Familiar Rooms in Darkness (24 page)

‘But Doreen can't have wanted to, surely?'

‘I have to say, dear, that I'm not sure exactly what Doreen wanted at that time. When she told me
about Len's idea, we had an argument, and I wasn't so much in contact with her after that. Not for a long time. But my guess is that Len persuaded her to do it, that once the bandwagon started rolling and your parents – you know, the people who brought you up – once they were involved, she wouldn't know what to do to stop it.'

‘But what about the neighbours, other people in the family? Didn't they wonder what had happened? It must have been obvious she was pregnant.'

‘As far as we knew, everyone was told she'd had a baby, but that it had been stillborn.' She shrugged. ‘Like I say, we weren't speaking at that point. I didn't hold with any of what was going on. But Len would find a way to still wagging tongues. Len would think of what to tell people, and Doreen would have to say it. She was a lovely girl, Doreen,' Joyce shook her head, ‘but she was ruled by Len. She would do most things he wanted.'

‘Even give up her own children.'

The note in Bella's voice must have touched Joyce, for she put her hand out once again to Bella's. ‘I don't blame you for thinking badly of her. I know I did, I thought it was dreadful. But it couldn't have been easy for her. When we made up eventually, we only ever mentioned it once, and I know from the way she talked it was something she never got over. Not ever. But–' Joyce drew a long breath, ‘you have to look at it this way. What happened, happened. Right or wrong. You were brought up by loving people, for which I am more glad than you can know, and you seem like a nice, happy girl.' She gave a little laugh and added, as though to a child, ‘I'm very proud to have such a pretty girl for my niece.'

Bella sat saying nothing for some moments, trying to construct a situation where there was so much love and fear and desperation that children could be bought and sold, futures handed over, lives closed. It lay beyond her own experience, her sphere of understanding. At last she said, ‘It's just so strange and sad… I don't blame anyone. As you say, it's what happened. But don't you think–' She raised her eyes hopefully to Joyce, ‘don't you think it might do her good to know that Charlie and I are – well, all right? To see us, know about us? If I were her, I think I would want that.'

There was a long pause before Joyce spoke. ‘I'm not sure it wouldn't do more harm than good, dear. Who knows what she's felt all these years? As I say, we didn't talk about it. It's one thing to tell yourself that it will make her feel better, that she'll be glad to see you. But I don't know. It might just bring back a tremendous lot of guilt. And you know, she's not herself these days. She hasn't been well these past weeks, and I don't know that she'd be up to such a shock.'

‘I didn't know she was unwell.'

‘Poorly, let's say. It's hard for Derek, coping.' She gazed sympathetically at Bella. ‘It can't be easy for you and your brother, any of this. I think it's a shame your adoptive parents never told you the truth. A real shame. But I hope you understand the circumstances a bit better now.'

‘Yes, yes, I do. Thank you.' Bella decided that the question of meeting her mother properly was best left alone for the moment. ‘I was just wondering…'

‘Yes?'

‘Do you have any pictures? Of the family, I mean – of my mother and father when they were younger? Derek said he would send me some, but he hasn't been in touch.'

‘I thought you might ask that,' said Joyce, rising from the sofa and going across to a little bureau, from which she took a bulging photo album. Bringing it back to the sofa, she sat down, laid it on her knee and opened it. Bella drew nearer to look.

There, as her aunt turned page after page, Bella saw captured the various images of the family she had not known. Black and white at first, very small prints of Joyce and Doreen as girls. Bella, making no connection with the old woman she had met, stared long and hard at her mother, at the pretty, fair-haired fifteen-year-old with the grave, reserved expression. At the turn of a page, years moved by and Len appeared. Bella studied the pictures of him closely. Len. Her father. Tall, fair, well-built, laughing or smiling in every picture. She searched his features for traces of weakness and unkindness, but could see none. She marvelled at how like Charlie he was. There was a photo of Joyce and Doreen sitting on a sea wall, skirts blowing about, Len and Arthur leaning by their sides, squinting into the sun. ‘We were a great foursome before the war,' said Joyce. ‘Len wasn't too bad then. Just a bit wild. We had some great times.'

Then there came baby photos, Christmases, beach picnics, birthdays, outings. There were school portraits of Derek in blazer and tie, hair combed, face shining, smiling. In his young face she recognized her own eyes from childhood portraits, wide and guileless. She went slowly and carefully through this era of photographs,
trying to find blanks, places where she and Charlie might have fitted. But theirs was not even a ghostly absence in the frozen, camera-fixed moment. They simply hadn't existed. This was another world, and they were not in it. Merely of it. And that, only long ago.

At the end of her visit, Joyce told Bella to choose a handful of photographs of Doreen and Len and Derek, to show to Charlie.

‘I'll make sure you get them back,' said Bella.

‘Don't trouble, dear,' said Joyce. ‘You keep them. They're your family, after all.'

When she left the flat and went back down the stairwell, Bella felt almost giddy with the sensation of being transported back to a lost time, immersed in another world. She got into her car and sat there for a while, thinking about it all. She took the photos which Joyce had given her from her bag and studied them again, trying to work out where these people fitted in; what, if anything, they had to do with her life. It seemed that the deeper she probed, the closer she got, the more tenuous the connections became. She put the pictures away and drove home through the slow lunchtime traffic.

Adam and Giles Hamblin were sitting in the beer garden of Adam's local, discussing, among other things, the progress of the biography.

‘The whole thing is largely there to be written. It's just that there are certain areas where I feel I'm groping in the dark, or rather, not getting the full picture.'

‘I take it you're talking about wife number one?'

‘She's part of it. I don't know what to make of what
she tells me. If I hadn't found out about the adoption by accident–'

‘Good journalism, I'd say.' Giles took an approving swig of his whisky.

‘Thank you. I thought so myself. But if I hadn't sleuthed about, she'd never have told me. I suppose I should be glad she's still prepared to talk to me, all things considered, but I don't know if she's making stuff up, or concealing it.' Adam finished his beer. ‘She's such a valuable source, but she's got her own agenda. They all have, the entire family. It's only natural.'

‘So you think maybe she's not being entirely honest about old Harry's sexual proclivities?'

‘Well, she's telling it her way. As far as she was concerned it only amounted to a little bit of cottaging, a few casual flings with inconsequential nobodies. Something he grew out of. She tried to persuade me to leave it out of the book.'

‘Harry's gay days? You can't. It's too good.'

‘I agree. I foresee a certain amount of conflict with the rest of the family. Bella wants me to leave it alone. Briony took the same line as Cecile to begin with – that it was trivial, a “youthful indiscretion”, as she put it – but she got quite poisonous when I ventured to suggest, as tactfully as I could, that it might have amounted to more than that, that Harry was homosexual and tried to conceal it throughout his life.'

‘What? That he was queer and she knew about it? You'll have your work cut out to establish that. And there's no room for speculation, not where lawyers are concerned.'

Adam sighed. ‘I know. It's just that I'm sure there's something there. The way Briony behaves about it all. She's always been so keen to paint the right picture of herself and Harry, idyllic marriage and all that. There were times, talking to them both, when it all seemed too good to be true. Still–' Adam took a swig of his beer, ‘she made it pretty clear that I risk losing her cooperation if I do write about that aspect of Harry's past.'

‘But you're prepared to?'

‘Yes.' Adam nodded. ‘If it comes down to it, telling the truth is more important than maintaining good relations with Harry's family.' He thought fleetingly of Bella as he said this, and hoped it never need come to that choice with her.

Giles gazed idly at Adam's face, thinking that he detected an imperceptible hardening of Adam's attitude – indeed, his very personality – since taking on this commission. He pointed to Adam's glass. ‘Another?'

‘My round.'

Adam returned with the drinks and sat down. ‘Anyway, before I do anything else, I'm going to have another talk with Richard Compton-King.'

‘What's he like?'

‘Interesting. Fascinating, in the true sense of the word. He talks, you listen. Lots of insight. I don't know what he's doing managing pop groups. Seems too bright for that.'

‘I wouldn't underestimate the power of intellect required to do that particular job, and do it successfully.'

‘I get the impression he's not as successful as he used to be. From what he says, he's still out there, hustling and pitching, but I think his glory days are well in the
past.' Adam took a drink of his beer. ‘Anyway, after I've done that, I intend to go to France with Megan for a couple of weeks.'

‘Lie in the sun and drink lots of wine?'

If I get the chance. It's actually research for an article. The commissioning editor rang yesterday and said he wants the copy by the end of August, latest. At least it's an excuse to down tools on the biography for a while.'

‘Should be a nice jaunt.'

‘Hmm. To be honest, I think it'll do us both good to get away. Life in the flat is getting a bit claustrophobic. I do like my privacy, and Megan isn't very understanding if I'd rather work than spend cosy evenings on the sofa in front of the television.'

An hour later, mellow with sun and beer, Adam went home and rang Richard Compton-King, and asked if they could meet up to discuss Harry a little further. Compton-King was happy to see Adam again.

‘How about the Groucho at twelve-thirty on Friday? I've got a meeting in Dean Street that morning, and you'll be the perfect excuse to get away.'

Adam, scarcely flattered, said this would be fine.

That Friday, he waited for thirty-five minutes in the bar of the Groucho Club, spinning out a white-wine spritzer. At five past one, Compton-King's tall, unmistakable figure strode into the lobby from the street. The girls at reception seemed inordinately pleased to see him, and he paused for a few chatty moments to bathe in the warm glow of their appreciation before sauntering into the bar to meet Adam.

‘Sorry I'm late. Bloody meeting went on for ever. For some reason the members of my new band insist on going through every line of their recording contract with the lawyers. I wish pop stars would just stick to things they know about, like drugs, and trashing hotel rooms.' He glanced at his watch. ‘Shall we go straight in?'

They went into the dining room, and Adam listened to a twenty-minute Compton-King discourse on copyright exploitation before he could get round to the subject of Harry. Lunch came quickly, and Compton-King was such a prodigiously fast eater that Adam was worried that the meal might be over, and Compton-King off to his next meeting, before he had had time to get answers to his questions.

‘It's the main focus of the major record companies now,' Compton-King was explaining. ‘The multinationals don't want a volatile asset, they don't want a rock star who gets stoned in the middle of the night and rings up to say he's going to become a Buddhist monk. They want their pop stars to be anodyne, safe. It's all about money-making. Not that I'm knocking that, but where's the creativity, where's the danger?' Compton-King was halfway through a plate of seared scallops with spinach mash, and three-quarters of the way through a bottle of Sancerre, of which Adam had had only half a glassful. He knew now the pitfalls of trying to keep up with Richard Compton-King in the matter of lunchtime drinking.

As Compton-King ladled in another forkful, Adam said diffidently, ‘Listen, I know we probably don't have long, so do you mind if I take up where we left off last time?'

‘About Harry? Sorry, Adam. Fire away.'

‘Thinking back to our conversation–'

‘Before you fell asleep.'

Adam smiled weakly. ‘Quite. Anyway, you suggested that Harry's marriage to Cecile was a sham, that it was just a façade to enable him to live as he pleased.' Compton-King nodded. ‘But when I spoke to Cecile a couple of weeks ago, she painted a rather different picture. As far as she was concerned, she and Harry married for love. She knew about homosexual connections he'd had in the past, but he told her it was over and done with. The way she tells it, any gay relationships he may have had after they were married were merely in the nature of backsliding. She reckons she cured him of all that.'

Compton-King, his food finished, sat back in his chair with a smile. ‘Dear Cecile. Always had a blind spot where Harry was concerned. Or perhaps the blind spot was about herself. You have to remember that Cecile in those days had a reputation as a very beautiful, sexy actress. Believed her own publicity. The idea that Harry might have preferred some boy to her can't have been very appealing. Probably still isn't. She always had to believe in the power of her own charms.'

Again Adam found himself wondering if Richard Compton-King's certainty about Harry stemmed from some affair between the two of them. It seemed the most likely explanation. Still attractive now, Richard must have been a beautiful young man back in those days. But Cecile had found the idea laughable… He was pondering how to broach this matter tactfully, when Compton-King added, ‘Probably why she had so many affairs – took the edge off the fact that Harry was playing away, so to speak
– and with boys at that. Helped to reassure her of her own attractiveness.'