Eve felt a twang of guilt for upsetting her, but she had to know. Eventually her mother met her eyes.
‘We didn’t mean to deceive you. Please believe that.’ It was almost a whisper. She reached for her husband’s hand and his fingers tightened on hers as he began to nod in time with her words. ‘You always knew you were adopted. When you were tiny, we told you we loved being your parents and that you were the most wonderful gift we’d ever been given. That’s the only truth that matters.’
Eve bit her lip so hard it hurt, fighting to keep the anger from her voice. ‘You said you knew virtually nothing about my birth mother.’ She felt the baby kick under her ribcage and rubbed her hand over the hard mound of her belly. It’s all right, my darling. She had to keep calm.
Jill sighed and ran her fingers through her curls, and David said, ‘We told you she was very young and couldn’t look after a child. That she wanted you to have a family, the kind of life she could never give you. The only thing we didn’t tell you was her name.’
Eve couldn’t hold back a bitter laugh. ‘You didn’t think to mention you knew her?’
‘What good would that have done? She was dead.’
‘And you didn’t tell me that either.’ This was unbelievable.
Her mother’s fingers were pressed to her mouth, muffling her words. ‘When you were little it would only have upset you. And as you grew older you didn’t seem interested in knowing anything more.’
Eve stood, pushing the chair back. Her dad stopped it from falling over. ‘Of course I was interested, but you always made me feel you would be hurt if I tried to find my real parents.’
‘Oh, Eve, don’t say that.’ Her mother’s voice cracked and she pulled a tissue from the box on the table.
David’s expression, when he looked at Eve, was one she remembered from when she misbehaved as a kid. ‘Please, Eve. You’re upsetting your mother and in your condition you mustn’t get stressed.’
She felt suddenly exhausted, her knees so weak she could no longer stand. She dropped back onto her seat and her words came out on a huge sigh. ‘Just tell me everything.’
Her dad went round the table to stand behind Jill, resting his hands on her shoulders. They both looked at Eve. ‘Ben and I decided to mount a show of upcoming young artists and she was one of them. The best of the bunch. Then I found out she was pregnant. She was young, poor and alone. And I offered to help her. We couldn’t believe our luck when we became your parents. Still don’t.’
He dropped a kiss onto Jill’s curls then turned away to switch on the kettle again, saying. ‘Now whatever happened to that tea?’
Eve could hear the Scottish lilt that became stronger when he was stressed. Her mum wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
‘So how did she die? I mean I could have inherited something.’ She rubbed her bump again. ‘My baby could have.’
Her mum spoke fast. ‘No it was nothing like that. It was an accident.’
Eve coughed. Her voice threatened to wobble. ‘What happened?’ She touched the article. ‘It says her death was tragic and mysterious.’
David came to sit beside her again, speaking softly. ‘It was certainly tragic. She died in a fire.’ He must have heard Eve gasp because he stopped. ‘I’m sorry, darling.’
She had covered her eyes with her hands, but dropped them again. The images behind her lids were horrible. A deep breath. ‘Go on. Tell me everything.’
He reached for her hand, squeezing gently. ‘It was in Italy where she was staying. I can’t remember how we found out officially. But sometime later her friend sent us a note and the newspaper report.’
She managed to say, ‘Who? Who was this friend?’
He stood again and went back to the kettle, tearing the cellophane from a new box of teabags. ‘Just a girl she knew. I think they shared a place in London when they were at art school. Her work was in the exhibition too, but it was fairly mediocre if I recall and I know nothing else about her. She obviously didn’t make it as an artist.’
‘What about the letter?’
He turned to her mother who said, ‘It was just a note. I’ll have a look for it, but it was very brief. Didn’t give much information. Nor did the newspaper.’
Her dad put a mug of tea in front of her. She took a huge gulp. The thought of her mother – that vibrant young girl in the photograph – burned to death was so horrible she was trembling. They all sat silently as they drank. It was as if they’d just suffered a bereavement.
After a while she took a deep breath and, looking from one of them to the other, asked the obvious question. ‘So who was my father?’
Her mother screwed her tissue into a ball and shoved it up her sleeve. ‘We never knew. A boyfriend she’d broken up with I suppose.’
Eve nodded, forcing herself not to say what she was thinking. Or an older man? Maybe someone who was married? She ran her finger down the article. In small print at the end it gave the dates of the Houghton Gallery exhibition. Eve was born close to nine months after the exhibition ended.
She looked up at her father. And that would be nine months after Stella met him.
Stella 1986
Stella was putting the finishing touches to a painting of her grandmother, standing close to the window to catch the last of the natural light. Her bedroom overlooked the tiny walled yard at the back of the house. Here in Marylebone they were surrounded by other Victorian terraces, so it wasn’t the best place to paint especially on a dull March afternoon. She squinted at the photograph propped on the easel. She’d replaced the armchair her nana was sitting on in the photo and the striped wallpaper behind her with a riot of huge exotic flowers – a fantasy garden. Of course the portrait was a fantasy too. Nana didn’t look like that anymore – she sat drooling in a chair in the nursing home – but this was how Stella wanted to remember her. She stroked the photo with one finger and swallowed on the lump in her throat.
Thank goodness for Maggie, thundering up the stairs even faster than usual. Stella put down her brush as her bedroom door burst open. ‘Where’s the fire?’
Maggie ignored her and threw herself on Stella’s bed. ‘Got anything decent to wear?’ She laughed and before Stella could speak, ‘Don’t answer that. Come to my room and try something on.’
There was no point in arguing and anyway it would be too dark to carry on soon. ‘Where are we going?’ Since she’d come to live with Maggie – been taken under her wing was how Maggie described it – she’d had the kind of social life she’d only ever dreamed of.
Maggie’s room was even untidier than Stella’s and she flung open her bursting wardrobe and tossed a great pile of dresses onto the unmade bed. As Stella picked through them Maggie pulled off her own jeans and shirt and stood in her black bra and lacy knickers, one hand on her hip, studying Stella and shaking her head as she held dress after dress up to her shoulders. Stella knew her own figure wasn’t bad. She and Maggie were pretty much the same size but she would never have Maggie’s confidence. Came from always having had money she guessed. The best schools and all that. This house actually belonged to Maggie. Before coming to art school Stella had never known anyone who owned their own house and it was almost unbelievable that someone in her early twenties could do so.