He seemed to accept that she was telling the truth, because he nodded.
‘Would you have been interested in being a father, at twenty-one, or whatever you were then?’ she asked again.
Charles pulled a face, shook his head in bewilderment. ‘That’s an impossible question. I don’t know. How can I know what I’d have felt this long after the event?’ He paused and there was a heavy silence in the small room. ‘No, probably not, if I’m honest. But these things aren’t that straightforward, are they? I certainly had a right to know, to make the decision for myself. This is my son you’re talking about, Annie, not just yours.’
She had known he would be angry.
‘I know, and I’ve said I’m sorry. I was in the wrong, obviously, but hindsight, etc. Think of it from my point of view. It was months after we’d had that night in the garden and I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of you since. I was only eighteen, in shock, my life ruined. Mother was kicking off about the shame, the shame, and hustling me away to the country.’ She glared at him. ‘Frankly, Charles, you were the last thing on my mind.’
This wasn’t true, of course. She’d thought about him endlessly, both during her pregnancy and after Tom was born. But a stubborn streak, the same one that refused to acknowledge what was really happening to her, had prevented her from calling him. Charles was silent for what seemed a long while.
‘No … no, I take your point,’ he said eventually. ‘Must have been hell for you. Especially back then when our parents still clung so rigidly to the no-sex-before-marriage drama.’
She was touched by his words.
‘It
was
hell. The worst was giving him away. My mother refused to support me if I kept him. In fact, she never even countenanced the possibility that I’d keep him. And at the time, I suppose I couldn’t really face taking on motherhood alone. I ran away.’
‘It’s understandable. Different times.’ He proffered the bottle and topped up her glass.
‘He wants to meet you.’
‘I was afraid you were going to say that.’ There was silence for a moment. ‘What’s he like?’
‘He’s … great.’ She couldn’t help smiling as she told him a bit about Daniel, unable to keep the pride from her voice.
‘You say he looks like your uncle – doesn’t he look at all like me?’ Charles laughed at himself. ‘Vain bastard that I am.’
‘He’s really handsome, beautiful really. I thought he looked like my side of the family until I saw you tonight. But in fact he does look like you too … around the eyes, the shape of him.’
‘You’re just saying that.’
‘Well, see for yourself.’
Charles shook his head, but didn’t immediately reply.
She watched him and waited nervously. She realised now that she didn’t want him to refuse.
‘I’m not sure. I mean, what does he want from us?’ Charles was saying. ‘Not money, I hope, although God knows I have enough of that to support twenty sons.’ He didn’t seem to be boasting, merely stating a fact.
‘I suppose he just wants to understand where he comes from. It’s a fair enough request. We both know exactly what our heritage is, for better and worse. It’s important, don’t you think? To know?’
‘Yup … yup, it is. Very.’ He sighed. ‘Bit of a shock though, all this. Not sure I could bond …’
‘I suppose it’s different for me. I carried him, gave birth, looked after him.’
‘Sad, really,’ Charles commented. ‘I hope he was happy with his other parents.’
‘Reasonably so, I think.’ Although the more Annie talked to her son, the more she realised his childhood hadn’t been that easy. It seemed his mother, although the life and soul of the party, was also an intensely neurotic woman who had leaned heavily on Daniel. The father seemed to be a distant, rather cold man who scared them both. Daniel hadn’t complained, exactly, but she thought she had read accurately between the lines.
Charles stretched his arms into the air. ‘I’m exhausted by all the drama! Are you hungry? I could make you a fried-egg sandwich. I’m afraid that’s the extent of my
repertoire. That and cheese on toast, but the egg one is generally more successful.’
She smiled and shook her head, glancing at her watch. ‘God, how did it get to be after ten? I’d better go.’
‘You’re married then,’ Charles said, clocking her flustered look as she gathered her bag and her jacket from a nearby chair.
‘Yes. And he’s not too keen on your profile.’
‘Seems a bit unfair,’ Charles protested mildly. ‘I didn’t do anything … except lose touch, perhaps. I agree that wasn’t very gentlemanly.’
She got up. ‘Why
didn’t
you ever phone me, by the way? Was I such a disaster?’
Charles thought about this for a moment. ‘We had fun, and I definitely liked you. I suppose I just took off to France for the summer and got distracted by too much booze and French totty. Can’t really remember.’
‘How flattering!’
He chuckled as he escorted her to the stairs. ‘I didn’t mean it quite like that. But you know what boys are like at that age …’ He stopped, embarrassed.
‘So what do I tell Daniel? About you. He’s staying with us for a few weeks – between flats – and I’d like to be able to let him know the plan.’
For a second they both stared at each other. Annie was suddenly overwhelmed. This is Charles Carnegie, she thought. She had never thought to see him again, any
more than she had thought she’d see her son. And she had demonised him for more than three decades.
‘He knows you’re here presumably?’
She shook her head. ‘I thought I’d wait till I was sure you really existed. I don’t want to disappoint him, but I can’t lie about you.’
‘No … no, I wouldn’t expect you to. Can you give me a bit more time to think about it? I don’t want to promise anything and then renege. But it’s a big thing for a man, a son.’
She smiled. ‘A very big thing.’
Richard was lounging on the sofa in the sitting room, nursing a half-empty glass of red wine in his lap, when she got home. He looks a bit drunk, she thought, surprised he was still up. Normally, by this time of night he would be tucked up in bed with one of his history books. He sprang up when he heard her come in, his eyes bleary.
‘Well? How did it go? What’s he like?’
She flopped down opposite him, suddenly tired. ‘He was … OK.’
‘OK?’ He gave a short laugh. ‘What does “OK” mean, exactly?’
She ignored his needling tone. ‘It means he was a lot, well,
nicer
, than I thought he’d be.’
Richard slumped back onto the sofa, draining what was left in his glass.
‘A bit pissed off not to have been told about the boy, surely?’
‘Yes. But more shocked than angry, I think. He was surprisingly sympathetic about me not telling him. But he’s not sure he wants to see him … at least, he said he wanted more time to decide.’
Richard raised an eyebrow. ‘Could he really refuse?’
‘Well, he could, I suppose. Of course he could. People do all the time. But I don’t think he will. He’s curious, I could tell. And he has a daughter, but no son. Men are keen on sons, aren’t they?’
Richard nodded perfunctorily, but didn’t answer, and Annie suddenly felt upset for Ed. Richard had never said in so many words that his son was a disappointment to him – beyond being frustrated about his academic failure – but the two had never really had much in common. Since Ed moved out, Richard, despite Annie’s urgings, seldom phoned his son, or made any effort to see him separately from the others. He would call Marsha for a chat, but hardly ever Ed.
‘I suppose Charles will get in touch when he’s decided.’
She saw her husband roll his eyes.
‘So what’ll you tell Daniel?’
‘Nothing. Not yet.’
‘Christ …’ Richard muttered, heaving himself off the sofa. ‘Well, at least now you’ve told him, you’ll never have to see the man again.’
‘I suppose not,’ she said, slowly to receive a suspicious look from her husband.
‘Do you
want
to see him again?’
She shook her head, more at her husband’s tone of voice than in response to his question.
He set his glass down on the table with the careful gesture of a man who knows he’s had too much to drink.
‘I’m going up. Coming?’
‘In a minute.’
She sat for a while in the cool silence of the sitting room. The meeting with Charles had disturbed her on levels that she couldn’t quite understand. We’re linked so closely, our genes both joined in Daniel, yet I hardly know the man. I liked him. He was generous about my situation back then, and … good company. I didn’t expect that. I know Richard is disappointed. He wanted me to come back and rant about what an arrogant prat Carnegie is. But he’s not.
11
Annie got up at six the day before Daniel arrived, keen to get Ed’s room ready. Excited and nervous in equal measure at the prospect of having him living with her for the first time, she had lain awake many nights that week in anticipation, praying he wouldn’t change his mind, praying he would. But she couldn’t help imagining the times she might have with him, hanging out at the kitchen table, or in the garden, going for walks or to the cinema, meeting for coffee. Like normal mothers and sons did.
Ed’s room was tidy and blank, smelling airless in the way of an unused spare room. She sat on his bed in her turquoise satin dressing gown for a moment, her bare feet cold on the wooden floor. She looked around at the touching remains of her son’s youth: a lurid poster of the band Metallica, one of Sinead O’Connor looking like an elfin child; Ed in the cricket team when he was about ten; cycling magazines – a phase he had passed through quickly in his late teens, until he discovered the less challenging
pleasures of a car – and piles of videotapes: films like
Mad Max, Terminator II, Goodfellas
.
He’d been an easy child, quiet, not given to tantrums or boyish violence. But if she were honest, although she loved him deeply, she’d always felt he held back from her. She wondered if this was her fault, if she’d been looking too hard for a replacement for Tom, which no future son could have possibly provided. She remembered the first time she’d held Ed in her arms. There had been joy, of course, and love. But also a terrible sadness for the one she had lost, and overwhelming guilt that she didn’t deserve this second chance. Perhaps Ed had unconsciously sensed her equivocation.
Richard stopped on his way downstairs and stood in the doorway watching her scraping the dried-out Blu-Tak from the edge of the Metallica poster as she prepared to take it down.
‘Have a heart, Annie,’ he said. ‘That’s Ed’s poster. Don’t take it down, he’ll be gutted.’
She looked at him in surprise. ‘But it’s so old and tatty.’
‘Old and tatty and Ed’s.’
She shrugged and pressed the corner back on the wall, but it wouldn’t stick and the paper flopped forward.
‘He doesn’t live here any more,’ she complained, trying again with the poster, annoyed that her husband was probably right.
‘Nor does Daniel.’ His voice was curt. ‘There’s more Blu-Tak in the kitchen drawer.’ He disappeared downstairs,
and by the time Annie got to the kitchen, he was draining his cup of coffee and gathering his briefcase, ready to go to work.
‘Richard … please,’ Annie began. ‘I know you’re not happy having Daniel here. But we said we’d try to make a go of it. It’s not for long.’
Richard looked innocently at her. ‘Have I said I won’t?’
She shook her head. ‘No, but I know you well. You were irritated just now, about the poster.’
He sighed, glancing at his watch. ‘Stop looking for the insult, Annie. Listen, I’d better get going.’
He dropped a perfunctory kiss on her temple and was gone.
That night she lay in bed waiting for Richard to come home. Where was he? He was almost never late, and always said if he would be. She’d rung his mobile three times during the evening, but it had relentlessly gone to voicemail. Was this some sort of payback for Daniel? she asked herself.
In the end she’d fallen into an exhausted sleep, only waking to the morning light. The other side of the bed was empty, untouched. Shocked and worried, she got up quickly and padded downstairs. The house was silent. Her mobile was on the kitchen table, and she called Richard’s number immediately. The ring-tone came from both her receiver and from somewhere in the house.
Following the noise upstairs, she realised it was coming
from Ed’s room. She opened the door. There was Richard, sprawled across the bed, half-covered with the clean duvet she’d put on for Daniel, still dressed in his shirt, pants and socks, his jacket, trousers and shoes in a heap by the bed. The room had the sharp, chemical reek of stale alcohol.
‘Richard?’
He didn’t stir. She went over and prodded him roughly. ‘Richard! Get up.’
He started awake, sat bolt upright, his eyes bloodshot, his face shaded with stubble. ‘Annie? What …’ he looked around, then covered his face with his hands. ‘Oh, God … sorry …’
‘What the hell are you doing?’ She stood over him. ‘Where were you? Why did you sleep in here?’
Richard swung his bare legs off the bed and groaned.
‘Sorry … I didn’t want to wake you, it was so late.’
‘Where were you?’ she repeated.
‘Just some work thing. It got a bit out of hand. God, I feel rough.’ He stood up, wobbled and sat down again hard. ‘It was that last brandy that did it.’
‘I made this bed up clean for Daniel. He’ll be here in a couple of hours.’ She turned on her heel.
‘You’ve never done that before,’ she said to Richard when he had showered and changed and come down to the kitchen looking sorry for himself.
‘Annie, I’ve said I’m sorry. It was just a boozy night. We were entertaining some clients, and it went on a bit, that’s all.’
‘I understand that, but you’ve never, ever stayed out that late without even so much as a phone call, and you’ve never not come to bed.’
‘It’s not such a big deal, is it?’ His voice was plaintive. ‘It was just one late night.’
Am I missing something? she wondered as she watched him make a strong cup of instant coffee. He seems to think his behaviour is quite normal. And for lots of men I’m sure it is. But it isn’t for Richard.