Girl Unknown(27)

Caroline glanced out of the window. Holly shifted a little on the couch.

‘So what?’ Robbie asked. ‘Is she going to move in with us?’

‘No, no,’ I assured him. ‘But I would like you to meet her. I was thinking of inviting her over for lunch one Sunday. How would you feel about that?’

‘Yeah, okay.’

‘And you, Hols?’ I asked.

She said nothing, gave a noncommittal shrug. The whole time I was talking, she had sat there quietly, watchful, absorbing everything I was telling them. But now I saw her eyes flicker over me briefly in an assessing glance, the kind I had never received from her before. I saw at once that Caroline was right. This revelation I wanted so desperately to make normal had already altered our family bonds. Beneath my little girl’s gaze, I felt myself changing, becoming a different kind of father from the one she had known and relied upon until then.

Later that week, I was mulling all of this over in a meeting with Alan. We were discussing a funding bid to a government scheme attached to the Peace and Reconciliation Committee. Alan was supportive of the concept, agreeing to add his name to the proposal. ‘Even if I won’t be here to see it through,’ he said, referring to his intended retirement. I made no reply. He was in good form that day, brisk and cheery, and once our business had been concluded, he capped his pen and flipped his notebook closed, expecting me to do the same.

‘Actually, there’s something else I wanted to speak to you about,’ I told him.

‘Yes?’

‘It concerns a student. One of my first-years. Her name is Zo? Barry.’

I felt nervous about telling him. It was as if I were readying myself to own up to a transgression that had only just happened, rather than something that had occurred almost twenty years ago.

‘The thing is, Alan, it turns out that I’m her father.’

He put down the pen he was still holding, realizing that our conversation was going to last longer than he had planned.

‘It was when I was at Queens – I had a relationship with the girl’s mother. I never knew she had a child. This all happened before I was married … I’ve only just discovered.’

‘Good Lord,’ Alan said.

‘I wanted to let you know – let the department know. She’s my student, after all, and I didn’t want there to be any …’ I hunted about for the right word ‘… any misunderstanding.’

‘Right,’ he said, sounding slightly fazed. His eyes darted over my face and I wondered if he was making some kind of mental reassessment of me, some private speculation as to my personal life. A bead of sweat rolled down my back.

‘Have you mentioned this to anyone else in the department?’

‘Not yet,’ I answered, wondering whether I should tell him what McCormack had said.

‘Because she’s one of your students, we’ll need to declare a conflict of interest when it comes to grading papers, assessments, exams … fulfil all the necessary protocols.’

‘Protocols?’

‘Inform the registrar, the ethics committee, and let me see who else …’

‘An ethics committee?’

‘It will only have to be noted. Nothing to worry about.’

‘What about confidentiality?’

‘It’s assumed.’

He picked up his notebook and pen and got to his feet. I understood the meeting was over. At the door to his office, he spoke a few words of reassurance, making me feel even more as if I’d done something wrong. In fact, the bureaucratic minefield I was walking into was tinged, the way Alan put it, with a moral code, which it appeared I had unwittingly broken.

I had confessed to Caroline, owned up to my kids, revealed all to the university, but where was the expiation of whatever guilt I had felt? When would the burden of the past lift? My wife’s shock was one thing, my children’s surprise another. I could deal with those twin pressures, given time, but the university’s way of punishing me was soul-destroying – all the paperwork that would need to be filed, the ethics committee, the protocols and standards that were required to be met – like a figurative black mark against me, like ash on the forehead, or a scarlet letter.

That Sunday, there was the usual flurry of activity in the morning, but this time the day’s machinations held a certain edge, a serration to the light of early afternoon and the energy that went with it. Zo? had accepted my invitation to come for lunch and, with her arrival imminent, I felt an air of nervous anticipation hanging in the house.

The doorbell rang.

I called out that I would get it. Behind the frosted glass, there was the outline of a slight figure, hooded, waiting, expectant. I pulled open the door. She had been glancing back at the garden, surveying the clumped hydrangeas, the wine-red spread of acers, and as I said her name, she turned and her eyes met mine. An uncanny tremor of déjà vu passed through me, and with it a fleeting memory of Linda on my doorstep on one of those feckless nights in Belfast, her voice emerging from the past: You said I could drop by. The answering kick of my heart.

‘I hope I’m not late,’ Zo? said, smiling nervously. ‘I was in town and lost track of time.’

‘Not late at all.’ I stood back so she could enter.

I closed the door and turned to find her looking around the hall, her eyes travelling upwards. She was a little flushed. She was holding a bottle of wine and a small bouquet of flowers. As if suddenly remembering them, she held both out to me. I took them from her and thanked her. For a moment we simply stood there.