Chapter Eight
Close to Midnight
After my busy day which started at 5am, the long drive and the manual labour of room cleaning and furniture moving, I should fall into a coma. So why am I still awake?
The window in my new room looks down on the clearing in front of the house. There’s my own Fiat, parked next to half a dozen other cars. I play a game with myself: a kind of who’s who of cars.
The Toyota 4x4 looks like a family car, and even from my first-floor window I can see a jumbo pack of children’s wet wipes on the dashboard. At the other end is a BMW plugged into an electric charger. Something tells me this is Llewellyn. The nice-looking guy in a quiet introvert kind of way is every inch a computer geek. He would have a hybrid.
Alex’s car must be the classic Mazda in British racing green. That is the car of an antiques and mosaics guy who is clearly a bit of ladies’ man – in the nicest possible way. Which leaves the small orange Aygo and the large black Vauxhall for the gardener Watson. He alone was absent from the dinner table. He always eats out. Wyn had leant over and whispered to me. Somehow, I can’t imagine a gardener driving an Aygo. It’s a woman’s car.
This game takes fifteen minutes. The time crawls towards midnight so slowly, it’s like an elderly tortoise with heavy shopping.
Every sound makes me jump. What will this father of mine look like? And why the hell am I waiting up? It’s not as if I’m going to run down and meet him as he walks through the front door. No, of course not. In fact, my room here means I can take a few days to observe him before introducing myself. Yet, I can’t go to sleep until I’ve had at least a glimpse of this man.
What makes it harder is the lurking guilt about Dad. My dad. Stephen Henderson, the dad who loved me and brought me up and championed me every day of my life. It feels like a betrayal that I’m so anxious to meet his replacement. No one could ever take his place. But he’s gone now and I have no family left. Mum – I do love her because you can’t help loving your mother – she isn’t really family. She loves me, but her time and attention belong to Horrible Howard. She will only believe in me when I make it big in the movies. Or marry a hedge-fund manager with a property portfolio and a Chase Sapphire Reserve Visa card. Not now while I’m still slogging it in regional theatres.
By 11:35 I’m too jittery to sit. I just stand at my window, arms folded on the sill, scanning the hills like a mother with a missing child.
This is stupid. I make myself go to my bed and get under the covers, lay my head on the pillow and do my breathing relaxation techniques.
A sudden sound makes me jump out of bed, but it’s only rain hitting the window.
Five minutes to midnight, a set of headlights come snaking over the hill, down along the edge of the wood, and finally through the gates into Kendric House. My heart beats so fast, I can feel it in my throat. Gravel crunching under wheels, a hatchback slows to a stop in front of the house, right next to my own car. The headlights go out and almost immediately the interior lights come on. The position of my window, the angle of my line of vision, makes it impossible to see much inside the car. A part of steering wheel, a dashboard with a box of Kleenex on it, a suitcase on the passenger seat. Then the door opens, and a man steps out; in the spill of light from inside the car, he looks tall and thin. He slams the door shut and walks away, swallowed by the darkness.
Unlike London where it’s never completely dark, the night here is inky black; all I have to go on is the sound of fast footsteps. I’d like to say they sounded determined and confident, but he could just as likely be hurrying to get out of the light drizzle. The footsteps take him farther away down to the side entrance. A door shuts not loudly, so he’s a considerate man who doesn’t slam doors at midnight.
That’s all.
Except for one other small detail. Before the headlights went out, they showed the car’s badge on the front grill and I caught a fleeting glimpse of a red cross on white background next to a snake.
Alpha Romeo.
Like me, he drives an Italian car.
The rest of my family have always driven Japanese cars. Mum has a Nissan. Dad always had a Honda. Every six or seven years he’d take it to the dealer and exchange it for a newer model. Only once did he depart from this and bought a Vauxhall; he complained about everything from the gears to the placement of the door handles. One week later, he drove it back to the dealer and came home in a Honda Civic. “Why experiment when you’ve found what makes you happy?” he said.
Darling Dad. Please don’t be sad that I’m here. No one in the world could take your place. But it’s been two years without you and I feel alone. So alone.
In a month I’ll be touring with a new company. Christmas panto runs right up to December 24 th then picks up again on Boxing Day. Which leaves Christmas Day itself. This year will be my second since Dad passed away. The first time I have no one to spend it with, because the fires of hell would have to turn to ice cubes before I watch Howard get drunk yet again and toast the fact he can spend Christmas with Mum now that Dad is finally dead.
Acting can be the friendliest most loving job in the world. Also the loneliest. Friendships are made fast and intense while working on the same project. Everyone feels like a sister, a brother, even a lover, but as soon as the play ends and the set dismantled, the family dissolves. People who felt so close suddenly have nothing to say to one another.
Not all families last forever, but shouldn’t they last more than ten weeks? Everything seems to be a stepping stone to the next job, the next connection, the next goodbye.
They say home is where the heart is. Let’s say I’m still looking for my heart.
Let’s say, that fleeting glimpse of an Alpha Romeo emblem is…
A promising start.
Sunday Morning, Kitchen.
When he finally walks into the kitchen, it’s 11.30 in the morning. Everyone has long finished their breakfast and gone off to their various occupations. I alone waited.
William Jones is polite, friendly, even but shows no sign of recognition or even suspicion. He’s in olive-green corduroys, a black rollneck and charcoal cardigan. His hair is a salt and pepper shapeless shortcut. Everything about him says academic who doesn’t pay much attention to fashion.
I wait until he’s made his tea and sat down with a plate of buttered toast.
“My name is Leonie Henderson. My mother is Anabel Henderson.”
“I know,” he says simply. It’s as if he too has been waiting until the kitchen emptied before coming down to breakfast, so he could see me alone..
I’ve been afraid he might have an emotional reaction. But he just gives me all his attention and waits for me to say more.
Everything I rehearsed flies out of my mind in the worst case of stage fright ever. So, I just talk, I start in the middle, go back and forth to the beginning and the end trying to explain my reasons for coming and giving him an overview of my life, the life of a daughter he was prevented from knowing
“So,” I conclude. “I now have a room upstairs, thanks to the generosity of Evan and Haneen.”
He sits back and exhales. Then he gets up to refill the kettle. “Would you like a hot drink? Coffee or tea?” he asks mildly.
“Tea is fine.” Then I add, “thank you.”
Should I get up and offer to help? No. Maybe give him time to assimilate this; it must be a lot to take in.
When he’s made two cups, he comes back to the table and places one in front of me. His hands are clean with short very neat fingernails.
“I’m sorry about your father’s passing. It must have been a very difficult time.” Again, he speaks in that quiet, careful voice. He doesn’t really have a Welsh accent. Not much.
“Thank you,” I say, because I don’t know how else to respond. How do I speak to one father about another. Had he minded that Mum and Dad didn’t tell me the truth?
“You didn’t think of writing to me first.” He sits back down in his chair but seems ill at ease, as if not sure if he should move closer to me.
“Er…no.” I try not to stammer. “It really never even occurred to me. Seems obvious now. The thing is…I was…” I finish lamely.
“I wonder what your mother told you about my lack of involvement in your life.”
This at last gives me the opening I needed. The words I’d rehearsed come back with such clarity.
“I’m really sorry about that, too. Mum made it sound as if you didn’t want to be involved. I don’t believe her.” I rush to assure him. “I wanted to correct the mistake even if it’s twenty-eight-years later. I know it’s too late to fix the past, but I think we can think about the present. And the future.”
“You feel she lied to you?” He confirms so quietly I have trouble hearing him.
“Well, not precisely lied, but maybe misinterpreted. Sometimes people remember things the way that makes them more comfortable.”
He considers me for a moment, then shifts in his seat so he’s not sitting on the edge but all the way against the back.
“No. Your mother didn’t misremember. She told you the truth. I didn’t wish to be involved. I was very young, true, but I had no doubt in my mind that I wasn’t the marrying kind. I never wanted a family.”
“But…” I search for words. For meaning. “You paid for me.”
“Of course.” His eyebrows rise and the blue eyes come back to focus on me. “Just because I didn’t want a family doesn't mean I eschewed my responsibility. If I fathered a child, then I would provide for that child’s upbringing even if I didn’t want to be with the mother.”
“But you loved her. You were living together.” Even as I argue, I know the words are so wrong. They don’t even fit the story she told me about their time together in his student accommodation.
He sighs, a long, long sigh.
“It’s not easy to explain. Try to imagine a nineteen-year-old, a studious introvert who’d seen nothing of life. Anabel…” He pauses as if to visualise her. “She was beautiful. Older. Experienced. She came into my world like an explosion. Having a girlfriend like her made me a stud. I went from being a drip to a lothario. My friends envied me. It rather went to my head.”
His expression is not nostalgic, not even thoughtful, just…apologetic.
“That’s how I saw it. I didn’t really see your mother for who she actually was. It’s clear that I let her down very badly. I wasn’t the right man for her, and the relationship was already fading when she told me about the pregnancy.”
Now it’s my turn to be silent. I stare at him, at the table, at the cup, at my own hands, then at the ceiling.
“I’m very sorry if I’m not what you expected.”
“I didn’t expect much. Just … I mean you are … my father.”
“Miss Henderson,” he starts. But his use of my surname is cold, cold and dry; it makes me flinch.
He notices because he tries again less formally. “Leonie, you had a father. From your description, a wonderful father. I’m not that man. I’ve never been father material or husband material.”
Why wouldn’t he want a family? “Are you gay?” stupid words, I know but it’s what comes out of my mouth.
It surprises a laugh out of him. He coughs. “I can see why you’d ask that. Unfortunately, the truth is much less interesting. I’m an academic who enjoys his own company. While I’ve had various liaisons with women, some of them very enjoyable. I never wanted to settle down with the proverbial two point four, chaotic family holidays or marriage counselling.”
Something about his wording, the clear distaste he seems to have for a home life, for the life Dad had given me, makes my hackles rise. Does he think it’s more noble to be an intellectual than a family man?
What have I done. Dad’s loving face, swims into my mind’s eye. His usual smile is sad and my heart turns over with grief and guilt. Perhaps that’s why my words to Willaim Jones come out so sharp.
“It’s not how I see things. Anyone can be an academic. All you need is books. The real challenge is to show up for your family every day, every single day, for years. To put up with a bad marriage for the sake of a child that needs to be loved. A child who might have been rejected by her biological father. And if you think flitting round the world researching God knows what deserves more respect than holding down a badly paid job so you can make it home in time to cook dinner, then you’re very mistaken.”
He doesn’t get angry. Or upset. Or ashamed. He just gives me a sympathetic nod. “You are most probably right. I never claimed to be better. The only credit I claim for myself is that of knowing my own limitations. Yes, fatherhood is a difficult and honourable duty. My own father tells me this at regular intervals.”
The mention of his own father is like a cold hand on a feverish head. A safer topic to talk about. “I have grandparents?”
“Not grandparents, just grandfather. My mother passed away when I was sixteen.”
“Where is he?”
“In a care home.”
The surprises keep coming from this man. “In a care home? Why? Is he disabled? Alzheimer’s?”
“Neither.”
“They why…” I want to ask why his father is in a care home instead of living with his son, but I’m starting to get the measure of William Jones. When our eyes meet, he gives me a level look and clearly can read my thoughts.
“I suspect you think it’s shameful of me.” He gets up. “I will at least be honest with you. And if you want a friend, an educator, an advisor, then I will do my best. But if what you want is family, I can only disappoint you.”
He leaves me in the kitchen. The professor – how interesting that no one calls him Will, or William or anything – just the professor. AS if he doesn’t get close to anyone.
When Haneen comes back a little later, I quickly pretend to get busy washing my tea cup. It’s only then I discover that he, the professor who seemed so cool and uninvolved, has barely touched his breakfast. Two slices of toast lie abandoned on the little plate and his teacup is still full.