The History Room (25 page)

When we had flopped into our seats and fastened our safety belts, I asked to see the photos again.

The old woman had let us take the picture of Hana with her two children: Jan and Sofia. She’d pointed at the framed photograph of the toddler Irena who was Dad’s granddaughter and
then pointed to her heart, looking anxious.

‘No, no!’ Dad had sounded shocked. ‘We wouldn’t ask you for that picture.’

Irena’s photograph probably had pride of place next to her bed. How she must miss Sofia and Irena. The old lady must have understood some of what was going through my mind because she
walked over to me and stroked my cheek and muttered something.

‘She says you shouldn’t be so sad for her,’ Dad told me. ‘She also says you’re young and pretty and your husband must love you.’

She’d obviously spotted the ring on my finger. Hugh’s mangled body flashed into my mind and I had to blink hard. Perhaps the old woman wasn’t as clear-sighted as she thought.
She said something else, waving her hands.

‘She wants us to find Irena and be her family. She’s worried about the two of them: Sofia and Irena. She doesn’t hear from them often. Sofia is vague about what she does.
She’s vague about Irena, too.’ Dad and I looked at one another. He must be suspecting what I was, that Irena was someone we knew, someone close to us at Letchford.

‘Have you told her where you think Irena is?’

He looked away.

‘Dad?’

‘No. Not yet. It’s too much to think about, that she’s been, might have been, in the school all the time. Why?’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Why would they make
it all so secret?’

‘If she is Olivia.’

As we were leaving the apartment I asked, ‘Does she have any other photos of Irena?’ Dad and the woman exchanged words. She went back to the drawer in the sitting room and rifled
through envelopes, tutting with her tongue. These strangers from England were causing disruption in more ways than one. She pulled out a photograph and handed it to Dad with a shrug.

‘It’s not as clear as the other photo,’ he said. ‘But she’s older here.’

I was looking at a girl of about four. Gone was the toddler’s trusting grin. In its place was a watchful, serious expression.

I knew that expression well.

Olivia Fenton was my niece, as much my niece as Clara’s two boys were my nephews. Was that why I’d felt protective of her? Some subliminal family system of recognition had operated
when I’d encountered her. Perhaps I’d seen that resemblance to Clara, without being aware of it. Clara. We’d have to tell Clara about this as soon as we were back at Letchford;
sooner. If we didn’t pass on the information as soon as we touched down there’d be trouble from my sister. It would be as it had been when the reborn doll had been found in the cupboard
and Clara had complained that nobody had told her and she’d had to find out from a text message. Remembering that doll again made me wonder whether there could possibly be a connection
between it and these family discoveries. And yet Olivia’s aunt, Sofia, had assured me that they’d had nothing to do with it. I’d believed her.

‘What a revelation. I feel . . .’ Dad shook his head. ‘I don’t know how I feel. I keep wishing your mother was here.’

So she’d tell him how to feel. That’s the role that women have long performed and perfected in relationships: interpreting the dense and sometimes overwhelming world of emotions for
their menfolk.

‘I don’t know what I should do about this, Merry.’

I noted the use of my old childhood name.

‘Your mother would have known how to go about managing Olivia’s . . . situation. But then again, this might have been the one area she
couldn’t have advised me on.’ He shook his head. I couldn’t imagine that Mum would have begrudged him a youthful romance with a consequence at once sad and wonderful. Though
perhaps it would have been asking too much to expect her to feel easy about this. Or to give advice. Or to find it easy to have her husband’s granddaughter living in the school. Even as I
longed for her wisdom I found myself feeling relieved that all this had happened after her death.

‘I really only knew Hana for a matter of six months,’ he went on. ‘And we were only . . . romantically entangled for three of them before we made that trip to the
border.’ He broke off as the stewardess brought us a glass of wine apiece. I all but grabbed mine from her. Dad sipped his more slowly. ‘It was very intense at the time. But I left her
like that. I ruined her life. Expecting my child. I can’t forgive myself.’

‘You don’t know that you ruined her life.’

‘Alone? Pregnant? With the Russians invading?’

‘Perhaps having her child provided her with a lot of joy. She seems to have been well supported.’ I thought of the old lady in the apartment, of the well-thumbed photograph album,
and imagined Hana’s children, both of them, and her granddaughter toddling around the flat, perhaps asking to be lifted up to see the canaries in the cage. It might not have been Letchford
with its acres of landscaped gardens and its lake; it might not have been what Dad and Mum had provided for us, but there’d been love in that apartment. And Prague was beautiful. Even the
oppressive state couldn’t take away from the baroque buildings and the curve of the river, or from the hills and forests in the rest of the country. I pictured them going for walks in the
winter, when snow reflected the light from the river, or spending Sunday afternoons in one of the parks.

‘Will you talk to Olivia when you get back?’ I asked.

‘Only in the presence of her aunt. She’s in a very vulnerable position and we must tread gently. I’m assuming she has no idea of her possible relationship to us?’

I rewound every conversation I’d had with Olivia through my memory and found no evidence. ‘God knows why the aunt decided to send her to Letchford in such secrecy, though.’
Changing her name from Irena to the more English-sounding Olivia must have been strange for the girl. I wondered what age she’d been when she was given the new identity. ‘Did they think
we’d reject them if we knew who they really were?’

Dad was looking at the photo again. ‘I hope that was not the case.’

Olivia’s pale face haunted me. She’d found it hard to make friends at Letchford. Occasionally I’d see her drifting at the edge of a group. She had little interest in team
sports, her housemistress had told me, though she wasn’t a bad gymnast. ‘She’s on a different wavelength to the others. She doesn’t like social networking and she has little
interest in clothes. She’s always got her head in a book. Thank God she’s in the play. It’s making a huge difference for her.’

Now I longed to intervene, to encourage the flowering of confidence we’d seen this term. I’d bring her over to my apartment and cook her supper. I’d talk to her about the books
she enjoyed. Perhaps I could take her round the bookshops in Oxford. I stopped myself, mid-thought. Doing anything like this would merely single her out as even more different from the rest of the
children. I dreaded their response if they knew she was the head’s granddaughter. A tough extrovert might muscle out the revelation. This girl hovering at the edge of the field at breaktime
while the other girls chattered; well, her new self-confidence mightn’t survive.

The plane was circling Stansted airport now. For a second I wished it would continue to circle so that we didn’t have to confront what was waiting for us below. The image of the house
I’d left at the army base came back to me. If only I could be back there now in that little square red-brick home, a day’s work completed, Hugh home on leave, about to bounce through
the door to say a quick hello to me before he went off to play tennis or squash with a friend. While he was doing this I’d be chopping vegetables or laying the table for the dinner he’d
cook when he came back.

I gripped the arm of my seat. Dad looked at me. ‘Expecting a bumpy landing?’

It was almost eleven when we reached Letchford. No chance to talk to anyone about what had been revealed in Bohemia; I’d decided I preferred the old name for that part of
the Czech Republic. As we pulled up in the stable yard Dad muttered a few words of thanks to me for accompanying him. I could barely frame a response. I dragged my bag up the stairs to the
apartment. Almost too late to reclaim Samson from Simon, but I longed for my dog, for the clean, earthy smell of his coat, his enthusiastic and uncomplicated greeting. Simon was a night owl.
I’d ring him.

‘Meredith?’ He sounded flustered. Probably doing the next half-term’s lesson planning. I asked if I could collect the dog. A pause. ‘That’s fine. I’ll have
his things ready.’

‘It could wait until tomorrow morning if it’s too late now?’

‘Seriously, it’s fine. See you shortly.’

He greeted me at the door with a carrier bag full of the dog’s food and bedding. ‘He’s been good as gold.’ Samson shot out of the door, all damp nose and windmill tail.
‘Your spare key’s in the bag, too.’

I started to thank Simon for taking him on at such short notice but he interrupted. ‘Hey, Cordingley, you were the one doing me a favour. This boy and I’ve had some good long
walks.’

‘I owe you.’ I handed him the bottle of Famous Grouse I’d picked up in the Prague airport duty-free, put the dog on the lead and waved a farewell. In the second before the door
shut behind me I thought I heard him say something else but when I turned round, the door had already closed.

I’d probably annoyed my best friend here by asking him to look after the dog. Or by collecting Samson so late. I swore quietly under my breath and the dog pricked his ears and whined.

I woke the next morning ten minutes after the alarm. The rush to get to assembly meant there was no time for brooding over what had happened. As I watched my father stand at the lectern in the
hall I scrutinized him for signs of strain. I don’t think anyone else apart from me, or my mother if she’d still been alive, would have noticed the slight shake of the hand that held
the results of the last hockey match before half-term had started. Perhaps nobody but us would have noticed the over-brightness in his eyes.

When it was over Olivia trailed out with her year, her eyes seemingly gazing at nothing. I examined my father’s face as the girl who must surely be his granddaughter passed below him and
saw a spasm threaten to overpower its headmaster’s poise. He must be bursting to call out to her. I wondered when he’d call Sofia and ask her if they could meet. The old lady would have
been in touch with her by now, surely, letting her know what had happened.

Into this train of thoughts broke Emily. The week’s holiday seemed to have made little difference to her tenseness. ‘Can I have a word?’

I must have shown my surprise.

‘It’s urgent.’

I looked over my shoulder. A group of long-eared sixth-formers was ambling by. ‘Let’s go somewhere more private.’ Dad was heading towards the hall door and his office upstairs.
Some protective emotion made me not want him to be burdened with this now. Perhaps I could deal with Emily for him. I was free first lesson. ‘The staffroom.’ But when we reached the
room voices were chatting. I looked at Emily. ‘Simon’s room.’

Her eyes widened.

‘He won’t mind.’ I’d used the history room before to talk in private. I didn’t have my own form room. Simon’s first lesson was a free period. How long ago it
seemed since I’d come up here to his aid after he’d found the reborn doll. I pulled two chairs away from desks and motioned to her to sit down. ‘What is it, Emily? What’s
wrong?’

‘I can’t go on working here.’ The girl looked almost ill, her normally pale skin now the shade of paper.

‘I thought you loved Letchford?’ I remembered her conversations about the gardens, how she loved the flowers, how hard she thought it would be to be banished from the place. She
shrugged.

‘I did. Still do.’

‘Then?’

‘I don’t fit in here.’ She tugged at the sleeves of her expensive-looking jumper. Over half-term she’d obviously bought some new and warmer clothes.

‘It’s still early in the school year. Often things don’t settle down until after half-term. There’s a lot going on later on. Parties and concerts.’ Although the
school wasn’t religious Dad had always encouraged Christmas celebrations. It had always been my favourite time of the school year. ‘And of course it’s
The Crucible
at the
end of term. You’re helping with the costumes, aren’t you?’

‘I’ve done some designs. I’ve made some of them, too.’

‘Did you enjoy it?’

She nodded.

‘You wouldn’t want to leave Jenny in the lurch, would you?’

‘Perhaps not.’

‘And if you’ve enjoyed it there’ll be other plays. Once people know you’re good at that kind of thing you’ll be in demand.’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘We really want you to feel happy here.’ I laid my hand on her wrist. She gazed down at it. ‘You’ve made a good impression.’ She might not have enjoyed helping the
PE staff on the games pitch but the work she’d done on the costumes had been invaluable.

Emily moved her wrist. ‘I think it was a mistake me coming to Letchford.’

I thought of her awkwardness when asked to help put out the cones for sports lessons. ‘It can be a bit of a dogsbody job, being a gappy. But universities and training colleges really do
rate the experience, they—’

‘Another school might have been better for me.’

‘The kids here can come across as a bit spoiled and entitled. If they’ve been giving you a hard time we’ll sort them out.’ Her eyes seemed to glaze over now.
‘Emily?’ Funny. I’d felt suspicious of the strange relationship she had established with Olivia, protective of the younger girl even before I knew who she was. But now I felt
sympathy for Emily. She was no ordinary bubbly gappy; there were depths to this girl we probably hadn’t yet appreciated.

‘Please don’t be nice to me, please don’t try and talk me out of going.’ She rubbed her sleeve over her face. ‘It’s best for everyone. Really. You can’t
imagine . . .’

But I thought I could. ‘Emily, give it just another week. Until next Monday. If you still feel this strongly I’ll do everything I can to find another placement for you.’