Chapter Forty-Nine
‘I’d invite you up to my bedsit, but it’s a mess and I’m due a trip to the laundrette,’ Jacob explained as he stood in the shop doorway. ‘Besides, there’s only one chair.’
Having no desire to sit amongst a twentysomething’s smelly socks and takeaway cartons, she suggested they take a walk.
They decided on the coast path and as they each passed through the first kissing gate, the sun broke through, bathing the fields in a golden light.
Sheep were grazing and it was an idyllic scene that even the sight of a ewe discharging an impressive stream of pee could not spoil.
‘It really is a special place,’ said Jacob.
‘Did you ever come up here with your grandfather?’ she asked, feeling slightly guilty for fishing for information.
‘Not often,’ he admitted.
‘Was he a kind man?’ she asked.
‘He was to me. I think he was harder on my dad, Simon. I was his chance to make up for his mistakes, I suppose. Isn’t that why all grandparents spoil their grandchildren? And he wasn’t terribly pleasant to my grandmother, from what I can gather.’
Then he told Evelyn about the letter he’d found secreted within the painting’s frame. ‘Turns out, she hated that picture. She saw it for what it was – a fake and a reminder of his infidelity. He bought it to win her forgiveness. But for my grandmother, it was the last straw.’
‘I’m sorry. That painting stirred everything up, didn’t it?’
‘It brought truths out into the open. But that wasn’t the painting’s fault, or yours.’
They came to another gate and Jacob held it open for Evelyn.
‘My mum told me that my grandparents didn’t marry for love. They were picked out for each other, branches of two family trees that were judged suitable for grafting. Maybe that was why my grandfather was repeatedly unfaithful – not that I’m excusing it.’
It was time for Evelyn to lay her cards on the table.
‘I have something to tell you,’ she forced herself to say. ‘Before your grandfather was married, he got a girl pregnant, when she was sixteen and he was eighteen. The result of that relationship was a baby.’
Jacob stopped walking and his brow furrowed. ‘My grandfather had another child? Like, not my dad? When?’
‘It was in 1964. Before he was married.’
‘That’s . . . really awful,’ Jacob said at last. ‘To think, there’s someone out there, walking around, who my dad’s related to and I’m related to and we’ve never even met. They would be, what, in their sixties now?’
Evelyn gave a quick nod.
‘Who told you this? I mean, did you meet them? Have they got in touch?’ He raked his fingers through his hair, as if looking for an answer.
‘Jacob, the baby went by a different family name, but she grew up in Portheast. That baby was me. It is me.’ Evelyn felt as if the air was being pressed out of her lungs, but she had to continue.
‘I only found out very recently myself. I knew I was adopted, but I was never told my . . .’ – she gestured into the air – ‘my origins.’
Jacob stared at her. ‘What do you mean, it’s you? How can that be?’
She thought she detected a note of outrage and wasn’t sure why. Was it the same reason why his family had rejected her all those years ago, because Cora-May and her child were not Warburn material?
‘Sorry,’ Jacob added. ‘I’m just trying to get my head around all this. Does my dad know?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she replied. ‘I’m guessing he might have an inkling that Jasper sowed his wild oats. But, no, I don’t think he knows that I exist. That I’m me.’
She felt the sad truth of her words, because for so much of her life her identity had been a malleable thing, always defined by others.
First, she had been a foundling, then a quiet child who drew flowers and talked to animals rather than her classmates.
Finally, she’d grown into an adult misfit – a strange bird who picked her way along the beach in a long, flapping coat.
Evelyn had long since trained herself not to cry; it was unproductive and invariably made the tip of her nose turn red, but now she felt a swell of tears demanding to be let out. She chanced a quick glance at Jacob and his expression confused her.
‘But this is so cool,’ he said, with a wide grin. ‘It means we’re related. You and me, we’re family.’
And after that, it felt good to let the tears flow.