On the internet, Mark and I found the archive from the Rotorua Daily Post that told the story of the death of a respected local dentist, James Armstrong, and the survival of his poor orphaned son, Steven. Conor Geary had lived in New Zealand for the best part of five years working as a dentist under a fake name. Peter’s passport was in the name of Steven Armstrong. He was wary of getting his status regularized, although Mark and I both felt that he should reclaim his name and nationality officially. He was here in Ireland on a ninety-day holiday visa. We suggested looking into the practicalities of doing it through my solicitor but Peter was reluctant and terrified of the media. This had to be handled with kid gloves, or not at all. We agreed that Peter should take his time and decide for himself when he wanted to go ahead with it.
After the first week, I invited Peter to stay in my home, for Christmas, and as long as he wanted thereafter. He smiled for the first time that day. We shook hands. That was as close as we had dared to be physically. I drew up a roster for use of the bathroom and breakfast and bedtime. We would take turns to cook for each other. He balked at the idea of being introduced to my friends. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘I’m not used to people. Maybe one at a time?’ and I understood that too. Mark was no longer present for all of our conversations. He found it more upsetting than I did.
On Christmas Day, Mark and Peter and I had lunch together. There was something I had wanted to ask Peter about, but Mark had said we should take things slowly, so I waited until Mark cut the Christmas cake and I poured us all a glass of port.
‘Peter, you know, when we got the DNA results, there was a record of your daughter, but you’ve never mentioned her?’
‘I don’t have a daughter,’ he said. I opened the laptop and showed him the website and there it was clearly stated:
PG [his initials]
Amanda Heron
Parent/Child 50% DNA shared
I clicked on Amanda Heron’s name. Her date of birth was 1996.
‘You definitely have a twenty-three-year-old daughter. I thought you said you didn’t have any relationships or girlfriends?’
He knocked back the glass of port and refilled his glass, and the silence grew.
‘Peter?’ said Mark. ‘What’s going on? Did you know about her?’
‘I never knew her name,’ he said. ‘I had a few, you know, one-night stands, and one of those women came and told me she was pregnant, but I didn’t believe her, or at least, I thought anyone could be the father.’ All the time he spoke, he was looking at the floor, ashamed, I think.
I was perturbed. He was not asexual like me. Tina had told me it was not the kind of thing I could quiz Peter about. People’s sex lives were private, she insisted.
‘My … encounters were drunken. I was never able to talk to women sober,’ said Peter.
‘Well, I guess you got more family than you bargained for,’ said Mark, ‘but let’s take one step at a time. Everything must be overwhelming for you now.’
Peter nodded and when he looked up his eyes were full of tears. That was another difference between us. He cried. I didn’t.
‘I reckon she’d be better off without me. I’m not good with people, especially strangers.’
‘But maybe she’d like to get to know you.’ Mark pushed it.
‘I wouldn’t be a good dad, it’s too late for me. I don’t even remember who her mother is.’ He wasn’t interested in his daughter. Mark wanted more answers than me, but I told him to leave it.
Over the following weeks, I noted that Peter was as anti-social as I used to be. I could empathize with him. He seemed so alone in the world, but he was never aggressive or threatening in any way.
I asked him to come and see Tina with me, but he didn’t want to. He always made an excuse to go to his room if I had visitors, and refused second-hand invitations from my friends. We told everyone he was Mark’s cousin, my second cousin, and that he was visiting from Australia, which was almost the truth. We didn’t want to mention New Zealand because too many of my friends knew about the weird post I’d been getting from New Zealand. But we didn’t fool everyone. Angela asked me if there was something going on with us.
‘With who?’
‘With you and that Australian fellow. Is he your boyfriend?’
‘No. You know I don’t have boyfriends.’ The thought horrified me, but I was sworn to secrecy that he was my brother.
‘It’s unusual for you to welcome a strange man into your home.’
Sue had said the same thing. And it was definitely awkward even though Peter and I liked each other. He got up at dawn and went walking for hours, and eventually would turn up at dinner time. We stuck to our bathroom rota. And we did not enter each other’s bedrooms under any circumstances. He only showered every second day, even though my shower was beautiful. I couldn’t understand that. He stopped shaving shortly after he arrived and looked generally unkempt. Conversation was often stilted. He didn’t seem to like it when I played the piano. As soon as I started, I heard the front door bang. It was rude. But it was my house and if I wanted to play the piano, I would.
We continued to talk, though. Why had my birth father chosen to keep Peter by his side and abandon me? Peter described a loving, benevolent, indulgent dad, clever and hardworking, and yet, we both knew what he had done to my mother, and how he had manipulated Peter.
The hardest thing for Peter to learn was that my mother hadn’t spoken of his existence. We gave him the tapes and files but we kept from him the tape on which she said, ‘It doesn’t matter. I didn’t want him.’ He read through everything and listened to all of the recordings.
‘She was screwed up,’ he said.
‘Yes, by your loving father.’ Mark was increasingly annoyed by Peter’s defence of Conor Geary.
‘What about other “relationships”？’ said Mark.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, you were living with him there for five years. Did he have access to other children? Didn’t you worry that he might kidnap another little girl?’
‘I only really worked out what had happened with my mother not long before he died. We fought about it. But Dad only took adult dental patients. In New Zealand, kids’ dental care is subsidized by the government but adults are more lucrative, and even the receptionist that Dad hired in the dental office was a man, and that was unusual. He never went after another kid. I’m sure of it.’
‘I find it strange that a paedo who had been so active would just stop and change his ways, especially when he’d got away with it? Maybe he found a way to hide it from you.’
Peter looked away. ‘Look, I know you don’t like me defending him. I don’t think he ever went after any other kids. But he was a misogynist. He always referred to women as stupid or ugly or opinionated. He didn’t like them, that’s for sure.’
‘You know,’ I said carefully, ‘I think Conor Geary might have been messed up by his mother at a young age.’
‘Yeah?’ said Peter. ‘I asked him about his parents once or twice. I was curious about my grandparents, you know? He got tight-lipped and changed the subject.’