Authors: Catrin Collier
Jack smiled and reached for Helen’s hand.
‘You can set up home in this basement. I’ll put in a proper kitchen and build a bathroom where the back porch is now. It will be a good investment. If you move out I’ll be able to rent it when I’m too old to work and need a pension. And just so there’s no mistake, you’ll pay rent at the going rate. A pound a week all right?’
‘I earn three most weeks on the site, Mr Griffiths, so we will be able to pay a pound.’
‘I’d also like you to leave the site. You can have a job in my warehouse, starting on the lowest rung of the ladder. I know you’re strong enough to do the donkeywork of shifting the goods, but if you’re as bright as I think you might be and you manage to stay on the straight and narrow, I’ll promote you. But a warning, and a serious one; I catch you thieving or up to any of the tricks that landed you in Borstal and I’ll report you to the police. And don’t think I won’t because you’re my son-in-law.’
‘I’ve stayed on the straight and narrow since I came out.’ He looked at Helen. ‘And I’ve a lot to stay on the straight and narrow for now.’
‘I hope you do.’
‘The wages, Mr Griffiths, I’ll have a wife and baby to support.’
‘Three pounds ten shillings a week.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Make no mistake, you’ll earn them. There’ll be no favours because you’re family. And one more thing. You two fight, throw pots and pans around, it’s your affair but you don’t bring your quarrels upstairs. Once you marry and move down here, Helen, you stay down here. Your bedroom will be turned into a guest room and you will no longer be able to use it. You two got yourselves into this mess, you sort it out.’
‘Yes, Dad.’ Helen flung her arms round John’s neck and hugged him tighter than she ever had before. ‘There’s one more thing Jack didn’t tell you.’
‘You gambled on the horses and have run up an enormous bookie’s bill?’ he asked, not entirely humorously.
‘I ... I told Joe he’s a bastard.’
‘You what?’
‘He was angry, I lost my temper and I wanted to hurt him.’ She paled at the rage in her father’s face. ‘I overheard you and Mam ...’ She looked up and saw her father’s back as he left the room and made his way as quickly up the stairs as his disability would allow.
‘Is it true?’ Joe asked John as he walked into the lounge.
John noted Joe’s full glass as he reached for the whisky bottle. ‘Whisky doesn’t help when you’ve a problem.’
‘I asked if it’s true,’ Joe repeated.
‘Yes.’
‘Who is my father?’
‘I don’t know. Your mother never told me.’
‘You must have some idea.’
John hesitated for a moment. ‘None and that’s the truth. You were born six months after I married your mother. Even allowing for her insistence that you were premature, I knew you weren’t my son because I didn’t make love to her until our wedding night. But once you were born, it didn’t seem to matter who your father was. I soon forgot it wasn’t me ...’
‘You forgot!’
‘Look at me, Joe. Look at my face and body. A beautiful woman like your mother doesn’t marry a cripple without good reason. But before we were married I was too busy thanking my lucky stars to ask why she chose me and afterwards, when I found out that you were the reason, I was too besotted to care. Please don’t be angry with me for wanting to bring you up as my son.’
‘And Helen?’ Joe asked coldly.
‘She looks too much like my mother to be anyone else’s child. Joe ...’
‘No, don’t touch me! Don’t come near me. Have you any idea what this feels like? I get up in the morning thinking everything’s fine, apart from you and mum splitting up, but I decide she left because neither of you was happy. And as you seemed to be happier since she went, I sincerely hope she soon will be, too. My tutors tell me I’m on line to get a first. I have an excellent post waiting for me when I graduate from university, a beautiful girl who loves me enough to want to marry me. In short, a bright, shining future. Then my sister gets pregnant and when I try to tell her she’s been a stupid brat for not heeding my warnings she informs me I’m a bastard. That my whole life has been built on a pack of lies.’
‘Not lies, Joe. I love you. You couldn’t be more my child if I had fathered you and whatever you say I will always regard you as my son.’
‘But I’m not. My mother is a whore ...’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘You defend her, after what she’s done to me and you?’
‘She did what she thought was best for herself – and you – at the time. You saw how frightened and worried Helen was tonight. Try to imagine what it’s like for a girl to be alone, abandoned and pregnant.’
‘I hope she rots in hell.’
Exhausted by the intensity of Joe’s anger, John sat back and looked at the man he had regarded as his child since the day he’d been born. He could understand Joe lashing out, wanting to hurt someone – anyone. He had felt like it often enough himself after his parents’ death. But understanding didn’t bring him any closer to knowing how to cope with, or ease, Joe’s pain.
‘All those late nights, all that time spent away from the house, she was with other men, wasn’t she?’
‘I never asked her.’
‘You’re divorcing her for adultery.’
‘She’s divorcing me.’
‘Now you’re telling me you’ve got another woman,’ Joe sneered.
‘I wanted to be free, not to have to think about who your mother was with, or what she was doing. My solicitor arranged a set-up. I was photographed today in a hotel room with a stranger.’
‘God, you disgust me.’
‘Because I want to divorce your mother and put an empty marriage behind me?’
‘Because you put up with her for so long; because you resorted to subterfuge rather than force her to face the truth about herself to get rid of her. You must have known. I was a kid, I had some excuse, but you, all those nights out, her coming home in the early hours ...’
‘I was afraid to question her because I thought that I, and you and Helen – no, that’s not fair – just me, couldn’t live without her. Then I suddenly discovered I could and I didn’t want to carry on living a lie any more.’
‘And all these years you never thought to tell me that I wasn’t your son.’
‘I hoped you’d never find out.’
‘Hoped! Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? I’m another man’s son. That makes me a bastard and you a stupid dupe. I can’t even look at you.’
‘Where are you going?’ John called after him as he left the room.
‘To see Lily. Perhaps she can help me sort out whether I’m Joseph, Joe or someone who wants nothing to do with either of his so-called parents.’
‘Joe, it’s eleven o’clock. She’ll be in bed.’
‘Then I’ll wake her.’
‘You’ll be back?’
‘I don’t bloody well know.’
‘For Christ’s sake say something, Lily. Don’t just sit there looking at me as if I’m a worm you want to squash.’
Tightening the belt on her dressing gown, Lily sat next to Joe. It hadn’t been easy to persuade Mrs Lannon and her uncle to let her talk to him alone at that time of night. She only hoped her uncle was keeping his promise and watching the door to make sure Mrs Lannon didn’t creep back downstairs and try to eavesdrop. ‘What do you want me to say, Joe?’
‘That you couldn’t lower yourself to marry a bastard.’
‘You’re not and it wouldn’t make any difference to me if you were. No one can hold a child responsible for his parents’ actions.’
‘Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? My father ...’
‘That’s just it, isn’t it? Your father! And he
is
your father. He brought you up, paid for your uniform when you went to grammar school, sent you to university, taught you to drive, and I remember that time Helen caught measles from me. When I went round after I recovered your father was sitting in the living room with both of you on his lap, reading you stories.’
‘I don’t understand what you’re getting at.’
‘I’m trying to say it’s not who fathered you that’s important, but who brought you up.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘Perhaps it is,’ Lily murmured, ‘but I happen to believe it and if you came here hoping I’d agree with you, you’re going to be disappointed. You picked the wrong girl, Joe. I have no idea who my father – or mother – was. But I do know if they turned up on the doorstep tomorrow they could never take the place of Uncle Roy or Auntie Norah in my heart. Because my uncle and aunt were always there when I needed someone to take care of me, like when I turned up on Swansea station as a three-year-old with a label on my coat. And again when I was six and terrified of the dark. Auntie Norah sat by my bed, holding my hand until I went to sleep every single night that I can remember for three years. They checked my schoolwork, met my teachers, advised me how to fight my battles, made tea for me and any friends I brought home, encouraged me at least to try whenever I thought I couldn’t tackle something and loved me unconditionally when I made mistakes. Just as your father did you. Now, if that’s all, I think you should go.’
He rose to his feet.
‘You’ll think about what I said, Joe?’
‘I’ll think about it after I find out what kind of bastard fathered me and abandoned my mother.’
‘Joseph, what a surprise, and so early.’ Esme left the table to kiss him as the housekeeper ushered him into the breakfast room.
‘Where’s grandmother?’
‘She has breakfast in bed these days. She says a lady of her advanced years shouldn’t put in an appearance before eleven. Have you eaten? If you haven’t I’ll ask Mrs Brannigan to make you something.’
‘I’ve eaten.’ He closed the door. ‘I’ve come for information, actually.’ Looking her straight in the eye, he asked, ‘Who is my father?’
Esme gripped the edge of the table, wrinkling the fine damask cloth. ‘Who told you John wasn’t?’
‘Helen.’
‘How ...’
‘She overheard you and Dad ... John Griffiths talking.’
‘I see.’ Esme reached for her cigarettes.
‘I think I have a right to know who he is.’
‘A right?’ She looked him in the eye. ‘A right to know a secret I’ve kept for over twenty years.’
‘When it concerns me, yes. A child should know its parents.’
‘Not if the parent isn’t aware he has a child.’
‘So you won’t tell me.’
‘I can’t. And even if I did it wouldn’t do you any good.’
‘Why?’
‘You’re my son. I brought you up as best I could and you didn’t want for anything. I think that’s reason enough for you to accept the situation and be grateful I didn’t have you adopted.’
‘Be grateful that you brought me up by deceiving an innocent man and forcing him to take me on as his child!’
‘If I deceived John Griffiths I paid for it with twenty years of marriage and the daughter I bore him.’
‘I talked to – Dad – last night.’ Joe hesitated over the word but he was finding it almost impossible to think of John as anything other than his father. ‘He told me he’s prepared to admit adultery to be rid of you. Personally, I think it would simpler all round if he and I just had blood tests.’
‘Blood tests can only prove that a child wasn’t fathered by a man.’
‘Precisely.’
‘Joe, you wouldn’t – not after all these years. You can’t. I won’t let you turn my life into a mockery.’
‘It seems to me that you’ve managed to do that very well yourself, Mother.’ Turning on his heel, he opened the door, strode out of the room and the house.
‘So what do you want to do, Joe?’ John asked. Joe had turned up in the warehouse at midday, raging and upset, and John had done the most politic thing he could think of, taking him to Swansea’s best and most expensive hotel for lunch in the hope that the privacy of their table would encourage Joe to do some real talking and the public setting discourage him from making a scene.
‘I don’t know. If she won’t tell me who my father is ... I just can’t bear the thought of not knowing.’
John took the bottle of white wine he’d ordered from the ice bucket and replenished both their glasses. ‘Have you thought that he could be dead?’
‘You suspect someone?’
‘No. I met your mother for the first time a month before we married. She played the part of a love-struck young girl extremely well. Never mentioned anyone else. I admit I’ve occasionally wondered if it could be this or that one of her family friends, but it was only wondering. I never discovered any evidence and your grandmother was very fond of telling me I was Esme’s first and only boyfriend.’
‘You really don’t know.’ After confronting Esme, Joe knew she would never tell him the truth and he felt his last hope slipping from his grasp.
‘I really don’t know,’ John echoed. ‘What did Lily say when you told her about it last night?’
‘That your birth parents don’t matter as much as the people who brought you up.’
‘Sensible girl, Lily. You’ve done well for yourself there.’
‘Better than I deserve.’
‘I wouldn’t say that; a father always wants the best for his son and I was hoping you’d still think of me that way.’
‘To be honest, I’m finding it difficult to think of you as anything else. Just don’t ask me to forgive my mother.’
‘As I said yesterday ...’
‘She did what she thought was best. But I’ll never believe she was thinking of anyone other than herself. She certainly wasn’t thinking of you – or how I’d feel when I discovered I was another man’s son.’
‘Your boyfriend’s waiting for you,’ Isabel muttered
sotto voce
to Helen as she passed her desk. ‘Do you think you could ask him to stand somewhere less conspicuous in future. If Mr Thomas should see him ...’
‘I’ll see to it.’ Helen cut Isabel short as she closed her desk drawer and went to the coat-stand. She didn’t need Isabel to elaborate. A labourer dressed in the filthy jeans and ripped sweater that was almost a uniform on the building sites in and around Swansea was not a sight Richard Thomas would want near Thomas and Butler. And neither was Jack. Even clean and tidy, dressed in his best suit, he was not the sort of young man Thomas and Butler would wish their office juniors to associate with.
‘Hi, Jack.’ Helen walked out of the front door and gave him an enormous hug and kiss in full view of the office window.
‘Some greeting, I take it you’ve missed me.’