Bo nodded. “Okay, so your father was married to Geoffrey’s sister?”
“No,” Max replied tightly. “My father wasn’t married to Geoffrey’s sister. Geoffrey didn’t have a sister. Or a brother. Or any family, really.”
Bo recalled Lisa saying something similar. In fact, the only family Lisa had been able to find for Geoffrey’s obituary had been his ex-wife. She stared at Max for a moment, utterly confused.
“I don’t understand. You’re Geoffrey’s nephew. How can you be Geoffrey’s nephew if he didn’t have any siblings?”
“Because I’m not really his nephew,” Max explained, and his fingers, those long and strong fingers that Bo loved, were wrapped so tightly around the stem of his wine glass it was a wonder he hadn’t snapped it in two.
“How can you not be his nephew?” Bo asked. “He told me you were.”
“Geoffrey said lots of things.”
“But he . . . he left you his house in his will. He paid for your education.” Bo frowned again. She couldn’t claim to have the most functional family on the block, what with her father’s three marriages, but all the same, she knew who was related to who and how.
“He did. But Bo, Geoffrey didn’t do those things because he was my uncle.” Max took a large sip of wine. “No. Geoffrey did them because he wasmy father.”
Chapter Fifteen
The walk back to the house was slow and awkward, even though Bo’s mind was running at what felt like lightning speed. After Max’s confession, she’d fallen into a stunned silence, hardly registering what he was telling her.
“Geoffrey was the Minister for Transport, and married when he met my mother,” Max had explained. “They had an affair, and I was born. Of course, Geoffrey couldn’t claim me as his son, as it would have destroyed his career. Sex scandals in the Tory party were par for the course, but ironically Geoffrey was seen as one of the good ones, so it was all brushed under the carpet. An annual stipend for my mother, and a first-class education for me, his long-lostnephew.”Max had given an ugly laugh. “Geoffrey’s marriage imploded later of its own accord anyway, and then he lost his seat in the ’97 election, so what was it all for? Nothing. The lies, the sneakiness, the hurt . . . all for nothing.”
He’d looked at Bo then with eyes that were swirling with regret and anger.
“I know Geoffrey was kind to you, but he wasn’t always kind to everyone else. The night we met, I know you thought I was being a dick. I know you thought Geoffrey — beloved Sir Geoffrey, who wouldn’t hurt a fly — didn’t deserve my anger. He did though. He really did, and he knew it.”
They’d eaten in silence after that, and Max paid the bill absently, clearly lost in thought as they strode back across the heath to Geoffrey’s old house.
As they walked, Bo could hardly believe what Max had told her. How could Max be Geoffrey’s son? Geoffrey, who’d so desperately wanted children. Geoffrey, who’d bought 12 Orchard Drive as a home for the family he intended to have? It was hard for Bo to fathom that Geoffrey had a son, and an unacknowledged one at that. All the way back, she stolesideways glances at Max, looking for similarities between him and the old man she’d adored. She’d always thought of Geoffrey as a distinguished, handsome gentleman, and Max — well, Max wasn’t her type, but there was a distinguished aura to him too. His hair was different to Geoffrey’s, and his nose and mouth were his own too, but Bo had to admit that there was something about the set of Max’s eyes that reminded her of the man who was undoubtedly his father.
Besides, Max said she could trust him, and she knew he had no reason to lie. There was nothing for him to gain in lying about Geoffrey being his father. Instinctively, Bo knew he was telling the truth.
When they got to the gate of Geoffrey’s house, Max looked down at her, hands deep in his pockets, glasses sitting crookedly on his nose.
“Why did you come here?” Bo asked, looking up at him curiously. “To this house? This was the house Geoffrey lived in with his wife; you must know that. I know it’s yours now . . . I know he left it to you . . . but you don’t have to live here, Max. You could have rented it out. Could’ve spent the summer in a house with fewer painful memories for you.”
“I know.” Max sighed. “I thought it would do me good to stay here for a time though. I thought it would be . . . What’s the word? Therapeutic?”
Bo nodded.
“Geoffrey would bring me here as a child for visits, you know. His wife tolerated me . . . just about. I spent a lot of time hiding in your summer house.”
“I remember. You didn’t knock on the door,” Bo reminded him, but she smiled all the same, and Max smiled back.
“I never needed to before.” He paused for a moment. “I’m glad Geoffrey left it to you, you know. The summer house . . . the garden. I meant what I said before: I really am glad Geoffrey hadsomeone to love him in his final days. I think if he’d died alone, I’d feel worse than I do about how fractured my relationship with him was.”
“Do you ever wish you’d reconciled with him?” Bo asked.
“No. Yes.” Max shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes when I think about Geoffrey, I feel guilt. Sometimes I feel anger. Sometimes I feel . . . it’s not exactly love, but something similar. Maybe its adoration. The adoration a boy feels for his father, before he realizes his father is just a man . . . and a selfish one at that.”
“You adored Geoffrey?”
“As a child, yes. As a man? No. Children naturally adore their parents, Bo, but then as they grow, they come to understand that they’re as flawed and fallible as any other human being.”
Bo nodded. She thought about her father, who she’d loved without reason, and her mother, whose advice she’d followed without question. She understood what Max was saying. She looked up at the sky, at the stars that were hardly visible above the bright London lights, like unintentional splatters of paint from the flick of a paintbrush, and sighed.
“I get it,” she said softly. “It’s strange, isn’t it? How the older you get, the more human your parents become to you?”
