After You Left(85)

‘I don’t know why she kept him from me, Evelyn!’ There is no getting over this. ‘Even if she did it for the right reasons, it amounts to dishonesty, doesn’t it? She let me go on believing something bad about him. She never gave me enough information so I could make up my own mind.’

A flash of rage and hate suddenly comes to me, but just as quickly, it dies back. It isn’t hatred; it’s just a profound sense of betrayal. When I was small, that was one thing. But when I got older, I had a right to the truth!

‘I’d be so curious when she said things like, You’re just like him! The way she said it: him. The venom! It was so odd being told you had something in common with someone you didn’t have the first clue about.’

‘I can’t really imagine,’ Evelyn says.

‘I confronted her when I was about fourteen, and she flew into a rage. All I was ever led to believe – he was a shit who left us for somebody else.’

‘I’m so sorry, Alice.’

I think of what Justin said on our first date. ‘I should have tried to find him. I must admit my own wrongdoing in all this. I was an adult. I didn’t need their permission. I should have gone looking for him so I could make up my own mind. Instead, I spent all that wasted energy on crappy relationships that were going nowhere, without realising my father was actually out there, so close by. I was too wrapped up in my own life . . . Then my mother got sick and had treatment, then the cancer came back in her liver, and then shortly after she died, my stepfather died. I was just so caught up . . . Running down to Stockport between working full-time . . .’ I recognise the inadequacy of my excuses.

‘I suppose I just kept thinking they must be right about him. In all these years, he never once tried to find me. I always thought there must be something he could have done to be in my life. I wanted him to move mountains to find me. I was his little girl!’

‘But now you know he did try.’

‘He was my blood, Evelyn.’ As Justin had so keenly reminded me. ‘He was part of me, and yet I never knew which part of me was like him, did I? Because I never got the chance to know. He’d done something wrong, yes. But he paid, didn’t he? His punishment was to never see me grow up.’

‘Alice, people are complicated beings. You will never truly know your mother’s side of things. I personally have never fully grasped why I am the way I am. Why I could never be happy. Why what I had wasn’t enough.’

I curl on her floor in a foetal ball, and she rests a hand on my hip. Just the sound of Evelyn’s voice is like cool ointment on a wound. ‘I think part of the reason I didn’t want to find him was in case it proved what I’d already thought – that he really didn’t care. I think it was plain fear. The fear of finding out for sure that I wasn’t worthy of being loved by my own blood parent.’

Justin had once hinted at this being at the root of my insecurity. I’d been horrified to think that my self-doubt was so transparent.

‘It’s a big thing to do. It’s something you have to be ready for. You can’t be pressured into it,’ Evelyn says. ‘Don’t focus on what you did or didn’t do. Just focus on what you can do now.’

‘Hmm . . . You’re a great one to give that advice, Evelyn!’

‘But I learnt from my mistakes, Alice! All that matters is what I’ve done about things, not that I let them nearly destroy me in the process. And you will do it all so differently.’

I swiped at tears. ‘I’m tired, Evelyn. I lost a husband and gained a father in such a minuscule time frame. It says something positive about life. But it’s taking some adjusting to, nonetheless.’

‘I think we should both try to get some rest. It’s been an emotional time.’

‘That’s the understatement of the century, isn’t it?’

She smiles. ‘You’re welcome to stay here tonight. The guest room is always made up.’

‘Thank you, Evelyn. I would like to stay the night. And thank you for something else.’

‘For what?’

‘For loving him the way you did. You’re an amazingly good woman. If it weren’t for you, I’d have assumed he was out there somewhere, maybe remarried, with another family – maybe another daughter whom he loved in my place. I’d never have known he was a lonely old man with dementia who would never remember me – not because he didn’t want to, but because he couldn’t help it. And the truth isn’t pretty, but it’s important. More important than what we choose to believe, and the reasons we choose to believe it.’

We are both too choked up to speak. People were wrong. Love wasn’t about never having to say you’re sorry. Love was forgiving. ‘I’m so pleased it was you that he loved.’ I take her hands in mine. ‘That he was lucky enough to have you love him. No matter how it turned out.’

‘And I’m so very pleased that he has a daughter as fine as you,’ she says.





THIRTY-NINE


‘I want to go somewhere loud and crazy and fun!’ I say to Sally as we trot down the Quayside’s cobbled path from the restaurant, looking for a bar to have a nightcap.

‘Okay.’ She hiccups from dinner. She’s a little drunk. It’s amazing how keen she is to go out at night now suddenly. Or perhaps she’s just being a good friend.