She tried to turn away, but I grabbed her shoulders and held her, so that she had to look at me. ‘Where?’ I asked her again, but she stayed silent. I began to wonder whether she had kept her secret for so long that she was unable to give it voice.
So I did it for her. ‘Unless there’s an ancestral link between the Blackstone and the More family, or the Mores and the Phillipses, that none of us knows about, there are only two possibilities. Either Alex More is my father, or Mac Blackstone is Jan’s.’ Actually, the first of those had never entered my head until then, the moment when I confronted the truth that had been doing my head in since I first clapped eyes on Tom. I didn’t believe it for a second but I found I couldn’t avoid it.
‘Either way,’ I began, then drew a breath to calm me down, for I was in danger of exploding. ‘Either way, one thing’s for sure: Jan was my half-sister, wasn’t she? For me to father a child who’s her double, with someone else. . there can be no other explanation.’ And then I found myself voicing the last inevitable question: ‘Or are you going to tell me that you didn’t know either?’
The last twist, the one my mind hadn’t let me consider before, threatened to blow a few circuits in my brain. What if neither Mary nor my dad had known? What if Alex More and my mum. .
Her silence lasted another ten seconds or so. If I’d thought about it, that last question had offered her an escape route, but if she saw it, she didn’t choose to take it. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I knew. Alex was sterile. Jan had to be Mac’s daughter.’
This is a terrible thing to admit but, although part of me was horrified, the greater part was relieved. I couldn’t have handled the discovery that My Dad wasn’t really.
It didn’t blow away my anger, though: that fell on her, full force. ‘And you kept that from the two of us. You let us. . Christ, Mary, Jan was pregnant when she died!’
‘Yes, but. . Oz, I couldn’t.’
‘One more thing: does he know? Does my dad know?’
‘No, I’m sure he doesn’t. It was a one-off: he and Flora had been at a Round Table party in someone’s house. Alex was away at a conference so I babysat for Ellen. There was a lot of drink at those Table dos, and that Flora, for the only time in her life, had a right few too many. She was pregnant with you, but I don’t think she knew it then. Mac brought her home, and carted her straight upstairs. Then he came back down. He’d had quite a few himself, and I’d sipped my way through the best part of a bottle of wine in the course of the evening. He said something about how nice I looked, I said something similar in return, we got close, there was kissing, and then there was more than kissing. We never mentioned it afterwards. . I don’t know about him, but I was embarrassed, for it was completely untypical behaviour on my part. . and I think both of us made sure that the same circumstances could never arise again. But I fell pregnant shortly afterwards.’
‘So you must have known from the start.’
‘No!’ Her protest was so spontaneous that I believed her. ‘I didn’t know about Alex’s condition then, neither did he. I didn’t know anything about peak fertility times either. We weren’t long married and we were trying for a family, trying quite hard if you must know. I admit that when I became pregnant the thought did cross my mind, but I discounted the possibility. Then when Jan was born, she didn’t look a bit like Ellen or you. . You and Jan were babies at the same time, remember.’
‘Yes, but Ellie and I both looked like our mum when we were infants; it never occurred to me till I saw Tom, but he’s very like my granny Blackstone. So was Jan in the picture I just showed you. When I looked at some older photos, I discovered that they were quite alike as young women too.’
‘Mac’s never noticed that, I promise you; he certainly never mentioned it to me, and I don’t think he’d have been able to keep it to himself if he had noticed it.’
‘When did you find out the truth?’
‘Years later; when Jan was thirteen, I think. Alex and I had been trying in vain for another baby, and finally we went to see a specialist in Edinburgh. He checked us both out, then said he was very sorry but Alex’s sperm count was virtually zero. Alex asked what had brought this on, and the consultant told him he’d always been like that.’
‘Jesus, that was tactful of him.’
‘Indeed. When I challenged him privately, he tried to claim that the case notes didn’t say we already had a child, but he’d examined me pretty carefully so he must have known.’
‘Is that why Alex left you?’
‘Ultimately, yes. He never asked me who Jan’s father was, I never told him, and I’m sure he never guessed. In truth, we barely discussed the matter. We just stumbled on for another four or five years, until he went off with his new love. . who, ironically, has three children from her first marriage.’
‘You never told us, Mary,’ I repeated quietly, my calmness restored.
‘How could I? Flora was still alive then, and she and your father were blissfully happy. What was I to do? Spill the beans and put that at risk? Make myself the most hated woman in town in the process? I’m sorry, Oz, call me weak, call me a fool, but I kept my mouth shut.’
‘But what about Jan and me, when you saw us together as kids?’
‘When I found out, you were both in your early teens. You behaved like brother and sister, even if you didn’t know you were.’
‘Mary,’ I told her, ‘from the age of. . fourteen, as I recall. . Jan and I did not behave exactly as brother and sister should. I’m not saying that she wasn’t a good girl, or that I was a bad boy, because we were pretty responsible by contemporary standards, but like any other kids of that age, there was kissing, like you just put it, there was cuddling, there was touching, there was feeling around. The older we got, the more intimate we got.’
‘I didn’t know that, though. When Jan reached puberty, we had the chat that you’re supposed to have. It embarrassed both of us, for she was very much a tomboy at that stage. I never thought of the two of you like that, honestly. When I found out. . I was shocked, terrified, even, but by then it was too late.’
‘When did you find out?’
‘I began to worry when I heard a story about you beating up two boys at school, because of something lewd that one of them had said about Jan. Then I found a condom, in its packet, in her room. I didn’t need to ask any questions after that.’
‘Did you talk to Jan about it?’
‘I asked her if she was having sex. I didn’t ask her with whom, but there was only one possibility. It’s the only time we ever had anything close to an argument. She told me very firmly that we should strike a deaclass="underline" I wouldn’t ask her that question again and she wouldn’t ask me either.’
‘Even then, couldn’t you have told us?’
She reached up and touched my face. ‘And if I had, my dear,’ she murmured, ‘how cruel would that have been? No, I kept it to myself and prayed you’d never find out. And you never would have either, but for Tom.’
‘You realised when you saw him, didn’t you?’
‘How could I not? It was like seeing my own child again. But it didn’t occur to Mac at all, I promise you. He said, “He’s a real wee Blackstone, isn’t he?” but that was all.’
I looked at her. ‘Then, Mary,’ I said, ‘for the love of God, if he comes through tonight, make sure that he never finds out the truth.’
‘I’ll try.’
I couldn’t help it: I felt my eyes harden. ‘Trying isn’t an option. Make bloody certain that he doesn’t.’
9
Maybe I should have blamed my dad. After all, the consequences of his quick, drink-fuelled, adulterous lapse on the living-room shag pile would live with me for the rest of my life. But I couldn’t: I’d found out a couple of years before that he isn’t perfect, just as I know I’m not.
When I thought about it some more, I found I didn’t blame Mary either. The same event had doomed her marriage, which some might see as just, but it had also condemned her to live what must have been a nightmare. Those who see that as right and proper retribution are free, as far as I’m concerned, to go and abuse themselves in some far corner of the planet, for they can have none of the Christian in their soul. (Unlike Mary, who’s always been a Church member, and who’s a true believer. All the more credit to her, I suppose, that she’s come through it as best she could. Eventually. . not that night, but on one of only two other occasions we’ve ever spoken about the matter. . she confessed to me that she saw Jan’s death as a divine punishment. I told her that any God who would do a thing like that wasn’t worth an inverted candle, but I don’t think she could bring herself to believe me.)