Blood And Water (25 page)

Come on, you can do it, she silently encouraged herself while preparing for the encounter. Surprise yourself, do something extraordinary, be different, it’ll freak the hell out of him if nothing else.

Although outwardly calm and in control, inside she was quivering like a plucked string on a fiddle. She knew what she needed to achieve and consciously made an effort to do something remarkable, for herself if no one else. Determined and focused, she trained her eyes on him and it was without venom.

William considered her for a minute then leaned forward in the bed. “Here,” he said, “help me sit up,” struggling a little to stay up and pushing himself forward as she moved in to fix his pillows. It was an intimate gesture purposely planned. He wanted her to feel like she had the upper hand and so presented her with the impression that he was the vulnerable one, in need of her care. It would help, he reasoned, to gain her sympathy and break down her anger – a tactical move he’d learnt in his early days in politics. Use your weakness to your benefit. And it worked.

“Is that okay?” she asked with a weak smile and a lingering hand on his arm.

He was ready. “Yes. Thank you.” Then, lowering his eyes, he took a seemingly unsteady breath and began. “Your mother …” he paused to immediately correct himself, glancing at her quickly, “Barbara . . . was telling the truth. She isn’t your mother.”

“So who was? She wouldn’t tell me.”

“Lillian – Lillian was your mother.”

Ciara felt every drop of blood pump through her veins, her heart pulsing at full throttle while her breath caught in her chest as if she were sprinting a three-minute mile. All she knew of Lillian was that she had looked after the boys when they were little.

“She died shortly after you were born,” he continued, his voice quiet, and pausing he waited for her response. When it didn’t come he kept going. “She drowned, in a swimming accident.”

He had, William assumed, given her sufficient information to trigger a barrage of questions, but she remained composed and neutral in her chair. The only signs of distress were the white pressure-lines around her tightly pursed lips. Nodding slowly, accepting his words, she silently indicated for him to continue.

“Your mother … Barbara,” he again swiftly revised, “and I thought it was best that we took you on.”

He knew as soon as they were out that, although true, it was an unfortunate choice of words and registered their effect through the instant fall of her eyes and tight balling of her fists. But still she remained silent.

“Best for you,” he qualified and as if to justify their decision to her. Putting her control further to the test, he challenged her. “I’m not sure you quite grasp what that meant for us, what we did for you.”

Ciara brought her clasped hands to her face and closed her eyes. Counting each breath, slowly, creating a hypnotic rhythm.
One … two … three
… slowly she counted, unwilling to let herself down.

Please, she begged herself, just this one time, keep it together. And only when she was ready, certain she could remain composed, did she open her eyes again.

William, becoming more unnerved by her uncharacteristic quiescence, scanned her body language from head to toe, searching for the usual tell-tale signs of discomposure: redness around her neck, puffing of her cheeks, and jittery movement of her legs. It was always easy to detect when she was out of control. But they weren’t there. It was as if she were hypnotised, like she’d taken something, but when he caught her stare there was no denying her eyes were clear and focused.

“But I am yours?” she asked him directly without letting go of his gaze.

“Yes,” he replied.

“You are my father,” she solicited steadily.

“Yes, I said. Yes,” he told her, losing degrees of his cool, unnerved by her behaviour. “Barbara wanted to do it, to take you. I was against it from the start. I thought you should be with your birth mother. After Lillian died, I thought it best for everyone that you should go to her family, her mother. I knew this day would come. But Barbara insisted.”

“So you didn’t want me?” she challenged, placing him firmly into the emotional quicksand.

“That’s not what I said. Well, not what I meant.” The more he tried to weasel his way out the deeper he sank. “I wanted what was best for you, as a child. I simply thought you should be with your birth mother – or, failing that, with her family.”

“So, what, it’s Mum’s fault, all this, is that it? You had nothing to do with it?”

William didn’t know what to say. She was on form, dancing round him, making him say things he didn’t mean or want to say.

“Does it even matter now?” he protested awkwardly, uncomfortable under her intense scrutiny. ”What’s done is done. We can’t go back and change anything.”

“It matters to me. This is my identity we’re talking about, not some stranger. It’s me.”

Reasoning that as Ciara already had issues with Barbara he could see no harm in placing responsibility firmly on her doorstep, he offered her a version of the truth that would be a means to his own end.

“Well, if we’re being honest here, then yes, it was her fault really. You know your mother when she gets an idea into her head.”

“So if she didn’t want me, you were happy to let me go?”

He didn’t answer, he couldn’t. She had backed him into a corner and right then and not for the first time he wished she was never born.

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” she laughed. “This had nothing to do with Mum at all, did it? This is about you not being able to keep it to yourself. This is about your mistake that Mum, God love her, tried to make right. This is about Mum making up for you being a prize shit. That’s what this is.” Her voice was measured and her tone dismissive.

Neither heard the knock at the door, nor did they notice the nurse and an orderly stall at the threshold as they registered Ciara’s words.

“I’ll never forgive you for this.” She was matter of fact, like a schoolmistress addressing an unruly teenager. “Do you know that? All these years you made me feel like a piece of shit. All these years trying to be something I already am. I am a person, and a good one at that. All these years trying to impress you, trying to make you notice me. I loved you so much all I wanted was you two to be my mum and dad, to behave like proper parents and at least pretend to love me back. I watched you pick any one of the others over me. You isolated me, made me feel so inferior.”

“Please, lower your voice,” the nurse said sternly, placing a hand on Ciara’s arm.

Ciara ignored the attempted intervention without as much as a glance back at the nurse. “This isn’t Mum’s fault at all. No wonder she’s a bitter twisted bitch, married to you all these years. You don’t love her. You don’t love any of us. The only person you give a shit about is yourself.”

“Right. That’s enough!” the nurse interjected emphatically, trying to take control of a scene that was degenerating in front of her.

Ignoring her completely, Ciara continued on her charge. “You think I don’t know about all the others. We all know. You’re about as discreet as a nun in a whorehouse. But you are the whore. You don’t deserve me, you don’t deserve any of us.”

“I
said
that’s enough!” the nurse said. “And if you don’t leave by yourself I will ask security to help you.”

Ciara didn’t resist any further. She got to her feet and allowed herself to be almost pushed from the room, her breathing erratic. Once outside she leaned against the wall to steady herself.

On instruction, one of the nurses stayed with her and, cognisant of her delicate state, asked, “Are you okay?” Her tone was gentle and brimming with concern. They were used to seeing families at loggerheads and knew there was always two sides to every story.

Ciara nodded, afraid that if she opened her mouth she might cry.

“Look, I know it’s none of my business, but your dad is really quite an ill man. Do you really want him to leave him now like this? You don’t need me to tell you that these could be the last words you speak to him. Are they really the ones you want to remember him with?”

Ciara looked at her, too ashamed to admit that yes, they were just that.

Sitting in the sickly yellow corridor with its brash and flickering fluorescent strip lighting and that stomach-churning smell, she held her head firmly in her hands and asked herself again:
Is this really what I want? To leave him with those horrible words, to have the last thing I ever utter to him be so vile? Am I prepared to live with the guilt if he dies, if I never get to see him again?
This was the man she had spent all these years idolising and shadowing like the lost puppy she was. Had she changed that much? Was she willing to take that risk? With her thoughts in chaos, feeling so alone, she cried tears for her mother and for herself.

Despite the distance down the corridor she could still feel his presence and it made her skin crawl. She needed to get as far away from here, from him, as possible.

She rose to her feet and hurried down the corridor, oblivious to the attempts of the nurse to detain her.

She ran from the hospital and out into the fresh air. Ignoring her car, she turned and walked. Driving was too normal and she couldn’t imagine doing anything normal, not now, not today. Today her normal had changed.

The faster she walked the quicker they came, the questions, relentless, one after the other, like little grenades going off inside her head. She knew almost nothing about Lillian. Nobody talked about her – why would they? To everyone else she was just one of their nannies from years ago. Wanting a baby so badly she couldn’t understand how anyone could willingly give their child away. Why? By the way her father spoke about it Ciara guessed Lillian wasn’t given much of a choice and, knowing him and his gruff manner, as a theory it didn’t sound that incredible. Maybe she did want to keep her after all but they forced her to walk away from her baby? There was only one person who could answer her questions and that was Lillian herself. But Lillian was dead.

Chapter 23

There were few people who managed to unnerve William Bertram but Kathryn Bertram was one of them. She knocked on the door early on the morning of his discharge and entered without waiting for a reply. As always she looked incredible in her slim-fitting grey-and-black knee-high dress, her legs long and luscious in sheer tights and black patent high heels.

“William,” she said as she entered, “how are you feeling? I hear surgery went well.”

“Kathryn,” William responded, sitting up a little higher in the bed, surprised by her arrival. Of all his well-wishers he least expected her, his eldest son’s wife whom he entertained as a necessary irritant only because he couldn’t get past the formidable and seemingly impervious aura she cast around herself.

“A frigid bitch” was how he described her within his close circle but, to her face as was required, he was his charming self.

At this point in his convalescence he was almost beyond vulnerable embarrassment but, for some reason in front of Kathryn, lying there in bed still dressed in his pyjamas he felt exposed. And she knew it.

“You’re looking much better,” she remarked.

Much better than when, he wondered.

“You’ve obviously got a lot of fans,” she said, acknowledging the impressive abundance of flowers. Taking an uninvited moment she explored the colourful array of cards on the window ledge, the height of her eyebrows a good indication of recognition for the senders. “Popular guy,” she mumbled.

William watched her progress from his bed. He could see why Seb had married her, but for the life of him he could never understand why she had married him.

“I’m here to say goodbye,” she informed him casually as she moved from one card to the next. “In case you’re wondering.”

“I’m delighted for you, but I’m not quite dead yet,” he half joked to which, in response, she threw her eyes to heaven.

“William, have you ever considered that not everything is about you? Me. I’m going. Leaving. Not you.”

“Really?” This time it was his turn to raise his eyebrows. “Anywhere nice?” he asked politely, intrigued by the innuendo.

“The States. New York actually. I’ve been appointed as research fellow in the University Hospital there.”

“Congratulations,” he replied, now honestly interested. “And Seb?” he asked nonchalantly.

She laughed wildly. “Really? I take it then you haven’t spoken to him.”

“No,” he replied, “I can’t say that I have, nor, it seems, have you spoken to your husband about me.”

“Christ, what have you done now?” she asked sardonically but, not really interested in his response, quickly brought the conversation back on topic. “To answer your question, no. Seb isn’t coming with me. I’m going alone.”

Interesting, William thought, not in the least bit worried that he felt more pleasure than pain at his son’s apparently impending separation.

“So you’ll travel back and forth then?” he probed.

“Don’t be an idiot, William,” she scoffed. “No, I won’t be
travelling back and forth,”
she mimicked while William tried to look surprised. “I’m leaving him. I’m not coming back, not immediately anyhow
.
”

“Does he know?”

Again she laughed. “He most certainly does,” she replied, thinking about their farewell drink and the bank statement that he had probably found by now, wondering which he would miss more, her or his money.

“And so you thought of me?” William enquired, curious to know why she was here. Now.

“Call it tying up loose ends.”

“Of which I’m one?” he replied, fascinated by their exchange and its ultimate purpose.

“I’ve been a part of this family now for what …?” She paused to theatrically add up the years. “Must be over fifteen years now.” She sat into the visitor’s chair and crossed her shapely legs, aware of the effect they had, especially on someone like him. Like father like son, she supposed deviously and, smiling inwardly at his impulsive and slightly repulsive honeyed glance, she continued, “And in all those years I’ve seen how you operate.”