Page 44 of Escape to the Country

But then I heard Mum shout, ‘It’s not time yet. If we tell her now, it’ll break her heart. You have to go by my pace here, not yours. We’ve waited this long. She’s got enough on her plate without you bulldozing in and throwing this into the mix. She’s not strong enough.’

‘I’ve already missed thirty-seven years of her life, Josie, and I’m not prepared to miss any more.’

Mum sighed and seemed to give up all her fight, and I heard her say, ‘Don’t do this to Maddy! We will tell her, but not right now. Please, Theo, I beg you!’

Theo?Theo?Why the hell was she calling Edward Theo? My mind was whirling around. And as the realisation hit me, I felt hot and clammy and I struggled to get my breath. I grabbed onto the bookshelf for balance and as it toppled towards me, I dropped the flowers I was holding, slid to the floor and passed out.

* * *

As I came round, I spluttered. Mum had shoved smelling salts right up my nose. Bloody hell! They were strong and made my eyes water. As my head started to steady, it all came back to me. Mum had called Edward Theo which, if I had got my sums right, made Edward my father. I just looked at Mum who was crying and trying to hug me. ‘Oh, Maddy, you’re OK.’

‘Well, I think OK is probably an overstatement, don’t you, Mum? I think you two have some explaining to do.’ I looked from Mum to Edward, or should I say my father, Theo.

‘On second thoughts, save it. I’m not fucking interested.’ I got to my feet, grabbed my handbag and practically ran to the front door. I jumped in my car and screeched off the drive, nearly reversing into a lamppost. Mum was running down the path towards me, yelling my name. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. How could she have been lying to me? The only person I’d been able to rely on all my life? The one who had never let me down,never! And now this – the ultimate betrayal. Could I trust anyone in my life at all?

* * *

Skidding to a halt in the farm, my heart was pounding as I jumped out the car and slammed the door behind me. Racing over to the main house, I walked in and found Uncle Tom sitting at the kitchen table.

‘Just breathe and calm down, Maddy. I’ve just had your mum on the phone. I know what’s happened. Come here, darling.’ He opened his arms to me and I just melted into them and broke down. I was sobbing so hard, I couldn’t get any words out.

‘Darling, don’t say a word and just listen to me for a minute.’

I looked up at him and nodded.

‘Now, I know you’ve had a huge shock. Huge. But you also need to know that not telling you about your father was a decision that your mum made because she thought it was the best thing to do at the time. You know in your heart that she would never intentionally do anything to hurt you. You mean the world to her. And that’s the reason she was trying to find the right time to tell you. The one thing I’ve learned from being a parent is that there’s never really a right time. You can only do what you think is the correct thing to do at that moment. Now go and wash your face and I’ll pour you a nice big gin and tonic. Your mum is on her way over to talk to you.’

‘But, but… I don’t want to see her. Or him.’

‘Did you just butt me?’ Even through my tears, this standing joke raised a smile. Years ago, the farm was home to a lovely little Billy goat, who had a tendency to butt you up the bum. Uncle Tom, to his surprise and to our amusement, once got butted and asked the goat very seriously, ‘Did you just butt me?’ and Beth and I fell about laughing. Since then, whenever the word ‘but’ was mentioned, we always asked, ‘Did you just butt me?’

‘That’s better. Now go on, go and sort that face out. It’s horrendous!’ He winked at me as I headed to the downstairs loo. As I passed the hall mirror I caught sight of myself. God, I did look ghastly. Mascara had streaked down my cheeks, and I was red and blotchy from the chest up. I sounded extremely snotty and my nose resembled Rudolph with a cold. Very attractive, indeed.

‘Mad, are you OK?’

Oh great! The one person I didn’t want to see me right now was the one person who was stood in front of me.

I hesitated, took a deep breath and turned. ‘Alex, hi!’

‘I hope you don’t mind but I was in the room with Dad when your mum rang so I heard what happened. You must be feeling a little confused right now.’

Feeling confused was my permanent state of mind around Alex. Just looking at him made me feel warm and fuzzy even at a time like this. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, but then I remembered that I looked like crap and excused myself to go to the loo. I wiped the mascara from under my eyes and splashed cold water on my cheeks to try to get rid of the redness. I bet Sophie never looked this awful. I wish I hated her but over the years I’d discovered that she was actually really nice too. I hadn’t even known Alex was here. I wondered when he had come back. I wished he never had to go back to the States.

Voices were coming from the kitchen and I knew that Mum must have arrived. Taking a deep breath, I put my hand on the handle and opened the door. Thank goodness it was just her. I didn’t think I could have coped if he had been there too.

She looked at me with tears in her ears and whispered, ‘I’m so very sorry that you found out that way, Madison. That was never our intention.’

‘So what exactly was your intention, Mum? When were you going to tell me?’

‘I don’t even know.’ She steadied herself on one of the kitchen chair backs. She looked a bit wobbly and Uncle Tom took her arm, guided her over to the sink and poured her a glass of water.

‘Come on, Josie, come and sit down and I’ll leave you two to talk. Somewhere neutral will do you good.’

‘We were working out when and how to tell you. Theo contacted me a few months ago. He’d been keeping in touch with a friend of his that we used to know and he tracked me down. He found some pictures on the Facebook page and said that he had recognised me immediately. He said he’d know my face anywhere and that I’d hardly changed. We’ve been trying to get to know each other again and spending a bit of time together, as you know. We wanted to make sure that you finding out about him was the right thing for you. You and no one else. It didn’t really matter how it affected us. It was all about you, my darling. You just happened to walk into the middle of a conversation that you shouldn’t have heard. But in hindsight, perhaps it’s best that it’s all out in the open now. Goodness knows when we’d have got round to telling you otherwise.’

‘How do you feel about him now, Mum, after everything that happened all those years ago? Can you ever forgive him?’

‘Darling, I’ve done lots of soul-searching over the years. I missed Theo so much even though I’d only known him for a short time, and as you know, I was completely devastated when he left. I’ve since found out some things, which I’ll let him tell you when you’re ready, that made the decision for him, and I know that he’s thought about you every day of his life and has never regretted anything more.’

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