The Red House (7 page)

‘I think it would help for you to be more specific.’

‘Would you have to tell Imogen what I tell you, if we’re going to get married here?’

‘No, but
you
should tell her, especially if you’re getting married, anywhere.’

I leant forward, elbows on knees. I told him, about Im’s parents’ death and the subsequent adoptions; about the Spanish beach and how I look like Seb and my left hand. I told him about Marco and Hercules, and that I’d never seen the results of the DNA test, only the happiness on Imogen’s face.

‘You think – you think she lied to you about the test results?’

‘Not lied. She never said
anything
. It was implied. We slept together that night for the first time so—’ I looked sideways at the chaplain to gauge his reaction. He didn’t seem perturbed. ‘But now I wonder. I have these memories of my own, at least I think they’re my own. I don’t remember her telling me all of them. And my mother, she’s not happy about the wedding. I suppose that’s common enough, but listen to this. Listen:

‘My mother’s been unhappy ever since we told her that we’re engaged,’ I continued. ‘That’s standard enough, for
a certain kind of parent. But that same conversation is the one in which Im and I told her about Cambridge, and about Imogen having been adopted from near here. What if my mother’s reaction is to that revelation, not the engagement? What if … What if she knows?’ I pulled at my hair. ‘I don’t have any baby photos. Mum says that it’s because my father destroyed them in one of their last fights before he left. I’ve never seen my birth certificate. I’ve never asked to, but is that normal? Has everyone else seen their birth certificates? I don’t know.’

The chaplain tapped his lips with a fingertip. ‘So it’s not only Imogen who you think has lied. You suspect your mother as well.’

I wagged a finger. ‘No, no, not necessarily. I’m not saying for sure that Imogen lied. Maybe the DNA test was wrong, mixed up with someone else. Maybe she has no idea.’

‘But you think that if she did know, that she would still want to marry you? That’s what you think?’

Hearing the summation from someone else made me laugh. ‘I said it was crazy.’

I looked away from his face and instead at the painted ceiling high above us. I imagined my suspicions and elaborate explanations floating upwards, like heat does.

‘It
is
crazy, isn’t it?’ I asked. It was like talking to my old youth group leader again. I needed the chaplain to agree with me, to approve of me.

He gripped my shoulder in a man-to-man way that made me straighten my spine. ‘Have you been in any serious relationships before Imogen?’

‘Of course I have.’ I wish I didn’t sound so defensive about it.

‘Did they break up amicably, or did one of you leave the other?’

That seemed far afield of the actual point of the conversation, but:
All right, I’ll bite.
‘My last relationship broke up when she got a fellowship at a university in Germany. We weren’t serious enough about one another to justify uprooting my life, and we both knew it. I also dated at university, but not so officially that stopping constituted a “breakup”.’ That summary sounded meagre. ‘I also kissed a girl on the playground when I was five. Exactly how far back do you need this to go?’

‘So it would be fair to say that the level of relationship you’ve attained with Imogen is new for you?’

‘I’ve never been engaged before, no.’

‘Has she?’

I don’t know
, I realised. She’d never mentioned being engaged before, but I hadn’t asked. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, shaking off my uncertainty.
‘We’re
engaged, that’s what matters.’

‘Of course,’ he agreed. ‘I’m only clarifying that what you have with Imogen is special to you, and unique in your life experience so far. And, she being older, perhaps not so unique for her.’

‘She’s not that much older.’ I’m tired of people teasing about that. Five years is hardly anything between adults; it’s not as though we’re teenagers.

‘Nevertheless,’ the chaplain said, as if one word were a whole sentence. ‘Nevertheless’ rang in my ears, and I finished it myself:
Nevertheless, she’s had five more years of her twenties, and she didn’t spend them celibate.

‘I know she’s had serious relationships before me, with
men better-looking than me, men who make more money than me …’

‘It sounds like you feel you don’t deserve her,’ he said, and it was such an obvious fact that it seemed idiotic to have bothered putting it into words.

‘Of course I don’t deserve her!’ I said, panting.

The chaplain tilted his head to one side, mimicking my angle. ‘You believe that you, just you as you are, aren’t special enough to attract her; but she’s been looking for her brother her whole life. Does this resonate with you?’

Yes!
‘Yes, that’s exactly true. Exactly.’

‘So, could it be that you don’t suspect that you’re her brother, not really, but that, in a way, you
wish
you were?’

I sputtered in protest, but he held up a hand and completed the thought:

‘If, according to you, you aren’t good enough for her just as yourself, then imagining that you’re the one that she’s been searching for all these years is, in a way, a satisfying fantasy. Does that ring true?’

I breathed, blinked, nodded.

‘If that’s so, then your insecurity is what you need to resolve, not a web of lies from your loved ones. Isn’t that good news?’

The chaplain’s smile stretched across his face. I nodded and stretched my mouth wide too. ‘That is good news, yeah,’ I said. It sounded so simple. Despite the chaplain’s young age, I wondered if this was what it’s like to have a dad.

He smiled back at me. ‘It’s good to admire your partner, and to feel like the lucky one of the pair. Ideally, each of you should feel like the lucky one. But it’s something to
consider, that you feel so out of step with her …’

‘No, I … We’re fine. I just … I needed to think about things differently. You’ve helped; you really helped. Thank you so much,’ I said, pumping the man’s hand. ‘You make me want to come back to church,’ I admitted.

‘Of course you’re welcome, here or elsewhere,’ he assured me. But he stood as he said it, and I knew it was my cue.

I rose too, pushing my wooden chair askew behind me. ‘Well, I really can’t tell you what a relief it’s been to talk it out. I couldn’t tell anyone we both knew and …’

‘I’m honoured that you felt you could trust me, and I’m glad I could help.’ He gestured towards the door.

‘We
will
have the wedding here,’ I decided.

‘If that’s what you feel ready for. You can set the date with the Conferences and Events Office, and email to schedule further counselling,’ he said, and his eyes flicked to his watch.
Of course; he must have duties and appointments.
My face heated.

‘Sorry,’ I mumbled.

‘I’m glad you felt you could talk to me,’ he said, with what appeared to be genuine warmth.

I rallied. It would have been unkind to leave him with anything but a smile.

I held that smile until I was through the college gate, then let my face twist in guilt. The chaplain had explained my suspicions of Imogen away, which should be a relief, but in their absence I could see that I had treated Imogen horribly for no good reason at all.

I phoned her but she didn’t pick up. I didn’t know the city well enough to walk to our hotel directly, so took a
roundabout route, past the few landmarks I knew. It took half an hour. I jogged the last little way; I needed to see her. Upstairs, I thrust the key into the lock and turned. ‘Imogen?’ I called, ready to apologise. She wasn’t there. She could have been at any of a dozen places.

Most likely, she was on her way to where she’d told me she’d go: meeting the man who claimed to be her brother.

I opened my laptop. The keywords
adoption, discussion, sebastian
and today’s date got me what I was after.

The Reunions website looked like it was created in the early days of the Internet and never updated. I turned my volume off to avoid the sentimental and tinkly background music, and squinted at the light blue type on a dark blue background.

Eight years ago, Imogen had posted:

The only responses were contemporaneous, and merely in the way of encouragement, until today:

I didn’t know her login to see her private messages, but this was enough to tell me that this was for real. Whether this ‘Patrick Bell’ who contacted her is genuine or a scam, she believed that she’d found Sebastian. She’d come to me with genuine good news. I’d treated her terribly.

The theories that had swirled in my head seemed bizarre to me now. Imogen had said that she was going to ask me for a lift. I, foolishly, stupidly, idiotically, had speculated that she’d dangled that possibility in the same breath as taking it back only to bolster a lie. Had she said tonight? I think she’d said tonight. Without me to drive, what would she do? Get dropped off by a taxi, left alone to meet a stranger? Or, worse, ask Patrick Bell to pick her up?

I opened Google Maps. The house name and town were sufficient to find her old home. The map pinpointed it within a non-specific stretch of green, but the satellite photo showed the house and its colourful neighbours, separated by lawns or field and reached only by a meandering dirt
road. It’s isolated. I wiped my damp forehead with my sleeve.

I couldn’t be privy to the private messages and emails that Patrick Bell and Imogen had shared off the message board, but the man’s proofs must have been convincing. Still, Imogen had left enough information around the web that anyone could put together a fairly reasonable version of Seb’s life, especially as filtered through a small child’s faulty memory.
I’m proof enough of that, aren’t I? I let her descriptions seep so deeply into me that they surfaced as my own.

Part of me hesitated.

Could that really be true, though
? We haven’t known each other for so long that I should have forgotten her telling me her brother’s nickname for the college’s bronze horse.
How can I have remembered the name itself but not the larger discussion that had included it?

I shook it off. That wasn’t urgent. The meeting with Patrick Bell could be.

I Googled around some more. Lots of Patrick Bells online, though none I could pinpoint as him. I tried his username from Reunions. It appeared nowhere else.

There are a lot of reasons why someone would create a burner account instead of using an existing profile. Some of those reasons are benign; others aren’t.

I wished that she’d arranged to meet him in a public place, or that I’d insisted on going with her. I punched the mattress. Patrick Bell could be anyone. Even if he was Seb, that doesn’t mean that he should be trusted.
He has to earn that.

I locked our hotel room and headed down to the car.
Whoever Patrick Bell is
, I decided,
Imogen and I will meet him together
. Imogen’s childhood home was only half an hour away.

It’s still bright out when I get there, summer bright, giving the illusion of late afternoon well into evening. I find the turning onto the dirt road, but the vista isn’t what the satellite photo promised me.

The half-dozen houses that I’d seen from above aren’t here. I check my position; I look in all directions. The billboard for
affordable and comfortable village life coming soon
gives me a clue: the original houses have been recently razed.

I picture Imogen’s face, crumpled with disappointment, but maybe it’s better like this. Maybe the small but uncountable changes since her childhood would have hurt worse than this enforced fresh start.

I pull over and get out. There are only two buildings left, one red and one white. I’m unsure of my place and can’t tell which of the original ones they are. I’d expected to identify them all in relation to one another, not in absolute on an otherwise empty expanse. I don’t think one of those is Meadow View; wouldn’t it have been to the right of where I drove in? But I can’t be sure. A siren-sound pulls my attention, and I feel suddenly worried, suddenly guilty.
Police? Ambulance?
My body tenses.

Has something happened to Imogen? Has she come to this changed place, this near-deserted place, and been threatened? Was she able to call for help herself, or has some witness called for her? Are they near?
The siren sounds like it’s coming from over there, the end of the road,
where the last houses stand. There must be a road beyond, on which emergency vehicles are travelling, on their way. But the noise isn’t getting louder.

I’m still dithering when I hear two gunshots and a shrill whistle-like sound that might have been a scream.

I duck beside the car, assessing. The shots weren’t close. They weren’t aimed at me.

Was the high-pitched sound Imogen? Was it a voice at all?

That fucking siren is still going round and round, up-down-up-down, high-low, high-low … I can’t think. I’m sweating.

There, again
. No more shots, but for sure a voice. Not a scream, but words shouted, by a woman. The only word I make out is
No
.