The Color of Secrets (34 page)

That night Louisa lay awake for a long time. Cathy had given her a lovely room overlooking the stream. She had opened the window before climbing into bed, hoping the water’s gentle rhythm would lull her to sleep, but there was too much going on in her head.

She went over and over it, piecing together all the precious glimpses Cathy had revealed. In a few short hours the chief mystery of her life had been solved. She had seen his face, found out where he came from, and understood the true nature of his relationship with her mother. But now there were new puzzles. Her dad must have known the depth of his wife’s feelings for Bill. So why had he been prepared to adopt his rival’s child?

It began to dawn on Louisa that, as a baby, she may have been little more than a bargaining chip.
If you want David, Lou comes too!
She could almost hear her mother hissing those words, full of bitterness at having to choose between her lover and her son. Was that why Eddie had adopted her?

But he must have grown to love her, mustn’t he? Otherwise he would have upped and left when David died. A depressing thought occurred to her. She was a substitute. Like a dog someone buys when they lose a partner and can’t bear to live alone. Eddie only loved her because he no longer had David. The wrong child had died.

The thought of this made the tears she had been fighting back all day flow freely onto the pillow. Suddenly she felt very alone. She wished she was at home and could creep into Rhiannon’s bed for company.

It was almost dawn when she fell into a fitful sleep. She dreamed of Bill, no longer the faceless stranger who had haunted her for so long, but the handsome young soldier in the photograph. He was leading her down the aisle of the big church in Aberystwyth. She was in the dress she had worn to marry Ray, but when she looked toward the altar rail, the man waiting for her was Michael.

She woke up in a sweat, her heart pounding. Someone was knocking on the door.

“Are you awake, Louisa?” It was Michael’s voice. “I’ve brought you some breakfast.”

She jumped out of bed, grabbing the soft, white terry-cloth robe Cathy had laid out for her. She opened the door and peered around it, revealing only her head. Michael was dressed. He looked as if he’d been up and about for ages.

“Thank you.” She took the tray of tea and toast. “What time is it? Have I overslept?”

“It’s ten past nine.” He gave her a smile that made her insides slide like melted butter. “Sorry to wake you, but I thought you’d want to be getting back.”

“Oh
. . .
yes.” She felt flustered, cross with herself. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

When she got into his car, the radio was on and she was glad of it. Her head was still muddled with the images of the night before. She needed time on her own to get things straight. Michael seemed to sense that she didn’t want to talk. Apart from a polite inquiry about whether she minded Radio One, he said nothing until they were approaching Wolverhampton.

“Will you write down your telephone number so I can let you know if I find anything in the paper? There’s a pad and pen in the glove compartment, I think.”

“Oh yes. Okay.” She found the pad and scribbled it down. Should she ask for his number? She wanted to, but wasn’t sure it was a sensible thing to do. If she had it, she knew she would be tempted to phone him on some pretext, just to hear his voice.
No,
she thought,
if he finds anything, he’ll phone me
. If not, there’s no reason to contact him again. The implication of this hit her like a slap in the face. Then the image from her dream flashed into her mind’s eye. Michael standing at the altar rail, smiling as she reached for his hand.
He’s married,
she reminded herself.
Forget him!

There was an awkward moment when they arrived at Michael’s house. He walked with her the short distance to where the Land Rover was parked. They said good-bye, and she went to shake his hand as he went to give her a hug. She ended up jabbing him in the chest with her fingers. He laughed it off, saying he hoped they’d meet again one day.

She drove off with an empty feeling inside.
Of course he hadn’t meant it
, she told herself.
He was just being polite
. She reached across to the passenger seat and flipped her bag open. She felt inside until her fingers found what she was looking for. The photograph of Bill that Cathy had given her. She propped it on the dashboard and smiled.
I’ll find you
, she whispered.
If it takes the rest of my life, I’ll find you!

Chapter 37

The next day Louisa went up to the top field, alone except for Mattie, one of the sheepdogs. Gina was the only person she had talked to so far about the events of the weekend. Eddie had called in to see her soon after she’d got back from Wolverhampton, but she had fobbed him off with short, noncommittal answers when he’d asked how the trip had gone. She despised herself for being so mean to him, but she felt overwhelmed with what she had learned from Cathy. She would talk to him, but not yet.

She had shown the photograph of Bill to Gina but not to the children. She wanted to have a copy made for Tom to take to school and get the original framed to hang in the living room. But then Eva would see it. Should she hide it away in her bedroom, then, just to spare her mother’s feelings?

As she trudged around the field inspecting the fences Eddie had checked just days before, she realized that she was sick and tired of pretending, of hiding things away. She had been doing it all her adult life. Was she going to make her own children do the same? Send them tiptoeing around their grandmother the way she had done, keeping things from her for fear of making her cry?
No
, she thought,
this has got to stop
. She felt very sorry for the way her mother’s life had turned out, but she mustn’t let its legacy hurt her children.

She decided she would show them both the photograph that evening and tell them as much of the truth as they were old enough to understand. And her mother would just have to accept it.
It had been thirty years ago
, she reminded herself. Thirty years since her mother’s romance with Bill. Surely that was enough time to get over someone?

Then her brother’s face drifted into her head. David had died more than a quarter of a century ago—but was the death of a child something a parent could ever get over? She tried to imagine how she would feel if anything happened to Tom or Rhiannon. She could still remember the terror she had felt when Trefor threatened to snatch her son. What if he had succeeded? Taken her boy away? Would she ever have been able to forgive him? Of course she wouldn’t: and was that so very different from the blame her mother had assigned to Bill?

He, unlike Trefor, had meant no deliberate harm, but she could understand how her mother’s mind would have twisted with grief. For years after David’s death, her mother had made the tortuous journey to chapel twice a day on Sundays. When they moved to Wolverhampton, she had joined the Congregational church around the corner from the house on Sycamore Street. She still went to chapel now that they were back at Devil’s Bridge, although not as often. Was it because of her arthritis or something else? Perhaps the heartache had loosened its grip and she didn’t feel such a need for religion anymore.

Louisa wondered what it was like inside her mother’s head. What she really felt about Eddie. On the face of it, her parents seemed quite contented with each other. Was this because, over the years, her mother had come to realize that Eddie was the right one after all? That Bill had been some hopeless romantic fantasy that probably wouldn’t have worked out?

She knew she was going to have to talk to her mother before she showed Bill’s photo to the children. She would have to tell her about finding Cathy and explain why she needed to bring everything out in the open. But first she would have to warn her dad. He was the one who would have to cope with most of the fallout. And she must do everything in her power to reassure him of his place in her heart.

She found him ferrying bales of straw with the tractor. She waved him down and climbed into the cab beside him. He poured her tea from his thermos and listened in silence as she told him all that had happened over the weekend. She hesitated only when she came to the part about her mother having to choose between Bill and David.

“Don’t worry: I know.” He had sensed what she was holding back. “I was very selfish, wasn’t I?” He blinked to banish the tears brightening his eyes. “I came back from the war very hard, very determined to cling onto what was left.”

Now it was her turn to listen. An expression of horrified fascination crept over her as he relived the nightmare of his time in Burma. When he described what had happened to Granville, the black orderly who had nursed him back to health, the tears that had been welling up spilled down her face.

“You see, when I came back and found you, it all seemed to make sense,” he said, patting her hand. “It was as if you were Granville’s child. He’d saved me, and now I could take care of you.”

“Oh Dad!” she wailed, reaching out for him. “I thought you only adopted me because you had no choice: that you had to take me to get David
. . .
”

“Oh God, Lou, did you really think that? Didn’t you realize how much I love you?”

“Yes
. . .
yes, of course I did!” She fumbled in her pocket for a tissue. “But when I found out what happened from Cathy I thought
. . .
well, I just didn’t know what to think anymore!”

“I have been selfish, haven’t I?” He looked at her, his eyes full of regret. “I remember when you were a kid, when you first found out about him, I was so jealous.”

She wiped away a tear. “Jealous?”

“Yes. I could have told you so much more, back then. Put you right when you said you hated him. But I wanted you to hate him. I was so afraid he’d take you away from me.”

Louisa stared at him, incredulous. “But how could he? He couldn’t have found us anymore than we could’ve found him!”

“I don’t mean it in that way.” He sighed. “I thought if you knew more about him, you might become obsessed with the idea of finding him, that you wouldn’t want me for a dad anymore.”

“Oh you!” She hugged him tight. “How could you
ever
think that? You’ll always be my dad: even if I manage to find him, it’ll never change things between us!”

“Will you forgive me, then,” he whispered, “for not telling you things I should have told you when you were little?”

“There’s nothing to forgive.” She squeezed his hand. “I don’t think anyone would ever blame you for holding things back. I’m sure I’d have done exactly the same in your shoes. The difference for me, though, is Rhiannon. I’m not just doing this for my sake: she needs to understand where she comes from.”

He nodded. “Maybe it’s time for all of us.”

Louisa wondered if her mother really appreciated what a fantastic thing her dad had done, taking on another man’s child and loving her as if she was his own flesh and blood.
Well
, she thought,
I’m about to find out
.

As Louisa made her way along the rutted track that led to her parents’ bungalow, her boots kicked up a billowing trail of dust. The air was still and heavy. Leaden clouds had turned the sunlight a treacherous yellow-gray. Her stomach did an involuntary flip as she rehearsed what she was going to say. She told herself it was for the best. But she was frightened of the effect her words were going to have. Her mother had been bottling all this up for more than half her life. How was she going to react when she found out Louisa had gone searching for Cathy behind her back? That her daughter knew secrets she thought were dead and buried?

“Hello, love.” Eva looked up from her knitting as Louisa pushed open the door. “I’m doing this for Rhiannon when she starts school.” She held up one side of a navy-blue woolen cardigan. “D’you think it’ll be all right?”

“Oh
. . .
yes.” Louisa stared at her for a moment, knocked off-balance. Eva’s short wavy hair was quite white at the front and the temples. Only from the back was it possible to tell that she had once been a redhead. The lines on her face deepened as she bent over her knitting, gravity accentuating the bags under her wide gray eyes. Her knuckles were knobbly with arthritis. Louisa knew knitting was an effort for her, which made what she was about to do seem even more heartless.

“Mum,” she said, “I need to talk to you. It’s about Tom.” Eva looked up, the lines on her face twitching into an expression of alarm. “It’s okay—nothing’s wrong. Shall I make us a cup of tea?”

In the kitchen Louisa took a deep breath. She mustn’t lose her nerve now. She had to face her mother, not let her find out by accident. Once the children had seen Bill’s photo, it wouldn’t be fair to expect them to keep quiet about him. They’d be sure to say something next time she came to the farmhouse and that would be a much greater shock than doing it this way.

“Mum,” she began, setting down the teacup on the table at her mother’s elbow. “There’s something Tom’s been asked to do for school.”

Eva listened, still knitting, as Louisa began to explain. When Bill’s name was mentioned, the needles suddenly stopped clicking.

“I’m sorry I went behind your back, but I just had to know the truth.” Louisa searched her mother’s face, willing her to understand. “If I hadn’t managed to find your friend Cathy, I’d have let it drop. But I did.” She held her breath. Her mother was looking at her as if she’d put a knife into her stomach. “She told me everything,” she whispered. “I don’t blame you for not wanting me to know about him, Mum. I understand how upset you must have been.” She swallowed hard. “But I have to tell the children the truth about where they came from. You do see that, don’t you?”

Eva nodded, staring past Louisa at the twisting garlands of honeysuckle on the wallpaper. Her lips moved as if she was about to speak, but she said nothing. Outside there was a rumble of thunder.

“Cathy gave me a photograph.” Louisa held her breath. Watching her mother’s face was like walking on broken glass. “I don’t suppose you’ll want to see it, but I wanted to give a copy to Tom for his project. Is that all right?” No response. “I wanted to warn you in case you caught sight of it at our house.”

Still Eva said nothing. Still she stared at the wall. A tear oozed from the corner of her left eye and slid down her bare, unmade-up cheek. A blue vein pulsed at her temple, and perspiration glistened on her forehead like frost on a furrowed field.

“Mum?” Louisa’s mouth went dry. “Mum?” She leaned forward, put her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “Are you okay, Mum? Here, have a sip of your tea.” She took the cup and brought it to Eva’s lips, tilting it for her mother to drink. And, like a child, Eva drank, her hands locked in her lap. There was a flash of lightning. Rain lashed against the window as the storm passed overhead.

“I’m all right now,” Eva murmured, draining the cup. “It was the shock, that’s all.” She seemed to be saying it to herself. “I’ll be all right as long as I don’t see his face. You do understand, don’t you?” She looked at Louisa, her own face twisted with fear. “I can’t see him. I can’t even bear the smell of oranges, you know.”

“Oranges?” Louisa felt a stab of alarm. What was she talking about?
God
, she thought,
she’s had a stroke or something
.

“Don’t you remember?” Eva went on in a whisper. “I could never have them in the house. Not even satsumas at Christmas. You asked me to buy some once. We had a row about it in the greengrocer’s.”

Louisa bit her lip, her eyes frantically scanning her mother’s face. “N
. . .
no,” she faltered, “I
. . .
don’t remember.”

“They reminded me of him, you see.” Eva’s forehead puckered and her mouth went into a tight circle. “He always smelled of oranges. It was the oil he put in his hair. To make him look more European—that’s what he said.”

“Oh, Mum!” Louisa hugged her, overcome with relief. She was all right—she was remembering! “You know the last thing I want to do is upset you by making it all come back,” she said gently, “but if there’s anything—anything else you could tell me about him
. . .
” She smiled at her mother through a film of tears. “I was so confused when I was growing up: I imagined all kinds of things, you know. It would be so good to know the—”

“I expect you want to find him?” Eva cut in, her voice calm, even. Louisa was startled by it. When her eyes cleared, she saw that the mask was back in place. “I’m sorry,” Eva went on, “there’s nothing more I can add to what Cathy’s already told you.” She paused and her lips twitched slightly, as if she was fighting to keep control. “Will you promise me something?” The hand she placed on Louisa’s was shaking. “If you find him, you won’t bring him here, will you?”