One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [143]
‘I love you so much, Seffy,’ I said in a low, quavering voice, raising my head. Daring to look. ‘So much.’
‘I know.’
This much he did know, whatever I’d done.
‘But that whole Bosnia bollocks…’ he said savagely.
I bowed my head. ‘I know.’
‘That whole elaborate lie.’
‘It had to be elaborate.’
‘Putting maps on my bedroom wall, taking me there when I was little. Swimming out into the sea and showing me the mountains where my supposed father fought for his country.’ His eyes were like ice now, or fire. Both.
‘You were so fascinated,’ I whispered in shame. ‘So consumed by it all, at nine, or ten—’
‘Ten,’ he corrected viciously.
‘Begged me to take you there to see. What could I do? Deny you that? And it wasn’t a complete lie. Don’t forget I was pregnant there with you, had you there. To some extent your roots were there. You were born there.’
‘But my father wasn’t a fucking guerrilla, was he?’
‘No. No, but… the awful thing was, Seffy, I came to believe the lie myself, almost. Because I wished your conception had been otherwise, I found myself going along with it.’
‘Taking me to the village, trying to find the house—’
‘With my heart in my throat. Hating myself. Wondering how I could be doing it. But knowing, in some odd, misshapen way, it was out of love for you. Protecting you. So who’s child am I? you’d have asked. Oh, a married man’s, a politician I once worked for, who had a wife and child already. Your trusting little ten-year-old face.’
‘No, you were ashamed of me knowing that about you. Ashamed of yourself.’
‘That’s true,’ I gulped.
‘And Dominic was dead by then, anyway,’ he said obstinately.
‘Yes, he was.’ I dug deep. Shut my eyes for courage. Spoke slowly. Carefully. ‘But what I feared most of all, Seffy, was your censure. Your face. Your eyes. The shock. Then the recoil. That is what I have cowered from all these years. That’s why I couldn’t do it.’
The air felt charged between us. I think because it was the truth, and Seffy recognized it. At length he spoke. Unsteadily, though.
‘And did you think you’d ever tell me?’
I dug deep again. ‘I know you’d like me to say yes,’ my voice wavered, ‘and that it would help both of us if I could. But I have to tell you, Seffy, your mother is a coward through and through. I was ashamed of myself, and I knew you’d be ashamed of me.’
‘Plenty of people have affairs.’
‘I didn’t have a love affair with your father. It didn’t last months, weeks, even.’
‘How long?’
‘Just once.’
‘Only once?’
‘Yes, one day. One day in May.’
They waited for me. Seffy and Hal. I shut my eyes. That one day could change so many people’s lives.
‘I wasn’t even a mistress. Didn’t have that distinction.’
‘So how…?’
I took a huge intake of breath to steady myself. ‘It was the day of the reshuffle. Dominic, your father—’
‘Dominic will do,’ Seffy said harshly.
‘He’d gone to see the Prime Minister. To find out which job he’d secured – if anything – in the cabinet. It was a very big deal. I waited, I remember, at the window across from Parliament Square. I remember tension gripping my body, remember the huge love I had for him, the hope, his anxious face as he’d gone. He came back elated. He’d done it. Got it. Got Foreign Secretary. He embraced me, swung me round. Kissed me. We were so happy and that felt so good.’ I bent my head.
‘So – what, you went in his office?’ Seffy’s voice. ‘In broad daylight?’
I swallowed. ‘We locked the door. Pulled the blinds.’
The shock, in Laura’s kitchen, was palpable.
‘D’ you see now?’ I said, looking up. ‘You want the truth, Seffy, but what if it’s not palatable? What if your mother’s a – a—’ I broke off again, gulped air.
‘But you loved him?’ he said abruptly.
‘Oh, yes.’ I blinked, astonished. ‘With all my heart.’ Hal turned away at this, but Seffy didn’t.
‘So, no,