‘The letters my father wrote to me every year on my birthday for eighteen years. The letters that my mother sent back to him unopened every year.’
Johnny stares at me.
‘I had no idea,’ he says eventually.
‘Welcome to the club.’
‘Do you have these letters? How do you know about them?’
‘Edwin Jones gave them to me yesterday. It was off the record and not really part of the estate. Apparently Bruce called Edwin to the hospital a few days before he died to make sure I got them. I haven’t read them,’ I add predicting his next question. ‘I honestly don’t know if I want to.’
‘But you must,’ Johnny says with sudden force. ‘These will fill in all the holes I’m sure, like missing jigsaw pieces.’
I look at him rather astonished. He shakes his head, apologising under his breath.
Of course, my father is Johnny’s greatest rival in love. It’s natural he would want to know all the gory details about the man and I suspect he thinks those details are in these letters. Well even if they are he won’t be hearing them from me.
‘Anyway,’ I say, changing the subject. ‘Mum.’
He sighs. ‘Yes. She thinks you’re going to evict her and sell the house.’
‘Of course I’m not going to evict her. I bloody should though, just to teach her a lesson. I’m so angry with her, Johnny.’
‘Will you talk to her?’ he asks.
‘I can’t promise I won’t get angry.’
‘I think she’s expecting that. Just reassure her you aren’t about to evict her. She might come home then.’
‘Oh for God’s sake, can she not just come home and we’ll sort it out when she’s here?’ I am so sick of my mother acting like a spoilt child all the time, and everyone pandering to her as though her behaviour is perfectly acceptable. I’m sick of so many things and I feel as though I’m on my very last nerve with all of it. I’m scared that if I speak to her, thirty years of resentment will come flying out and I won’t have any control over it.
‘Julia, she’s hurting too. I know she did wrong, that she should have been honest with you years ago, but the love of her life has died and, try as I might, I’m no replacement.’ He smiles sadly and I suddenly feel immensely sorry for him and the huge secrets he has had to bear all for the love of a woman who will always hold him as second best. What a mess it all is.
‘I’ll talk to her,’ I agree. ‘But only because you asked me to.’
‘Thank you, Julia.’
‘Do you have a number?’
‘She’s on Skype these days.’
‘Skype!’ My mother has an inherent fear of all things technological. Her excuse for not cooking is the oven is too convoluted for her to understand. She has an old Nokia mobile phone that’s at least a decade old and dictates all her emails to Johnny.
‘So we can keep in touch when one of us is away,’ Johnny says. I don’t want any further details about that, thank you very much.
At the appointed hour I log on to my Skype account and my mother’s face looms into view on the computer screen.
‘Hello, dear,’ she bellows. Her accent has become a lot more New York since we last spoke.
‘Mother, you don’t have to press your face against the screen or yell at me. Just sit back and talk normally.’
She does as she’s told for the first time in living memory. I can’t really tell from the rather fuzzy image but could it be possible that she’s looking contrite?
‘So now you know all my dirty secrets,’ she says resignedly.
‘Yes. Why did you never tell me?’
‘You wouldn’t have understood.’
‘Mum, listen, it’s not about whether I would have understood or not. Bruce was my father and you knew who he was and where he was. I had a right to know my father.’
She sighs and blinks. Is she crying?
‘I’m sorry.’ She sniffs. She’s crying. I hate myself for thinking in the back of my mind that they are crocodile tears, simply for effect.
I take a deep breath. I am not going to get into a Skype argument with my mother.
‘Look, Mum,’ I say, deciding to keep this short and sweet, ‘why don’t you just come home. We can talk about all of this properly then.’
‘What are you going to do about the house?’
‘I don’t know. But I’m not going to evict you. Johnny told me you were inconsolable about it.’
‘Johnny exaggerates.’
‘Yes, well I know all about you two as well,’ I say. ‘But that’s something for another time.’ I notice she has the decency to blush.
‘Just come home,’ I repeat. ‘We’ll sort everything out, I promise.’
‘Will you get Johnny to book me a flight?’
‘If you’re lucky, I might even book it myself.’
6th June 1987
My dearest daughter,
Happy fourth birthday, my darling. It’s been a year since I saw you and what a year it has been.
Seeing you this time last year has kick-started me into working harder, into ‘living up to my potential’ as my tutors at St Martin’s used to put it. I’ve been sober for one year and sixty days. I’ve been to meetings every day for the last 425 days.
And with my sobriety has come a new-found love of my work. I’ve known for years that the drink has been destroying my love of art, but I hadn’t realised how much it had destroyed my productivity. The last year has been spent in a fever of activity at my studio in Whitechapel. One day I hope to show you the studio, the place where I painted the work for my first major exhibition.
Yes, that’s right! Tonight, on your fourth birthday in lieu of the Campden Hill Road party, I will be exhibiting my work for the first time. The paintings are already at the gallery and I’m sitting here in an almost empty studio feeling rather nervous I must admit. I expect this is the artist’s equivalent of stage fright. I hope your mother isn’t too angry that some of her guests will be late to the party, as I know they are coming to the exhibition!
Dad is coming down from Yorkshire to see the exhibition as well. This is a man who, to my knowledge, hasn’t left Yorkshire since Mum died! Frank and I are astonished, delighted and nervous in equal measures. In an hour or so Frank will pick me up and then we’ll be off to Kings Cross to meet Dad.
I wonder if you’ll ever meet your grandfather? I do hope so. He’s quite a character under that gruff exterior, although it’s taken me a long time to figure that out. Frank and I will be sure to tell him all about you.
Happy Birthday, Princess. Wish me luck!
Your Father
‘Bella!’ Marco di Palma yells at me from halfway down the street. Luckily, I’m heading his way, but if I wasn’t I’d feel obliged to stop in for a coffee at least. Marco has an incredible ability of getting passers-by into his restaurant no matter what. I guess that’s why it’s always so busy.
Marco