I waited until the last guest had gone, made sure that my sisters were safely ensconced in front of the TV, and headed up the narrow staircase to my mother’s bedroom. Was your mother weak, Grace? I imagine she was. I bet she was very similar to mine in many ways. The only difference is that my mother had a husband to protect her from the world and yours did not. I didn’t want to land a harsh blow on her, that day of all days. But I suddenly felt so tired of tiptoeing around her, making sure that she wouldn’t face any stress or unpleasantness as she often called it. I wanted to be blunt for once. And so I was.
Lottie wasn’t asleep. She was just lying in semi-darkness, a cushion hugged to her as though it was a sleeping pet. She looked tiny, her wispy blonde hair spread over the pillows like a child’s. I sat down on the other side of the bed and told her that I knew that Christopher wasn’t my real dad. No point in letting her have even a tiny opportunity to lie. If I was expecting her to crumple and beg forgiveness, I was wrong. She ducked and weaved with an energy I’d not seen in her before. It was energy I didn’t know she had in her, to be honest.
It took us ten minutes to get past the outraged stage, where she couldn’t believe that I’d make such an allegation. It was twenty minutes to move on from the weeping and repeated insistence that we couldn’t talk about such things today of all days. At the half an hour point, Lottie was hugging me, telling me that Christopher was my father, no matter what anyone said. Ten minutes later, she began to tell me the truth.
My mother had a fairly sheltered upbringing in Somerset, with a family who had a nice little ancestral home and a respected name. Not too much money for her when the first child was a prized son, but she was happy enough. She went to London aged 20, ostensibly to work at an art gallery off Savile Row, but mainly, she told me, to have an adventure. For my mother, this meant a lot of parties, nightclubs and jaunts to the south of France with rich pals. I knew she’d lived in London before she’d had me, but I was a little surprised at the freewheeling life she was telling me about now. My mother has worn cardigans and wellies every day of my life. It’s still hard to imagine her going to some of the clubs that I frequent in town. She already knew Christopher, she told me, but they were just friends. He was shy, something I knew he had been all his life, and she didn’t notice him much when out in a group.
One night, at the nightclub Vanessa’s, she was sitting in a booth with a group of girlfriends when a waiter brought over a glass of champagne and told her that it was from the gentleman at the bar. When she looked over, she saw a dark-haired man in a T-shirt and black trousers, staring at her intently. Between quivering breaths, my mother explained that she was intrigued. Most of the men she knew were already facsimiles of their fathers. Proper and reserved, looking for the right kind of wife. This man was different, and her girlfriends made a huge fuss about the approach, urging her to go and talk to him. So she did. My anxious mother, who takes to her bed whenever life overwhelms her, walked over to this stranger and struck up a conversation.
I don’t need to tell you the rest really do I, Grace? Because you know. It’s not your story, and yet it is. By the time Lottie found out that she was pregnant, this man had moved on. And she wasn’t strong like your mother. Terrified by what her parents would think, she carried on working in a state of denial. Until one day, my father turned up at the flat she shared with a couple of friends just off the Kings Road and told her that he knew what had happened. I don’t know whether he’d guessed or what, Lottie was crying at that point and I didn’t want to push it, but he was very kind and told her that they should get married. That makes me smile to think of. Such an act of Victorian heroism from the old man. It was the Nineties, for chrissakes! But my grandparents were old fashioned, and I’m sure would’ve hated any society gossip. As would my mother, for that matter. There is a section of the British upper class which enjoys scandal, or at least finds it all a hoot. My family, despite our good fortune, weren’t quite at that level. She smiled as she remembered her reaction to this proposal, still hugging the cushion to her body.
I don’t know whether Lottie loved Christopher with a romantic passion back then. Maybe she never did. But they were happy, Grace. Really happy. And that seems like it might mean more than the fireworks and passion that men are always being told women want. Prince Charles, who seems like a decent guy, got in a whole heap of trouble when he answered a reporter who asked if he was in love with Diana by saying ‘whatever “in love” means’。