Page 42 of Days You Were Mine

‘Luke, that’s exactly it.’

‘But I don’t see how we can ask her to stop looking after him. Even if we wanted to – which we don’t.’

‘You’re probably right. Let’s try a different tack. I think you and Alice need to get to know each other better. Spend more time together. That’s what’s missing at the moment. You know, don’t you, that you’re going to have to tell your adoptive mother about Alice sooner or later.’

There is time now to examine my reasons for not being honest with my mother.

Number one, I’m an only child and my mother is a widow. I was shipped in many years ago to resolve the grief of herinfertility, a wound that still fuels her sadness almost three decades later.

Secondly, my mother has made it clear – many times – that she thinks I have no interest (for which read no business) in finding my real parents.

‘Controversial suggestion,’ Rick says, when I tell him this, ‘but how about you put yourself first for a change?’

It’s a radical idea, given that I have carved a career out of pleasing other people.

‘I’m not sure I could do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m scared of rocking the boat. I’ve spent my whole life trying to keep it steady. My mother is prone to depression, but I’ve only recently understood that. As a kid, I thought her black moods, those periods when she pretty much refused to talk, were something to do with me. I thought I didn’t live up to her expectations. I wasn’t the child she wanted.’

‘You were the only one we ever wanted.’

He says it quietly, carelessly, but his choice of word, this use of ‘we’, wedges itself inside my heart.

‘Why didn’t you keep me then?’

It is the only question, and he must have known I was going to ask it, yet I see real pain flash into Rick’s face.

‘It was Alice’s decision and she made it for my sake, though she’d never admit it. She thought I would jeopardise my career by not going back to art school. We were so young and we had no money, and she didn’t want you to grow up poor. She convinced herself that giving you up was the ultimate sacrifice. Trouble was, she never got over it.’

Impulsive and fuelled by sake, I just want to make amends. I want Alice and me to fast-forward through the decades of pain, hers and mine, the two of us grieving in our separate universes.It’s my suggestion to extend the day and go and find her. And Rick knows exactly where she will be.

‘Weekends she’s always in her studio. We won’t phone her. Let’s make it a surprise.’

Mentally I haven’t prepared for this impromptu meeting, I realise as we stand outside the door of Alice’s studio half an hour later, Rick camouflaged by an enormous bunch of sunflowers.

‘Sure we shouldn’t have warned her?’

‘Don’t worry, she’ll be thrilled. You and I are her favourite people after all.’

And she does seem ecstatically happy to see Rick, who is standing a little in front of me – ‘I’ve brought you a surprise!’ – though her face falls instantly when she realises that the surprise is me.

‘Luke. I can’t possibly let you into my studio.’

She looks a little older in this light, without make-up, streaks of white and blue paint in her hair. But lovely, always. She’s wearing a paint-spattered shirt and loose blue trousers, a pair of espadrilles on her feet.

The sake swirls through my veins, my brain, while I try to make sense of what she is saying. Her body language is chilling, arms spread out as if physically barring us from entering the studio. I’ve allowed the lunch with Rick to lull me into a false sense of security; Alice is clearly reeling from yesterday’s cataclysmic collision.

‘I’m so sorry, I know how much last night must have upset you.’

‘It’s fine, Luke. Really. You mustn’t worry about that. The thing is – and now I’m going to completely spoil it –I’m working on a present for you and Hannah and it isn’t ready to show you yet. If you come in, it will ruin it.’

I laugh, relieved. ‘You had me worried there. I thought you couldn’t bear to see me. With good reason; it was inexcusable to forget about my … about Christina coming.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ she says. ‘I understand. It’s awkward for all of us. I’m just a bit protective of my “art”, that’s all.’ She makes ironic speech marks with her fingers.

‘In that case,’ Rick says, ‘let’s go to the pub. Luke and I are well on our way to getting completely smashed. May as well finish the job.’

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