Chapter 32
‘Right, well, let’s do it, now. This minute!’ Noah is upset, angry. Would I expect anything less? ‘A paternity test, Mum!’
‘But, Noah, you’ve only known this girl – Immi – a few weeks.’
‘Mum,’ he says, ‘I’ve fancied her from afar since the beginning of term.
Even before that, last year even. She’s gorgeous, she’s fun, she’s so bright.
Mum, if she turns out to be, to be… my sister, for fuck’s sake…
Jesus, Mum, what have you done?’ Noah doesn’t know where to put himself, paces the room like a caged lion.
‘OK, Noah, you have to remember your dad is your dad.’
‘Which dad? Which dad are we talking about here?’ Noah turns on me and I see he’s near to tears.
He’s always reminded me of my dad. Noah has my and my dad’s dark hair, our brown eyes, our slightly aquiline nose.
No wonder Mum has adored Noah from day one, when she was the first to hold him at the hospital.
He’s taller than Theo, but then he’s taller than Michael too.
Aren’t all sons taller than their parents?
He loves history – he’s studying history and politics at Oxford – but Mum loves history – look at all that ancestry she did, going back in time to find our relative strung up on the Northumbrian gibbet, left to the crows to finish off.
I’ve convinced myself – and probably Michael too – that Noah is Michael’s son. But if he is Theo’s, if Immi turns out to be his sister, then, as he tells me, I’ve ruined his life. Forever.
‘Right,’ he says, googling like mad. ‘One day turn-around for a test. Here, look…’
‘But it’s nearly Christmas. It’s Saturday.’ I shake my head. ‘They’re going to be closing for the holiday soon.’
‘Right, is he still here?’
‘Is who still here?’
‘You know perfectly well who, Mum. You’ve just come back from there. Let’s go round now. I want to meet him. See if I’m anything like him.’
‘Granny’s here. I can’t just abandon her.’
‘Yes, you can.’ Mum’s behind us, resting on her stick. She turns to me: ‘Chickens finally come home to roost, have they?’
‘Chickens? What bloody chickens?’ Noah turns on his granny who he usually has a lot of patience with. ‘Is this some other daft Yorkshire saying of yours?’
‘I don’t think it’s particularly Yorkshire, Noah…’ I start, the other two tutting me into silence.
‘Ring Immi’s dad now,’ Noah commands. ‘Tell him to come round, before he gets the train back.’
‘He’s going back tomorrow,’ I say.
‘Right, where’s your phone?’ And before I can stop him, he’s grabbed my phone from the table and is scrolling through. ‘Theo, is it? Theo Mandeville. Oh, here we go, right at the top.’
‘Noah, no, stop it.’
‘Leave him, lass,’ Mum says and we both still as we listen to Noah’s side of the conversation.
‘He’s coming round,’ Noah says, handing me back the phone. ‘I told him the address.’
‘We heard,’ I say crossly and Mum pats my arm.
‘For the best, love,’ she says. ‘Your dad would have said it was for the best. He allus wondered, you know. After Theo’d reappeared at your fortieth. And then, within a month or two you tell us you’re in the family way. Then Michael disappears from your life. We allus wondered.’
‘I just don’t get it,’ Noah says, pouring himself a whisky from the drinks cabinet and downing it in one. ‘How could you not have done a test from day one?’
‘I’ll have one of those with you, lad,’ Mum says hopefully, going to sit down.
‘God, I hate this stuff,’ Noah says. ‘How can anybody drink it? Right, I’m going to ring Immi…’
‘You are not!’ I shout at him. ‘Absolutely not.’
The three of us sit in silence, waiting for the doorbell to ring.
And then, after ten minutes of this, when I’ve poured myself a white wine, Mum a small whisky and lemonade and Noah is refusing anything, I start to tell him how I met Theo, cleaning his apartment with Fliss, how he came back into my life in Rothersley, how he was a brilliant squash player, the hunt ball, the beautiful estate he was always expected – and had – to take over.
Orgreave.
I tell him everything, except what I now know was Theo’s father’s involvement in Fliss’s death. And the main reason I’ve not sought a paternity test to determine Noah’s birth father: I’ve hated the thought that any of Hugh Mandeville’s genes might have been passed down to my son.
I’ve just got to the bit where Theo arrives back in my life at my fortieth birthday party, when the doorbell goes and we all jump and look at each other. I stand, go to the door and let Theo in.
I usher him through to the sitting room, where Mum says, ‘Well, it’s grand to see you again, lad. Come and sit yourself down. There’s a nice fire going – even if there is no coal on it.’
Noah says nothing but stands politely, taking in every aspect of this man who might just turn out to be his biological father.
Theo is doing the same.
‘Hello, Noah.’ Theo holds out his hand and my son takes it.
And as they stand side by side, I see it then, as, from the look on her face, so does Mum.
The two men standing in front of us have the same mannerisms, the brown eyes I’ve always assumed to be mine are actually Theo’s, the cleft in Noah’s chin is identical to Theo’s.
‘I hear you’ve met my daughter at Oxford,’ Theo is saying.
‘Hmm.’ Noah doesn’t seem to know what else to say, just continues to look at Theo.
‘Drink, Theo?’ Mum says, trying to break the atmosphere. ‘I’m having a whisky.’
‘I think I’ll join you,’ Theo says, ‘and then I guess we need to sort this out.’
‘Can you stay?’ Noah asks.
‘Stay?’ Theo looks at me and his face is a picture. ‘Here?’
‘Stay in London until we’ve done the test,’ Noah says, opening his laptop, scrolling and turning it towards Theo. ‘Look, we can order it now even though it’s the weekend; it’s 24/7. It’ll arrive tomorrow and then we can have the results the day after.’
‘Really? Goodness, I’d have thought it would take weeks.’ Theo raises an eyebrow in surprise.
Noah shakes his head. ‘Look, which one shall I go for…? Dad and child…? Ninety-nine pounds and 99.99 per cent accurate. They’ll deliver it tomorrow…’ he continues to read ‘…and results come through an online portal they give you a code to…’ He looks up. ‘Yes?’
‘Yes,’ Theo says and Mum and I nod.
‘Hang on, do you not think Dad should be in on this, Noah?’ I take his hand. ‘It seems a bit sneaky, you know, a bit underhand leaving him out.’
‘This seems underhand?’ Noah exhales, reaches for my glass of wine. ‘And what you and Dad and… and… Immi’s dad have kept to yourselves – kept from me – doesn’t?’
‘We need to know,’ Theo says, looking at me. ‘For Noah and Immi’s sake.’
‘Too bloody right!’ Noah exhales again, downing the wine before pouring another and turning back to the laptop.
‘Here.’ I throw him my phone. ‘Use my Apple Pay.’
‘Noah, do me a favour,’ Theo now says as Noah orders the test. ‘I would ask you keep all this to yourself until we know. Please, please, I beg of you, don’t ring Immi and tell her what’s going on.’
As he speaks, Noah’s phone beeps and he grabs it from his jeans pocket, holding the screen towards us where Immi’s name and smiling photo are centred.
‘OK, OK,’ he says, moving to the door, the stairs and the privacy of his room as he does so. Then, remembering his manners, he turns back to Theo. ‘Good to meet you.’ Noah gives him a long searching stare, mutters, ‘Too fucking weird,’ and leaves the room.
‘I think I’ll go and have a lie down,’ Mum says. ‘Before we have our tea.’ She looks at the clock on the wall. ‘Time’s getting on.’
I help Mum stand, offer her stick and the promise of soup and a sandwich and then, when she’s also left the room, turn back to Theo. ‘Oh, God, what a mess.’
Theo comes to sit on the floor beside my chair, something he’d always done, I now remember. And it’s like he’s never been away.
‘How on earth will you tell Immi?’ I ask and have to sit hard on my hand to stop it straying to Theo’s head resting against the arm of the sofa. ‘Oh, Jesus, Theo, how will you tell Honor? You know, if you are… you are Noah’s father? That I was pregnant at the same time as she was with Immi?’
Theo gives a hollow laugh but says nothing for a while. Eventually, he says, ‘Anna, my wife and I lead very separate lives.’
‘But you’re still together?’
‘Only just. And only in name. It’s not a marriage. Anna.’ He turns round fully, still at my feet, his eyes never leaving mine. ‘You know as well as I do that had Honor not been pregnant with Immi, I wouldn’t have gone back to her all those years ago.’
‘You’re forgetting Angus was so ill,’ I say gently. ‘And, you know, what I knew about your dad…’
‘Anna, that was my father, for heaven’s sake. Not me. Do I forever have to suffer the sins of my father?’
‘It was Fliss. She was my friend! She died!’
‘Anna, we went through all this years ago, when you found out. When that Sara woman from Leeds came to your office and you waited at home, waited for me to come round knowing not only that Honor was pregnant, but worse, my father had presumably been with Fliss the night she died.’
I remember vividly the drive home from my office after Sara Cleeves’s visit, tears streaming down my face, great sobs racking my whole body, my two offside wheels curbing as I took a corner too soon and too quickly.
Then, Theo’s face, once he appeared at my door, as I told him about Sara’s visit, the colour draining from his face, me continuing to cry because I knew I’d lost everything. I’d lost Theo once more.
I bring myself back to the present because Theo is holding my hand, stroking each finger.
‘I can only apologise again and again for the dreadful things my father apparently got up to. He was a sexual deviant, a selfish and uncaring man who appeared to get his sexual kicks in a way I can’t even begin to imagine.
You know he and I were never close; he wasn’t the father I would have chosen.
I was a disappointment to him. Off with young women when he was married to my mum?
Doing what he did when he was married to my mum. When he was our father!’
‘Do your children know about him?’ I ask now. ‘Do the boys? Does Immi?’
‘No, absolutely not. No one does! It’s not something I’ve ever broadcast. Immi never met him, thank goodness.
He’d died before she was born. Angus and Miles remember him, of course, but they didn’t have much to do with him.
You know, with him being in the nursing home.
The thing is, as far as I can see, only Sara, you and me, know about this darker side to my father; only we three have any knowledge about this other life he led. ’
‘And Fliss.’
‘Fliss isn’t here,’ Theo says gently, releasing my hand.
‘But we still don’t know if Hugh killed her,’ I say.
‘When you went with Sara to the police just over twenty years ago, Dad had been dead over five years.’
‘I know, I know. We know all this! They tried to open that cold case but didn’t get very far and still concluded that Fliss was working as an escort girl, had been drinking heavily, fell and drowned.
Death by misadventure. They couldn’t interview your dad as the main witness because he was dead.
No other woman, apart from Sara, has ever come forward about your dad.
And when Sara did, it was years too late.
’ I take a sip from my glass, remembering.
‘Theo, I tried so hard on Sara’s behalf,’ I continue, ‘but she wasn’t a great witness.
Was terribly nervous, couldn’t get her story straight, couldn’t remember dates and times.
Didn’t want her family to know anything.
But even though he was your dad, even though I loved you, I wanted some sort of justice for Fliss. ’
‘I know, I know. And I get that…’ Theo stands and stretches. Shakes himself. ‘It’s in the past, Anna. We don’t know what actually happened to Fliss that morning. We never will. Do you not think, now, it’s the future we need to sort? Noah and Immi’s future?’