Families
Families
NEARLY SEVEN YEARS AFTER HER FIRST ENCOUNTER with Leo in Paris, Ellen finally met his half-brothers. How had it taken so long? Never having lived with them, Leo had confessed to having no real bond when Ellen had expressed a curiosity about them. We get on , he’d said, but there’s a big age difference . We have little in common.
You have a mother in common , Ellen had pointed out – but considering that the mother was ice-cold Marguerite, maybe the lack of brotherly connection was understandable, so she hadn’t pushed him until Juliet’s arrival. They should be part of their niece’s life , she’d said, but it had still taken Leo a long time to issue the invitation for them to spend Christmas in London. They’d invited Marguerite too – they could hardly exclude her – but she’d already made arrangements to spend the day with a newly widowed friend so the boys, Henri, eighteen, and Louis, sixteen, travelled alone.
And right from the start, Ellen warmed to them.
‘ Enchanté ,’ they murmured, brushing her cheeks with shy kisses and presenting her with a bottle of Chanel perfume. ‘Our mother say to us you like,’ Henri said, and blushed and apologised for his poor English, and Ellen told him in French not to worry, her French was also poor, and it broke the ice.
They declared Juliet to be a princess, and gave her a picture book that was written in both languages, and a doll whose name was Madeline in a white dress and bonnet, and they won her over as quickly as they’d won Ellen. She was soon chattering to them in the French Leo used with her – and Ellen, watching, thought, At least she has two lovely uncles, even if she mightn’t see a whole lot of them .
In early January she went shopping in the sales for an outfit for Danny and Bobbi’s wedding. ‘Days will be mild but not hot,’ Danny had said on the phone, ‘and cool in the early morning and evening,’ so she settled on a jade green dress with a matching coat, and said no to the hat the salesperson suggested. A hat might not survive the trip, and she wasn’t sure anyway she had the head for it.
She stood on the pavement outside the boutique. She was less than five minutes’ walk from Covent Garden. In her pocket was a list of London art galleries that she’d photocopied from the Yellow Pages at work. She went into a phone box and began ringing the ones located nearby.
‘May I speak with Iris?’ she said each time her call was answered, and it took five calls.
‘This is Iris,’ a soft voice replied. Ellen opened her mouth and closed it again, suddenly out of words. She hung up quickly and found the gallery, and saw her half-sister inside behind a desk.
‘Good afternoon,’ Iris said brightly at Ellen’s approach – and then her smile slipped into uncertainty as recognition dawned. Her eyes were a striking green, and outlined in black. There were little green studs in her ears. She wore her pale hair in a side ponytail that draped across one shoulder, and a dress the colour of autumn. Her figure was neat. She had a delicate kind of prettiness.
Was there a faint resemblance to their father? Ellen wasn’t sure. ‘I rang just now,’ she said.
‘Yes.’ Calm. Quiet.
‘I didn’t know about you. I didn’t know you existed until that day in the café.’
‘I didn’t know about you either, or your sister, until . . . recently.’
After her mother had died he’d told her. Ellen shifted her bag from one hand to the other. ‘I said to him I didn’t want to keep in touch.’
Iris made no response.
‘I was angry,’ Ellen said. ‘I spoke in anger.’ To her dismay, she felt her eyes filling. She blinked hard.
Iris reached up to touch her ponytail briefly. Her nails were perfect ovals, painted pale pink with white tips.
A sound made them both turn towards the window. A toddler was slapping his hand on the glass: a woman pulled him away and led him off, mouthing an apology.
‘Will you give me his phone number?’
‘Of course.’ Iris scribbled on a notepad and ripped off the page. She knew his number by heart, because she’d grown up in the same house as him. It had been her number too, before she’d moved to London.
Ellen folded the page without looking at it. ‘Thank you.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m not sure when I’ll use it, or . . .’ She trailed off.
Iris nodded. ‘You’d rather I didn’t say anything.’
‘I would, yes. If that’s OK.’
‘Sure.’ She touched the end of her ponytail again. ‘I don’t know if you’d like to, well, meet me sometime?’
Ellen thought about that. ‘Maybe,’ she said, and Iris gave her another number, and the face of her half-sister accompanied her all the way home.
A week before she left for California, Joan rang.
‘Mam was on the phone earlier. She’s not feeling well. She’s been to her doctor and he’s sending her for tests. I thought you’d want to know.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘She has a cough she can’t shake, and no energy. It’s probably nothing.’
‘Right.’
She thought again about telling Joan of the encounter in Finchley, and the existence of Iris. Was she wrong to say nothing? In refusing to keep in touch with him she’d been trying to hurt him, but it had also left her conflicted – and now she had a secret she was keeping from her sister.
She decided to wait until she came back from the wedding and tell Joan then. Maybe. ‘Let me know how the tests go.’
It was cowardly. It was the best she could do.