Page 87 of Deep Blue Lies
“You didwhat?” She looks aghast. “Oh good heavens.” She tips her head to one side, curious suddenly. “What did it say?”
“It was negative. Of course it was negative,” I tell her. “That’s not me.” I see the look on Mum’s face – like it obviously had to be negative and she’s almost laughing at herself for asking, but that’s just the kind of conversation this is, intense for both of us.
Mum even smiles now as I go on. “But IthoughtI was. For a while. Because you didn’t tell me. You didn’t tell me the truth.”
This seems to change her mood. The smile settles, becomes almost genuine. Finally she nods.
“I’m sorry, Ava. I only ever meant the best for you. And I promise you this isn’t how I wanted you to find out. I hope you’ll believe me on that.”
I still feel like the base upon which my life was built has been entirely washed away. Like I’m untethered, like my connection to reality is now so fragile that just one wrong word, one errant thought and I’ll be swept away from it, never able to return. But I can’t just sit here. I can’t stay in this place, I have to move forward.
“Why did you adopt me?”
She takes a long time answering this, sipping again from her glass before she speaks. Maybe because she wants to tell me very carefully, because she understands how devastating all this is for me. Or maybe because she’s trying out different versions in her head.
“I was with Shawn at the time, your…” She pauses, and I know it’s because she was about to call him my father – because that’s what she always used to call him, but she leaves it. “He wanted a child – we both did, and I wasn’t able…And…” Her eyes flick to mine. “The truth is I was very taken by my time in Greece, and I was very affected by what happened, to poor Mandy and to her baby. It seemed like a way to put right some of that horror.”
We’re both quiet a while. Me trying to process this, and Mum – I don’t know what.
“Simon Walker-Denzil. I told you I spoke to him.”
Her smile quivers a little, she seems alert. “Yes?”
I draw in a deep breath. “He told me a story. About how you and he lost Mandy’s baby, overboard on his yacht.” I watch her, challenging her to deny this or explain it away. She begins by reaching for her wine glass again.
“Simon,” she says instead. “I heard he’s working for some rich Russian.”
“Is it true? Did that happen?”
“I told you. I warned you when you came here that I wasn’t proud of my behaviour.”
“Oh God.”
“We were lucky, we were incredibly lucky?—”
“You lost a baby. You were in the boat taking drugs, having sex, and you left it to be washed overboard.”
“Ava!” My voice has risen again and she glances around the bar once I’m silenced. A dark look crosses her face, warning me again to watch myself.
“No harm was done,” she hisses back. “We were lucky, very lucky and horribly, unforgivably stupid. Not to mention lazy and arrogant, and…” Suddenly she screws up her face and covers it with her hands. When she removes them her eyes are tightly shut.
“I cannot begin to tell you how terrified I felt, how awful I knew I was for what we had done. But when we went below it was as calm as a mirror. It didn’t cross my mind that the weather could change so suddenly. I told you, I’ve been deeply ashamed of what happened every single day since.But no harm was done.We foundthe baby, it was fine. It was just a coincidence that Jason snapped that night.”
The tension between us is interrupted by the mundane alert as a message hits my mobile. I don’t react at first, but eventually I pull it out and check the screen. It’s from Sophia, three words:
Call me. Now.
I look at my mother. The woman who I now know for sure isn’t my actual mother, but perhaps who still remains the person who brought me up, the person who’s done the best for me that she could, however weird the circumstances. I just don’t know.
“I have to take this,” I say and stand up to go.
SEVENTY-THREE
“Hi,” I say when Sophia answers. I’m in the corner of the hotel bar now, where my mother can’t hear me.
“How’s it going?”
“I’m not sure. She says I am adopted. But not from Alythos. Somewhere else in Greece, she doesn’t even know where.”
