Page 108 of Lessons in Life

‘Go away, Lisa. Go back home. I’m telling you nothing. Nothing. Show them out, Wendy. She’s making me feel ill.’

Wendy shrugged, turning to Mum, who was almost in tears. ‘I’m sorry, dear. You’re going to have to get yourself on thatWho Do You Think You Are?programme. Come on, into the kitchen: I’ll not send you off without showing some manners.’

Jess, Mum and I followed her down the corridor and into the kitchen where I’d made tea just a few days earlier. Four cats sat outside the door to the dining room, behind which, I assumed, was still Adrian Foley.

‘Mr Foley in there?’ I asked.

‘Hmm, I try to come as often as I can – I moved back to Buxton when my husband died a couple of years ago – to check if my brother’s OK. He hates those cats and they always manage to get into his room somehow. I have an awful feeling she lets them go in deliberately. I’m at the stage of trying to get Adrian into a home, although Karen won’t hear of it. The situation’s awful.’

‘Oh, you’rehissister,’ I said. ‘I thought you were Karen’s sister.’

‘Goodness me, no.’ She gave me a hard stare before going to fill the kettle. ‘Sit down, dear,’ she instructed Mum, giving her a pat on the shoulder. ‘Come on, fill me in on your life now. You’ve three lovely girls – where’s the little one? Oh… lavatory, right… Lisa, dear, it’s not your fault. Karen always was a very, very strange woman. Bad enough before the pair of them went off to Canada…’

‘I never knew they lived in Canada!’ Mum said, staring. ‘When?’

‘Oh, before you were born, dear. They were teaching out there. Some mission school – Pentecostal, I think it was – in the back of beyond. Your Uncle Philip and I had gone to live in Australia, so we weren’t actually around at the time. I always found Karen a strange fish – too religious for my liking – never understood what Adrian saw in her. Although, to be fair, Adrian was always a bit strange as well. Your Uncle Philip couldn’t abide the pair of them. We had little contact – I first saw you when you were about ten and had moved up here to Sheffield, when your Uncle Philip and I came back from Oz for several months to see to my parents…’

‘Wendy,’ I finally managed to get a word in, my pulse racing with excitement, ‘could you tell us when Karen and Adrian actually went out to Canada?’

‘Well, I don’t really know, dear. We’d become estranged – Karen didn’t get on with me or my parents. She wanted Adrian to have nothing to do with his family. Very, very, possessive of him, she was. We emigrated to Australia, as I said, and we came back fleetingly just before both my parents died – cancer, the pair of them – young, in their sixties. We’d heard Adrian and Karen had adopted a baby while they were living in Surrey, but we didn’t get to meet you, Lisa, until Adrian got the headship of St Mark’s and moved back up here to Sheffield while we were in the UK looking after my parents. To be honest, dear, I’m only here now because Adrian’s the only family I have left in the UK. More than likely, I’ll be heading back to Australia very soon to be with my boys. I just don’t like leaving him here, in that dining room, withher… and those cats…’

‘Where’s Sorrel?’ Jess suddenly asked. ‘Has she gone back to the car?’

Leaving Mum catching up with Wendy, Jess and I headed back down the hall to find her. I hoped she hadn’t gone to take a look at Adrian Foley for herself. The sitting-room door was open and we could hear Sorrel talking to Karen. Jess was about to go in, but I put a finger to my lips and my ear to the door. Sorrel was sitting on the arm of the chair, her back towards us, so I couldn’t hear everything that was being said.

‘…obviously very early on…’ Sorrel was saying.

‘…and fifteen…?’

‘…sixteen next month…’

‘…typical of Lisa not to bring up her daughters properly… fifteen… and pregnant… goodness me… that was God punishing you for…’

‘…I don’t believe in a vengeful God… never had babies of your own? Why adopt…?’

‘…my Adam… he died too…’

‘…so sorry, Karen… mine was just a few weeks… and that was awful… why…?’

‘…I don’t know… he came early… God took him back…’

‘What are youdoing?’ Mum was behind us and Karen, hearing her voice, immediately clammed up.

Sorrel walked over to the open door where the three of us were standing, trying to listen. ‘I was just getting somewhere,’ she mouthed, shaking her head. ‘I’ll tell you in the car.’

I went into the room, knelt down by Karen and took her hand. ‘Would you tell me just one thing, Karen?’

Karen Foley looked up and I could see utter desolation in her small blue eyes as she held my own.

‘Karen, was Mum – Lisa – actually born in Canada?’

She said nothing, but the look of fear that passed over her face was enough.

‘I think she was, wasn’t she?’ I asked gently.

Still nothing, but no denial.

‘And I think you’ve known all along who her birth mother is.’

---