Plan B (23 page)

I smiled, but without any joy. ‘Still am. That’s why Matt thought he’d get away with buggering off and sending me a crappy letter.’

‘You know, every year I’d ask you if you wanted a photo of your mother and you’d always say no.’

‘Is that an offer?’

‘If you want.’

‘I think so.’ I was ashamed of the fact that I had no idea what my mother had looked like. I was even more ashamed of the fact that until an hour ago I’d had no interest in knowing.

‘There’s something else, too.’ Christa got up. ‘I think we could both do with another drink, don’t you? Make it a strong one.’ She left the room. I half filled our glasses with gin, and topped them up with tonic. Then I added ice and lemon, and opened the snacks cupboard. This was always filled with crisps, biscuits and nuts. Now that we had all left home, it was Geoff’s domain. I smiled at the idea of Geoff’s online chess. I opened two packets of crisps and tipped them into bowls. Christa’s story went round and round my head. I pictured myself, Alice’s age, circling my mother’s body. Somewhere inside, I had already known that. Although I had no memories of it, the image was somehow familiar. I recognised it. And although it was devastating to face it, facing it was essential. Something inside me had just come back to life.

When Christa came back in, I was circling the room, thinking about nothing, unable to keep still. She motioned me to sit down, and handed me a photograph in a frame.

‘I got this done for you twenty-seven years ago,’ she said with a little smile. ‘I put it in your room when you were three. Geoff found it half buried in the garden a week later. Here you are. Better late than never.’

I stared at the woman in the picture. This was my mother. My dead mother. I was looking at my past, at Alice’s grandmother. She was smiling broadly. She looked like me, and like Alice, and a bit like Christa. The picture was of her head and shoulders. She was outside, with trees behind her, and her eyes were slightly screwed up against the sun. I propped it up in front of me.

‘What was the other thing?’ I asked, without taking my eyes off it.

‘Here.’ Christa looked worried as she passed me an envelope. ‘Sarah gave me this a couple of months before she died. She was very rational at the time, very stable, and her condition was scaring her. She asked me to look after you if anything happened to her, and to give you this when you asked about her.’ Christa looked at me. ‘I expected to be giving it to you when you were about thirteen, not thirty. I have no idea what it says. I hope it’s helpful.’

I took the envelope, my hand shaking. Christa’s hand, I noticed, was shaking too. The last thing I had ever expected was a letter from my mother. I looked at my name.
Emma
. The handwriting was unfamiliar.

‘God,’ I said, inadequately. I took a large gulp of gin before opening it. Inside the envelope was a folded sheet of A4. I spread it out and read it.

Darling Emma,

I swallowed hard. I was aware of Christa looking anxiously at my reactions.

‘You never read it?’ I asked her.

‘No. It wasn’t for me.’

‘Christa? Who’s my father?’

She frowned. ‘I don’t know, darling. You’ve always known that your father was a great unknown.’

I turned the letter round and pushed it towards her. ‘I suppose you’re going to say she was deluded.’ I studied my aunt as she read it. ‘But you just said she wrote this when she was sane.’ Christa twitched a little, and things flickered over her face briefly.

‘I really don’t know,’ she said flatly.

‘Well, if you do, I’d really like it if you’d tell me one day,’ I told her. ‘Just something that might help me find him. Not now. There’s too much else going on now. But one day, when things are settled down. I think a parent might be a good thing to have, however absent.’

She said nothing for a while. Then she stood up.

‘Come on, Emma,’ she said. ‘I’m taking you to Shillibeers.’ She stood at the foot of the stairs and shouted for Geoff. He bounced down, looking at us both anxiously. Shillibeers was the family’s favourite local bar. It had always served as a destination when anyone felt they had to leave the house.

I took my coat and followed Christa and Geoff out of the door. We had a lot to talk about.

Hugh crept out of the marital bed. It had taken Jo ages to fall asleep, but her breathing had been regular for fifteen minutes now. He had timed it on the bedside clock radio. Now it was probably safe for him to tiptoe downstairs. He had nothing particular to do downstairs. He just wanted to be by himself. He had been by himself today, supposedly working from home, avoiding Emma’s family. He would be by himself tomorrow for the same reason.

As his foot touched the wooden floor, he held his breath. He stood up, hearing the mattress creak as his weight left it. He reached for his pyjamas.

‘You didn’t think I was asleep?’ she said in a clear, high voice.

‘I hoped you were getting some sleep,’ he told her evenly. ‘You need some rest.’

‘We all do.’

Hugh sat down beside her. ‘Jo, I can’t tell you enough how sorry I am that the situation developed. I don’t know what I can do. I never meant it to happen.’

She turned away. ‘I know you didn’t. You were weak. I can’t get over how weak you were.’

‘But,’ he said, ‘you’re going to have to get over it if we’re going to have a chance.’

‘I know.’

He sat down on the side of the bed and reached out to stroke her hair. She pulled back and rolled over.

I didn’t try to sleep. I sat at the kitchen table with my mother’s photograph standing in front of me, and her letter spread out before it. I picked a couple of flowers from the garden and put them on either side of her image, making a little altar. I looked at her. She had been younger, when she died, than I was now. And I had been just slightly older, when she died, than Alice was now. I had been grieving for her all this time without realising it. I had been bitterly angry with her. I had thought I was getting on with my life, when I wasn’t. I had always felt rejected. I had always known that my position was fourth, after Bella, Charlotte and Greg. I had always wanted to be somebody’s most beloved person. I had stupidly assumed I had achieved that with Matt. Now I knew that the only bond you could be sure of was the bond between a mother and her child.

I had been Sarah’s most beloved person for three years and two months. And I decided that, despite the abrupt ending, that meant something. I was Alice’s most beloved person and she was mine. I missed her so much that it hurt.

I was not sure how I would be able to function if the worst had happened with Matt. I wanted to curl up and be a little girl again. I wanted to move back into my old bedroom in Holloway. I wanted to find the cottage in Hampshire and dance on the Cornish cliffs with flowers in my hair. I did not want to be a responsible adult and make the kind of decisions that I knew were facing me.

I needed to track Matt down. Together we would be able to work out what had gone wrong and I could explain everything that I had discovered about Sarah. He would understand. He, in turn, would tell me about his family and we would start again with no secrets. I supposed I must have been irritating with all that eager sweetness. I knew that Matt was the one for me and that, whatever had gone wrong, we could fix our relationship and make it stronger and better. Matt and Alice were my future. I would do whatever it took to sort that out. That was what I thought when I was feeling optimistic. At other times, I looked deep into the chasm that had opened up before me.

I made a pot of coffee. The smell mingled with the indecipherable smells of the house, the smells I had grown up with. I had no idea what it was that made this house smell like home. Perhaps it was some laundry, some food, Christa’s handcream. I walked from room to room, disconcerted by the light that shone round the curtains all night long. The orange of the street light outside made a stripe on the sitting-room floor. It was odd to be away from Alice, but comforting to be in the house where I had grown up. If it hadn’t been for Alice, I would have stayed in that house until I felt ready to leave. I would have curled up there for months. But I didn’t live there any more. My life and my daughter were in France. I needed to keep going.

As the sun rose, I put on Christa’s boots and walked into the garden to look at the dirty smudge of pink in the dark grey sky. I was worn out and confused and strangely elated. I expected to wake up, at any moment, in Pounchet, with Alice climbing on top of me and Matt beside me.

I considered my options for the day ahead. I was certainly not going to mess around any more. I could go back to Matt’s office and get the receptionist to tell me whether he was in the building. I could wait in the foyer until he arrived. But he would never arrive. Christa and Geoff were supposed to be flying to France today, to see me. I had asked them to go, without me. They had refused.

At quarter to seven in the morning, I had a breakthrough. I was remembering the humiliation of walking into his building, and skulking while Charlotte breezily asked the security guard to phone his extension. I remembered looking around, marvelling at surroundings that must have been familiar to Matt, and which were completely strange to me. I recalled once suggesting that I could bring Alice into the office to see him, when she and I had been visiting Christa and Geoff. Matt put me off, saying he was too busy. I wondered what his real reasons had been, and how long whatever it was had been going on.

I remembered the admiring look the man had given Charlotte. Even tarted up, he had not noticed me. Then I remembered him mentioning that there was a Hugo Smith on the same extension number.

People don’t share telephone extensions. Not at a company like BB Johnson.

Peter’s surname was Smith, too, and I had never thought anything of it. Matt had joked about their shared name, said they must have been related generations ago. But it was not Pete who was listed on that same phone number. Pete did not work there. It was someone called Hugo.

I remembered the woman, Jo, who had called by, lost, in France. Her husband had been called Hugh. She said she had sent him texts from my house, but we had no reception there.

I tried to remember whether I had ever seen Matt’s passport. The house and everything else were in my name. He had never registered with the French health service. I had never seen an official document of his. This had never struck me as strange, because I had never realised it before. Matt had never made a big deal out of not showing me his passport. On the few occasions we had travelled together, he would simply take mine and Alice’s, and give them to passport control together. I had never been the type of person who makes a big issue out of seeing passport photos.

I had owned my house in Brighton, and he had insisted that I should buy the house in France, as sole purchaser. He had said it was simpler that way. He was left out of the buying and selling process entirely.

Things had become very strange the morning after Jo had stayed with us. Matt had retired back to bed. I thought he was being rude, except that he really did look ill. Jo had rushed off with Olly without even staying for breakfast.

The thing that really stuck in my brain was Oliver. He had had that competitive little exchange with Alice over whose daddy was in the picture. I remembered his voice saying, ‘My daddy!’ On the one hand, that is the kind of nonsensical thing that toddlers say.

On the other hand.

I was not sure what was happening, but things were adding up in an unexpected way. I kept thinking things through, trying to find something that would prove that my thoughts were the ramblings of a shocked and sleep-deprived brain. I could not find the conclusive proof that I was wrong.

I must already have had the suspicion. That was why it was rushing to the fore now. It was as good an explanation as any. I slipped upstairs, to my childhood bedroom, and switched on my mobile phone. Jo’s number was in there.

I did not phone her. I would have had no idea what to say to her.

Hello, remember me? Is your husband called Hugo? My husband shares a telephone at work with someone of that name. Did you ever hear of anyone sharing a work phone?

She would have thought I was mad, and she would have been right.

Instead, I switched on Geoff’s computer and searched around on the internet until I found a site which offered what I wanted. I had to pay for the service, which I did, happily, with my Visa card. I typed in the telephone number. An address came up. I copied it carefully onto a piece of paper, sent it as a text message to myself, and looked it up in Geoff’s London A-Z and circled it with a pen. I did not want to take any chances. Then I lay on my single bed, with its ancient pink duvet, and drifted off to sleep.

I woke at half past ten. Weak sunlight was edging round the magenta curtains. I turned my head and was surprised to see the photograph of my mother beside my bed. I almost felt that she was a new friend. She was not older than me, not in any meaningful sense. I was older than my mother. If she were alive today, she would have been fifty-four. As it was, she would always be twenty-six.