CHAPTER 55
Joanna
Dorset
When Joanna got back from London, full of excitement about the painting and what she’d discovered about Emmy, Harriet met her at the door of the cottage. Something was going on. Harriet had texted her earlier to find out when she’d be back and she’d sounded more than a little mysterious.
‘Oh, hello, Het,’ she said. ‘What—?’
‘You’re late,’ Harriet hissed. ‘I told you I had something to tell you, someone for you to meet.’ She rolled her eyes and jabbed her index finger in the direction of the front sitting room, the best room, the room that was rarely used.
‘What’s happening?’ Joanna could hear the murmur of voices and Mother’s laughter. There was a different note to it, a note almost of . . . joy. ‘Are you all right, Het?’
‘Yes, yes.’ Harriet’s gaze fell on the painting which Joanna had tucked under her arm. ‘Why on earth did you want me to send that to Sotheby’s anyway?’
‘I’ll tell you later.’ Why were they still standing on the doorstep? Joanna peered past her sister, trying to see who it was that was so important. ‘And I would have got here earlier but the traffic was really heavy.’
‘Traffic?’ Harriet must be very preoccupied – she hadn’t twigged that Joanna hadn’t asked her for a lift from the station this time.
It was great having a car again. Especially a two-seater.
Harriet would say she was being extravagant when she spotted the MX-5, but it was several years old and Martin still had to give her the money for her half of the car they used to share – he’d said he’d do that as soon as the house sale went through.
She’d give Harriet a big chunk of that, she decided, to help with whatever work needed doing on Mulberry Farm Cottage.
If she was going to stay in the West Country, Joanna needed a car. And, ah . . . she was happy to be starting afresh. Flying away from London with the top down and Snow Patrol on high volume had made her feel that anything was possible.
‘But did you find out anything? What’s it worth?’ Harriet’s financial antennae were on red alert.
And then she spotted the car. Joanna had tucked it up next to the old blue tractor but it was bright yellow, sleek and curvy and stood out like a canary in a snowstorm. Her sister made a sort of spluttering noise.
Joanna ignored this. ‘I didn’t take it to get it valued.
’ Though the man at Sotheby’s had suggested it might fetch five hundred pounds at auction.
Not a huge amount. Anyway, Joanna knew she could never sell the painting.
It would always be worth much more to her than money.
‘I wanted to find out the name of the artist,’ she told her sister.
It had been easy too; Geoffrey Boothroyd at Sotheby’s had certain records at his disposal and had been most helpful.
She now knew that Emmy was Emily Selleck (that indecipherable name could have been almost anything beginning with S).
She knew that Emily – or Emmy, as she still preferred to call her – had travelled extensively painting city landscapes – especially bridges – in watercolour, in her teens and early twenties, and that although she had received no formal training, her father – also an artist – had taught her some artistic technique.
She wasn’t sure how or when Emmy had met Rufus, but Joanna now had a booklist and a few leads from Geoffrey that should help her find out. And she might also be able to discover more about Rufus’s end of the story now that she was back in Dorset.
Harriet was still staring at the Mazda. ‘Is that yours?’ she said.
‘Yes.’ Joanna turned around and gave the car a fond smile. As soon as Martin had mentioned the five thousand pounds she knew that what she wanted to do with the money was regain some independence. She’d missed having a car.
Harriet snorted. ‘It’s a bit flash for West Dorset, isn’t it, Jo? However did you—?’
‘Martin. And it’s an awful lot more useful than half a dining table, half a fridge and some crockery,’ Joanna said.
She hadn’t exactly intended to buy a car that was quite so ‘out there’ but she’d seen it advertised and she couldn’t resist. It seemed to suit the new Joanna, the one who was moving on.
At the magic word ‘crockery’, Harriet seemed to be reminded of tea. ‘Come on then.’ She ushered Joanna inside. ‘Hurry up. Come and meet him.’
‘Him?’
‘You’ll see.’ It sounded like the voice of doom.
They entered the front room and there they were. Their mother, Owen, who half rose to his feet when Joanna came in, and the prowler. Harriet’s prowler.
Joanna stared at him. Last time she’d seen him, he’d been struggling to stay on his bike after Harriet had almost mown him down with the pick-up. What on earth was he doing here? Carefully, she propped Emmy’s painting against the wall.
‘Joanna! Darling! Thank goodness you’re back!’ Her mother launched herself from the sofa and enveloped her in a hug. She was wearing a woollen dress of daffodil yellow and she looked very cheerful and, well, different somehow. ‘Does she know?’ she asked Harriet in a theatrical whisper.
‘Not yet.’
‘Know what?’ Joanna kissed her mother’s papery cheek, mouthed ‘hi’ to Owen and edged her way round the coffee table, which was loaded with cheese scones, fruit loaf and tiny ham and cucumber and salmon sandwiches.
Mmm. High tea. Very reminiscent of the old days .
. . Harriet had been busy. ‘What’s going on?
’ She kept her gaze averted from the man on the sofa.
There were tears in her mother’s eyes. ‘Joanna, I’d like you to meet Henry,’ she said.
Harriet’s prowler got to his feet. He wore old-fashioned glasses, a brown shirt and tie, high-waisted trousers and one of those corduroy jackets with leather patches on the elbows.
Joanna nodded at him. ‘Hello, Henry.’ He didn’t look at all threatening now that he was here on their sofa. So what was this all about? No doubt all would be revealed.
Mother was beaming. ‘Your brother,’ she said.
‘What?’ Joanna looked at Harriet, who shrugged back at her. Owen was looking at Harriet too and their mother was still beaming at Henry. Their brother? ‘What do you mean?’ Her mind was racing. Brother? This was going to take some explaining, she thought.
‘Yes,’ said her mother. ‘It’s true.’ She clasped her hands.
‘I see.’ Though she didn’t. Joanna scrutinised him once more, mentally assessing his age. It must have been before Father then, way before they’d come along. God. This was a turn-up. She exchanged a look of understanding with Harriet. ‘So that’s why . . . ?’
Harriet shot her a grim smile. ‘That’s why. And I’ve been doing his typing too.’
‘His typing?’ Joanna was flabbergasted. ‘So you’re the—’
‘Professor Henry Adams, yes, that’s me.’ He was coming over, looking as if he might kiss her. It wasn’t easy to take in. He had metamorphosed from prowler to brother in seconds. She looked at Harriet again. A moment of compassion passed unspoken between them.
Joanna and Henry shared an awkward embrace and Henry went to sit down again.
Harriet poured the tea and they chatted.
Not about why their mother had never told them they had a brother living somewhere in the world, but about today’s weather, London, what the weather was likely to be tomorrow, and at the weekend, and eventually, when Joanna was about to scream, about how Henry had found them.
He had, he said, hesitated for years, not wanting to upset the foster parents who had brought him up. ‘I was unwilling to rake up old memories.’ He pushed his glasses further up his nose. ‘They were very good to me. I had a happy childhood. I never wanted for anything.’
Their mother squeezed his hand. ‘Very commendable,’ she murmured. ‘Perfectly understandable.’ And how would she explain her part in all this, Joanna wondered, to her son and to her daughters?
‘So what changed?’ Harriet’s arms were folded. She didn’t look as if she understood perfectly at all. She just looked angry.
‘They died.’
Silence. Well done, Het, thought Joanna.
Henry gazed straight at their mother. Joanna wasn’t sure which of the two of them looked the most besotted. ‘And so, I decided to do it before it was too late,’ he said. ‘I was determined to find my real, biological mother.’
Another hand squeeze.
‘But even then,’ he added, ‘I shied away from direct contact.’
‘We noticed,’ Harriet said.
‘I didn’t know whether you’d want to see me again after all these years.’
Mother nodded sadly. ‘How could you know?’ she agreed.
‘So, you rented a house in the village,’ Harriet reminded him.
‘Which allowed me to assess the situation,’ he said.
‘See how the land lay,’ their mother added.
‘Choose the right time.’ He smiled back at her. Mother and son and there was something so similar about their mannerisms that left their relationship in no doubt.
But he had scared Harriet. Joanna looked at her sister and read the wary resentment on her face.
Harriet would find it hard to warm to this unknown brother.
She would be wondering, what did he want from them?
Why was he here? And was he expecting them to fling themselves into his arms?
Joanna had seen scenarios like this one played out on Long Lost Family and she had always marvelled at the way people could throw themselves into the emotions of the moment so completely, so unquestioningly.
‘And this is the right time?’ she asked.
‘The right time never came,’ Harriet said bluntly before he could reply. ‘Owen and I went round to Henry’s yesterday afternoon.’
Joanna blinked at her. ‘You knew where he lived?’
‘I found out where he lived.’
At least she’d had the sense to ask Owen to go with her. Joanna glanced at their neighbour, who shifted in his seat uncomfortably, as if unsure where he fitted into this family scenario and why exactly he was here.
‘Aren’t you thrilled?’ Mother asked them. ‘Aren’t you absolutely delighted?’
‘Absolutely,’ Harriet said, without a trace of emotion.