A Stranger in the Family by Robert Barnard

Author:Robert Barnard [Robert Barnard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780749011567
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2011-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

The Ones Who Got Away

‘So what were you and Micky talking about this morning?’ asked Isla, as they tucked into sirloin steak and the usual English off-season vegetables that same evening. Kit thought for a moment, chewed what he had already put in, then placed his knife and fork over the remains of his dinner.

‘I think perhaps you could guess that,’ he said, grinning.

‘I certainly could not,’ said Isla grimly. ‘Why do you think I can guess the nonsense Frank has dreamt up when we’ve barely communicated in the last fifteen years?’

‘Hmm,’ said Kit, feeling rather lawyer-like. ‘I don’t know if it’s nonsense or not, but I’m willing to bet it at least came up at the time of the marriage break-up.’

‘Why should it? The divorce was “amicable” – which means we both wanted to get out of the marriage as quickly as possible and shot of each other. There was no reason why anything dirty should come up – not if it was something he’d thought up back then, and not if it was something that he’s thought up in the years since, or some mad idea he’s got about you, now he’s lost his marbles.’

‘I didn’t suggest it came up in the legal matters surrounding the divorce, only in your personal relations with him. In fact, I bet it was something that had dominated those relations in the previous five or six years.’

‘And that was?’

Kit prevaricated, then decided to bring it all out.

‘The fact, if it is one, that Frank did not think he was my father: thought I was the product of a relationship that you had – if he’s to be believed – with an actor with a poncy name which I can’t recall now.’

There were several seconds of silence.

‘Henry Bradley-Perle,’ said Isla. ‘Harry to his friends, of whom I was one and Frank emphatically was not. He was christened John Jones. So it’s that old nonsense over again, is it? If you’re sensible you won’t give tuppence for that. Frank invented things to cover his own tastes and preferences. He thought we’d had enough children, so he clutched at the idea that I’d had an affair. Absolute nonsense. I was a good wife to him; all the priests said so at the time of the separation and divorce. They were trying to persuade me to keep the marriage going, of course. A little local fan club for Henry Bradley-Perle was elevated into an affair. Well, take note: there was no affair. I was never unfaithful to Frank, which is a good deal more than he could say. You have been right all along: Frank Novello was – is – your father.’

Again there was silence while he thought this through, trying to make a guess at how much of it was true.

‘So he invented the story to cover his own lack of enthusiasm for a third baby in the family. Is that what you mean?’

‘Yes. Though the truth is he had very little love for any of his children, and had as little to do with any of them as he could.

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