The Last of the Stanfields(31)

“Don’t have to make a fuss? Typical. Of course. Never make a fuss in our family. I break my leg. Don’t make a fuss. I could have fallen to my death from that roof, and you’d have stood over my dead body saying, ‘Don’t make a fuss, Elby! You’ll be right as rain soon!’”

“Oh, good lord! You were six years old! What was I supposed to do, give you a look of sheer terror and tell you we’d have to amputate?”

“Great. There it is. You found a way to make everything all cheeky and fun again. This is serious. Tell me why you kept it from me.”

“Because I didn’t want you getting any ideas. Remember our daft saying from before, about apples falling . . . ? The one that’s not so daft in your case? I knew you’d stop at nothing to impress your mother. If we had told you she had founded a weekly paper, I can’t imagine what you’d have done. Run around covering war zones? Or, even worse, try to top your mother, create your very own paper?”

“You make that sound like such a terrible thing!”

“It would have been! That shitty little rag of a newspaper ruined your mother! Financially and emotionally. Quite a price to pay, even for one’s dream. Now, for goodness’ sake, let’s move on before you make me order a third ice cream and I end up in the back of an ambulance.”

“Unbelievable,” I scoffed. “For once, you’re the melodramatic one. This is a historic moment.”

“I’m not being melodramatic. Fact is, I’m a bit diabetic.”

“What? Since when are you a diabetic?”

“I said ‘a bit’ diabetic. How long has it been now?” Dad feigned counting on his fingers, breaking into a snide little smile. “Twenty years, give or take a few.”

I buried my face in my hands, furious. “You have got to be kidding me. It’s like the bloody house of secrets!”

“Come now, Elby. Don’t blow things out of proportion. Did you expect me to pin my medical chart to the kitchen wall? Why did you think your mother always gave me such hell every time I tried to get my hands on a packet of biscuits?”

With that, I confiscated my father’s ice cream and asked him to drop me off at the station, using the excuse that I had to rush back to London for work.

I hate lying, especially to him. The moment I boarded the train, I took out my phone and called an archivist from the magazine. I had a huge favor to ask.





14

ELEANOR-RIGBY

October 2016, London

Back at my studio, I sat cross-legged on the couch watching Absolutely Fabulous, about to start my third bag of crisps.

Not only was the show a cult classic, but it also happened to serve a vital public service for certain members of society. Take, for example, a woman who might be home alone stuffing her face on a Friday night, feeling guilty about having opened a bottle of wine that she would almost certainly drink all by herself, made all the worse considering the bottle was a gift from a friend who came for dinner, back in the days when she still had friends over for dinner.

Or, another example, picked at random: a woman who catches a look at herself naked in the mirror after stepping out of the shower and feels that it’s absolutely absurd that she’s still single . . . and then makes the critical error of lingering too long in front of said mirror, and realizes maybe it’s not so absurd after all.

For that woman, and others like her, Ab Fab’s Patsy and Edina were absolute lifesavers. Genuine saints. Late at night, they come to your rescue, easing your drunken shame by showing you that it could be worse, and giving you another strong dose of reality the next day when your morning hangover reminds you that real life is nothing like TV.

In this episode, Edina and Saffy—her daughter—are arguing, which reminded me of all the fights I had with my own mum. In walks Saffy’s grandma, who calms everything down. I never knew my grandparents, and never would, since Mum grew up in an orphanage. The fog around her backstory suddenly seemed to have grown a lot thicker in light of current events. Struck with a thought, I rushed over to grab the troubling letter from my bag.

All we can ever see of our parents is what they wish to show us . . .

But Mum never wanted to show us a single thing.

As I held the letter in my hand, I had a closer look at the stamp on the envelope. I nearly slapped my forehead—what an awful detective I was! The stamp bore an image of the Queen, but the color was different—it wasn’t an English stamp at all. Squinting, I could make out a word written in tiny letters beneath Her Majesty’s glowing smile: Canada. Of course. How could I have missed it? The postmark said Montreal, and it had been right there under my nose the whole time. It begged the question: Just who was this poison-pen writing to me from the other side of the world?

It was only the first of many questions.

The next day, I was flipping through a magazine and watching my laundry in the washing machine spinning around in a dizzying dance when I received a call from the archivist friend I’d contacted. She hadn’t found a single trace of a weekly Independent in all of England. Thinking of the stamp, I asked her to extend her search to the other side of the Atlantic.

One hour later, I opened up my postbox down in the lobby and made another discovery. There, standing out amongst the fliers and ads, was a second letter. I recognized the beautiful handwriting immediately. I stumbled out of the lobby—straight by a worried neighbor, who told me I looked pale—and returned to the flat, still light-headed as I tore the envelope open.