The Ex-Wives (31 page)

She drained her sherry. Melton Mowbray was far away now, back in another life. The girl she was then – she could hardly recognize her.
Celeste.
Her very name had never seemed to fit her, she had never quite fitted in. She has always felt solitary and out of step, though in those days she didn't have the words to voice this, even to herself. Such thoughts would have seemed alarming and ungrateful. Back home you didn't think of your parents as
not your sort.
In London you did, by gosh you did, but not up there. You didn't blame it on
them
if you felt somehow amorphous and undefined, like an out-of-focus photograph. If you felt terribly lonely.

Popsi was talking to Lorna. ‘What happened to your career, love?' she asked. ‘I saw you on the stage once, you weren't half bad. Course I didn't like to admit it then, because I was a teeny bit jealous.'

‘Were you?' asked Buffy hopefully.

‘Not for long. I had my own hands full at the time.' She turned to Lorna. ‘Course, I might have felt differently if I knew you'd had a
child
with him. But I didn't.'

‘Nor did I!' said Buffy.

‘I carried on for a while,' said Lorna, ‘but something had withered. Oh, I don't know. Something
died. Like I was a fire without fuel, know the feeling?'

‘I always had too much fuel,' said Buffy. ‘That was
my
trouble. So much bloody fuel I couldn't get the flames to start.'

Penny said: ‘The trouble with you –'

‘Oh, oh, here we go,' said Buffy. ‘The trouble with me. Why don't you just record it onto a cassette to save yourself the bother?'

‘The trouble with you is that you were so busy making up your own dramas you didn't have any left for your work. Like you played this role – old and cuckolded and broke, poor old Buffy. For a start, you're not even old. You're only sixty-one!'

‘Sssh, love,' said Popsi, and turned to Lorna. ‘Go on.'

‘I was just making empty gestures,' said Lorna. ‘I felt it. I knew I was doing it.'

‘The women I know, they're always going on about how children ruined their careers,' said Buffy. ‘Now you're saying
not
having one ruined yours. You lot want it both ways.'

‘Do shut up,' said Penny.

Lorna said: ‘I wanted to be doing it for someone else, and there wasn't anyone else to be doing it for. From then on I sort of drifted. In and out of things.
Jobs, everything. If you don't have any complications, then you feel quite lost.'

‘Or quite free,' said Penny. ‘Maybe it's the same thing.' She moved Buffy's leg off her foot. ‘You're the most liberated of us all. We just got married.'

‘We've just seen ourselves in terms of men,' said Jacquetta.

‘And their bank accounts,' said Buffy bitterly.

‘Just going to make my camomile tea,' said Jacquetta, drifting out to the kitchen.

‘That's what she always did,' said Buffy. ‘Make tea.'

‘This is such heaven,' said Penny. ‘I wish I had my tape recorder.'

‘We're not a mini-series, dear,' said Popsi.

‘No, we're much better.'

Buffy said: ‘You could do us on
Penny For Them. Is your family getting hard and stale? Try adding some Celeste and stirring it up!
'

Popsi wasn't listening; she was staring at Penny. ‘You're Penny Warren?'

Penny nodded.

‘The journalist? I sent you something and you printed it! About how, if you want to get rid of fish smells, you can boil up coffee beans in the saucepan.'

‘Did you?' said Penny. ‘I've forgotten.'

‘For goodness sake!' said Celeste suddenly. ‘This
is my life you're talking about! It's not fish smells!' She sat rigid, staring at them all. ‘Everything – all my past – I grew up thinking that was the truth! My parents, everything. I trusted them all – when you're a child you trust everyone. Don't you see – all these years, everybody's been lying to me!'

‘Join the club,' said Buffy.

Lorna got up. ‘I think we all need another drink.' She opened the cupboard. She took out a bottle and peered at the label. ‘Madeira. That'll have to do.' She unstoppered the bottle and sniffed it.

Buffy tried to put his arm around Celeste. He fell back, yelping with pain.

‘You're so cynical!' Celeste said. ‘All of you. If you knew what you sounded like!'

‘My dear,' said Buffy. ‘If we're talking about lying, what've you been doing to
me
these past two months?'

Celeste reddened. There was a silence. Lorna inched her way around the room, filling glasses.

Celeste said: ‘I didn't lie. I was acting.'

‘Ah, a chip off the old block,' said Buffy. ‘I don't mind. Lucky my overpowering sex drive didn't carry me away.' Penny hooted with laughter; he ignored her. ‘Else I might've done something we would all have regretted.'

Jacquetta wandered in with her cup of camomile
tea. ‘That's what happened with
my
father, I'm sure of it.'

‘You still going on about that?' said Buffy. ‘Your poor old dad.' He turned to Celeste. ‘It's a relief, really. My darling girl. I knew I loved you, but this is better.'

‘Why?' asked Celeste.

‘Because it need never end. In fact, it's just starting. One can divorce a wife, but one can never divorce a child.'

‘No,' said Jacquetta, ‘but you can hardly ever see them.'

‘Whose fault was that?' he bellowed, twisting round. ‘Every Saturday you kept saying they had to go to the dentist, they had to buy clothes for school, every Saturday you were suddenly this diligent mother –'

‘Children!' Popsi, put up her hand. ‘Water under the bridge, dears.'

Tobias said: ‘It's all Mum's fault. We wanted to come and see you.'

‘And our stick insects,' said Bruno.

Buffy gazed up at him. ‘You remember them?'

Popsi said: ‘Quentin always spoke fondly of you.'

Quentin nodded. ‘When I was at St Martins I painted an entire “Saint Sebastian Pierced with Arrows” while you were reading
Rogue Herries
on
the radio. I said to my friend, that's my father. Your voice was very comforting when I was doing the bloody bits – you know, the punctured flesh. I'll show you the painting one day. It's in my flat.'

‘I banged on the window once, but you didn't hear me,' said Buffy.

‘At the flat?'

Buffy shook his head. ‘At Harrods.'

Popsi put her arm around her son, spilling glitter onto his shoulder. The lurex top slipped lower. ‘Now we've broken the ice we can all be friends. Come and have a meal with Quentin. He's a tip-top cook.' She turned to Celeste. ‘Your half-brother! My head's reeling.'

Everyone was quiet, trying to work it out. Madeira on top of sherry didn't help. Was India an actual relative? No, but she was about the same age. Nyange was, though. She was a half-sister. She sat in the window seat. She had stuck a sprig of holly in her braids, twining it amongst the shells and coloured threads. She looked as startling and exotic as a votive goddess.

‘Tobias and Bruno,' said Buffy, ‘they're your half-brothers.'

‘Maxine isn't,' said Popsi. ‘I had her with Terry. Didn't I?'

Celeste had sorted it all out some time before,
when she had first discovered the truth. This lot were experts, but it was still taking them a moment or two. It was like watching a group of crossword-puzzle champions tackling a really difficult one, one of those big-prize ones with cryptic clues.

Suddenly she felt overcome with affection for them all. How her moods see-sawed today! Buffy was right. In a sense, of course, she had lied to them too, or at least concealed the truth, and one always feels responsible towards people one has put at a disadvantage.

Penny, the sharpest of the three, was looking at her. ‘All those questions about Buffy, after you'd accidentally-on-purpose bumped into me, you wily girl . . .'

‘Oh, ho, the penny's dropped,' said Buffy.

‘. . . I sort of wondered why you were so interested.'

‘So did I,' said Buffy. ‘Poor foolish me, I thought you were jealous.'

It wasn't totally dissimilar to jealousy, was it? The same hot, overpowering hunger for every detail, a similar pain?

Penny was gazing at her, her head tilted. ‘You were working out if I could be your mother.'

‘And me!' said Popsi. ‘Wish I was, you're a real
poppet. And I thought you were only interested in telephones.'

‘The man never came,' said Celeste.

‘Oh well – win some, lose some.'

Jacquetta was cleaning her spectacles with the hem of her shawl. She put them back on, and gazed at Celeste. ‘I finished the painting yesterday. I called it
The Lost Child
. I must have had some sort of premonition. Subconsciously, of course. You have his eyebrows, that's what I noticed.'

‘I noticed them too,' said Penny. ‘Buffy's thick black eyebrows. I remember thinking you ought to pluck them.'

Buffy weakly raised his glass. Celeste refilled it. He looked at Lorna, who sat beside the fire in her darned jumper, woolly skirt and bright red tights. She wore striped socks too, but today they matched. He said: ‘This is our child. It's only just sinking in. All last night, after you'd tenderly tucked me in here, under my simple blanket, all last night I lay awake, gazing at the embers of what might-have-been. And yet marvelling that here she is. I didn't sleep a wink.'

In fact both Lorna and Celeste, upstairs in the bedrooms, hadn't been able to sleep a wink themselves. They had been kept awake by the stentorious snores downstairs in the living room. But they didn't like to break the mood.

Lorna looked at her daughter, who sat on the floor next to Buffy's prone body. She herself didn't feel like a mother; not yet. There hadn't been time. It was something she would have to learn from a standing start, like a Berlitz crash course in some foreign language. But maybe neither of them wanted this, by now; maybe it was no longer appropriate. They had missed the mothering years, and were starting out as grown-ups together. Already Celeste felt familiar to her – lovable, even – but they had a long way to go. Oh, it was too complicated to think about, with all these people here, and Penny was talking.

Penny was saying, to Celeste: ‘What I don't understand, sweetie, is why didn't you just ask Buffy? Why didn't you just ask him how many children he had?'

‘Because of the letter,' said Celeste.

‘What did the letter say?'

Celeste paused. Everyone was looking at her – even Jacquetta, who sat huddled on the floor, swathed in a shawl, nursing her tea.
I'm an actor's daughter,
Celeste realized. For twenty-three years I thought my father repaired washing machines. For twenty-three years – oh, I must turn every event around in my hands, lift it painfully and examine it all over again. I've hardly started; it will take for ever.

She turned to her mother. ‘Can you pass me my
shoulder bag?' Lorna passed it to her. Celeste opened it, unzipped her wallet and took out the letter. She kept it there, between her phone card and her bus pass. She unfolded the paper; the letter was disintegrating at the creases, from re-reading. She cleared her throat, and read to her audience.

‘
My dearest Celeste
,' she read, ‘
This is a difficult letter to write but it must be done. Now that we are both gone I have to tell you something that concerns you. it is a secret that Donald and me have kept from you for all these years past, and you might not agree with that but we did what we thought was best. We have loved you like a daughter, but that is not the whole truth. You were chosen. We chose you because we thought you were the one for us, and God had decided in His wisdom not to give us a child of our own. Except that he did. He gave us you. All these years you have bought us nothing but happiness, and I want to thank you for that. I don't know anything much about your real parents but maybe one day you will be wanting to find out more about yourself. So here is what I know. Your mother gave you this fish, which I leave for you enclosed. I think you are the daughter of a man called Russell Buffery but I am not sure about this. Maybe he would know, were you to find him. Maybe he was married to your mother, but I would think not. Probably he does not know about your existence and in my opinion it is best to let sleeping dogs lie. God bless you, and thank you for being such a
joy to us all these years. There is £800 cash for the arrangements in that plastic tub thing with a lid on it, the thing Annie gave us and we never used, that you dry lettuces in. Should you have problems with the plumbing the mains stopcock is in the front garden to the right of the gate, I don't think you ever knew. All my love my darling, Connie.
'

There was a silence, broken by a sob from Popsi. ‘Oh, that's so beautiful!' she cried. She sat there like a large fairy, her glitter scattered over the people she had touched – Buffy, Celeste. ‘Oh, if only
I'd
done that. Had my boy adopted. He might be here right now, with us.'

Even Penny was sniffing. She wiped her nose and said, briskly: ‘You could have found them out much more easily, you know. You could have gone to Somerset House and asked to see the records. Children's Act, 1975. Adopted children have a right to trace their real parents.'

‘I didn't know that,' said Celeste. ‘Anyway, I wanted to see what he was like.'

‘So you came to London . . .'

Celeste nodded. ‘I tracked him down – I just found him in the phone book – and got a job nearby. And by that time it was too late. Each time I found one of you, I found there was another one of you before that.'

‘And then another one on the side,' said Penny.

‘And by that time it was too late to tell the truth,' said Celeste. ‘It had sort of got too complicated.'