Chapter 13
13
ZAC
Zac couldn’t believe he was sharing these photos and asking these questions of a woman who, just a few hours ago, was a complete stranger. However, the lawyer in him knew that none of this was adding up, and that he might not have another chance to get information from someone who knew his mum back then. Of course, he could ask his dad, but there was a serious niggle that if this was all something completely irrelevant and just a weird mistake, then all he would be doing was upsetting his dad for absolutely no reason.
Besides, he believed this woman when she said she’d been his mum’s best friend, and that was backed up by the obvious evidence that Morag had been agonising over making an apology for some unknown wrongdoing.
‘My cousin, Jill, found a box of Mum’s old letters and mementoes – that’s where I found the note I showed you – and these photos were inside too. It’s pics of my mum and dad and I know it was on their first date.’
He placed them on the table, turned them around, and then watched as the two women leaned in a second time to study what he was showing them. They’d struck out on the letter. He wasn’t sure if he wanted them to be more successful this time. Maybe he should just let mysteries from the past stay back where they belonged.
The lady, Alice, stared down at them and to his surprise a single tear dropped onto the table, barely missing the old black and white prints. Her friend, Val, pulled a hanky out from up her sleeve and handed it over, something he remembered his mum doing so many times when he was a kid.
Alice blew her nose, and a couple of people at nearby tables glanced over, then went back to their conversations. People were starting to drift out now, and the rest of his family were sitting at the furthest table in the other corner of the restaurant, with some women he recognised as Aunt Audrey’s closest friends. They were all far too engrossed in their own conversations to notice where he was, and if they did, they would just assume he was being sociable and making sure that someone from the family spoke to everyone who was kind enough to give up their time to be here.
‘I’m sorry,’ Alice said, dabbing her tears away with the hanky. ‘It’s just so emotional because that’s exactly how I remember Morag. You can see how happy she was there – just pure sunshine. I loved her very much and I’m so sad that we missed so many milestones that we could have shared. I’m guessing you’re around the same age as my son…’
‘I was twenty-nine in October,’ he replied.
‘Rory is the same age. I was actually already pregnant with him when your mum left, but I didn’t know. When we were growing up, Morag and I would talk about how we would have children at the same time, bring them up together, go through life as friends until we were old and grey.’ She patted her hair, to make her point, before saying softly. ‘Well, I’m grey now. I just wish we’d managed to do that.’
Her reaction made Zac pause to wonder if he should say anything else. Right now, there was no harm done, no big mystery about his parents revealed. He could walk away now and let all this lie. But… What if he never saw this woman again? Then his chance to get to the bottom of this without risking upsetting his dad would be gone. He put one foot out over the edge of the cliff.
‘How long, exactly, had they been together before they left?’ he asked.
Alice thought about that for a moment.
‘I’m not sure. Your mum’s birthday was early January, and I remember that year we went to London with some friends. Your dad wasn’t with us, so they must have got together sometime after that, and then they left in the spring. Or maybe it was summer. I’m sure your dad will know for sure. They hit it off from the moment they met and were absolutely besotted with each other. I suppose that showed in the fact that Morag left her job after no time at all and went off to Ireland with him.’
‘You’re not wrong. My whole life they’ve been devoted to each other. I was lucky.’
Alice reached over and put her hand on his. ‘You definitely were. She was a good woman.’
A voice in his head was saying, Stop there. Just stop. Leave this alone . He was considering that when he heard himself say as casually as he could manage, ‘Was she seeing anyone else before she met Dad?’
If Alice thought that was a strange question, she didn’t show it as she pondered for a few seconds.
‘No. Not for a long time. She had a huge crush on one of the partners in our office, and she said no one else matched up, and she was going to hold out for him. But then she met your dad and well… He obviously blew the other chap out of the water.’
‘Son, I think the answer to the question you asked earlier is right here.’ The interruption came from Val. He’d been so busy concentrating on his questions and Alice’s answers that he hadn’t noticed she had picked the photo strip up. Now she’d turned it over, and was reading the scribble on the back.
9 March 1995 – Our first date!
‘Yes, I just…’ How could he say this in a way that didn’t imply that he was questioning something he’d thought to be true his whole life. He took a breath. ‘I just wasn’t sure if that was a mistake, and I thought you might know?’
He left that there. That’s all he was going to say. Nothing more. Time to drop it. He couldn’t bring himself to spell out his fears or to carry on thinking about this. He was just going to go back to Dublin tonight and let it all lie. Maybe one day he’d ask his dad about it if it felt like the right place or time, but he very much doubted it. For now, he was just going to choose peace of mind, and be grateful for the parents he had.
But while all that was going through his mind, he watched as Alice picked the photo up again. Turned it over. Read the back. Then did the same with the note. He watched her eyes move from side to side as she read it. Then read it again. Then again.
It was only then that she raised her gaze to look at him. Part of his job was to read people, to sense their emotions, to interpret their facial expressions and their body language. Right now, Alice didn’t seem to be able to tear her eyes away from his face and she hadn’t blinked for many intense seconds.
‘I… I… really don’t know,’ she finally blurted, but everything was different now.
If this was an opposing party in one of his settlement negotiations, he’d advise his client to hold firm, because there were clear signs of panic. And stress. And fear.
He watched as she reached around and retrieved her bag from the back corner of the chair, then picked up her gloves from the table. ‘Zac, it’s been an absolute joy to meet you,’ she said, her voice tight. ‘But I’m afraid we have to go.’
Beside her, Val froze, a sausage roll halfway to her mouth, her eyebrows raised in question. ‘We do?’ Then another glance, this time catching Alice’s expression, before, ‘Yes, we do. I’ve got my knitting bee in fifteen minutes. It completely slipped my mind.’
It was very clearly a fabrication, but Zac registered exactly what was going on here – the unmistakable shift in Alice’s demeanour and desperate need to leave had been caused by some kind of realisation or thought that she wasn’t prepared to share with him.
She stood up from the table, her friend scrabbling to do the same. ‘It’s been really lovely to meet you, Zac,’ she said, her tone thick with emotion. ‘I think your mum would have been so proud of you and I wish I had known you both every day of your life. Take care.’
With that, she began walking in the direction of the door.
‘Bye, son. You take care of yourself and your dad. I wish all the best to your family,’ Val added, before setting off after Alice, her steps clicking on the wood floor all the way across the room.
Zac hastily tucked the photos and card back in his pocket, then dropped his head, all the air going out of his body. What the hell was going on? And did he really want to know? This was like the kind of bizarre stories he heard way too often as a family lawyer, and he always took a moment to feel grateful that he came from a completely uneventful, loving family; with an uneventful, loving mum and dad; and an uneventful, loving history.
Now he was beginning to suspect that he’d been wrong all along.
‘You okay, son?’ He hadn’t even noticed his dad coming to join him, just felt the hand on his shoulder and heard the question in his voice.
‘Yes, I was just chatting to an old friend of Mum’s from when she was younger. Alice. Do you remember her?’
Now his dad was frowning too. ‘Erm, yes, vaguely. I didn’t know her that well, to be honest. Just for a few weeks. Her and mum weren’t that close. Anyway, son, I’m going to go say goodbye to everyone and then head off now, because I still haven’t packed. What about you?’
Either he was turning into an irrational conspiracy theorist, or his dad really had flat out lied to him and then just brushed off the subject of Alice altogether. Something inside him flipped and he knew what he had to do.
‘Yeah, I’ll join you in a minute. There’s just someone I have to speak to first.’
As he rose from his chair, he patted his dad’s back, then calmly walked to the door. Only when he was out of sight of the mourners did he break into a sprint, running down the corridor and out into the car park. Please make her be there. Please make her be there. Please make her…
She was there. She was at the opposite side of the concrete square and despite the biting cold and the flurry of snow that was floating down around her, she had both hands on the side of the bonnet of a bright yellow Jeep, leaning forward, as if trying to catch her breath.
He was across the car park in seconds. ‘Alice?’ he said breathlessly. ‘I’m sorry. Please don’t think I’ve lost my mind, because I promise I’m normally very calm and rational. But… is there something you want to tell me? I know things don’t add up, and I think you know why.’
‘I don’t,’ she immediately countered, but he could see her heart wasn’t in it.
He went in for another shot. ‘Look, I know you loved my mum, and I can tell by that note that she felt the same. She never got to make amends for whatever she did, but she cared enough that she wanted to tell you about it. Now, all I’m asking is that you help me find out if there’s something she might have wanted to tell me one day too.’
‘It’s none of my business,’ Alice insisted. Val was watching all this play out from the other side of the car, but she stayed silent. ‘And I really don’t think it’s my place?—’
‘But you’re the only one left who can. At least let me talk to you. One way or another, for my own sake, I need to get to the bottom of this. I don’t think she’d have wanted you to let me do that on my own.’
It was difficult to say which of those points swayed her, but one of them hit home.
‘The problem is, I’m leaving for London tonight.’ A weaker objection.
‘I’m flying back to Dublin tonight, so I’m in a time crunch too.’
A change in her expression told him she’d come to a decision.
‘Okay, but I don’t think this is an appropriate place. Can you meet me? Say, in an hour?’
‘I can do that.’
But even as he was saying it, he wasn’t sure if he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life.