The pianist who had provided the stuttering accompaniment to the last six years was playing now, on the same tuneless piano, in an apartment somewhere on one of the upper floors. Handel’s Gavotte in G minor. A favourite exercise dished out by piano teachers to talentless pupils. It seemed to Enzo that this particular student was still struggling with Grade One.
Kirsty greeted him at the door and held him in a way she had not done since she was a child, very nearly squeezing the breath from him. She stood back then, eyes shining, her mood strangely bright and brittle.
‘Come on in, Dad. I’m so pleased you were able to come.’ She took him by the hand and led him into the séjour. Sunlight splashed in through tall windows and lay in patches across the floor. It seemed as brightly over-lit as Kirsty. Enzo looked around. ‘Where’s Alexis?’
‘Oh, Roger took him out for a walk.’
Enzo cocked an eyebrow. ‘You really did want to see me on your own, then.’
She just smiled and led him to the table where green tea stood infusing in a Chinese teapot, with ceramic cups gathered around it on a tray. ‘Sit down.’ She waved him towards a chair. ‘Would you like a cup?’
‘Sure.’ He examined her more closely as she poured. There were the beginnings of crow’s feet around her eyes, a well-defined jaw showing the first signs of age. Even your children grow old, he thought. He said, ‘How are things with you and Roger?’
‘Good.’ She nodded enthusiastically. ‘We’ve had a lot of stuff to work through since... well, since everything that happened. But we’re better for that. Closer now than we have been for some time. He’s more like the Roger I first knew.’ She paused. ‘We’re going to be okay.’
Enzo forced a smile. ‘I’m happy for you.’ Though, in his heart, he knew that he would never be truly happy about her liaison with Raffin.
The doorbell sounded, and he saw her stiffen, as if she had just received a tiny electric shock.
‘Are you expecting guests?’
She looked at him, and could barely hold his eye. ‘Just don’t hate me for this. It’s taken me a long time to pluck up the courage.’ And she hurried off into the hall, where he heard the door opening and then voices greeting her in English. Familiar voices. A man and a woman. He stood up, heart pounding, and felt as if he had been ambushed.
Kirsty came back in, eyes to the floor, avoiding his. She was followed by Enzo’s boyhood friend, Simon, her blood father. He seemed strangely old. Most of his hair had gone now, and his beard was shot through with more silver than black. Right behind him was a woman Enzo felt as if he might have known in another life. She was small and middle-aged, carrying more weight than was good for her. Hair that should have been allowed to go gracefully grey was dyed a shiny blue-black, and served only to emphasise the ageing quality of her skin. It was her eyes that remained unchanged. A deep, startling green, ringed by black. And Enzo realised with a shock that she was Kirsty’s mother, his ex-wife, Linda. The woman he had left for Pascale, and not seen once in the more than twenty-five years since.
It was evident from their faces that they were as shocked to see him, as he was to see them.
Simon looked at Kirsty. ‘What the hell’s going on, Kirst?’ And Enzo found himself resenting the use of his one-time friend’s shortened pet name for her.
But Linda’s gaze was still fixed on Enzo. ‘You’ve worn better than I have,’ she said, rancour in every word. ‘The good life in France, no doubt.’
‘No doubt.’ Enzo summoned his smile with difficulty.
‘Kirsty?’ Simon wasn’t giving it up. Beyond his first sight of Enzo he hadn’t looked at him once. His eyes were on Kirsty.
She said, ‘I’m sorry if this seems a bit overdramatic. But it felt like the best way to deal with things. Everyone here at once. A single telling of the tale, then an end to it. If I’ve been a little sparing with the truth in getting you all here, then I apologise.’
Her mother looked at her for the first time. ‘What are you talking about, Kirsty?’
Enzo saw Kirsty draw a deep breath. ‘You all know that Alexis has a hearing problem. Some months ago Dad and I went to see a specialist in Biarritz. He took blood from Alexis for testing and diagnosed a congenital condition that will require him to wear hearing aids, probably for the rest of his life.’ She paused. ‘What I didn’t tell you, any of you, is that mild sensorineural deafness is only one of the symptoms of his condition. It is likely that it will manifest itself in other ways as he grows older.’
‘Like what?’ Linda was clearly concerned.
Kirsty looked at Enzo. ‘Well, for example, a white streak through his hair.’
And Enzo felt all the hairs rising up on the back of his neck. His right hand lifted involuntarily to touch the white streak through his own hair, just as he had done in the doctor’s office in Biarritz. He felt the others looking at him, but kept his eyes on Kirsty.
She said, ‘Alexis is suffering from Waardenburg syndrome. It can manifest in many ways. Different-coloured eyes, a cleft palate, a white streak in the hair. Deafness. It’s an inherited, genetic condition. From which, I think, neither you, Mum, nor Simon suffer.’ She looked again at Enzo. ‘There’s only one person here who could have passed that on.’
Enzo dragged his eyes away from Kirsty to look at Linda. He saw that her face had flushed pink, with crimson highlights on her cheeks. Simon, too, turned to look at her.
Kirsty said, ‘Simon’s not my father, is he, Mum? You lied to him.’
‘Kirsty—’
‘Don’t lie to me, too,’ Kirsty cut her off. ‘Don’t you dare. A simple paternity test will prove it.’
The silence was punctuated only by the distant murder of poor Handel. But none of them heard it. Then Linda said, ‘When he left—’ and her glance at Enzo was so full of malevolence he almost recoiled from it — ‘I tried everything to keep Simon close. He was all that I had left. I was lonely...’ It was a plea for understanding that fell on deaf ears.
Kirsty said, ‘So you lied to him about being my father.’
Linda turned her gaze down towards the floor and couldn’t bring herself to deny it.
Kirsty swung fiery eyes, then, towards Simon. ‘And you used that to hurt my dad. A club to beat him with. You knew what it would do to him.’
‘Kirst...’
‘Don’t call me that!’ She almost spat her contempt in his face.
‘I only wanted what was best for you. I was concerned for your safety, and all the shit he was dragging you into.’ He threw a withering glare at Enzo.
But Kirsty shook her head. ‘Seems to me the only person you were concerned about was you. And, of course, for anyone to believe that it might be true, that I really could be your daughter, you would have had to have slept with my mother. Your best friend’s wife. You can’t deny that, can you?’
And there was a finality in Kirsty’s voice that pre-empted further discussion.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I hope you two enjoy your time together in Paris. But I’d like to make it clear to you now. I don’t want to see either of you again. Ever.’
‘Kirsty...’ Pain was etched into every line on Linda’s face.
‘Ever!’ She folded her arms. ‘You know where the door is.’
For a long moment no one moved, then Simon turned and walked briskly out into the hall without a backward glance. They heard the door open and slam behind him.