‘So I gather.’
‘I’m sorry Helen called you – but I can’t believe you actually encouraged Leah.’
‘I don’t think it’s anything to be too upset about.’
‘Honestly, Mum – she’s just out of school. What were you thinking? He’s an older relation who was supposed to be looking after her – mentoring her. We are really quite shocked.’
‘Well, I’m sorry if I did wrong. Put it down to a touch of dementia on the part of your old mum. From my perspective eighteen and twenty-five – or whatever he is – seem like pretty much the same age. But tell me about Claire?’
‘Claire was pretty sensible, I must say. I’ve got a lot of time for Claire.’
‘And she likes you. Always has. After all, you did save Julie. She told me once that I underestimated you.’
‘It’s nice to have been a hero once in your life – but all I did was carry Julie to the road.’
‘It was a long way.’
‘That’s true – I could hardly move my arms the next day, they were so stiff.’
‘And you photographed the snake.’
‘It was just lucky I had got my new phone with a camera – it was one of the first ones. I think that’s what amazed Claire. She didn’t know then that mobile phones had cameras.’
‘Anyway, what was Claire’s pronouncement?’
‘She was just anxious to know whether you were really fixed on the idea.’
‘I hope you said that I was?’
‘I did.’
‘So she didn’t urge you to talk me out of it?’
‘She said I should keep trying to dissuade you because that would test your resolve.’
‘Sounds reasonable.’
‘She said that she wasn’t really surprised. She thinks that you have a bit of an obsession about being in control. This would be your final demonstration of your power to control your own destiny.’
‘My destiny – that’s a bit dramatic. But maybe an element of truth in it.’
‘When she told me that, I couldn’t help thinking of the time when we were going to France and there was a delay at the airport and you got so impatient,’ said Callum, laughing.
‘Oh that.’
‘You insisted that we cancel the flights and travel back into London; we then got the Eurostar to Paris, lugged all our gear into a taxi to the Gare de Lyon…’
‘I’ve heard all this before.’
‘…then another train… we would have been there a whole day earlier if we’d stuck to flying – and it cost a lot more money – but you felt empowered…’
‘And I’ve never heard the end of it.’
‘Claire was very amused.’
‘She was; manically impatient, she called me – or something like that.’
As they continued to chat and laugh and reminisce, Marianne had a sense of ease talking to Callum which she hadn’t felt for years. This is how it should always have been, she thought. There has been nothing missing in my love for Callum – just circumstances coming between us. And in so thinking, there welled up inside her such a tenderness for Callum and such shame at her own doubts that she felt shocked that she could have contemplated leaving that letter behind for him after she was dead.
‘Callum, there’s something I need to tell you,’ she said.
‘Yes?’
‘I think that when you were growing up you always believed that Andy was actually dead.’
‘Wasn’t he?’
‘No.’
‘So what are you telling me?’
Marianne set about explaining to Callum how it had been. How, in her whirlpool of grief at Izzy’s death, he had been her lifebelt and how she had vowed that she would be his protector. She told him how she had fought with Edward over his adoption and exaggerated the extent of Andy’s injuries.
‘I don’t think I ever lied to you directly,’ she said, ‘but you got it firmly into your head that Andy was dead and it seemed easiest to let you go on believing that. Dad wanted to tell you, but somehow it never seemed to be the right time. I also wondered whether it would be fair on Andy.’
‘So are you telling me he was absolutely fine – nothing wrong with him?’
‘More or less. I mean, he nearly died in the accident, but he gradually recovered – although we didn’t know his state of health after the adoption because we had no contact with him.’
‘You’re not telling me he is still alive now?’
‘No. After Dad died I thought that I should find out what had happened to him, so I wrote to his mother but never received a reply. I then travelled to Glasgow and went to the last address we had and she was still there. She wasn’t very friendly but she told me Andy had died of a stroke a couple of years earlier. She gave me the impression that this was all due to the accident; that his health had never been the same again.’
As Marianne was talking, Callum got up from his chair and started to walk around the room. ‘Well, I can’t pretend it’s not a bit of a shock,’ he said. ‘So Andy – my real father – lived on till just before Dad died. So when I was around thirty.’
‘Yes.’
‘He can’t have been more than fifty when he died?’
‘I suppose so. I think perhaps he never fully recovered – as his mother suggested.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me? I mean, once I was grown up?’
‘It didn’t seem necessary. Would you have wanted to meet him?’
‘I can’t say now, can I? The point is, I never got the chance.’
‘That’s why I am telling you now. I prevented you ever knowing your real father, and I prevented Andy from ever knowing his son. You have every right to blame me for this. I am sorry to spring this on you, but it is right you should know the truth before I die.’
Marianne watched as Callum tried to digest this knowledge. Some men would have remonstrated, shouted, perhaps sworn, but this was not Callum’s way. She watched as he tried to reconcile his conflicting emotions. So like Edward, she thought; he’s unhappy about what he’s heard but he wants to understand it from my point of view. That’s both his strength and his weakness – he can always see the other point of view. On this occasion Marianne felt grateful for his considered reaction.
‘I am surprised Dad never told me?’
‘That wasn’t his way. He disagreed with me, but he left it for me to decide.’
‘But anyway, Andy gave up any right to see me – I mean, when he agreed to the adoption.’
‘Yes.’
‘He didn’t have to consent – and you told me the adoption took ages to go through.’
‘It certainly seemed like ages.’
‘So I don’t think you can say you deprived Andy of anything – he made his own decision.’
Marianne was silent as she watched Callum rationalising what he had heard; stacking the pieces in a logical and ordered pile.
‘When you think about it, he was probably relieved. Absolved of any responsibility for the child.’
Marianne shrugged.
‘And as for me, I lost nothing. I didn’t want another father. No, I think you did the right thing.’
‘I don’t know whether you are just saying this – but thank you anyway.’
‘Mum, don’t be stupid – I’m not just saying it. I mean it.’
Callum sat down next to Marianne again and took her hand. ‘If you’ve been getting yourself worked up into a great state of guilt then you shouldn’t. My mother was dead. You took on the raising of your grandson when his natural father was neither willing nor able to do so. Letting me think he was dead was just for my own protection – and perhaps for his as well. You have no reason to blame yourself.’
‘Thank you, darling.’
‘Perhaps you could have told me when I was in my twenties – that’s the only thing I would say.’