Chapter 12

Friday 18th October 1985

It was nine o’clock when there was a knock at the door. I was still in bed, finding no reason to get up. I had the day off and I was feeling not a little depressed.

“Yes?” More in resignation than annoyance.

It was Imogen. “You’ve got a visitor. In the library,” she said through the closed door.

“So early? Who?”

“Who d’you think?”

“Helen?” My spirits surged.

“Yes, who else? I’m off out to work now. I’m late. I got her a coffee.”

Another knock four minutes later. Was it Helen herself? Get it over with. “Come in!” I shouted, still in bed, my voice dripping with more resignation.

Kim, our unrepentant romantic sidled in. “David? You’re not up. Oh, yes of course, you’re not going into work today are you?”

“No.”

“Anyway, Helen is in the library. I gave her some toast. David, we’ve all been through this soap opera with you for the last few weeks, and all that planning for yesterday...”

“All right, Kim; yes, I will go and see her. Can you tell her I need to get dressed first?”

“Will do.”

So, a little later, suitably showered, shaved and deodorised, but without tea or breakfast, and hence tetchy, I trekked down the stairs, and directly to the library. She was standing by the window, looking out at the rain. She turned as I entered.

Clearly she was not happy: there was a scowl on her face, but perhaps I detected worry as well.

“What’s up with you, David?” she growled. “You barge in on our dinner party, lay all that on me and then disappear, leaving us all in chaos. You think that’s clever? Moronic more like!”

“Well,” I retorted hotly, “you’d know all about disappearing wouldn’t you darling? You and your parents wouldn’t allow me even one word of explanation. So, I’m so sorry for disappearing. Now you have some idea how I felt all these months.”

I was being as sarcastic as possible, and hoped it showed. I sat down at the table: I wanted tea; I wanted breakfast.

I continued, “You left me a letter, no two: Remember the first one? You left it here for me to find after you ran away? ‘Dear Sir ... yours faithfully,’ and your full name as if I didn’t know you! You were writing to me, Helen! ‘Dear Sir‘? That was so cold, so abusive. What did I do wrong? Nothing! And you knew it.

“The second went something like ‘I am not interested in anything you have to say about us, and I will throw away unread any letter you send via my parents.’

“You would throw away unread any letter! So don’t you come here with recriminations at me, I’ve suffered for over a year!”

“You know why I cut you off!” she came back at me. “I couldn’t be near you after finding out we’d been incestuous for over a year. I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing you. Then you leave it until two days before the wedding to come out with all this stuff–”

“Don’t be so utterly stupid!” I confess to yelling at her. “How was I to get in touch? I’ve wanted to get in touch for a year! You were in hiding, and your parents would not listen to me: they put the phone down on me when I tried to tell them what I’d found out. Then your letter arrives telling me you wouldn’t read anything I wrote assuming I knew your address, which I don’t, then your parents effectively throwing away Peter’s letter which might, just possibly might, have made you think.

“So gracious of you to invite me to see you after a year! – hell, you never even broke off our engagement properly, did you? Leaving the ring on the table without a word? First opportunity I got to get past all those barriers, of course I bloody well took it! I had something very valid to tell you.

“And as for leaving – you’re fucking getting married tomorrow! You didn’t hang about finding someone to replace me in your bed did you? I bet you were fucking his cock a week after disappearing.”

“So?” she shouted defiantly. “After shagging my brother for a year, I needed some sanity, a proper boyfriend. And he’s been really good to me. He loves me David! What did you expect, after I’d seen that evidence from my parents?”

“What did I expect?” I bellowed back. “I’ll tell you what I fucking expected! I expected you’d come to me and talk about that evidence with me before saying goodbye; expected you to say good-bye to at least show you were sorry we had to part after what we had together, what we meant to each other.

“Not leave me hanging for a year. Anyone would think I’d been abusing you all that time we were together! As if you were so unwilling and I forced you! As if I didn’t deserve any consideration at all!

“And another thing I’d expect you to do was to attempt to be some kind of a lawyer and verify the evidence, as I did. You know as well as I do that you never take evidence on trust or face value. You didn’t even try! Snivelling off to Mum and Dad, and believing all the crap they fed you!

“Well, guess what? I went to see them and they told me what ‘evidence’ they had. So I went away, and when I’d emerged somewhat from the deep depression of my bereavement – yes, bereavement Helen – it was as if you had died – I checked it.

“I told you, it only took me a day and a half to blow it out of the water. I’ve known it for so long and no chance to let you know, but by then of course you were merrily shagging someone else, you couldn’t wait to get his cock up you and didn’t care a damn about me! I was history!

“So that’s what I expected you to do – what I did! Check the evidence yourself! If you had any talent at all as a lawyer you’d have found what I found.

“I checked whether there was more than one David Evans born around that time. There was. In fact there were quite a number! Only one other in Shrewsbury though. I had my Birth Certificate, so I got his. I made the effort to actually read his birth certificate carefully.”

“Hell his date of birth was a give away! You even used his DOB to send that appallingly insulting birthday card on the sixteenth, rubbing it in what you’d done. For fuck’s sake, Helen, you’d given me a birthday card on the right date the year before!”

“I’d forgotten the date so I looked at what I thought was your birth certificate to get it right.”

“Yeah, shows how much you loved me, didn’t even remember my bloody birthday!”

Silence.

Then she said, much more quietly, “David, I’ve been through hell as well, you know. Thinking I’d been committing incest all that time, I was trying to forget! I’d’ve thought you’d understand that. You used to be so understanding – not any more it seems!

“Can’t you see that I loved you so much I couldn’t bear to be with you and see your pain! I couldn’t face the pain myself of being in your presence. Can’t you see that? I didn’t stop loving you at all, and the pain and frustration nearly killed me!”

I heard what she said very clearly. ‘I loved you’. Loved, not love. ‘I didn’t stop loving you’, not ‘I haven’t stopped loving you’. So now she loved her fiancé, not me. My spirits dropped into an abyss of despair. We would never be together ever again.

“I think you’d better go now,” I said dully. “You’ve stamped your little foot, had your little paddy. You’ve got a wedding tomorrow, there’ll be preparations.”

“Pardon?” she looked puzzled. I wondered why.

“Your wedding?” I said. “Tomorrow? To the man you love now. You need to go. You’ve shouted at me enough to show me you no longer have any feelings for me, so you’d better go. I’ve got the message. Hopefully this’ll be the last time I have to see you and I can now try to get over you all over again, something I was managing to do quite well until last night.”

There was a silence. Then my name.

“David?” She was upset. I couldn’t understand why. There was an element of pleading in her voice. Hell, I was upset, and couldn’t take any more. This was torment.

“What?” I answered coldly as I stood up, looking out of the window, a clear enough sign the interview was over.

“Is that it? I thought...”

Now I was really confused and aggravated. “For God’s sake Helen, why are you dragging this out? You’ve vented your spleen on me, assured me you don’t love me, what more d’you want?”

“But you came ... You wanted ... I don’t understand, are we finished?” Now after all the anger there was a catch in her voice and I could feel her gazing at me, willing me to turn to her. What the hell was going on?

Now I was in real pain.

“You have a fiancé, a wedding,” I said starkly, still staring out at the autumn trees. “You’ve moved on. You love him now. So of course we’re finished. You’ve made that clear enough. How can we not be finished – you’re marrying someone else! Personally I don’t understand why you’ve come here at all.”

“David, he ... I don’t...”

Now I could tell she was really upset. I was completely mystified. What did the woman really want? Hadn’t she done enough?

“He what? You don’t what?” I said, turning to her aggressively. “Are you saying he isn’t your lover? Hasn’t been fucking you for months? Seems like it to me: you are getting married to him after all.”

Another silence as she stared into my eyes, and her lip was quivering! I gave up: I had lost the plot if indeed there was one!

“I was so lonely without you,” she pleaded. “My whole life was empty without you – there was no possible way back to you, and he was kind, comforting.”

“So you slept with him in short order? Now you’re deeply in love. Fine for you!”

“No ... I mean...”

“You are or you’re not, which?”

“David, please!“

I was angry, resentful, and downright jealous. Why was she prolonging the agony? “For God’s sake Helen, can’t you answer a simple question? Why are you torturing me like this? Either you’re in love or you’re not. If you’re not, why the fuck are you marrying him?”

“Please, David, talk to me, don’t be like this. I’m in pieces now. I wish I’d done something ... I just didn’t have the energy I was so depressed...” She began to weep anguished sobs. Oh, hell!

We’d gone from the most acrimonious shouting match I’d ever had with a woman, or anyone come to that, to her weeping piteously. From my limited experience I knew I could not cope with a weeping woman, no matter how I felt about her, though I was not at all sure where we were going with this: she’d all but destroyed me, because now she was surely in love with Barry. It was blindingly obvious to me now: I still loved her with all my heart and it was completely hopeless. She was breaking me up all over again. She was marrying Barry.

“Come on, Helen,” I said gently, moving toward the door. “Time for you to go. You must have an awful lot to do ready for tomorrow.”

“David...” She was begging urgently now, the tears still running down her cheeks.

“Yes, my darling?” Whoops! That slipped out. I clearly shouldn’t have said that – her sobbing renewed its intensity.

“Helen, what the fuck’s the matter? You’re supposed to be happy about tomorrow.”

“David,” she began again, then sat down at the table and covered her face in her hands. “I can’t go through with the wedding. Not after last night.”

My spirits surged.

“Why not?” I asked. “You’ve just told me you don’t love me any more, you love him–”

“I didn’t! I never said that!” When did I say that?” She looked up in confusion, and her sobbing took on even more intensity.

“You said you loved me, past tense; then you said you didn’t stop loving me after you disappeared, again past tense. You didn’t say you haven’t stopped.”

“I didn’t mean that!” she cried. “I do still love you, I never stopped. That’s why I had to keep you away, I knew I wouldn’t have had the strength to leave you again if we’d met. I didn’t know then what you’d found out. I knew being incestuous would have destroyed us in the end. It would have been worse still.”

“So, the wedding’s off, then? You’ve told Barry and your parents?”

“Well, no, not yet. I wanted to see you first.”

“So the weddings not off.”

“No, I mean yes ... I mean...”

“What you mean is, you want to see if muggins here still wants you, before you cut your losses with Barry, is that it? If I don’t want to try again with you, you’ll go ahead with the wedding. Is that what you’re saying? Because if you are, you can leave now and go and marry him.”

The sobbing restarted. “David please! I love you, I can’t face things without you now I know. I’ve always loved you, but if you’re beyond me ... You don’t want me...”

“But you do love Barry,” I said.

“Yes, but not enough, now I know we are not related. You’re all that counts, always have been for me. If you don’t want me I suppose I’ll marry Barry and do my best to make him happy, but I’ll always know it’s second best. I’ll always miss you.”

Now my spirits soared, in spite of me. Then reason prevailed.

“Helen you’ve caused me a year’s worth of pain, so I’m not sure it’ll work out between us.”

“You mean you don’t want me?”

“All I mean is I’m far from sure about us. You’ve made quite a dent in my confidence in you. So no, I don’t know if we could make it together. I can’t commit to you until I’m sure, but you’ve got a wedding booked for tomorrow.

“You understand? I’m not saying I don’t want you, I will always want you in one sense, but I’m not certain whether it will work out for us. You’ll have to make your mind up about the wedding regardless of my feelings for you, which are far from settled at this moment.”

The sobbing stopped, and she gazed at me with that woebegone look.

“What will it take for you to come back to me David?”

“Nothing you can do, Helen. It’s in me and me alone. At some point I’ll know one way or another, could be any time: today, tomorrow or months away. At this moment I’m totally drained and completely confused.”

She sat looking at me in silence for a long time, and I looked at her and saw ... an ordinary girl, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing special to look at, pretty enough, healthy. However, now I knew differently. After our year together I knew she was perfection for me.

And of course, immediately that feeling we had when we first met on the doorstep, that was back. The certainty that ‘we are made for each other regardless – regardless of Sod’s efforts’: that was back. Even so I was saying nothing. I needed to be sure of it, but I was holding my breath.

Then there was the semblance of a smile, then a proper smile. It was a knowing smile. Had she read something in my face? Or had she regained that feeling just as I had? She stood up.

“I’m cancelling the wedding,” she said with a certain amount of defiance, and I couldn’t help the sigh of relief, the release of breath. “No matter what the future holds, I know for certain that from now on, no one will take your place for me ever again. We are not related, so I’ll wait until we can become related!” and she laughed that lovely tinkling laugh. Then was serious. “Or I’ll stay single until I die.”

I opened my arms. It was supposed to be an empty handed shrug, but they opened rather wider than I consciously intended.

That did it! She crashed into my arms and hugged me so tightly that I couldn’t breathe. Then the face lifted to me was impossible not to kiss, and the kiss went on and on, and on and on, tasting salty. Silently. No moans of passion, no grunts of excitement, just the softest of soft kisses going on and on and the feeling of that body I knew so well pressed tightly against me.

After that hug, that embrace, that kiss, when we drew apart, her face clouded.

“You’re thinking about facing Barry, your parents and his, and the other guests, aren’t you?” I said. “But most of all you’re thinking about what you have to do to Barry.”

She sighed and her sad eyes shone with tears. “See? We’ve not lost anything, have we? We still think each other’s thoughts. You’re still in my head and heart and I’m still in yours. It’s true, isn’t it?”

What could I say? It was crystal clear that what she was saying was true. The resentment and dislocation we had both suffered had clouded that understanding, and in her case closed off our relationship as impossible. But now?

I was surprised, astounded that from an aggressive shouting match we were so swiftly at peace with each other. I knew I’d always wanted her through the separation, and now she knew the score, she wanted me as well.

There was no fighting it, we both knew there was no possible way we could ever part again, and I couldn’t think of any way Sod’s law could divide us now, short of a terrible physical and fatal accident. We would have to be very careful crossing the road!

I smiled at the thought, which she took to be affirmation of what she had said.

“I need to go back and tell them,” she said. “I don’t look forward to that at all. Imogen said you’ve taken the day off. Will you come with me? I need your support so much.”

There was no doubt in my mind. “Yes,” I said. “I’ll come, but I’ve got to grab some breakfast first.”

She moved without more ado to the kitchen and by the time I had followed her, she had taken two bowls and the muesli and put them on the table and was at the fridge, getting the milk.

We did not stay longer than the time it took to eat our small breakfast and drink one cup of tea, before driving in convoy back to York and the hotel. She phoned the hotel before we left, and spoke briefly to Barry who was staying there with his parents. She arranged to meet him in the bar.

Helen and I entered the lounge bar, which was empty before opening time, but in one corner, sitting alone, was Barry.

He already knew, that much was clear. He stood to shake my hand and he smiled sadly.

“Please, sit down,” he said. “I know what’s coming. I’ve known since last night. Your rather masterful deposition, clear as a bell, showed me that you always had her heart, and she certainly has yours.”

He glanced lovingly to Helen, who had sat at the table beside him and now had tears streaming down her face again.

He continued, “She talked about you, you know. I could see how deep her feelings ran, she talked about how close you were, how complete the rapport. Indeed it was that which prompted her parents to wonder if you were related. Every time the subject came up, I could see the suffering etched into her face.

“Then last night when you executed the coup de grace with the certificates her face was a picture. She was devastated, David, completely shaken. She kept on muttering ‘I got it wrong, I got it wrong.’

“David, I was nowhere then, I could see that. I knew there’d be no marriage. I’d lost her. After that revelation we would never have made it for more than a year or two. If you hadn’t turned up last night, we would have married and then one day, in the future, the truth would come out, and the marriage would crash and burn.”

“Actually,” I said, “that was one of the reasons I had to tell her the truth one way or another. I knew that she’d find out – in a few months, in fact. When I phoned Peter’s parents, his father said Peter had already started tracing his family history. He already knew about his birth parents. He would have arrived eventually on your doorstep.”

“If we’d married,” Barry said, “you would never have told her yourself, would you? You’d have kept the truth to yourself, wouldn’t you?”

I nodded. “Yes. I don’t go round wrecking marriages. I’d have found someone else, and never come near her again, but it would never have been as perfect as we are together.”

“I’m so sorry, Barry, my darling,” she sobbed. “But there’s nothing I can do. I would have tried so hard to make you happy. I do love you, you know.”

“But not enough,” he said. “Not like you love David. Better this way, or it would have been worse later.”

I had to say it. I admired the man so much. “Barry, you are such a great man,” I said. “You would have made her very happy. Some woman is going to be so lucky.”