Mindsight (25 page)

What Lorna had told me was true, I knew that, although I’d never for a moment suspected it before. Yet, knowing it was true didn’t help me to take it in, or to understand.

Why had my father – my real father – deceived me for all those years? I could hardly believe Mum had been fooled, and even if he thought she was, what had stopped him telling me when she died?

It was obvious too that his affair with Lorna was one of many. He was an adulterer and a liar and, if Lorna was right, it was only the awareness of his own mortality that had prompted him to consider coming clean.

I had so many questions and now there would never be any answers. My real mother was not the Romanian peasant I’d imagined all these years and I felt further away from knowing about her than ever. What a bastard he was. And this was my real flesh and blood. Right now I hated him.

I stood, almost upending the plastic table so that the gull was thrown, squawking, into the air. I wanted to scream and kick and hit out at something, someone – anyone. The expression on my face and my clenched hands must have betrayed my thoughts, because a young couple coming out onto the terrace exchanged wary glances and carried their tray to the farthest corner.

Walking on the grass a moment later, my fists still clenching and unclenching, I asked myself if the kind of helpless fury I felt would have been enough to make me do something desperate. What was it the detective had said?
You were upset. Did you take something to keep
you
cheerful?
My answer was still the same one I had given her then,
no, no I wouldn’t have
. But how could I be sure?

It was as I travelled down on the funicular that it happened again. A sudden flicker of sunlight through the window of the little carriage was all it took.

And I was that Clare again.

Not fighting with the steering wheel this time, but standing, staring into the dark. To one side I could feel a terrible heat that stung my skin. And I could hear the crackle of something, too, something I couldn’t turn to see. What I did see, were the two dim shapes ahead. And I could feel my throat straining to force out some kind of sound; to scream at them for help.

My head banged hard on the wooden frame of the funicular window. We’d come to a stop halfway down the slope, with the other carriage, the twin of the one I sat in, right next to us on its way up. A little girl, kneeling on her seat, her face pressed to the glass, waved at me and somehow I managed to wave back.

As we moved off again I forced myself not to think. I had to get home first.

Back at the flat, I sat facing the window, but aware of nothing outside. Two figures: that’s what I’d seen. Two people watching me as I stood, feeling, and hearing those flames. None of it was clear. There was a haze all around me and inside me too. Whether it was smoke, or the shock, or the drugs roiling through my veins I didn’t know. But I was still certain I had seen two figures and I’d tried to shriek to them for help before the dark overwhelmed me.

Hillier said he arrived when I was already collapsed on the ground. So the two people couldn’t be him and Jacob Downes. Unless he was lying; unless they were both lying.

But what was the point of struggling to remember? Whatever Hillier and Downes could tell me, Lorna had told me the one thing that mattered; the reason I’d taken those pills.

I poured myself a tumbler of the vodka I’d bought on the way home and began to drink.

It was ten in the morning when I opened my eyes from a deep, dreamless sleep and lay in peace for a few moments before my head started to thump and I remembered.
You are your father’s real daughter. If he told you that night, it could have pushed you over the edge.

Yesterday I was convinced she was right, but now I couldn’t believe it. Surely even that wouldn’t have sent me back to drugs? But I’d promised Tom the truth and I would have tell him. What would he think; what would it do to him? And to Alice, too.

When I’d had some coffee and a couple of aspirins, I called her mobile, asking her to ring me urgently. Ten minutes later, she was on the phone. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, but I need to see you as soon as possible.’

A pause. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘No, not really. Nothing for you to worry about anyway.’

‘Well, I’m only working this morning. So do you want to meet for lunch somewhere?’

‘I’d rather come to you, if you don’t mind. I’ll get the train and bring some food.’

‘OK. You’ve got your key so let yourself in and I’ll see you about half one.’

As I put down the phone I marvelled at how normal I’d been able to sound.

*

When I arrived at Beldon House, I made sandwiches and cut the cake I had brought. Then I took a big plaid blanket from the sofa in the living room and laid it under one of the old trees in the garden. Alice’s key sounded in the door as I was putting ice cubes into a jug.

I didn’t wait for her and was already sitting under the tree with the picnic spread out in front of me when she came into the garden, pulling off her jacket and smiling. ‘What’s wrong with the table?’ she asked.

It was hard to keep back the tears so I looked down, gesturing to the blanket. ‘This is how we used to have picnics. Don’t you remember?’

She sat beside me kicking off her shoes. ‘You’ve done egg and cress sandwiches, and that’s not lemon barley water, is it?’

My voice wobbled. ‘Of course.’

‘Oh, Clare.’ She pulled me to her. She was very warm and smelled faintly of antiseptic. This was my sister, my real flesh and blood, and somewhere deep inside I had always known it.

She reached for a sandwich. ‘Mmm, haven’t had egg and cress for so long.’

I hadn’t expected to be able to eat, but now I was hungry. We ate and drank in silence for a while, but when she took a long drink and leaned back against the tree, I knew I had to speak.

‘I went to see Lorna yesterday and she told me something. Something unbelievable.’ My tone must have startled Alice because she raised herself on her knees, as if ready to jump up, and bumped her drink down on the grass beside her so quickly that it tipped over.

I told her then, as plainly as Lorna had told me. She looked away for a long moment. ‘Alice?’

She spoke without turning. ‘I’m all right. Tell me the rest. Everything she said.’

There wasn’t much, and when I’d finished her face was pale. ‘I don’t know what to say. That changes everything, doesn’t it?’

We went back inside, neither of us speaking, and I made coffee while Alice loaded the dishwasher. By the time we were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table she looked herself again. ‘Can you believe it?’ she said. ‘That he kept up the lie for so long, I mean. He was … well I don’t know what to call him.’

‘A lying, adulterous bastard?’ I said. ‘That’s the best I’ve come up with.’

A tiny laugh. ‘Yes that’ll do.’

We both sipped our coffee and I tried to catch her eye, but she was staring out into the garden. ‘I wonder if Mum guessed?’ she said.

‘That’s something we can never know. Like so much else.’

‘It was awful when you went away.’ She was still gazing out, the sunlight making her squint. ‘I was, what, ten, and you were the centre of my world, my big sister. At first I kept asking Mum where you were, when you were coming back, and she just said to ask Dad. Of course, he was never here, so it was hopeless. Then the odd times you did come home you were so different. I remember you smelled bad, and your hair looked awful, and you just stayed in your room.’

I swallowed. She’d never said any of this before.

‘I used to save up things to tell you, but you never wanted to speak to me.’

Although so much of that time was a blur for me, her words brought back a sudden memory. Little Alice, holding a plant pot and standing outside my bedroom door as I opened it. ‘Look, Clare, do you like my sunflower, I’m going to grow the tallest one in my class.’ That was what she said, or something like it, but I just pushed her out of the way, needing to get to the bathroom.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, years too late.

She hardly seemed to hear. ‘Dad was away more and more, and Mum’s good days happened less and less often. If she wasn’t depressed, she was angry. Anything seemed to set her off and I remember her saying, more than once, that I was behaving just like you.’

‘So maybe she did guess we were really sisters. Poor Mum.’ I reached over and touched her arm. ‘And poor you.’

‘She was never as hard on me as she used to be on you, but I had to be so careful not to upset her and I was scared every time I came home from school.’ Her fears had been justified, because, one day, she did find our mother unconscious and she died that night.

The silence stretched and finally Alice sighed and picked up our mugs. As she put them in the dishwasher she seemed to shake herself, and when she spoke her voice was lighter. ‘But that’s all in the past. This is nothing to be miserable about. We’re real sisters after all and that’s wonderful. I just wish we’d known it all those years ago.’

She came to sit next me, her hand gripping mine and we were quiet for a while. Then she said, ‘But I suppose it answers the question about what happened that night. I mean if he was as stupid as to drop a bombshell like that, without preparing you, it must have been an enormous shock.’

‘I know.’ I moved to stand half out of the French windows, leaning on the door jamb. ‘And I’ve got to find a way to tell Tom.’

She twisted towards me. ‘I was going to talk to you about him anyway. I’ve been worried about the way he’s going overboard with this accident stuff, so I spoke to my psychiatrist friend. To be honest, I think she feels we’ve made a mess of it so far.’

‘I have, you mean.’

‘No, both of us. Like you said at the start, I should have worked harder to make him see there was no point in thinking about what happened in the past. Should have talked to him more about the future. And I certainly shouldn’t have let him watch that bloody miscarriage of justice TV programme. Though how I could have stopped him from seeing it at Mark’s I don’t know.’

She stood and went to the fridge. ‘The lemon barley water was lovely, Clare, but I think this calls for something a bit stronger.’ She poured us both a glass of white wine and we took them out to the table on the patio.

After the half bottle of vodka I’d drunk the night before the wine didn’t tempt me, but Alice took a long drink then ran her fingers through her hair and shook her head. ‘I thought we were doing so well.’

My head thumped again and the sunshine seemed to bore into my skull. It wasn’t her fault and here she was taking the blame. ‘I’m the one who should have dealt with it and it’s up to me to try to help Tom accept this. I just wish I knew how.’

‘Well, Emma, my friend, said we should go gently with him. Be as honest as we can, but don’t burden him with too much all at once. Above all, we need to show a united front to help him come to terms with it.’

It made sense and we agreed I’d stay and see Tom in the evening and take the first steps towards telling him the truth.

‘It’s not going to be easy.’

‘He’ll understand, Clare. I’m sure he will. He’s begun to know you again – the real you – and he loves you so much.’

‘Does he?’

‘Oh yes.’

For a moment, we looked at each other, and Alice took my hand again. ‘It’s going to be all right. We’ll get through this together, you, me, and Tom,’ she whispered. Then she leaned over and kissed my cheek. ‘And thanks for the picnic, big sister. It was perfect.’

Chapter Twenty

We were in the kitchen when Tom burst through the front door, his face shining and pink. He was wearing his P.E. kit and trainers. His rucksack bounced on his back, the zip gaping wide, and he brought with him the unmistakable odour of steamy school changing rooms. The door slammed behind him as he beamed at me. ‘Hey, Mum, didn’t know you were coming.’

He shrugged off his rucksack, narrowly missing the copper vase on the hall table, and throwing open the fridge to pour a glass of orange juice. Alice raised her eyebrows at me.

‘Before you do anything else, upstairs and in the shower,’ she said.

He turned to her. ‘All right, cool it will you, let me talk to my mum first.’

My breath caught in my throat and I looked from his face – so certain I was on his side – to Alice. She flushed and I said, ‘Please do as Alice says, Tom.’

He stared at me for a long minute, his grey eyes sparking anger, his mouth set but betrayed by a tiny wobble from his chin. I had no idea what I’d do if he defied me. Then he turned away and slouched towards the stairs.

‘Okaaay, be like that. I just had something important to tell you, that’s all.’

When he’d gone, Alice gave a huge sigh and shook her head, looking at me with clouded eyes.

‘Is he often like this?’ I said.

‘Not often, but more and more lately.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Well, he’s a teenager, so a bit of rebellion is only to be expected. You’ll have to be prepared for that when he comes to live with you again.’

My heart gave a small skip at her use of the word
when
, but that wasn’t the issue now. ‘What can I do to help?’

‘Just what you did then – back me up. My divorced friends tell me it’s the kind of thing they get all the time – playing one parent off against the other.’

Tom took a long time with his shower. Alice had some paperwork to do, andI got things ready for a spaghetti bolognaise. The glass of wine I hadn’t fancied earlier seemed very attractive now and I was onto my second, and back at the kitchen table pretending to read the paper, by the time Tom appeared in jeans, bare feet, and a T-shirt, his damp hair sticking up in spikes. I tried to keep my face neutral.

He shuffled from foot to foot. ‘Sorry.’

‘You should say that to Alice, not me.’

‘OK.’ I heard him speaking quietly in her little office and her answering, ‘All right, that’s fine then. Go and tell your mum what was so important.’

I tried to look interested, although I could hardly focus on anything for the voice in my head telling me to get it over with and explain what Lorna had said.