Born of Woman (72 page)

‘So I understand.' Edward hadn't touched his food. ‘It's a pity, though, you didn't express that disapproval—eighteen months ago, before it was ever published.'

‘I did. At least I tried. I …'

‘I mean, those were private diaries, and my own existence even more so. The only reason my mother had me … er … fostered, was surely to prevent any scandal and save her reputation. That was obvious, wasn't it? Yet now what's happened? The whole world is chewing it over as if Hester was a …'

Lyn held a sliver of cold tasteless tomato on his tongue. He forced it down. ‘I … I … realise how you feel. I'd … feel the same myself. I told Matthew right from the beginning, we had no business to be …'

‘So what changed your mind?'

‘If you think it was … money, it wasn't.' Lyn paused. ‘Well … not as such.' He could see Jennifer's white and weeping face, the trail of bloody baby from bed to bathroom. Money! He hadn't had enough to buy a Christmas pudding. ‘I know you blame me for handing over the diaries in the first place. I blame myself. I'd never have done it if I'd known what …' He gripped the edge of the table. He loathed apologising, squirming in embarrassment, making himself a sucker and a fool, yet he had cheated this man, denied him his property, his rights, ignored those rights by signing an agreement with Matthew. ‘Look, one of the things I wanted to say today was …' He swallowed. ‘Well … er …
sorry
—and I mean that.'

Edward took a gulp of wine and then another. He seemed to be hiding his emotion behind the glass. ‘Th … thank you, Mr Winterton. That's he first and only apology I've received, and I appreciate it. In fact, I'm sorry myself that all this should have arisen between … er … family.'

Lyn swallowed a mouthful of ham. It tasted so bland, it could have been chicken, veal, cardboard. ‘I don't even approve of the book as a
book
. I worked on it myself and yet it's … lies, fantasies. I don't know why. It's based chiefly on Hester's own records, and yet somehow she's … not there. They deciphered a hundred thousand of her words and came up with … someone else. The Hester they published wasn't the one who lived. The world may know that woman, but
I
‘ve never set eyes on her. She simply wasn't like that.'

Edward laid his fork down with the ham still on the prongs. ‘What … was she like?'

Lyn searched the room for answers. Should he give Edward a loving, noble mother, or a crabbed and bitter one? Had he ever known her, anyway? How much of a mother was desire or dream or myth? The book was no more wrong about her than everybody was, including the son who had shared her life. He tried to find one word to describe her, to trap all the years of love and loss and longing, the parentheses and gaps. He stared at the stout walls, the massive beams holding up the house.

‘Strong,' he said, at last.

‘The book was right, then—at least in that. She came over as a tower of strength.'

‘No.' Lyn frowned. ‘It wasn't quite like … I can't explain, but …'

He could see Edward waiting in the waiting silence. He knew he craved for details—a mother offered to him like a Christmas present, gift-wrapped, tinselled, labelled. That had been done already in the book. He refused to compound the lies. Edward had gifts and heritage enough. He would keep his mother for himself.

‘I didn't … know her,' he said, almost in a whisper.

‘For heaven's sake …' Edward sounded snappish, ‘You lived with her for thirty years.'

‘Thirty-one.'

‘Surely you're not saying then …?'

‘Look, leave it, Mr Ainsley.' His mother's name. Matthew's keeper's name.

‘We can't leave everything. It's … a little absurd to pretend there's nothing between us—and I don't just mean a lawsuit now. We are, in fact, related. That colours the whole thing. Surely you can see that? I have a natural interest in my mother and her house and …'

‘Of course. I'm not denying it.'

‘In
you
, as well. I've always wanted a brother, and …'

Lyn clenched his fists, concealed them under the table. Brother! Edward's sentiment was more needling than his wrath. Half a glass of Tesco's cut-price red had made him maudlin. He'd be embracing him next, shedding tears of emotion. He was trapped with this ‘brother' all damned day now—that peeved officious voice with its clipped affected accent which grated on his nerves. Even the way he held his fork annoyed him. You could kill a man for less than that. He longed for a stronger drink—a slug of that Glenfiddich. At least they could finish the wine. He refilled both their glasses. Edward's careful voice continued.

‘I have no other blood relation in the world. That was one of the reasons I agreed to come here. I wanted to meet you—not just to settle the … er … conflicts … though that, of course, remains of prime importance, but also to see my mother's other son. You must realise, Mr Winterton …'

‘Don't call me that.' Lyn banged the bottle down. The fellow was so damned civil. Mr Winterton this, Mr Winterton that. Winterton was
Matthew
‘s name, dragged into the law courts, made a laughing-stock. ‘I suppose you find my Christian name ridiculous.'

‘I … I beg your pardon?'

‘You're right, it
is
ridiculous. Stupid, sissy, girlish.'

‘Lyn?' Edward looked bewildered, took refuge in his glass again.

‘Yes. Lyn, Lyn, Lyn. I used to know a girl called Lyn. She had long golden ringlets and a lisp.'

‘It's a boy's name in Wales, a man's name, a very ancient one.'

‘So they tell me. But I have no link or tie with Wales at all. I went there once and found myself a foreigner. They were speaking a different language, and I don't just mean the words.'

‘I'm half Welsh myself, Mr Winter … Lyn. My father was a Welshman.'

‘Your father? You … didn't know your father.' He saw Hester's eyes again, staring troubled into his own. It wasn't just the eyes they shared. Neither had had a father.

‘No, but I know about him. In fact he had your name. Lyn is the shortened form of Llewelyn, one of the oldest, proudest names in Wales. It means leader—and my father was a leader.'

‘How do you know that? I mean, I thought …'

Edward clasped his hands around his glass, closed his eyes for a moment as if he were struggling with some emotion. He answered slowly, laying down each phrase like a weighty coin or jewel. ‘Hester wanted me to know—she must have done. She left me a sort of … fairy-tale, written out in her best handwriting in what looks like an old school exercise book. She gave it to my foster-parents along with a few clothes and bits and pieces—oh, and a photo of my father. I didn't see it, actually, until I was a child of six or seven. Then they read the story to me, as a way of … well—explaining who I was, I suppose. It was about a girl with golden hair who fell in love with a tall, dark, handsome soldier. The soldier's name was Lyn.'

‘Soldiers aren't called Lyn.'

‘Yes, they are. My father was.'

‘Your father was a soldier?'

‘Yes. A Welsh guardsman and an officer. He fought in France and was decorated for bravery, then went back to the Somme and was killed a few months later. Hester told my foster-parents and then wrote it down for me in a way I could understand and would find … exciting—you know, knights and crossbows, instead of infantry and guns. The story goes right back to his boyhood—how he grew up in Caernarvonshire in a castle and …'

‘A castle?' Was Edward mocking him, inventing this whole thing? He was probably so unused to drink, two glasses had unhinged him. Except he sounded sober enough.

‘Well, it was originally built as one. But it lost its fortifications and became just a manor-house. Hester and my father came from opposite sides of the country, but they both lived in wild rebellious areas with a history of endless warfare and castles everywhere. The Soldier met the Princess when she had just turned seventeen and was holidaying with her family in Wales. They fell in love immediately. In fact, the story says the Princess loved her Prince more than woman had loved man before. Wait—I remember the words. I read the story so often, I know it off by heart now.' Edward's voice had suddenly come to life, the slow, careful cadences broken up and blazing. ‘
‘‘Their love was as tall as Glyder Fawr, as strong as Llew Llaw Gyffes. Their hearts beat together like two clocks chiming side by side. If one smiled, so did the other—and the sun. If both cried, the whole world cried in rain.''
‘

Lyn stared at Edward's face. Those thin pedantic lips were speaking poetry. ‘H … Hester wrote that?' In a schoolbook, as little more than a schoolgirl, when she was lost and panicking in London?

‘Yes. I never knew what the words meant, Glyder Fawr and Llew Llaw Gyffes. But I loved the sound of them. I used to repeat them to myself, so they became a sort of … magic spell. Later, I found out that Glyder Fawr was a high and mysterious mountain in Snowdonia, and Llew Llaw Gyffes an ancient Celtic god who
did
have magic powers.'

Lyn slumped back in his seat. How could this fussy litigious bachelor believe in ancient gods and magic, or be weaving him fairy-stories rather than drawing up balance sheets or swamping him in barren legal jargon?

‘Hester even illustrated the story. There were charming little drawings scattered through the text.'

Lyn reached for his glass, kept it trapped between his hands to stop them trembling. ‘Hester couldn't draw.' Hadn't he used that phrase before—to Jennifer? Matthew had ignored it—used Susannah's drawings in the Book and passed them off as Hester's. He had denounced it as a sham. Perhaps it wasn't such a sham. His mother had hidden talents. Had he ever really known her?

Edward was crumbling his bread to pieces. His whole face seemed changed—the impassive mask cracked, the eyes shining. ‘She drew almost like a child. But since I was a child, the drawings made more sense to me. Her prince was so tall, his helmet touched the top-of the page. He had a silver breastplate and a golden lance. His heart was on the outside and made of scarlet plumes. He loved her so much, he gave her a baby before he died. That was … er …
me
.' Edward gave a brief and nervous laugh. His cheeks were flushed—with wine, emotion, embarrassment? ‘When she drew the baby, it was wrapped in those same scarlet plumes and carried by a stork across the ocean. Storks nest in Europe and then migrate to warmer countries for the winter, so I suppose that was … symbolic.'

Lyn stared out of the window. The snow had stopped falling now and the heavy sky was lightening at the edges, the first hint and tremble of sunlight glimmering through the grey. Edward's face was still in shadow, but he himself had thawed. The cold and cautious stranger who had arrived an hour ago, was now opening up, confiding. ‘I used to love that bit in the story. My foster-mother would say ‘‘And the baby's name was …'' and I'd shout ‘‘Edward, Edward!''—an unfortunate name, really, in the circumstances, since the Welsh Llewelyns were always fighting English Edwards. But I don't imagine my foster-parents knew much about medieval British history. Mind you, I had four of the oldest English Christian names in …'

‘Three,' corrected Lyn.

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘Edward Arthur James.' Lyn could see the names shouting raw and scarlet from the white void of the Will-form. Edward Arthur James. Matthew Thomas Charles. Both his half-brothers had three names each, he three puny letters.

‘Edward Arthur James
William
. They added the William later, when I was confirmed. It was the name of our local Bishop, who performed the ceremony and was a close friend of my foster-father. But it was all a bit top-heavy for a child. I was rather a weedy lad and all those formal names seemed to weigh me down, especially the bishop's. I felt him like a heavy silver cross hanging round my neck.'

Lyn shifted in his chair. ‘Weedy? But you must be more than six feet tall.'

‘I was the smallest boy in my class till I'd turned sixteen. I shot up then, but I was still so thin, I looked like one of those … pines out there—all trunk and no branch.'

Lyn stared at Edward's broad shoulders, the barrel of his chest. Was he mocking him again? He tipped the last of the wine into Edward's tumbler. If a glass or two had loosened him up so much, a third might encourage still stranger revelations.

‘To tell the truth, I felt a … bit of a muddle as a child. On top of all those first names, I also had three surnames—well, not legally, I suppose. But I used to try them out in turn, not just in my head, but in my writing-books. None of them felt quite …
mine
.'

‘Why three?'

‘Ainsley, Fraser, Powys. Ainsley was the name I always used, of course. My … er … mother had apparently insisted. But it made for complications when I was living with two Frasers. Sometimes I pretended I was Fraser. That was simpler. Powys was my father's name. I'd been told it, you see, but I wasn't allowed to use it. I wanted to. Other boys took their father's name, and I … hated being different. If he'd lived, I suppose he'd have reserved it for his lawful sons who would carry on his castle and his line. I had nothing of my father—not even his Christian name. Strange that Hester gave you that, when it really belonged to me.'

Lyn stiffened. Was Edward threatening him? No, his voice was neutral and reflective. Certain words had fallen on the table and were lying there like stains. Weedy, distorted, different. This man was tied to him by fears and frailties, as well as blood and genes. Hester had left them both a legacy of fear. His mother's eyes were staring at him now—from his father's chair. He and Edward shared not just a mother, but a new stranger-father who had somehow bequeathed to him his name.