The Storm Sister (The Seven Sisters #2) (73 page)

Both of us sat there silently for a while, me digesting what he’d told me. I felt a pervading sense of sadness for lives that had gone so wrong.

‘Thom tells me you were a very talented pianist and composer,’ I ventured.

‘“Were”? I’ll have you know I still am!’ Felix smiled genuinely for the first time.

‘Then it’s a shame you don’t use your talent.’

‘And how do you know I don’t, mademoiselle? That instrument sitting in my cabin is my lover, my torturer and my sanity. I may have been too drunk and unreliable for anyone to employ
me professionally, but that doesn’t mean to say I’ve stopped playing for myself. What do you think I do in that godforsaken cabin all day? I play, play for me. Perhaps one day
I’ll let you listen,’ he said with a grin.

‘And Thom too?’

‘I doubt he’d want to, and I suppose I can’t blame him. He’s been the victim in this situation. Caught between a bitter, depressed mother and a father who never took
responsibility for him. He has every right to despise me.’

‘Felix, surely you should tell him what you’ve just told me?’

‘Ally, I promise you, I’d only have to say one negative word about his precious mother, and he’d be out of the door. Besides, it would be cruel to destroy Thom’s lifelong
belief that she was the innocent party and remove her pedestal, especially now she’s dead. What does it matter?’ he sighed. ‘What’s done is done.’

I liked Felix more then, because what he’d just said showed that he cared about them. Even if it was obvious he hadn’t done much to endear himself to his son.

‘So, can I ask you why you’ve just told me all this? Is it because you want
me
to tell Thom?’

Felix stared at me for a few seconds, then picked up his whisky glass and drained it. ‘No.’

‘Then is it to tell me that Thom was right? That I’m another illegitimate child of yours? By another conquest?’ I joked, even as the look in his eyes told me he had more to
say.

‘It’s not as simple as that, Ally. Shit! Excuse me.’ Once again, he stood up and almost ran to the bar, returning a few minutes later with another huge whisky. ‘Sorry, it
goes without saying I’m an alcoholic. And for the record, I play far better when I’m drunk.’

‘Felix, what is it you want to tell me?’ I urged him, worrying that he’d lose his train of thought as the whisky soaked into his bloodstream.

‘The thing is . . . I saw it yesterday when you and Thom sat side by side on my sofa, like two damned peas in a pod. And I put two and two together. I’ve been up all night thinking
whether it was right or wrong to tell you. Contrary to everyone’s opinion of me, I do have some moral and emotional codes. And the last thing I want to do is cause any further damage than I
already have.’

‘Felix, please just
tell
me,’ I repeated.

‘Okay, okay, but as I said, this is guesswork for me too. Right . . .’

I watched him as he felt for something in his pocket and drew out an old envelope. He put it down on the table in front of me.

‘Ally, when Martha wrote to me to tell me she’d given birth, she enclosed a photograph.’

‘Yes, you said. Of Thom.’

‘Yes, of Thom. But she was also cradling another baby in her arms. A baby girl. Martha had twins. Do you want to see the letter and the photograph?’

‘Oh my God,’ I muttered and gripped the side of the sofa as my surroundings suddenly span around me. I put my head between my legs and felt Felix come to sit beside me and pat my
back.

‘Here, Ally, take some whisky. It always helps for shock.’

‘No.’ I flapped the glass away, the smell making me nauseous. ‘I can’t, I’m pregnant.’

‘Jesus!’ I heard Felix exclaim. ‘What have I done?’

‘Just pass me my water. I’m feeling a bit better now.’

He did so and I took a few gulps, feeling the faintness passing.

‘Sorry about that, I’m really okay now.’ I eyed the envelope sitting on the table and reached for it. With hands that shook as much as Felix’s, I opened it and out slid a
piece of notepaper and an old black-and-white photograph of the pretty woman I knew was Thom’s mother from the framed photographs at Froskehuset. She was cradling two swaddled babies.

‘Can I read the letter?’

‘It’s in Norwegian. I’ll have to read it to you.’

‘Yes. Please do.’

‘Okay, firstly it gives the address, which is St Olav’s Hospital in Trondheim. The date is 2nd June 1977. Right, here we go.’ Felix cleared his throat. ‘“My darling
Felix, I thought I should let you know that I have given birth to twins. One boy and one girl. The girl came first, just before midnight on 31st May, our son appearing a few hours later in the
early hours of 1st June. I’m very tired because of the long labour and I may be in here for another week or so but I’m recovering well. I enclose a photograph of your babies, and if you
want to see them now they’re here, or me, then please, come and visit. I love you. Martha.” There. That’s what the letter said.’

Felix’s voice was husky and I thought he might be close to tears.

‘The thirty-first of May . . . my birthday.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’ I looked at Felix blankly, then back down again at the babies in the photograph. They were indistinguishable in their blankets and I had no idea which one I might be.

‘I can only assume that, given Martha had no home or husband, she decided she’d have to put one of you up for adoption immediately,’ said Felix.

‘But surely, when you saw her in Bergen when she’d returned after the birth, you must have wondered where the other baby’ – I gulped hard – ‘where
I
was?’

‘Ally,’ Felix said, tentatively putting a hand on mine, ‘I’m afraid I assumed that the other twin had died. She never mentioned your continued existence to me ever again
– or, as far as I know, to my grandparents or to Thom. I thought that maybe it was simply too painful a memory, so she had chosen to wipe it from her mind. Besides, I hardly spoke to her
after that, and if I did, it was only words of anger and bitterness.’

‘This letter . . .’ I frowned in confusion. ‘It’s as if Martha believed you two would be together?’

‘Perhaps she thought that me seeing the photograph of what were apparently my offspring would prompt an emotional response. That since they’d entered the world, I’d have no
choice but to take my responsibilities seriously.’

‘Did you reply to her?’

‘No, Ally, forgive me, but I didn’t.’

My head felt as if it were about to burst with the information I’d just been given, my heart equally full of conflicting emotions. When I hadn’t known that Felix was almost certainly
my genetic father, I’d been able to rationalise what he’d told me about the past. But now, I didn’t know how I felt about him.

‘It might not be me. There’s no solid proof at all that it is,’ I muttered desperately.

‘True, but looking at the two of you together, along with your birth date and year and the fact your adoptive father sent you in search of a Halvorsen, I’d be pretty surprised if it
wasn’t,’ Felix said mildly. ‘It’s very easy to find out for sure these days, as I know to my cost. A DNA test will confirm it immediately. I’d be glad to help you do
that if you wanted to, Ally.’

I laid my head against the back of the sofa and breathed in deeply as I closed my eyes, knowing I didn’t need to confirm it. Everything fitted, as Felix had just said. And besides all the
reasons he’d just cited, there was the fact that the moment I’d set eyes on Thom, I’d felt as though I’d known him all my life, that he was familiar somehow. We
were
like two peas in a pod. So many times in the past few days we’d voiced the same thought simultaneously and laughed about it. The idea that I had found my twin brother made me
feel dizzy with happiness, but at the same time I had to deal with the fact that my birth mother had had to choose which baby she would give away. And that she had chosen me.

‘I know what you’re thinking, Ally, and I’m sorry.’ Felix cut into my thoughts. ‘If it’s any help at all, when Martha first told me she was pregnant, she said
she was convinced it was a boy and that was what she wanted. I’m sure it was a case of gender making the decision for her. Nothing more.’

‘Thanks, but just now it doesn’t make it feel any better.’

‘No, I’m sure. What can I say?’ he sighed.

‘Nothing. Not yet, anyway. But thanks for sharing this with me. Would you mind if I kept the letter and the photograph for a bit? I promise to return them.’

‘Of course.’

‘Excuse me, but I want to go for a walk. Alone,’ I added pointedly as I stood up. ‘I need some fresh air.’

‘I understand. And again, forgive me for telling you. I certainly wouldn’t have if I’d known you were pregnant. It must make it worse.’

‘As a matter of fact, Felix, it makes it much better. Thanks for being so honest with me.’

I walked out of the lounge, then out of the hotel’s front entrance into the biting, salty air. I began to walk briskly along the quay, heading in the direction of the sea. Ships were
docked, loading and unloading their cargos, and eventually I reached a bollard and sat down on its hard, cold surface. The day was breezy and as my hair flew around my face, I secured it with the
hairband that I always kept around my wrist.

So now I knew. A woman called Martha had conceived me in Bergen with a man called Felix, given birth to me and promptly given me away. My rational mind told me that the latter was simply the
inevitable result of my investigation into my true parentage, but still, the pain of my mother choosing me out of the two of us burnt through me.

Would I have preferred to have been the child she’d kept and to have swapped places with Thom?

I just didn’t know . . .

But what I
did
know was that from the day I was born, there’d been a parallel universe running alongside my own that could easily have been
my
destiny. And now the two
had collided and I was veering left and right through both of them at the same time.

‘Martha. My mother.’ I said the words out loud, and wondered if, given her Christian name, I’d have called her ‘Ma’ too? I smiled at the irony as I looked up at a
couple of passing seagulls gliding on the wind. Then I thought of the life that was growing inside
me
, a life I’d never expected to exist . . .

Even after only twenty-four hours of knowing, and having never properly considered the idea of motherhood before that, the protective instinct that welled inside me was as deep as any love
I’d ever felt.

‘How could you have given me away?!’ I screamed to the water. ‘How could you?!’ I asked again with a sob in my voice. I let the tears flow freely down my cheeks, and the
rough wind dried them as they fell.

I’d never know why she did. Never hear her side of the story. Never know how much she had suffered as she’d handed me over and said goodbye to me for the last time. And had probably
hugged Thom twice as tightly, because she’d still had him to cherish.

As my stream of consciousness ran wild, I stood up and began to pace briskly again, my thoughts crashing together as the waves in the harbour, confused at being unable to flow naturally,
mirrored my despair.

It hurt. It really bloody hurt.

What did I come on this journey to find?
I asked myself.
Pain?

Ally, you’re veering towards the self-indulgent
, I told myself firmly.
What about Thom? You’ve found your twin brother.

Yes. What about Thom?

And as I began to calm down and think about the positives, I realised that – just like Maia who’d gone in search of her past – I’d found love too, albeit in a very
different way to her. Only last night I’d gone to bed feeling sympathy for Thom and his difficult childhood. I also confessed to myself that I’d worried up to now about how close
I’d felt to him. And, being unable to categorise what he was to me, had held back from admitting I felt love for him. But I did. And now that I knew he was my twin brother, it meant all those
feelings were natural and acceptable.

When I’d come here to Norway, I’d lost the two people that mattered most to me in the world. And as I took the long walk back along the quayside to the hotel, I knew that the pain of
discovery was more than made up for by finding Thom.

Arriving back at the hotel completely exhausted, I went up to my room, told reception to block my phone, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

It was dark when I woke up. I looked at my watch and saw it was just after eight in the evening and that I’d slept for several hours. Throwing off the duvet, I went to wash my face with
cold water, and as I did, I remembered what I’d been told by Felix. But before I started to dissect it any further, I realised I was starving, so I threw on a pair of jeans and my hoody and
went downstairs to get something to eat in the restaurant.

As I walked through the lobby, to my surprise, I saw Thom sitting on one of the sofas. He jumped up as soon as he saw me, an expression of concern on his face.

‘Ally, are you all right? I tried to call your room, but your phone was blocked.’

‘Yes . . . Why are you here? We weren’t meant to meet today, were we?’

‘No, but around lunchtime, I opened the front door to a hysterical Felix. My God, Ally, he was actually crying, so I took him inside, fed him some whisky and asked him what on earth was
wrong. He told me that he’d said something to you he shouldn’t have, but that he hadn’t known beforehand you were pregnant. He was frantic about your state of mind. Said
you’d taken yourself off for a walk along the harbour.’

‘Well, as you can see I haven’t thrown myself in. Thom, would it be all right if we carried on this conversation in the restaurant? I’m absolutely ravenous.’

‘Of course. That’s a good sign, anyway,’ Thom said with genuine relief as we found a table and sat down. ‘Then he told me the whole sorry story.’

I peered at him over the top of the menu card that I’d grabbed. ‘And?’

‘Like you, I was obviously very shocked, but Felix was so upset that I actually found myself comforting him. And feeling sorry for him for the first time in my life.’