The Red House (6 page)

‘Why?’ she asked.

I wondered if I was missing something. ‘Why what?’

‘Why do you want to know about him?’ Not
what
do you want to know, but
why
.

I tried to take it all back, to stop what was sure to follow. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have …’

‘He left us, Maxwell. What else is there?’

I tilted my head back. I should have known that this topic is a train, not a car: it runs on a track.

She continued, unstoppable: ‘He left us because I loved you. He wanted my attention all to himself, and for the house to be like just two adults lived there instead of two parents and a baby. He didn’t like waking up in the middle of the night; he didn’t like the dishes undone, or the smell of nappies. He didn’t like
us
, Maxwell. So he left.’

I’d heard all of that before. ‘I know, Mum, I—’

‘Is it Imogen who asked you to do this? To invite him to the wedding? Because that’s not fair, Maxwell. He didn’t do any of the raising, so he doesn’t get to be “father of the groom”.’

‘This isn’t about the—’

‘I’m not saying I won’t come. Of course I’ll come. But
you’ll hurt me if you have him there as well. That’s all I’m saying.’

‘He’s not invited to the wedding. This isn’t about the wedding.’

She breathed into the phone, a pulsing, whistling sound. Then: ‘What do you want him for, then?’

‘I just … Did he ever work in Cambridge?’

‘No.’

Then it was me breathing down the line, until I found my voice: ‘Oh. All right. Did we visit friends here, maybe?’

‘I avoided travelling when you were a baby, Maxwell. You didn’t do well on car trips. Don’t you remember?’

She couldn’t mean,
Don’t you remember from when you were a baby?
No one remembers being a baby. She must have meant,
Don’t you remember that I’ve always told you that you hated car rides when you were a baby
? The distinction was suddenly sharp to me.

She’d been frantic since my engagement to Imogen.
Why is that?
Weeks ago I’d asked her for my birth certificate, for our giving notice of marriage. I’d always left paperwork up to her, even after university. Given her bureaucratic job, it had made sense. She’d stammered and stonewalled. I won’t need my birth certificate if I have my passport, but I’d felt like ticking all the boxes.
I’m an adult; I should have my own papers.

It occurred to me at that moment in the mall that I’d never even seen my birth certificate, never.
Is that normal?
I’d always assumed it was. She’s my mother, after all. And what would I do with it? Frame it on the wall? It’s not ‘hiding’ it to keep it in a safe deposit box, just prudent.

‘Are you going to get married there?’ she asked. The
words each had the same heavy inflection,
thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud.

‘In Cambridge? Yes,’ I said. ‘In a college chapel, actually.’

More of that ghostly, whistly breath. ‘Is she pregnant?’

‘What? No!’

‘Good.’

I shook my head in frustration. ‘All right, well, thanks for calling me back. We’ll let you know the—’

‘Maxwell, please. Please.’ She coughed, and sighed. ‘I feel guilty that I didn’t give you a father. I feel guilty that, in some ways, I let you fill a space in my life that should have had a partner in it, not a child. I’ve depended on you, and I’ve been made happy by you, probably too much. I’m going to miss you. You’re taking a step away from me that’s bigger than university, bigger than living away or even living abroad. I’m supposed to be happy for you, and instead I’m grieving for me, selfish old witch that I am. Please tell Imogen that I’m sorry, and that I’ll try to do better. Should I send flowers? What’s the name of your hotel?’

I said it, and spelt it, and murmured consoling, reassuring words, then goodbyes.

There was a new message on the phone.

‘Max’ – this one was from Imogen – ‘I have good news. Please call me. I – I just have really, really good news.’

I froze. At the table behind me, a toddler spilt her mother’s orange juice.
Good news
. Im never leaves voicemail. She texts. She wanted me to hear her voice. She wanted to say something out loud.

No, it was just my mother’s question, and the toddler behind me, and the pushchairs rolling past … They were
the reasons my brain had gone there. Not because that’s what she was talking about.
Look, there’s a pregnant woman window shopping, sipping bottled water
. I’d made a random association. ‘Good news’ can mean lots of things. That’s
not
what she was talking about.

I called her back. She was quick to answer, after just one ring.

‘Max? Where’ve you been? I tried calling …’

‘I … What’s your news?’

‘My news is that my fiancé finally picked up his phone.’

‘Im …’

‘It’s just really hard waiting to talk to you. Your orchestra thing finished over an hour ago.’ I heard a guitar behind her voice.
A busker? Is she on the street nearby
? There was a guitarist by the mall entrance …

‘I’m calling now,’ I said, wondering what she heard around me. An industrial coffee maker. A cash till. This could be any coffee shop. I considered lying if she asked. ‘What is it, for God’s sake?’

This wasn’t how it should be. If she were pregnant – she shouldn’t be; we use protection – but if she were, it shouldn’t be told over the phone, to end an argument. I tried to soften my tone. ‘I’m sorry. I really want to hear it,’ I said through my teeth.

‘I’ve found him,’ she said, and I heard it twice: through the phone, and behind me. I turned around. She was smiling at me, standing firm in the crowd, forcing shoppers to eddy around her. She waved.

I closed my phone. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. She was suddenly right in front of me. Then, perched on my lap. This was how it was supposed to be, except that
she wasn’t pregnant. She said she’d ‘found’ someone.

‘Who?’ I said, but it was obvious.

‘Seb,’ she said, and she kissed my forehead. It was as if my bones had dissolved. It was as if all the light in the room had diverted to just her face, then into a pinpoint.

Good news
, I thought. The same good news that she’d brought me after that original DNA test, but which I hadn’t, then, understood. She’d never said the words, after all, and I hadn’t asked. I’d read her face, and assumed that her happiness came from a result that meant that the two of us could be together, as a couple. But, to Imogen, me being Seb would have been the best news. She loves Seb more than anything.

I stood, dumping Imogen off. She caught herself but bumped the small table over. I shook my head hard. I blinked and rubbed my face. She brushed her skirt, her pink-and-white-striped summer skirt, and flicked her hair out of her face. She was fine. There was no need for the dirty looks aimed at me. She’d admitted it. She’d as much as admitted it.
Does she really think I’ll accept it?

I pushed shoulder-first between two women and set their shopping bags swinging. There was just one heaving corridor with single-room shops on both sides; no place to divert. I strode forward, weaving around clumps of people huddled over maps and gaping at window displays. A saleswoman urged me to try a sample moisturiser from her cart; I lifted my hand to mean ‘no’ and accidentally knocked the jar. Again, the people closest stopped and stared.

‘Sorry,’ I said, and picked it up. It had spilt. I didn’t have anything to clean it up with. It smelt like the sea, and I thought of Imogen, wet in her red swimsuit, finding me.

Imogen was among the starers. She’d caught up, part of the ring that had formed around the mess.

Her mouth was open, as if honestly amazed, as if she’d expected me to be happy with her revelation.
Does she really imagine that we can go forward like this, knowing?
She must have lived with it for so long that it seemed normal to her now. She must have seen the envelopes before I mailed them. She must have guessed that I knew.
I knew.

The saleswoman had got a rag and was hunched at my feet, wiping the floor. The people who were staring a minute ago were wandering off. Imogen stood, face crumpled, arms wrapped around herself. She was crying, and the mall’s bright lights bounced crazily off her zigzagging tears.

I stepped forward. It was her turn to run away. She did, and slipped on the shiny stone, falling onto her elbow. She cried out.

I pulled her up.
I can’t leave her now, not like this, even if I must leave her eventually
. She slid easily into my arms, her forehead and fringe against my cheek and mouth. I’m bigger than her, even if years ago I was the smaller one. Even if years ago she’d mothered me, I’d become the steadier one. She needed me.

‘I worried you might be jealous,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t think …’

Jealous?
‘What do you …’

‘The timing could have been better, I admit, but good news is good news, isn’t it?’

We were in the way. I pulled her aside, out of the foot traffic, into an alcove where there were lifts and parking payment machines.

‘What news?’ I demanded. Deciding to admit something isn’t
news
.

‘That’s what I’ve been trying to explain. Seb contacted me, on one of those adoption boards I’d posted to years ago. He hadn’t known he was adopted until recently. His parents – his adopted parents – never told him. They never even told him his real name. He was young enough that they could do that, as if it were best for him to forget we’d ever existed.’ She spit the words. ‘As if it were best for him to think that he had no siblings still looking for him, wishing for him every day.’ Tears again. In the shadows of the alcove, they were dark stripes.

‘You got an email? From Seb?’ I spoke slowly, and enunciated carefully. None of this made sense.

‘Yes!’ Imogen said, and her open-mouth smile sucked in some of the tears. ‘Yes! His name is Patrick Bell, but he’s really Sebastian,’ she explained, hands clutched under her chin. Behind us, someone bought a Coke from a machine. Coins tinkled and the bottle thudded. ‘I said I would show him the house where we grew up. Highfields Caldecote isn’t far. He doesn’t remember it. We were so happy there, and he doesn’t remember it at all …’

I squeezed my eyes shut, and shook my head, slowly, back and forth.

‘Max?’ she said.

I couldn’t look straight at her. I opened my eyes but turned my head. ‘I promised to meet the Bursar at Catz,’ I said, as if the invitation had meant today.

She bobbed her head in a nod, and tugged on the hair over her shoulder. ‘I
was
going to ask you to drive me tonight, for us to meet him there together, but … If
you can’t be happy for me then maybe we shouldn’t get married.’

‘I’d be happy for you if I thought it were true.’

She gasped. ‘You think I’m lying?’

‘No, of course not.’
Of course not.
A lie wouldn’t make any sense.
Unless she thinks I suspect something and wants to throw me off.
I shook off that far-too-elaborate thought. ‘I think he’s a scam artist or troll picking on vulnerable people.’ I grabbed onto that. That put the baddie ‘out there’ instead of inside our relationship.

‘“Vulnerable”? What exactly makes me
vulnerable
?’

I declined to go down that road. ‘Can I see the email?’

‘To see if I’m really telling the truth? No, thanks!’ Quick, in a second, Imogen was gone; she jumped into the lift just as the doors closed. She would end up on some parking level rather than deal with me for another minute.
Fine
. It spared us both a scene.

I got out, past the wafting oversweetness of an American cookie stall, and the victorious theme-tunes playing on a loop in a videogame shop. Outside the mall, facing straight at me, were the double doors of a church.

The doors tempted me. I don’t know which is the more relevant question: Why did I stop being serious about religion? Or, why did I ever start? Both, probably, can be answered by the cliché that the youth pastor of our neighbourhood’s ‘Friday Night Club’ had been a friendly, willing father figure. Then I’d moved away for university, and the link had been broken.

The chaplain at Jesus had offered to counsel me and Im. Could he counsel me alone?
Will he keep what I say from Im, or is that just Catholics and confession?

On the next corner, with the sausage and crêpes vendors, there was another church. They were everywhere. I crossed the road and cut through the alley beside Waterstones. There was King Street, where I’d parked the car for our first visit to Jesus College just four days ago. Left, then cross. At the entrance to the college, a long stone walkway led up to a shortish tower, as if the walk were the tower’s stretching shadow.

Through the archway of the college entrance, the bronze horse posed. I tried to feel that recognition that it had sparked in me before, but my recent memories had eclipsed any older ones, if indeed there were any. The world is full of equestrian statues. My head must be full of them, too.

I might be losing my mind. My suspicions seem so logical, but I don’t think anyone else would believe me. If that’s so, doesn’t it mean I’m crazy?

I stepped into the Porters’ Lodge. ‘Excuse me, I met with the chaplain the other day. Any chance that he’s here now?’ I gave my name and sat in a generic metal chair, like waiting for a doctor’s appointment.

When the chaplain came, he seemed to want to talk right there. ‘Have you and your fiancée made a decision? Do you have any further questions?’

‘I – Yes, do you think we could talk in your office? Or the chapel?’

He tilted his head to one side but didn’t put his curiosity into words. I followed him past the horse and through the cloister. In the chapel, he sat in one of the dozens of wooden chairs that were lined up in rows as if for a concert.

First, I apologised. ‘You’re not my pastor. I haven’t had one for years. But I think I may need one and you’re the only one I know here.’

He nodded.

‘I think I may be crazy.’ My voice sounded too loud in the echoey space. ‘I’m thinking things – suspecting things – that I don’t think are true. Except, I
do
think they’re true. But I know that I shouldn’t think that.’