Chapter 57
1 JANUARY 2006
It is after midnight and therefore a new day, but more importantly a new year. It is also the first time I am picking up my pen to write these pages since Christmas morning, and it is only the knowledge that if I did not, I might never begin again that has impelled me to do so. In all these years – not when I left Adrian, not when I learned of my grandmother’s death, not when Beatrice revealed that she was my daughter – have I not written my Morning Pages.
But Beatrice’s inadvertent revelation on Christmas Day left me reeling with shock to the extent that I have been unable to find words to write until now. At first, when I saw his face in her painting, I thought I might be sick or faint, but I didn’t. The fresh air helped. I managed to get through that walk – barely feeling the ground beneath my feet or the cold air on my face – and then I said I had a headache and came up to bed, leaving Beatrice and her Neil downstairs alone.
Was it some trick – some kind of cruel joke Beatrice was playing on me? It was the kind of thing she might have done months ago, when she first came to Damask Square, but not now. Surely not now. And there was nothing in her face to suggest that – she was full of diffident pride at the beautiful portrait she was showing us.
The portrait of her parents. Ruth and Declan.
It was unmistakably him. Beatrice’s style is immature but her talent is unquestionable and she has captured his likeness perfectly – the strong arc of his jaw, the lines around his eyes, the dimple in his chin all there, reproduced on paper with familiarity and love.
But how? How can it have been allowed to happen? In fact, having thought of little else this past week, I can see exactly how. Declan never knew I was having a baby. I could never have told him; no one knew but me. When my grandmother went to register the birth, in the space where her father’s name would have been, there would only have been a dash – a strikethrough.
I remember Declan saying to me, that first time, after he had removed his jacket and hung it over the back of the chair, tenderly taking my face in his hands before kissing me: I won’t tell if you don’t .
I never told. Not anyone. The conspiracy of secrecy, silence and shame we were all part of did its work.
And so he adopted her, not knowing. He has raised her, not knowing. She does not know; her mom does not know.
I myself did not know. Even when letters came to the house addressed to Beatrice Walsh-Seymour, I thought nothing of it. Walsh is as common a name as Murphy, Kelly or Smith, and the addition of what must be Ruth’s maiden name made it spark only the barest glimmer of memory in me the first time I saw it.
Now, though, I do know. I cannot unknow. So what will I do?
Declan has loved her all these years. It would bring him joy, I am sure, to learn that she is his daughter in every sense. But does he deserve that, after what he did to me, to Ruth?
Ruth – that shadowy woman. The bride with flowers in her hair, the wife unable to have a baby of her own, the mother who lavished love on the daughter she was able to bring home at last. It would surely devastate her to find out the truth.
As for Beatrice – I do not know. Would she be horrified by what the man she knows as Dad did all those years ago, who he was? It could destroy her relationship with the father she loves. Would she be disgusted at me? When she asked about her father, I told her he was a man I met at a party, a fellow student called Andrew, whose last name I never knew. Perhaps she is already disgusted by that.
Perhaps not. Perhaps she would be delighted – her history complete at last, the final piece of the puzzle in place.
Only I hold the answer, the truth. And I do not know what I will do with it.
There is only one thing I know for sure.
Once again, this house here on Damask Square is hiding a secret.
I can hear Beatrice opening the door downstairs, Neil thanking her for the evening and saying goodnight and happy New Year, her laughter mingling with his. She is happy. My daughter is happy. Her happiness is something I hold in my hands like a baby bird – at once fragile enough to destroy and too precious to release.
Perhaps one day I will be able to tell her. But not now.
Not now.