The Many Colours of Us Page 11

*

  Four horrible, stuffy, unpleasant hours later I finally emerge from Cambridge station and join the taxi queue for a cab back to Pen’s house. I started to make a list on the train entitled ‘Things I enjoy doing’. I got as far as writing ‘running’ and ‘sewing’ before some moron with sweat patches under the arms of his man-made fibre shirt told me with a leering smile on his face that I could add him to the list, at which point I closed my notebook.

  But the fact of the matter is that they are the two things that do bring me the most pleasure, and while I may have left it a bit late to become a professional athlete, making a living from my apparent skill with a needle and thread does appeal. A comment Edwin made a couple of weeks ago in the Thai restaurant about my making clothes for a living pops back into my head.

  Edwin again! I try not to think about him as I finally reach the front of the taxi queue and climb into my cab.

  The streets of Cambridge are glistening after the rain but the temperature doesn’t seem to be any cooler. I’m grateful to be sitting in the air-conditioned Prius, even if it is only going to be for ten minutes or so. I was hoping the storm would have cleared the air as well as my head but it doesn’t seem to have done either.

  I direct the cab through the alleyway behind our house and the driver gets my bag out of the boot of the car. I pay him and stand outside the back of the house. All the lights in the house are on, music is playing and I can hear the voices of a lot of people.

  I let myself in, and as I walk into the kitchen Graeme is standing behind the door.

  ‘We were wondering when you’d finally get here!’ he cries, thrusting a glass of something sparkling at me. ‘Welcome to the party!’

  *

  Pen hadn’t mentioned a party when I phoned to say I was coming back to Cambridge for the weekend, but I’m glad of the distraction. Pen’s parties have always been legendary. In Cambridge they are almost as famous as my mother’s parties were in 1970s’ London. If I know even a quarter of the people who come to them I’m lucky, but Pen knows everyone.

  It’s still so warm and, now that the rain has stopped, everyone is spilling out into the garden again, pushing past Graeme and me as we stand in the doorway. People I haven’t seen in ages and some I’m not sure I know at all stop to congratulate me on my windfall as though it’s just a random lottery win. People always focus on the good stuff I suppose.

  ‘I hear you’re leaving too,’ I say to Graeme.

  ‘Pen told you about the café?’

  ‘It sounds fantastic, Graeme – everything you’ve ever dreamed of!’

  ‘Well, nearly everything,’ he replies wistfully. I’m about to ask him if he’s all right when Pen barrels into the kitchen.

  ‘Julia, you’re finally here!’ she shouts, wrapping her arms around me. I think she’s had more than a glass or two of the sparkling stuff.

  ‘What’s all this in aid of?’ I ask. ‘You never said you were having a party.’

  ‘Well everyone’s leaving,’ she replies. ‘So, I thought we’d mark the occasion. Anyway, who needs an excuse for a party?’

  ‘Alec’s off to America next week,’ Graeme interrupts.

  ‘Alec’s here?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, you don’t mind do you?’ Pen says, grinning. ‘I thought it would be nice for you two to see each other again.’

  ‘I thought you thought he wasn’t the guy for me, and that there were signs from the universe!’

  ‘Yes, but on refraction…reflect…reflection,’ she stammers tipsily, ‘I thought you also needed closure. So go find him. Talk to him!’

  I catch Graeme’s eye over the top of Pen’s head and he holds his hands up to show this is nothing to do with him.

  Alec is, as usual, surrounded by fawning acolytes. Cambridge is full of people with PhDs but you don’t come across them outside of university circles very often. Alec is an exception to that rule, still believing himself to be a student at heart, and is always surrounded by his own students and all the people who wish they could do a PhD. It takes for ever to get him on his own.

  ‘Come out into the garden with me,’ he says. ‘It’s quieter out there.’

  We perch on the edge of a wall. The garden has cleared a little now; there’s just a small group of stragglers sitting around the table. The familiar smell of marijuana floats over towards us.

  ‘Brings back memories eh?’ I say.

  Alec smiles. ‘We had some good times, didn’t we?’

  ‘I’m sorry about walking out on you in the pub,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry about spilling the drinks all over you and leaving you there.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he replies. ‘You’d been through so much already that week. Why didn’t you tell me Bruce Baldwin was your father?’

  ‘It didn’t feel real. Nothing felt real then, and then you announced you were off to America and…’ I pause; it’s hard sometimes to believe so much has happened in less than a month. ‘I felt as though my whole world had fallen apart in forty-eight hours.’

  He drapes his arm around my shoulders. ‘Sometimes,’ he says, quietly, ‘sometimes, when it seems like everything is shattering around you, it’s actually a good thing. It opens you up to new things, new opportunities, new horizons.’

  ‘So everyone keeps telling me.’

  ‘Well maybe you should listen. Pen tells me you’re moving back to London.’

  ‘It feels like that’s where my future is. I don’t know what that future will be yet though.’

  Everything feels very safe, sitting here in this garden with Alec’s arm draped around me. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve felt so adrift, so to be back in such familiar surroundings makes me feel anchored again, even if I know it’s only temporary. When Alec leans down to kiss me I let him, and though the kiss only lasts a few seconds, it fills me with a sense of warmth and comfort.

  ‘What was that for?’ I ask.

  ‘Old times’ sake,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell the lawyer.’

  ‘What lawyer?’

  ‘The one Pen tells me you’re dating.’

  ‘I’m not dating anyone. Pen’s full of it.’

  He laughs then, that familiar sound that I’ve known for so long. I wonder if this is the last time I’ll see him, the last time I’ll hear him laugh. I lean my head against his shoulder.

  ‘I left a box of your stuff in your room,’ he says. ‘Some memories. Just in case.’

  ‘In case of what?’

  He shrugs. ‘Just because our lives are going in different directions doesn’t mean I’ve just stopped caring about you, you know?’

  I nod. Of course I know.

  ‘Are you going to be all right?’ he asks after a while.

  ‘I’m going to be just fine,’ I reply. And for once I almost believe it.

  6th June 1991

  My dearest daughter,

  Step three of the twelve steps is surrender. It’s about accepting you have no control, that trying to control your life is what has led to your addiction in the first place and to move on you must surrender control of your life into the hands of a higher power.

  I’d been to rehab twice during the 1970s and I’d failed dismally both times. The first time I didn’t even make it through six weeks. I failed both times because I couldn’t believe in a benevolent higher power; I couldn’t believe that such a god would have let my mother be taken from me. How could I hand control of my life over to such a being?

  But then you were born, my precious girl, and I realised that I had been wrong. How could a creature as beautiful as you be part of me? How could a tiny baby crack through my well-protected, hardened heart? It had to be a miracle.

  You were a miracle, my darling, and you were the one who made me realise I could begin to surrender. That I had to surrender to survive. And I had to survive for you.

  Am I really writing to an eight-year-old about rehab? It’s no wonder your mother doesn’t let you read these let
ters, but I just want you to know that you saved my life. Thank you for being you.

  Happy Birthday, Princess.

  Your Father

  Chapter 15

  I blink my eyes open and try to get my bearings. I’m looking at the grey walls in my bedroom in Campden Hill Road. I don’t know what my teenage self was thinking painting this room grey. It’s thoroughly depressing and if I’m going to be staying here indefinitely then that needs to change.

  I roll over to look at the clock on my bedside table. It’s saying midday, which can’t possibly be right. That means I’ve slept for thirteen hours! I haven’t done that since I was around the same age I was when I painted these walls grey.

  After everything that’s happened I suppose it’s no real wonder that I’m sleeping like a teenager again. I haven’t been sleeping very well since I found out about Bruce Baldwin being my father. Pen’s party must have been the final straw and my body seems to have just shut itself down for a while. I feel as though I could sleep for another thirteen hours but I’m also hungry so I haul myself out of bed and into the shower.

  I spend longer than usual under the shower spray, turning it up so hot that my skin can barely stand it, despite the heat of the day. I feel as though I’m purging myself, starting again. Now is as good a day as any.

  Pen and I spent most of Saturday and Sunday talking; Saturday lying hung-over in the living room amongst the party debris, promising ourselves that we’d clean up after one more cup of coffee. It was Graeme who cleared up in the end; it’s always been Graeme who’s cleared up after us over the years. They both seemed a little too interested in the fact that Alec kissed me, even though I insisted it was a goodbye kiss.

  ‘But what will Edwin say?’ Pen asked.

  ‘Well it doesn’t have much to do with him, does it?’ I noticed her exchange a glance with Graeme.

  ‘How do you feel about Edwin?’ she pressed.

  I didn’t say anything straight away and my silence spoke volumes so I decided to be honest. ‘I feel a lot of things,’ I admitted. ‘But I don’t know if I’m ready to feel anything, and there’s so much else going on.’

  Pen looked at me then, chewing on the end of her finger, and nodded. I thought she was going pursue the subject but she went back to complaining about her hangover. It was odd behaviour for Pen really.

  Then, on Sunday, while Graeme was at work, over brunch, she told me something that explained everything. She told me she was in love with Graeme.

  She didn’t want to talk about it. She felt that she’d left it too late.

  ‘Why did you never tell me?’ I asked.

  ‘Because I never told anyone. Didn’t you ever wonder why I never dated anyone?’

  ‘I didn’t think it was any of my business.’

  Pen was still grieving the death of her grandmother when I first moved in with her that summer ten years ago. She’d just inherited the house and had moved from her rented flat by the river. She was already close to Graeme then and he became as much a fixture in my life as she did that summer. They had always been close. It never occurred to me that they could be anything other than friends.

  ‘This café is Graeme’s dream,’ she said. ‘I can’t ruin it by telling him I love him now. It’s too late.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I thought I might move away from Cambridge for a while to be honest,’ she replied. ‘With you gone, Graeme gone and Alec gone it’s just not going to be the same.’

  ‘I’ve told you that I don’t have to leave if you don’t want me to.’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s time you started doing something for you. Or someone,’ she finished with a wink.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I asked, even though I know what’s coming.

  ‘Edwin Jones of course.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ I said, finishing up my Bloody Mary. ‘I’ll keep you posted.’

  *

  And now, on Monday lunchtime, as I comb my hair after the shower and start to make my way downstairs I realise that Edwin is here talking to Mum. My stomach makes its familiar flutter and I wonder what he’s doing here.

  Mum and Edwin are sitting on the sofa together. They both look ridiculously beautiful and glamorous, especially compared to me with my damp hair and scruffy clothes.

  ‘Darling,’ Mum says. ‘You’ve slept so long I was worried. I didn’t want to wake you though; you’ve been through so much.’

  I smile tightly. I’m not in the mood for my mother.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ she goes on. ‘I’ll go and get you a coffee.’

  As she leaves the room I sit down opposite Edwin. He looks at me.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I ask. It sounds more suspicious than I mean it to.

  ‘Just seeing how your mum is,’ he says. ‘You don’t think Bruce let her run her own trust fund do you, after her financial history?’ He smiles, but he looks tired – as though he’s weighed down by my family’s problems. ‘How was Cambridge?’ he asks.

  I tell him about the party, leaving out the bit about Alec kissing me. I suddenly feel guilty about that kiss as though I’ve somehow cheated on Edwin.

  As I fall silent his brow furrows. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Oh I don’t know,’ I sigh. ‘It felt weird being back in Cambridge, as though I didn’t fit in. As though it wasn’t my home any more.’

  ‘Well it isn’t really, is it?’

  ‘I’m taking this whole situation as the sign from the universe that Pen said it was.’ The corner of Edwin’s mouth twitches as he tries to stop himself smiling. ‘I think moving back to London is the right decision. It’s time to start again, time to sort all of this out.’

  Edwin nods, leans back on the sofa.

  ‘I was telling your mother about the Art Salon idea,’ he says, changing the subject as Mum comes back into the room with a fresh pot of coffee.

  ‘It’s such a wonderful idea, darling,’ she says. ‘It’ll be great to finally do something with that horrible old studio.’

  ‘You like the idea?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says quietly. ‘Johnny and I have talked a little about what we could do to remember Bruce but neither of us could think of anything suitable. We were going to talk to you about it as soon as things…’ she pauses ‘…settled a little more.’

  ‘I’ve had an idea about it that I wanted to run past you,’ Edwin says. ‘But it can wait if you like.’

  ‘No, tell me,’ I reply. The thought that Mum likes this idea of mine has given me hope that it’s possible.

  ‘I thought we could open on Bruce’s birthday.’

  I don’t say anything. I have no idea when my father’s birthday is.

  Edwin realises why I’m not saying anything before my mother.

  ‘God, I’m sorry, Julia,’ he says. ‘You probably don’t know when…’

  ‘When is his birthday?’ I interrupt.

  ‘Seventeenth of September,’ they reply in unison. Then they glance at each other, a strange look passing between them, as though nobody is sure whose job it is to tell me stuff any more.

  ‘That doesn’t give us much time,’ I say, counting the weeks off in my head. It’s nearly July already.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Edwin replies, ‘but it’s not impossible. Would you like to meet up at the studio later in the week and talk about it some more?’

  I nod. ‘Sure, that’d be great. Just let me know when.’ I speak with more enthusiasm than I feel. I’m suddenly incredibly tired, my earlier thoughts of starting again with the determination my father did after he gave up drinking being replaced with a desire to curl up in bed again.

  Edwin stands up, looking at his watch. ‘On that note I’d better go,’ he says. Mum stands up too, touching his arm.

  ‘Don’t be a stranger,’ she says as she walks to the door with him.

  Chapter 16

  ‘What was that about?’ I ask as she comes back
into the room.

  ‘What?’

  ‘“Don’t be a stranger,”’ I mimic.

  I turn away from her. I can’t bear it today.

  ‘You’re being ridiculous, Julia,’ she says. ‘I just thought he might be good company for you.’

  ‘I don’t need company.’

  ‘What’s going on between you two?’ she asks, sitting down in front of me so I can’t ignore her.

  I shake my head. ‘Nothing.’

  She reaches over to take my hand. ‘Rubbish. I’m your mother. He didn’t come over here to tell me about the Art Salon; that was just a pretext. It was you he wanted to see.’

  ‘Really?’ The butterflies in my stomach do a little dance. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Like I said, I’ve known Edwin his whole life, most of which he spent without his mother. He’s like a son to me, him and his brother. After Robert’s accident…’

  She stops as I pull my hand away from her.

  ‘How cosy for you all,’ I say. ‘You and your surrogate sons all hiding the secret of my paternity.’

  ‘Julia, it wasn’t like that.’

  ‘What was it like then, Mum? You tell me what it was like.’

  ‘Edwin only found out when he took over the firm, by which time he couldn’t tell anyone as he was our lawyer and we told him not to. As far as I’m aware Robert only found out very recently. Besides, I think Robert might have had more pressing things to worry about over the years than who your father was.’

  I take a deep breath and ignore the pang of guilt I feel. Of course Robert’s life has been harder than mine. But that’s not the point right now.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I don’t want to hear all that about how you were scared he’d take me away, or that you were too in love with him or that he cherished his privacy too much. I want to know why you didn’t tell me once I was an adult so I could, at least, make my own mind up about it.’

  ‘What would you have done if I had told you?’ she asks.

  I look at her. ‘I haven’t got a clue. Answer the question. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  She leans into the back of her chair, looking down at her hands, which she’s wringing slowly in her lap. I notice for the first time how old her hands look, the beginnings of age spots on the back of them.