One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [147]
Another lie. I never for one moment felt Seffy was anything other than mine. My own boy. And it had been torture to deny him publicly, too. When, at the age of eight, I’d gone to collect him from school and he’d said excitedly: ‘Miss Taylor did her assembly on adoption today, because of me, because I’m special, because I was chosen,’ I’d almost fainted. The lie had rippled out of my control, beyond my immediate family and friends. It was in Seffy’s hands, not mine. I’d rendered him culpable, and he was spreading the word. That should have been my moment. To grip it. Tell him the truth. Talk to the teacher, squash it dead. But I’d ducked it. His trusting hand in mine as we’d walked home, clutching a wet painting, Seffy chattering away, about how all his friends wanted to know where Croatia was. The lump in my throat had been an immovable blockage.
His friends. Different ones now, of course, at a different school: Will, Tom, Ben – whom Seffy would have to tell. Would he? How? Put an advert in the school magazine? Seffy Carrington, not adopted after all. I imagined his, friends’ astonished faces. The questions: ‘So why did your mother…?’ ‘Because my father was famous. Married too.’ ‘Oh, I see.’ But not seeing. Thinking: God, you poor bastard. Pity. Which any fifteen-year-old boy wants about as much as a pair of frilly pants. Easier now he was an adolescent, Hattie? Easier than being nine or ten? I don’t think so.
I thought of Hal trying to placate Seffy, rationally, sensibly. It occurred to me he knew so much about me. Had known, when we’d had dinner in Seillans, at his house in France. He’d been seeing Seffy for a year. If, for a moment I felt that I was the one deceived, manipulated, it passed quickly. Not only did I deserve to be in the dark, but if Seffy’s love was to be delivered back to me, it would be mostly due to Hal. And I mustn’t assume anything. Mustn’t assume deliverance. My son’s face right now was an inscrutable teenage mask, but as Biba burst in through the back door, he rearranged it accordingly.
‘Have you heard? He’s going to be all right! There was masses of blood, apparently, but he’s going to be OK!’
I hugged her as she flew to embrace me. Dad followed her in, beaming and rubbing his hands.
‘Thank God,’ he said warmly. ‘What a relief.’
‘I’m so glad for Daisy,’ whispered Biba in my ear. ‘I mean – obviously I’m so glad for Luca, that he’s not badly hurt, but, Hattie, can you imagine if…?’
‘I know,’ I said quickly as she welled up. ‘I know, Biba, but he’s not.’
‘No,’ she said quickly. And then she turned and held her arms out to Seffy. So big-hearted, always the demonstrative one.
I saw Seffy smile into her hair as he held her. I didn’t presume to catch his eye and smile, although I wanted to, but it occurred to me she’d have to be told. Biba. And Daisy, and Laura and Hugh, and Mum and Dad. For a moment the enormity of what I’d done, the scale of my deceit, threatened to overwhelm me. Made me feel faint. Made me think I may not be physically capable of seeing everyone reel in astonishment, these lovely nieces of mine, these elderly kindly parents: my father, coming to hug me now. Felt I’d sink in shame. Disappear into the stinking, bubbling mire that was the real me, as these good people stood about gaping in horror, absorbing the shock.
‘Oh, Dad!’ I gasped into his shoulder.
‘I know, love, huge relief. Huge. The lad’s going to be fine.’ He patted my shoulder and moved on to clap Seffy on the back, but Hal must have seen my face, my distress. He was meeting my eye, sending me a clear message of support: Don’t panic.
And now Dad was rounding