Painting Naked (Macmillan New Writing) (20 page)

Princess Katherine, fearless heroine of my father’s bedtime stories. Our secret, he said. Don’t tell anyone about her or the magic will vanish.

Sophie was right. My father
did
have someone on the side.

My mother.

Claudia reaches into the folds of her dress, pulls a ring from her pocket. Two tiny pearls inside a twist of gold. A lover’s knot. She lays the ring on my palm. “Your father gave this to Katie the day you were born.”

My father.

Graham Alistair Hunter. He crept around the house in his bedroom slippers. Never raised his voice except the night he broke his toe on the gateleg table. Always helped with the washing up.

A man with two lives. Two women.

I tighten my fist around the ring, bring it to my lips.

With just a few words, Claudia rearranges my childhood. A middle-aged man falls in love with his wife’s younger sister. She’s charming, adventurous. A budding journalist who wants to travel the world with her camera.

“But instead,” Claudia says, “she ends up pregnant with you.”

“Does Sophie know about this?”

Claudia shakes her head. “Only me.”

My anger rises like bile. I scoop a handful of sand, and clutch it so tightly my knuckles turn white. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Let me explain first,” Claudia says. “Then you can be as furious as you want. Okay?”

Slowly, I let sand trickle through my fingers. “Okay.”

“For the first time in her life, Katie was scared,” Claudia says, so softly I have to lean closer. “She wanted an abortion, but Graham and I talked her out of it.”

Shock, like a big bully, shoves me back in my beach chair.

“Jill, I’m so sorry.”

“Give me a minute, okay?”

Claudia pours two cups of wine, gives one to me. I gulp it down without stopping. “Now, remember, this was fifty-three years ago. Society frowned on unmarried mothers back then, so Katie quit her job at the paper and moved to Cornwall.” She looks at me, smiles. “A small cottage on the coast.”

“
Your
cottage?”

“I inherited it from my grandmother. It was still empty, so I told Graham to take Katie down there.”

Holy shit.

“Was I born there?”

She nods. “In the middle of a blizzard. They didn’t get to the hospital till noon the next day.”

Home. Claudia’s cottage on the cliffs. Her bedroom with a view of the sea. Alexandra Forbes, winking and smiling at me. Did my parents love and laugh in that bed? Well, maybe not
that
bed but one just like it with brass spindles and linen sheets, soft pillows and—

I can’t handle this right now.

“What happened to her?” I say.

“Your mother loved the ocean,” Claudia says, turning to look at the water, alive with sailboats and windsurfers, children paddling under the eyes of watchful adults. “She swam all the time, even in bad weather. It drove Graham mad. One day, she was caught by a current. There were rocks. He couldn’t reach her, and she—”

I swallow hard. “Drowned?”

“You were four months old,” Claudia says. “I was scared your father was going to kill himself. If it hadn’t been for you, I think he would have. But, somehow, he pulled himself together and gave his wife an ultimatum: accept Katie’s child, or he’d take the baby and leave.”

If only he had.

“And because Edith was a respectable, married woman and wanted to stay that way, thank you very much, she agreed to Graham’s terms. You became
their
child. Adopted, of course, if anyone was brave enough ask.”

All those years, trying to please a woman I thought was my mother.

Katie’s ring slips onto my finger as if it belongs. “Why didn’t you tell me this years ago?”

“I promised your father I’d keep his secret till you were mature enough to understand.”

“Jeez, Claudia. I’m fifty-three. How much more mature can I get?”

“Age has nothing to do with it.”

“Okay, so why didn’t you tell me last September?”

“Because you weren’t ready.”

“What the hell can change in nine months?”

“You,” Claudia says. “You’ve changed.”

Lizzie called me a nineteen-fifties housewife.

“How?” I ask.

“Love,” she says. “It’s made you softer, kinder. Given you a dimension you didn’t have before. You glow, like Katie did, from the inside. You know what it’s like for a man and woman to love one another to the point where nothing else matters. You didn’t feel that way about Richard, did you?”

“No,” I say. “Not even close.”

“Or anyone else?”

I shake my head.

“So you see,” Claudia goes on, “you’d never have understood the depth, the intensity of your parents’ love till you experienced it for yourself. And now that you have, well—” She raises her face to the sun, smiles at a memory only she can see. “Watching Katie and Graham was like seeing both ends of the same rainbow.”

Down by the water a young woman with blond hair bends to pick up a toddler. “Do you have a picture of my mother?”

“I’ll give it to you later.” Claudia hesitates. “About Edith.”

Aunt
Edith.

“Next time you’re in England, go and see her.”

My God, she’s still alive. “You know where she is?”

“In a nursing home and still bitter about the past.”

“You’ve seen her?”

“I visit once in a while.” Claudia scoops a handful of sand, lets it trickle between her fingers. “It’s time for you to forgive her, let go of that anger.”

“Forgive?”

“Edith did her best. I don’t condone the way she treated you, but it can’t have been easy. You were a constant reminder of her husband’s infidelity.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” I say.

Later that evening, after Sophie goes to bed, I study the photograph Claudia has given me. It’s a close-up, thank goodness. Not one of those awkward shots with more background than people. The colors have faded but I can still make out my mother’s cobalt blue eyes and my father’s golden hair, just like my two boys. And me, a solemn-faced infant wearing a long dress and a ridiculous lace bonnet.

“You may keep the picture,” Claudia says.

“I’ll restore it and send you a copy.”

Claudia draws her hand across Zachary’s fur. He’s snuggled between us, snoring, oblivious. “Tell me,” she says. “Why haven’t we met Lizzie?”

My stomach curls into knots. “We had a fight.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Five minutes later, she’s nodding, understanding how I feel. How Lizzie feels. “Remember how devastated Sophie was when you left England and married Richard without telling her?”

I should’ve expected this. “Yes.”

“And then the baby? You didn’t tell her about that either.” Claudia fixes me with a look that reminds me of Lizzie. “At least, not until it was all over.”

“Point taken.”

“Lizzie will come around, eventually,” Claudia says. “Right now, she’s hurt because you didn’t trust her with the truth.”

“What should I do?”

“Keep calling, even if she cuts you off. Let her know you still care.” Claudia smiles at me. “The way you did with my daughter. It took you, what? Two years to convince her?”

Two years?

Will it take me
that
long to win Lizzie back?

On Monday, I drive Sophie and Claudia to the airport, full of mixed emotions about saying goodbye. I don’t want them to leave. On the other hand, I need time to think, to mull over what Claudia’s told me; I also need to scare up enough courage to open the box she left on my back porch with instructions not to look inside until after she and Sophie had gone.

“Have fun in Hawaii,” I say, when we reach the security gate. “I’ll need a detailed report when you get back to London.”

“You can have that right now,” Sophie says. “I’m going to lie on a beach and drink mai tais while my mother—”

“Paints wildlife?”

Claudia winks at me. “Surfers and beach bums.”

“Just don’t bring any of them home,” Sophie says.

I hear the phone as I pull into my driveway. Four rings, then Colin’s voice, ragged and harsh, talking to my answering machine. “Jilly, I took my—”

I sprint inside, grab the receiver. “What’s wrong?”

“I took Meggie to the vet this morning.”

“Oh, no. I’m so sorry.” I throw my purse on the table and flop into a chair. Zachary jumps onto my lap and I hug him so hard he leaps off again.

“I had to let her go,” Colin says, sounding bruised. “I held her paw while we said goodbye.”

“You’re a whole lot braver than me,” I say, and remember the look of anguish on a woman’s face when she raced into the vet’s waiting room last fall while I was there with Zachary for his annual shots. She was cradling a tiny terrier wrapped in a quilt. The dog had a grizzled nose and milky eyes and its owner was so blinded by tears she knocked over a rack of pamphlets about flea control in her rush to reach the vet’s office. I shed a few tears of my own when she emerged a few minutes later, wiping her eyes with the quilt and clutching a small empty collar.

Colin keeps talking and so do I, treading on one another’s words because our connection has that irritating, long-distance delay like one of those low-budget films where the sound track is two beats behind the script. We both speak at once, then stop, unsure whose turn it is next. I’m desperate to explain about my parents.

“Colin, I have something to tell you, but—”

“About us?”

“No, it’s my—”

I hear someone’s voice. A woman, calling out to Colin.

“Then I’ll watch out for your estimate,” he says, and hangs up.

Dammit, I wonder who I’m supposed to be this time? The guy from the brewery or the builder Colin’s hired to renovate the barn? I know he has to pretend he’s talking to someone else but—

Oh, what’s the use. No sense agonizing over this. He’ll tell Shelby when he’s ready and not before.

“This was your mother’s,” Claudia had said, placing a brown cardboard box on my coffee table. “Graham gave it to me the day of her funeral. He didn’t want Edith to find it.”

“What’s in it?”

“Letters, mostly.”

“Did you read them?”

“Your father invited me to, but I couldn’t. They’re a part of Katie that belonged to him. And now, to you.” She drew me into her arms and I smelled lavender, felt the softness of her lips as she kissed my forehead.

She wiped her eyes. “But I did look through her photos and sketches.”

“Sketches?”

“Katie was brilliant with pen and ink. Charcoal, as well,” Claudia said. “Despite what you think, I didn’t teach you to draw. You inherited that skill from your mother.”

My mother, the artist. A woman I don’t know. All I have are Claudia’s memories, a box of photos and letters. It’s not enough. I feel cheated. My father should’ve taken me away from Edith and brought me up by himself. He should’ve told me the truth. So should Claudia. Anger at them both burns a hole in my throat. Scalds my tongue. I swallow hard. This must be how people feel when they find out they’re adopted.

My stomach heaves and I race for the bathroom, but nothing spews up except bile. I spit, brush my teeth, spit again and look in the mirror, half expecting to see one of those black-and-white masks where one side smiles and the other cries.

Didn’t anyone consider
my
feelings?
My
needs?

Bloody hell.

I’ve spent the last fifty years wishing for a different mother and now I’ve got my wish, I don’t know what to do with it.

Yes, you do. Open the box.

Don’t be such a wimp.

Gently, I lift the lid. Brown paper flakes off and lands like giant freckles on my knees. Two bundles of envelopes, tied with frayed satin ribbon, lie on top of photos and drawings. I’ll cope with these first. Less painful than reading old letters.

Scattered among snapshots of wildflowers and beaches, I find sketches of harbors and fishing boats, seagulls, an abandoned tin mine. Lighthouses.

He couldn’t reach her, and she drowned.

Waves of sadness sweep up my throat, fill my eyes, and I cry till my belly aches from crying. Zachary sidles up and leaps onto my lap. His solid, purring presence is a comfort. I touch the yellowed envelopes, dry and brittle like the paper-thin skin of a very old woman. The ribbons have etched shallow grooves in the bundles, and each is addressed in two different hands. One is my father’s familiar scrawl; the other, more formal and slightly oblique, could be my own.

I untie the knots and begin to read.

Sands Point

July 2011

Dusk has fallen by the time I finish, and I almost miss the last letter, wedged beneath a layer of cardboard I’d assumed was the bottom of the box. I ease the fragile blue paper from its hiding place. Katie’s writing. Another note to my father, dated June 9th. Three months after I was born.

Except, it’s not to my dad.

Laughing through my tears, I gulp and try to catch my breath. I wipe my eyes and read my mother’s letter, over and over, till I know every precious word by heart.