My parents had two daughters after me. There was a fairly solid age gap, five years between me and Molly, and another two between Molly and Belle. I was always told that it was because they were devoting all their attention to me that they’d waited. That was something I held over my sisters’ heads a lot, let me tell you. It’s fun having siblings, even with such an age gap. You were an only child, weren’t you? I can’t imagine not having co-conspirators around all the time.
Always someone to gang up on. Always somebody to play with. Mum has always been a nervous sort really, but a lovely woman despite it all. She worked before she had me, she was a primary school teacher, but I think what she really wanted to do was raise a family and live in the countryside. I know that’s not a fashionable thing to say anymore, but it worked very well for our family. And Dad was happy enough to make that happen. I don’t think Mum was strong enough for work. You’d probably think that was ridiculous. I know how tough you are. You probably also think that’s ridiculous, since we’ve never met properly. But I’m right, aren’t I?
Oh dash, I’ve rambled on, haven’t I? As I said, I didn’t find out who my real father was until I was an adult. I’d graduated from Exeter with a degree in PPE, and I’d made the move to London to work in the city and have some fun. Growing up in Surrey meant that London felt raw and exciting to me. Still does actually. You were born there, weren’t you? I imagine you’re jaded about the city, too used to it. Lucky you! Mainly though, I wanted to make money. We were well off, certainly. But I saw what the other lads had at my school, and I always felt a real desire to get that for myself. Christopher was the director of a mid-sized accountancy firm, and he earned a good-sized whack. It was always enough. Until, one day, it wasn’t. That day was when a boy in my class came over for tea during half term when I was about eight, and asked if the driver could take him home later on. Mum smiled and said that she’d get him back safely, but he looked bemused. That’s when I knew what I was missing. Funny that, realising at eight that you want a driver. I imagine most eight-year-olds want an Xbox.
Training to be a stockbroker was gruelling. About eighteen months in, I got a phone call one lunchtime when I was shovelling a sandwich into my mouth while trying to speed read that day’s figures. It was Mum; her name is Charlotte, by the way – everyone in the family calls her Lottie. Dad had had a heart attack and she was at the Royal Surrey Hospital with my sisters. I hailed a cab on Liverpool Street and told the driver to get me there as fast as possible. But it was too late. He died before I arrived. I know you’ll understand how I felt that day, having lost your mother so young. We were all inconsolable. I took three days off work to be with my mother and sisters, though Mum took to her bed and refused to speak much during that time. But I had to get back to work, and arranged for Granny to come down from York to stay with them. The funeral took place a week later. The church was stuffed full of Christopher’s friends – those he’d had from school days at Eton, those he made from work and everyone in between. The choir sang ‘Jerusalem’ and everyone said what a true gent my dad was. Mum took a mild sedative to get through it, and my sisters wept a lot. But it was a proper send-off, a lovely day, despite the sadness. Or at least it was, right up until 5 p.m. The wake was back at our house. We’d had it catered, Mum was evidently not up to laying out a spread. So all there was to do was go around and accept as many sympathetic words as we could from the people in attendance. Mum had retired to her room half an hour before, and I was trying to speak to as many people as I could. The girls were sitting in the living room with Granny. They looked worn out. It was my duty now. As I extricated myself from a dull man in a grey checked suit who’d worked for Dad and headed for the lav, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was my aunt Jean. I call her my aunt, but really she was just my mother’s oldest friend. As close as sisters though, and a fixture of my childhood, though I’d not seen much of her in the last few years. She looked old now, big hollowed-out rings under her eyes and a weird bony hand which grasped mine.
‘I am so sorry about dear Christopher,’ she sniffed. I murmured thanks and we made some small talk about the day. ‘He always treated you just like a son. Always. He was a wonderful man.’ You’ll think me a fool, but I would absolutely not have realised what she’d said there, if it hadn’t been for the fact that as soon as the words came out, she flinched, dropped my hand and her eyes bulged. Just for a second, you understand. But I saw that she’d frightened herself. Jean started to say her goodbyes, she had to go, it was a long drive. I nodded, gave her a hug and told her that I’d say goodbye to Mum for her. I dived into the downstairs loo and rummaged in my jacket pocket for the packet of fags I’d made sure to keep on me in case I needed a minute to myself that day. I know you do that too, don’t you? Not all the time, not a morning coffee and a cigarette kind of girl. Just sometimes, when you need a break from the world. I borrowed your lighter once at the pub around the corner from your office. It’s a good tactic if you want to spend a second or two looking at someone without them minding, or getting creeped out. I went out the side door and into the kitchen garden, where guests weren’t congregating. Crouching over, with my back against the wall, I replayed Jean’s comment in my mind again and again. A comment made by a sad woman that normally I’d have put down to mild battiness. But she looked so panic-stricken when she’d said it. There was no mistaking that. I think I’m a rational person, Grace. I pride myself on cutting through mumbo jumbo and quashing any self-denial. So the only sensible conclusion, as painful as it might be, was that somehow Christopher was not my real father.