A Half Forgotten Song (55 page)

“Do you want me to come with you?” he said.

“No, there’s no need. Stay with Dimity. Look at the pictures,” she said in an odd tone of voice.

“Okay. See you when you get back, then.”

“I’ll be back as soon as they’re away. An hour and a half or so. We’ll talk then.” She turned and walked back to the car, and Ilir appeared in front of him.

Zach waited nervously to hear what the Roma man would say. His jaw still ached from the punch he’d been given the night before. Instinctively, he put up his hand to rub it, and felt how tender the bruise was. Ilir smiled slightly.

“I’m sorry for punching you, Zach,” he said. “But you understand, I was very afraid.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“No, I must. You have helped us . . . I am grateful.” Ilir’s face was tired and bruised, but he looked happier than Zach had ever seen him. A radiant kind of inner peace, as though the absence of his wife and child had always gnawed at him; a nagging pain that was now gone, in spite of the precariousness of their situation.

“Please. It was the least I could . . . I’m glad they’re safe.” He offered his hand to shake and Ilir took it and pulled him into a brief, rough embrace. They’d had no time to wash or change, and the man still wore the stink of last night’s stress and turmoil.

“Ilir, come on. We haven’t got time,” Hannah called from the car.

“Be kind to her,” said Ilir, in a low voice. “Now I am gone . . . she seems strong but she needs people. More than she will admit. She will need your friendship now I am gone. She is difficult sometimes, but she is a good woman.”

“I know,” said Zach. “Good luck.” Ilir clapped him on the shoulder, nodded, then turned and climbed into the passenger seat. With a cough of blue diesel smoke, they were gone.

Zach waited on the step for a while, sweeping his gaze to take in the view from the watery horizon to the green swell of the ridge inland. Part of him was desperate to go back upstairs and look through all the pictures again; start making some notes on subject and tone. But he hesitated, startled to find that it didn’t feel right to, not with Hannah gone and Dimity so upset. The pictures, however intently he had hunted them down, did not belong to him. And there was something else on his mind, something that Hannah’s revelation about her grandmother had made him think about. He waited for a while, chewing his lip as he thought, trying to tell himself it didn’t matter. But it did, there was no denying it. He went upstairs on soft feet.

“Dimity?” he called. He’d last seen her the night before, huddled by the doorway of the small empty bedroom where Charles Aubrey had lived, but she wasn’t there now. Zach knocked gently on the door of the other bedroom and peeped through it. “Are you awake?” he said softly. There was no answer from the small figure curled on the bed. Her knees were pulled up in front of her, her hands clasped to her stomach in their grubby red mittens. Seeing them, Zach felt a sudden tug of affection for the old woman, and admiration, too. Few people could have protected a secret with such steady faith, and such success, for so many years. He thought back over all the hours he’d spent talking to Dimity, studiously recording her tales of Charles Aubrey from the 1930s, when all the time she’d been guarding this huge and unimaginable truth. She’d always seemed to be holding something back; always seemed half afraid of letting something slip, or giving away too many clues. It must have loomed large in her mind. Dimity didn’t answer his call, and her breathing was soft and even, but as Zach retreated he had the strongest feeling that she was not sleeping.

Z
ach avoided talking to Pete Murray as much as he could, even though the publican was keen to gossip about the police presence in the village the night before. Zach shrugged and denied all knowledge. He was impatient to be moving, to see the one person who could settle something that was clamoring for his attention, louder all the time. On the two-hour drive north, he fought to concentrate on the road. He rehearsed in his head what he would say, how he would finally find out, once and for all, a truth that had been deliberately veiled all his life.

His grandmother lived in a tiny Victorian almshouse in a market town near Oxford. Neat little brick and flint cottages, joined together in a U-shape around an immaculate lawn carefully fenced from wandering feet. The last of the late-season roses showed their faded colors in the borders. Zach gave his name to the warden and made his way to the middle of the terrace. He knocked and opened the door, to save his grandma the trouble of getting up.

“Hello, Granny,” he said, and she stared at him with a small frown, smiling only when he bent to kiss her cheek.

“Dear boy,” she said, clearing her throat. “How sweet of you to come. Which one are you?”

“I’m Zach, Granny. I’m your grandson. David’s son.” At the mention of his father’s name, his grandma smiled with more conviction.

“Of course you are. You look just like him. Sit down, sit down. I’ll make some tea.” She began to struggle out of her chair, her thin arms wobbling as they deployed two walking canes.

“I’ll get it, Granny. You stay put.”

From the tiny kitchenette, Zach studied his grandma. It had been four months since he’d seen her last, and she seemed less substantial every time. A wisp of a woman, her hair like the ghost of the curls she’d once had, her body the bare bones of what was once a neat, vigorous figure. Here she was, fading by degrees every day, and he had been too caught up in his own troubles to notice. With a prickle of guilt, he realized that he should have brought Elise to visit before she went to America. He vowed to do so, without fail, the next time his daughter was in the U.K. He could only hope that his grandma would be alive to see her, but it seemed highly likely. She was frail, but her eyes were bright. Zach took in the tea, and they chatted about family and his work for ten minutes or more.

“Well, go on and ask me,” she said, after a silence had fallen between them. Zach glanced up at her.

“Ask you what, Granny?” She fixed him with those bright eyes and looked amused.

“Whatever it is you’re so desperate to ask. I can see it hanging over you like a cloud.” She smiled at his guilty expression. “Don’t worry, dear. I don’t mind why you’ve come to visit, it’s just lovely that you have.”

“I’m sorry about this, Granny. But I need to ask about . . . about Charles Aubrey.” He’d thought she might smile, or blush, or get that happy, secretive look in her eye, like she’d always used to, but instead she sat farther back in her chair, and seemed to sink slightly, to retreat from him.

“Ah,” she said.

“You see, when I was little, it always seemed to be hinted at . . . to be suggested that perhaps . . . Charles Aubrey was actually my grandfather.” Zach’s pulse quickened. Putting this long-thought but never spoken thing into words felt outrageous.

“Yes, I know,” was all she said. Her expression was troubled, and Zach wondered about that. Her husband, Zach’s grandfather, had died eleven years previously. The truth could no longer hurt him.

“Well, I’ve been down in Blacknowle these past few weeks—”

“Blacknowle? You’ve been in Blacknowle?” she interrupted him.

“Yes. I’ve been trying to find out more about Aubrey’s life and work there.”

“And have you?” She leaned forwards in her chair, eagerly.

“Oh, yes. That is . . .” Zach hesitated. He’d been about to blurt out everything he’d found. But he couldn’t, he knew. The secret that Dimity had kept so carefully for a whole lifetime could not be so casually betrayed. Not even to another woman who’d loved Aubrey all her life. “I’ve found something down there. Something that makes it very important for me to know . . . to know whether or not I am actually a descendant of Charles Aubrey. Whether I am his grandson, or not.”

The old woman sat back again, and crimped her lips together. Her bony hands clasped the arms of her chair, and in the overheated room Zach felt sweat prickling under his arms. He waited, and for a while it seemed like he wasn’t going to get an answer. His grandmother’s eyes were looking into the past, just like Dimity Hatcher’s did, but eventually she spoke.

“Charles Aubrey. Oh, he was wonderful. There’s no way you can know, now, how wonderful he was.”

“I can see how wonderful his pictures were,” said Zach.

“Any fool can see that. But you would have to have met him, to have known him, to really know—”

“But don’t you see,” said Zach, feeling a sudden rush of irritation. “Don’t you see what that did to Grandpa? And to my dad?” His grandma blinked, and frowned at him a little. “My father, your son David, grew up with a father who didn’t love him, because he didn’t think he
was
his father!”

“Any decent kind of man would have loved the boy regardless,” she snapped. “I offered to leave him. I offered to take my son and set him free. He wouldn’t have it. The scandal, he said. Always so concerned with what other people thought, he was. Too concerned that we should be respectable to care if we were happy.”

“And were you?”

“Were we what, dear?”

“Were you respectable? Was your husband the father of your son, or was my dad an illegitimate . . . love child?” At this, his grandmother laughed.

“Oh, dear boy! You sound just like your grandpa! So pompous.” She patted his hand. “But I’m impressed that someone, after all these years, has finally got up the courage to actually
ask
me. But what does it matter, now? Try not to dwell on it. Everyone is allowed secrets, especially a woman . . .”

“I have a right to know,” Zach insisted.

“No, you don’t. You grew up with a caring father, and you were well loved and looked after. Why go digging around for something less than that? For something worse than that?”

“Because . . . Because
my
father didn’t grow up with a loving father, did he? He grew up knowing he was never quite good enough. Never quite what was wanted. He grew up as a disappointment, under the shadow of Charles Aubrey!” Zach took a steadying breath. “But that’s not the point. Well, it is the point, but it’s not why I’m here. I’ve met a woman, down in Blacknowle, who
is
related to Aubrey. She’s his great-granddaughter. The granddaughter of Aubrey’s daughter Delphine. Remember her?”

“Delphine? The older girl?” His grandma tipped her head to one side. “I saw them, briefly, from time to time. But I never spoke to them, really. Not to either of his daughters, or to the other one.”

“What other one?”

“The little village girl who used to follow them everywhere.”

“Dimity Hatcher?”

“Was that her name? Quite a beauty, but always dressed in rags and hiding behind her hair. I wondered if she was simple.”

“She wasn’t simple. And she’s still alive,” Zach said, before he could stop himself. “She’s been telling me all about the summers that the Aubreys spent there . . .”

“Has she really? Well, then, you hardly need me to—”

“Granny,
please
. I have to know. This woman that I’ve met . . . Aubrey’s great-granddaughter. It’s . . . very important that I know whether or not we’re related. Whether or not I’m actually Aubrey’s grandson. Please, just tell me. No more hints and shrugs.”

“You mean the pair of you are courting?” she said, with keen intuition. Zach nodded. His grandma’s fingers patted the arms of the chair in agitation. She grasped and released, grasped and released, and her face reflected a powerful dilemma. Zach took a deep breath.

“Well?” he said. The old woman scowled at him.

“Well. If you demand to know, then I shall tell you. And perhaps we shall both be the poorer for it. The answer is no. No. Your grandpa was your grandpa. I never had a love affair with Charles Aubrey.”

“You never even had an affair with him? It was all made up?” Zach was incredulous, and a storm of relief and disappointment blew through him.

“I did not make anything up, young man! We had . . . a liaison. And I loved him. I loved him from the first moment I set eyes on him. And perhaps I would have betrayed your grandpa . . . but Charles wouldn’t have me.” She pressed her lips together again, as if she’d stung herself. “There. I’ve said it, so I hope you’re happy.”

“He . . . turned you down?”

“Yes. He was the more honorable one, in the end. He came and found me in the room above the pub where we’d been staying. I thought he’d come to seduce me! But he’d come to break it off with me. Not that it had really started; just . . . the possibility. Just the enchantment. But he broke it off instead, and broke my heart into the bargain.” She laid her fingertips lightly on her chest, and sighed. “He said that . . . he wasn’t free to take what he wanted. To do what he wanted. He said he’d got into trouble already that summer, for doing just that, and that he had a family to think of.”

“Celeste and the girls . . . and he must have meant Dimity. He must have meant Dimity, when he said he’d been in trouble already. They had an affair, that summer.”

“Dimity? The little village girl? But she was only a child! I can hardly believe he would . . .”

“Perhaps that’s what he meant by ‘trouble.’ ”

“But are you sure, Zach? Are you
sure
they had an affair?”

“She certainly insists that they did,” he said, and his grandma smiled sadly.

“Ah, but don’t you see? So did I. Until today, so did I.”

Z
ach left the almshouses a short while later, promising to return again soon. His grandmother’s words echoed in his head.
So did I
. What did it mean, then? That Dimity hadn’t been having an affair with him, either? But something must have happened for Aubrey to tell his grandmother about it.
Trouble.
That was how he described the love affair that Dimity had been reminiscing about all these weeks? But then, when he went AWOL during the war, it was Dimity he sought out, Dimity he stayed with, all the long years afterwards. Or was it just that Dimity was the only person left? The only person there when Charles got back, damaged and vulnerable and in need of shelter. And then Delphine had come back to live less than a mile away, thinking all the while that her father had been killed in action. Zach’s head ached. Dimity had kept her enormous secret, even from Delphine, the man’s own child. That had been a terrible thing to do. Zach drove with the knuckles of one hand pressed into his lips. And his own family, his father, his grandfather, had lived with a ghost of Aubrey that was only that. A ghost. Nothing real, nothing substantial. Had Aubrey really been so powerful that even the suggestion of him could live on like that? Clearly he had. And Zach’s artistic streak was a quirk of fate, not an inheritance. He felt something slip away from him then, something he’d been holding on to, carefully, for many years. He thought he would miss it, but instead he felt lighter.