The Red House (26 page)

The multistorey car park nearest the Cambridge police station is attached to the public swimming pool. As I pull in and set the handbrake, I see a family with wet hair and inflatable toys exiting the lift. They must smell of chlorine, but from inside the car I imagine the salt-tinge from the Isle of Wight. I have to force myself to emerge. I’d long ago let my father go, like releasing a helium balloon. Now my mother. In an hour it will be over. In an hour, I’ll be a fully-free adult, with no parents at all.

A car horn blasts. I’ve crossed in front of a vehicle whooshing round a corner. I raise a hand in apology, duck my head, and step back. The car speeds past. I feel like a child again, ‘head in the clouds’, my mother used to say. If I were reading, or even just thinking, she would have to call me multiple times to get me to respond.

It occurs to me now that this might have had more to do with the name she called me than with me being inattentive to my surroundings.

They were supposed to keep calling me Sebastian. I’ve looked up adoption practices from the time, and that was how it was done. They could change my last name, but not my first. No one hovered, though, to enforce this. Maybe that’s part of what my parents fought over. Maybe my father tried to stick to the rules and she called me Maxwell anyway, after her dead father. After the divorce, she changed our last name back to her maiden name. That would have been a chance to slip in a first name change, too. Forgery? A few keystrokes in a primary database? She’d had the skills, and the access.

‘How can I help?’ asks the cheerful policewoman behind the counter. I’d got out of the car park and across the road on autopilot. I was there already, too soon, stammering.

‘I’m here to see my mother,’ I say, finally. ‘Muriel Gant. She’s been arrested.’

I already know that she assaulted the Inspector. DS Spencer had informed me of the charges against her so far: the assault, and attempted kidnapping of Imogen. I haven’t been asked to raise bail, and I suspect she’s being denied the option. It doesn’t matter; I won’t pay it.

I’m brought into a small box-like room, where I’m permitted to speak with her. She looks small, and frail, despite being merely fifty-five.

‘I know who I am,’ I say. I don’t want her to try to keep playing the game.

‘Who’s that?’ she asks. It sounds like a dare.

‘You adopted me. There’s no shame in that. Why didn’t you just tell me?’

She sounds like a saw scraping against metal. It’s her laugh, gasping for air. ‘I know what adopted children do,’
she says. ‘Your Imogen is proof of that.’

The words are sharp: ‘my’ Imogen. She’s indeed mine, profoundly so.

My mother pushes more words across the table. They heap in front of me. ‘She worships her drunk father and subservient mother. Hardly anything to say about her real parents, the ones who took her in and raised her as their own. Her real siblings, the ones who grew up with her into adulthood and shared clothes and bedrooms and holidays. It’s not fair. I had to protect myself from that. You couldn’t expect me to love you and just let you face the other way, always looking backwards.’

I shake my head. ‘You don’t know that I would have been like that. And even if I had been, that was my—’

‘I couldn’t take the chance.’ She pinches her lips together.

‘Did you really think that I would never know?’

‘How? You had no reason to contact your father, nor he you. I didn’t ask him for any money. I let him go. We were safe, until
she
seduced you on a Spanish beach.’

‘We didn’t sleep together in Spain.’ I don’t know why that feels important to make clear, but it does. ‘She didn’t know. She never knew. She doesn’t know now.’ My voice breaks. I don’t know how I’ll stand in front of Imogen and tell her. We mustn’t touch, not even in comfort. Our bodies know one another too well.

My mother dismisses my defence of Im. ‘She started sniffing around for your father, as if he mattered. Biology was all she could think of. Never mind that he’d left us. Never mind that he’d had no contact with you since. She believed he was half of your DNA, so she wanted him at your wedding. That’s the kind of obsession I’m talking
about. I suspected what she was up to, so I followed her. Once she found him, I knew she knew.’

I refute her. ‘He didn’t tell her. Maybe he would have later, but he didn’t get the chance.’

Her indignant expression falters, but she rallies: ‘It had to be stopped. If you’d listened to me when I told you to break it off, it wouldn’t have come to any of this.’

I nod, not in agreement, but in acceptance that she’s beyond reasoning with.

‘On the island,’ she explains, ‘it was impulse. I was angry. I had to stop her before she could tell you.’

I realise that this was the near-miss car accident that Imogen had described.

‘When I missed, I knew all was lost. You would know. My only hope was to create a diversion, to make her question what she’d been told – what I could only have
assumed
she’d been told. I had to give her, and you, a reason to doubt. I invented Patrick Bell, to create a trail to show you that she was wrong. Something we could find online together, after …’

‘After what?’

She doesn’t answer. My throat constricts as I realise she must mean ‘after Imogen was dead’.

I stammer, ‘But when she responded with belief, when she agreed to meet you … didn’t you see that she
didn’t
know? That you didn’t have to … do that?’

‘It had to be stopped. Whether she knew or you knew, it had to be stopped.’

I nod. That was true. Only instead of stopping it by confessing the truth, she’d tried to stop it with murder.

I’d figured it out, driving away from London. The DNA
results had shown me that Imogen had acted in good faith. She’d had no hint that I was Sebastian; I should have trusted her all along. And if she was to be trusted, then there really was someone after her, someone in a bright green car. This person had created Patrick Bell to lure Imogen to a desolate address in Highfields Caldecote, the name Patrick Bell inspired by a sign near my father’s house. But my father didn’t have the information to credibly create Patrick Bell, nor the motive of caring if I knew.
Who did?
I’d asked myself. The answer had pained me, but it rang true. That’s when I’d texted Imogen the warning.
Thank God.

My mother’s staring off to the side at a blank, chipped wall. I wonder what she’s seeing there. She snaps out of it, suddenly shimmying her shoulders and closing her mouth. ‘I’ve told the police that she wasn’t good enough for you. That’s all I’ll ever say, no matter what they ask me. It’s all they need to know. You’ll never be shamed by this.’

‘Thank you,’ I say quietly, having not yet considered the impact that public knowledge of the truth would have on me. If she were to attempt to use the extreme circumstances to justify her state of mind, humiliation would follow both me and Imogen, separately, even if we never saw one another again. To give me this gift, she has to confess a mitigated version of the truth, and take her punishment, without argument. ‘Thank you,’ I repeat, somehow meaning it truly.

I stand to leave. As I turn my back, she barks my name: ‘Maxwell!’

My stomach tightens. The name pings in me a deep recognition.

It must have taken months, perhaps years, for her to
carve it into my consciousness. Did she get angry at first when I didn’t respond to the name, or did she laugh it off, like she did years later, recalling my supposed childhood obliviousness? I try to remember what it was like, hearing a name that wasn’t mine tossed in my direction, over and over, until I finally reached out to catch it.

I don’t face her, or answer her, but I feel the leash-pull of the name.

I leave, but part of me remains attached to her. However I started, I’m Maxwell now.

I get out, wait anxiously for the pedestrian lights to release me across the congested junction, and almost run for my car, a familiar refuge. The dissonant DNA results are on the passenger seat. It’s as if they’ve taken Imogen’s place away from her, though they’re the one thing that could make it possible for her to come back.

My sister.
I try to remember her as she was, as the eight-year-old I apparently adored, but nothing comes. I only know her as she is. Could there be some explanation besides the worst?

I sift through the impossibilities: an affair would still give a half match in children, but the results showed no match at all. Sebastian had been born at home, so there was no accidental switch at the hospital. Imogen had long ago matched her DNA to her older brothers’ (at the insistence of a sister-in-law when they had first reconnected, in case she might be a con artist). So, no switch at the hospital for her either. She remembers her mother pregnant, so it wasn’t an adoption. I hit the steering wheel. I can’t be Sebastian, yet I am. I desperately don’t want to be.

I start the car and pull out into the narrow lane, scanning
for exit arrows.
Yes, thank you – ‘this way out
’. A way out would be wonderful.

I pull up to the line just in time for the pedestrians to get their turn. A little boy and a little girl trot across, holding their mother’s hands.

I try again to picture young Im. I only see my mother, Muriel Gant, and no one on her other side.

The harder I try, the more the image recedes, now replaced by grown Imogen, in her wet red bathing suit. I feel what I shouldn’t feel. Then, disgust engulfs my arousal, and I wonder if I’ll ever be without shame again.

My mother had tried to spare me. She’d tried to give me the grief of loss instead of the guilt of knowledge.
Shame on her,
I think, rolling into the road at last, joining the slow queue.
It doesn’t matter what I feel. The only thing that matters is that Imogen is safe.
She’s alive. Having to bear this guilt is nothing if it’s bought her that.

At first, my mother had tried to break us apart without violence. If only I’d been weaker, if only I’d allowed myself to be swayed by her vile assertions … I wonder now if what she’d claimed was even true. Those newspaper stories had been grainy photocopies. Had Dr Llewellyn really been drink-driving the night of the accident? My mother had accused the man of killing a whole family in the oncoming car.

Behind the wheel of my own vehicle, I slam on the brakes.

The busy, generic breakfast room could be in any city. I’m still in Cambridge but only know it by the brochures in the lobby: punting offers, college tours, a police warning about bicycle thieves.

My emotional high after leaving Robert in London has faded. Our meeting had clarified for me, perfectly, what I now want, and that fresh hope had buoyed me for a few hours. Then, the weight of its likely impossibility had pulled down, and pulls still.

It feels appropriately masochistic to have removed myself to a generic hotel on a leisure park by a busy road. Its front is a collage of ugly blocks in shades of shouty blue; its rooms inside are cheap and charmless. It fits my mood.

I hang my head, facing the cold croissant and bright banana spooning on my plate. I’m not hungry. I want coffee, but can’t balance a full cup on my lap while manoeuvring the wheelchair. No one has offered assistance,
out of politeness, I suppose. Such help would imply that I’m needy, and that would be rude.

Maxwell hasn’t contacted me, not since that last text that warned me of his mother.
Thank goodness he sent that.
Otherwise, I might have forced myself to be genial with my future mother-in-law; I might have gone with Mrs Gant, pretending pleasure, into her green car, or, at least, up to her green car.

But if Maxwell knew enough to warn me, he likely understands his mother’s motive. It had come together for me there in the car park. Muriel Gant knew all along who Maxwell is. When she discovered who I am and that he was determined to marry me, she’d felt compelled to stop it.

A tear splashes on the white rim of my plate. I couldn’t face staying in our original Cambridge hotel, not in the room we’d shared, not where Maxwell might return. Nor could I yet face our London flat. I don’t want to sleep alone in our once-shared bed, nor risk a sudden confrontation. So long as I avoid Maxwell, there’s still a chance with him, however small.

If he knows, losing him is inevitable. I’m certain of that, even as I face my own acceptance of what would have once repelled me. If the original DNA test had revealed our relationship, we would have veered onto a different road. I would have insisted on it; I would have jerked the steering wheel sideways myself.
But that’s the point
, I remind myself.
The tests didn’t show anything because we have no genetic relationship
. We had lived together for three years as an intimate sibling pair, and I had loved him with a motherly depth that separation then only exaggerated;
but our combined DNA won’t deform any future children – isn’t that the usual worry? Another tear falls, sliding down the croissant’s greasy slope.

What if he doesn’t know?
Had Muriel’s plan been only to separate us to prevent any further sin, or had she hoped to spare Maxwell any knowledge of it altogether? Had Muriel hoped to protect him from guilt, and preserve her status as his ‘real’ mother by keeping the truth to herself? I hold onto that chance. My hands tighten into fists in my lap; my nails dig into my palms.

Then I flex my fingers and grab my wheels. I spin away from the table and from my uneaten breakfast, narrowly avoiding a man behind me. His bowl tilts, scattering yellow flakes and milk.

‘Imogen!’ he says. I know his voice. I know his shoes, too, and the broken lace on the left one.

‘How did you find me?’ I ask, still not looking up. I cringe. Facing him would be like facing into a spotlight.

‘I didn’t,’ Maxwell admits, the spilt milk between us thinning out as the puddle expands. ‘I couldn’t leave Cambridge without seeing you, but I didn’t want to impose myself on you by returning to our room. I wasn’t even sure if you were still here, or back in London. I don’t even know if your wheelchair will fit in the lift in our building. My God, Imogen, my mother did this.’ His voice breaks like a teenager’s.

I tilt my glance upwards. ‘I’ll be all right. This …’ I shrug to indicate the wheelchair. ‘Is only temporary.’

An annoyed woman I recognise from the front desk shoves a broom between us, sweeping up Maxwell’s spill into a long-handled dustpan. The empty bowl still dangles
from his hand. I push myself backwards, to turn towards a fresh table. Maxwell follows, bounding forward to remove a chair from one side to make a place for me. He sits opposite.

I marvel that we ended up in the same cheap hotel, in a city built to accommodate thousands of tourists and the regular influx of visiting parents for University milestone events. It’s like those twin studies that show separated siblings to have developed the same quirks and tastes even when raised apart – how they take their tea; favourite TV shows and sports teams; even same university subject. Then I remind myself that Maxwell and I have no biological basis for our serendipity. We’ve earned our likeness through being together, like those silly photos of owners who’ve come to resemble their pets.

‘I suppose I should have expected to see you here,’ Maxwell says. ‘All the other hotels I tried were full with tour groups. This was the only one with any space.’

I blush.
Perhaps not destiny then.

‘I knew from the police that you were all right,’ he assures me. ‘I didn’t delay making sure of that. I’ve been thinking of you every—’ He stops himself.

I squeeze my hands together in my lap.

‘I went to see my mother,’ Maxwell tells me. ‘For the last time.’ He says this fiercely, reminding me of how he had brooked no protest from Muriel, not for a moment, when she’d objected to our engagement. He had chosen me over her, easily, right from the start.

I wait. A man’s choice of his lover over his mother is a small thing, compared to a choice between his lover and …
a primal revulsion
, I admit to myself.
A moral
revulsion
, I correct. Maxwell has always been the one of us more likely to sort the world into right and wrong.

‘Imogen, there’s something I have to tell you.’

Those are the words I’ve been hiding from, here in this dingy chain hotel. My head swivels back and forth. ‘No,’ I say.
Don’t say it
, I beg with my eyes.

Maxwell looks pained, regretful, sick.

We don’t have to do this
, I tell him with my expression in return. Is his car here? We can get in and just drive. We can go back to London. We can go back to Spain.

‘I’m parked outside,’ he says, again sharing my mind.

We belong together,
I marvel.
We’re already like one person.

‘I need to show you something,’ he explains, leaning across the table. The wheelchair arms don’t fit under it, keeping me back, beyond his reach.

I tilt my head.
Where does he want me to go?

‘Please,’ he adds. ‘Please.’ His face sags in seeming apology, in seeming agony, but our eyes are connected.

I nod.