was no mention of any inheritance. She doesn't even know about the money yet.'

‘Well, she mightn't know, but it'd be easy enough to guess, wouldn't it. Why else...'

She switches the phone to her other ear. Takes her time.

‘Hello...? Susy? Are you there?'

‘Sorry.'

‘I just asked what happens next. What did he say? The solicitor. How do we find out for sure if it's her?'

‘I meet her.'

‘Shit.' she can hear his indrawn breath, can imagine his sudden realisation.

‘Listen Suse, don't you think it might be best if we got an independent solicitor? I've got nothing against this bloke, but he's not ours. I know that Derek knows someone good, and I've a few clients who'd be happy to take it on. Maybe we could set up a meeting between the solicitor and this Carly woman and me. Keep you right out of it.'

‘Ed,' Susan's voice is firm, her back straight. ‘I'm meeting her. Alone. She's my sister.'

Her sister.

Ed watches the five o'clock news with his parents. There's an old clip of Ronald Reagan, standing behind a podium somewhere, answering questions easily, smiling his affable smile. ‘Thank Christ he's gone,' Ed comments at the end of the report. ‘Jesus. Just imagine – the fate of the free world was in that halfwit's hands. A bloody movie star. Says something about America, doesn't it?'

‘Says what, exactly, son?' His father doesn't take his eyes from the screen, doesn't wait for an answer. ‘All that education, and you've still got no bloody idea.' Ed opens his mouth, but closes it again. His father's a good man, and an intelligent man, but not terribly sophisticated when it comes to politics. He's not exactly right wing, but he's certainly no leftie. There's no point in arguing. Susan looks up from the card game she's playing with Stella and Mitchell and catches his eye, smiles sympathetically.

His mother gets to her feet. ‘Well,' she says with a little sigh, ‘I'd best start serving out. The meal won't put itself on the table, will it?' There's no answer to this, they all know
better. ‘I'll be needing you shortly, Ed,' his mother murmurs as she makes her way to the kitchen, ‘for the carving.'

Ed always enjoys this fortnightly meal with his mother and father. He feels guilty that he doesn't have more time to spend with his parents, despite living nearby. He does speak to them on the phone during the week, and occasionally calls in for Saturday brunch after his morning surf with Derek, but worries that this isn't really enough, that they would like to see more of him and the kids, that the fortnightly visit smacks of tokenism, of a duty discharged. His parents never complain – of course – and they seem to be keeping themselves reasonably busy in their retirement (overseas holidays, veterans golf tournaments, visits to shows, casinos, clubs...), but he's convinced (despite Susan's rolled-eyed assurances to the contrary) that these excursions are just time-fillers, diversions from their empty nest. He worries too that his father's professed lack of interest in the current running of the company – though he's still a shareholder, he hasn't called in more than half a dozen times in the last year, and no longer asks about the bank balance – is just a smokescreen for a profound, and perhaps repressed, grieving. Ed feels guilty about feeling guilty, too (guilt being such an unproductive emotion, and surely only appropriate when there's a conscious dereliction of duty). And it isn't a duty anyway (is it?) when he so thoroughly enjoys the time spent eating and talking; the inevitable game of cards. Susan might sigh with relief when they're safely home again, the fractious, overindulged children tucked up and asleep, but not Ed. Never Ed.

The carving of the leg, however, is one ritual that Ed doesn't particularly enjoy. His mother frequently takes this opportunity to have what she terms a good heart-to-heart with her son: which usually means a not-so-subtle nag session or the laying of a few carefully concealed barbs. Tonight his mother pauses in her serving and looks gravely at Ed.

‘You're getting a little podgy, Edward,' she says. ‘You should go without gravy and potatoes tonight, and not serve yourself so much meat. You don't want to end up looking like your Uncle Frank now, do you?' She puts her arm around his waist and squeezes him affectionately – making it impossible for him to take offence.

Ed says nothing, waits, intuiting that the underlying purpose of tonight's chat hasn't yet been revealed. He's almost certain that she's not really interested in his few excess kilos. Ed has been steadily gaining weight over the last twelve months – he's had to go up a trouser size, and his shirt collars are getting a little too tight – but this is the first time his mother has made any mention of it.

‘Is there something wrong, darling? Is something bothering you?' She has resumed her serving, has asked her question in a manner that Ed, from long experience, knows is cunningly deceptive in its casualness. ‘It's not like you, Eddy, to let yourself go like this.' She goes on, ‘You seem – well frankly you seem a little down, darling. Depressed. Depression's a terrible strain on the waistline.'

Ed murmurs something noncommittal, keeps carving. Then: ‘God knows you've got good reason, darling. All those changes you've been making at the factory – all that work! – and that horrible mortgage and now there's this upset of Susan's to deal with – this will of her mother's. I suppose that's what's worrying you?' She asks her questions with such earnest motherly concern, that if he did not know her better it would be possible to misconstrue her motivation, to mistake it for the real thing.

He smiles brightly, steadily. ‘I've just been eating too much, Ma, and not getting enough exercise. It's no more complicated than that. It's purely physical, nothing psychological.'

‘Oh, don't be so silly, Ed. I can tell when you're not happy. I'm your mother, remember?' She picks up the tongs,
slaps a single slice of meat onto each plate. ‘Why can't you ever admit that everything's not perfect? What are you trying to prove? Your father and I have had our problems, I've never tried to hide them – they're a part of every marriage.'

Ed spoons the peas carefully, stays silent. He is not quite sure what she's referring to here, is floundering, as he always has, in the wild subterranean currents of his mother's emotions, but senses that this conversation is probably about Susan. He knows that his mother has always had something of a problem with his wife, though she's never admitted it and is probably not even conscious of her behaviour. He supposes it would have been the same regardless of who he married – though he does recall her being quite taken with the first girl he went out with at college, a fellow business student – Angela – who was tall and vivacious and exceptionally well groomed, and went on to make a fortune working the stock market.