Part 20 (2/2)

*I would,' her mother says, nodding. *Because he certainly doesn't look anything like our side of the family.'

Gabby goes to Google and types in his name, finding a picture of him at a tech conference. She turns the screen around. Her mother fishes inside the folds of her cardigan for her reading gla.s.ses before peering at the photo.

*My G.o.d, he's a hunk!' She sounds astonished, and picks up the Mac to hold it closer. *And a child. Good Lord, darling. How old is he?'

*Older than he looks,' Gabby says. *Thirty-three.'

*Well, that's a relief. I was worried someone might call the police on you. He's so handsome, isn't he? No wonder you weren't able to resist.'

*It wasn't really like that,' Gabby says. *We became friends. It was all on email. I suppose I was still harbouring resentment at Elliott, because of the vasectomy. Here was this, as you see, gorgeous young man who seemed to find me irresistible. It was less about him, and more about how he made me feel.'

Her mother gives a small laugh. *It so often is,' she says. *Especially at your age.'

*Why my age?'

*Because you are entering the afternoon of life, and all is different. There is a wonderful quote by Jung. Let me see if I can remember it correctly.'

Her mother takes off her gla.s.ses as she thinks, then she shakes her head. *No, I can't remember it well enough to quote it, but the gist of it is that if you think of life as a day, the morning a your youth a is full of truths and idealism. By the afternoon a your age a you a.s.sume these same truths will hold good. But Jung says you shouldn't, because by the evening a old age a you will realize that everything has been reversed. What was true in your youth turns out to be a lie, what was great has become little. Everything changes as the day goes on. You, my darling, are in the afternoon of life.'

She looks at Gabby with a loving smile. *Marriage is hard, my dear girl. You and Elliott always had a charmed life, but even those with charmed lives. .h.i.t the b.u.mps in the road from time to time.'

*What about you and Dad? You never seemed to hit b.u.mps in the road. You've been happy for ever. You managed to enter into the afternoon of your life pretty unscathed.'

Her mother smiles again. *That's how it appeared, yes.'

*What does that mean?'

Another smile. *It means that when I was forty-six I fell in love.'

*With someone other than Dad, you mean?' Gabby is part-fascinated, part-horrified, not at all sure she wants to hear the story, but also knowing she cannot live without hearing it.

Natasha laughs. *Oh yes. Someone other than Dad.'

*So? What happened? You had an affair?'

*I had ...' She tails off, thinking. *An awakening. An earthquake. A seismic s.h.i.+ft in who I thought I was.'

*Mum? I have no idea what you're talking about.'

Her mother raises her eyes and looks at her. This time her smile is sad. *Remember Joanie?'

Gabby does remember Joanie. One of the waifs and strays her mother collected, Joanie had recently divorced her husband, and was, Gabby recalls, something of an emotional wreck. She became part of their family for a while, for longer than the others. She moved in with them; she was her mother's new project, her mother's new best friend.

She recovered quickly. Those first few weeks of sobbing at the kitchen table gave way to peals of laughter. She made Gabby's mother laugh more than Gabby had ever heard. Gabby would come home from school and find them cooking together, both of them giggling at something unspoken. Joanie made her mother seem younger, happier, softer.

One morning she was gone. There was no goodbye, no warning, just a stripped bed and empty wardrobe. Natasha refused to answer any questions Gabby had, stonewalling her and asking her not to mention her name. It was clear to Gabby there had been a betrayal, but she knew not to ask.

Gabby frowns. What did Joanie have to do with anything?

*I fell in love with Joanie,' her mother says simply, and Gabby's eyes open wide in shock.

*You had an affair with Joanie?' But that's not what she's thinking. My mother is a lesbian? How is this possible? How is it possible that I do not know my mother at all?

*I did. Oh don't look so shocked. I didn't plan to have an affair with anyone, and I certainly never thought I'd fall in love with a woman, of all things, but there it is. Joanie was utterly compelling. I wasn't just in love with her, I was obsessed.'

*Mum, I'm not sure I want to know all this.'

*Oh, darling, I'm not going to give you any gory details. The point is, I fell in love with her, at an age not dissimilar to yours now, and part of it, so much of it, was me desperately trying to run away from the dreadful spectre of middle age. Joanie was much younger than me, and she made me laugh more than anyone had in years. And she made me feel young. Alive.'

This time Gabby nods silently. She knows what her mother's talking about.

*I was happily married, but this was something I couldn't resist. I told myself it didn't count, being a woman, but of course it did.'

*Did Dad know?'

*He knew I was infatuated with her, but he didn't think, of course he didn't, that it was anything more than a strong friends.h.i.+p. He didn't know until afterwards, when I was so floored by grief I couldn't get out of bed. Even then, I'm not sure he knew for certain.'

*And he never confronted you, or said he was leaving?'

*The thing is that I love your father. I have always loved your father. Of all the gifts he has given me, this was the greatest. I think he understood that I needed to have one final fling before settling into the afternoon of life. To be honest, I think the fact that it was a woman probably made things easier. I'm not sure he would have been so quietly circ.u.mspect had Joanie been Johnny.'

*I'm sorry, Mum. I still can't quite get over my mother revealing her secret lesbian tendencies. I'm a bit freaked-out right now.'

*Get over it,' Natasha says matter-of-factly. *And stop thinking about the s.e.x stuff. I fell in love with a person who happened to be a woman, end of story.'

*So, do you regret it?'

*I regret causing pain to your father. When it ended and he was so sweet and solicitous to me, as I lay there sobbing in my pillows for weeks, I felt awful. You know your father. He went very quiet. Well, he's always quiet, but for those weeks he barely said anything at all, and I regretted that. But I think he understood. We never spoke of her again.'

*Do you know what happened to her?'

*She left me for a young man she'd met at the bookstore. I know they split up after a couple of years and I lost track of her after that. I get cards from her sometimes, on my birthday. She never says anything other than wis.h.i.+ng me a happy birthday, and I tend to put them in the bin. It was ... a moment of madness. I'm lucky your father is the sort of man he is.'

*The sort of man Elliott is not.'

*I think Elliott might have handled things in much the same way had this little bundle of joy not come along. It's very difficult for men to handle betrayal when they are forced to look at the evidence every day. It is, for them, a daily reminder that they somehow fell short, they weren't able to make their wives happy, or happy enough.'

*Do you really think that's true?'

*I do. But how about the father of delicious Henry? What does he have to say about all of this?'

Gabby turns her computer around so she can see the screen: Matt in his golden loveliness, smiling into her bedroom. *He doesn't know.'

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