‘Yes, I suppose we have,’ she admitted. ‘But surely your parents made friends at church?’
‘They could have done if they’d wanted,’ Daniel said. ‘We went to Mass every Sunday certainly and they would greet people but that was all. They had a manner that wasn’t exactly unfriendly but told people they definitely didn’t want to take the conversation any further. So, in the end, people just greeted them then left them alone. I didn’t find this odd at the time, it was later looking back on it that I thought it was a peculiar way to go on. But still, looking at the suffering others were enduring after the Great War and all the hardships many were enduring, these things were minor.’
‘I see what you’re saying,’ Angela said. ‘It’s hard not to feel immense sympathy when some people can’t heat their house or feed their barefoot children adequately. And yet to be friendless too is a lonely place to be, don’t you think, Mammy?’
There was no answer, for Mary was fast asleep. Angela smiled sadly, for Mary was dropping off to sleep more and more of late. She knew it was more than likely that one day Mary would not wake from one of these naps; she would slip into the ultimate deep sleep and Angela dreaded that day.
Daniel, however, hadn’t followed Angela’s train of thought and shrugged as he said, ‘University saved me.’
‘Golly, you must be clever.’
Daniel smiled as he said, ‘It’s easier to work when you have no friends to distract you and parents and a school that expect you to work hard. My parents did all they could to make study as pleasurable as possible. I was doing what they wanted so a desk and bookshelves were put in my bedroom. The shelves of the bookcase were filled with books recommended by the school and often a merry little fire burned in the grate.’
Connie said nothing, but she knew her life would be a lot harder than Daniel’s if she took the route her mother wanted her to take. Between October and April she went into the attic only to sleep, for it was far too cold to linger in. And she had no desk or bookshelves, let alone recommended books to put on them.
‘How do you mean, it saved you?’ Angela was saying.
‘I saw how other chaps lived,’ Daniel said. ‘I saw my upbringing was not the same as most of theirs and for the first time I made friends. My parents would not permit me to leave home to attend a university further afield so I got a place in Birmingham University.’
‘Where’s that?’ Angela asked.
‘Edgbaston.’
‘Hardly easy to get to from Sutton Coldfield, I wouldn’t have said.’
‘It isn’t,’ Daniel agreed. ‘I had to take a train to New Street Station, cross the city and get a bus out. It was hellishly difficult to get there in time for morning lectures, so one of the others would often put me up. I slept on a great many sofas, armchairs, even a bath a time or two, and some floors.’
‘How did you get away with that?’ Connie asked.
‘Well, my parents didn’t like it when I started staying out overnight, as you might imagine,’ Daniel said. ‘So I showed them my timetable and told them how many times I had been late for lectures initially. As they obviously didn’t want me to be late, they could do little about it and let me share a house with some of the others. And being away from home I learnt that life isn’t all about study, that normal students go to the pub, have parties, get drunk and generally enjoy themselves. I felt I was living for the first time. My parents knew nothing of my double life. I did enough to keep up in class, hand essays in on time and do well in my end-of-term exams.’
‘What did you study?’
‘Maths and Accountancy.’
‘So, are you following Roger into the bank?’
Daniel made a face. ‘He’d like me to.’
‘And you’re not keen?’
‘It’s not that, and not really about the job, it’s just that I have tasted freedom now and I don’t want to go back to the life I had. I am turned twenty-one now and my friends all said I should stick up for myself more, but it’s hard when you have never done it. And then I got the letter from the solicitor chap and learnt about this man I’d never heard of leaving me all this money. The letter told me who he was – my father – and I realised all my life I had lived a lie. My parents have lied to me and they weren’t my parents at all, so I don’t have to consider them any more.’
‘Yes you do, Daniel,’ Angela said. ‘They are not your birth parents but they adopted you legally and so they are your parents and they have done their best by you. Admittedly they have smothered you and you have to confront that and tell them there is to be no more of it, but I’d say you are their reason for living. Don’t turn your back on them totally.’
‘If only they’d told me,’ Daniel said. ‘My mother said if I wanted to find out about my father who had just abandoned me to their care I had to come here.’
‘Your father didn’t just abandon you, as I’ve explained,’ Angela said. ‘And I’m surprised Betty knew exactly where we lived.’
‘I don’t know whether she did or not,’ Daniel said. ‘The point is, my real father had left your address with the solicitor in case there were any problems. The stipulation of no contact was null and void when I was twenty-one so the solicitor had my address to write about the inheritance. So you see, even after I confronted her, my mother wasn’t at all helpful.’
‘She was probably in shock and perhaps a bit frightened.’
‘I don’t know why you are making excuses for her,’ Daniel said. ‘Doubt she’d do the same for you. And I don’t know what she has to be frightened of. My father is dead and when I could have got to know him, my parents – principally my mother – prevented me.’
‘She thinks you may hold it against her.’
‘Well I do a bit now, if I’m honest,’ Daniel said. ‘And, like it or not, if I can’t actually meet him, I think I’d like to know all there is to know about him.’
‘Well, as a young man both before your birth and just after, Mary will know more than me because I was just a child. She will probably be able to tell you bits about your mother too. But I can fill in the gaps later, before he enlisted, and so you can have as complete a picture of your father as we can give you.’
And then Angela stopped and cried, ‘Oh, I almost forgot. I have a photo of your father, the army took it. Here’s Barry’s, look. I put it in a silver frame.’ And she took it from the sideboard and showed him. ‘It was important for Connie to know what he looked like so she couldn’t forget him.’
‘I understand that,’ Daniel said. ‘I would so like to see what my father looked like too.’
‘It’s upstairs, won’t be a minute.’
When Angela had gone, Daniel said to Connie, ‘Could you remember more about your father when you saw his photograph?’
Connie shook her head. ‘Not really. I was too young when he joined the war he didn’t come back from.’
‘We’re more or less in the same boat then.’
‘Yes, except that I heard about my father all the time,’ Connie said. ‘The memory of him was kept alive mainly by Granny. Mammy generally doesn’t like talking about the past, but she’d often say things about my father. Granny said she loved him very much and it was hard for her to go on without him.’
Daniel didn’t reply to this for Angela had come in with a box. ‘I put the photograph in the box I kept all the letters in, because I used to write to your father, you see. Here it is.’
Daniel’s