Joan sat quietly looking at the Mediterranean as it flashed past the train window, while Helena and Mandy talked about Cannes and its attractions. She hoped Leon would be happy with the news she had to tell him later this evening. Briefly she wondered whether she should tell Helena too. It was Leon’s blood relative, maybe he should be the one to tell his sister.
* * *
‘I’m sorry I won’t see you again this evening,’ Helena said as she and Mandy left Joan at her hotel later.
‘No worries,’ Joan said. ‘Leon is coming to spend the evening with me, so I won’t be alone. Enjoy your last dinner of the retreat at the villa. I’ve heard Guy Lyon is an amazing chef.’
‘He is,’ Mandy said. ‘The food we’ve had this week has been lovely.’
37
Preparing to go downstairs to the hotel bar to meet Leon that evening, Joan hesitated and fingered the chain around her neck before coming to a decision. Carefully, she undid the catch and took the chain off, sliding the ring into the palm of her hand as she did so.
She dropped the chain onto the dressing table and slipped the ring onto the middle finger of her right hand. Tonight would be a good night to pass the ring onto the son of its bona fide first owner.
Joan was sipping a small cognac, hoping it would give her some much-needed Dutch courage to face Leon when he arrived at eight o’clock.
Leon ordered a beer before giving his mother a questioning look.
‘Let’s go up to my room,’ Joan said as several noisy couples arrived. ‘Be private and a bit quieter.’
‘Mum, are you all right? You don’t look too good,’ Leon said, giving his mother a concerned look.
‘Thanks for that,’ Joan said. ‘All I can say in my defence is that it’s been a funny twenty-four hours.’
‘I didn’t mean to upset you Thursday evening with all my questions.’
‘You did upset me but…’ she shrugged. ‘I do understand, although I don’t know why you suddenly started with all the questions. Thursday night you were pushing me for answers I didn’t have. You’ve always known that I had a relationship before you were born and became pregnant, but Jake, the man I was in love with, died. I was a single mum when I met Harry and fell in love with him. He accepted you, always loved you as his own son. And adopted you as soon as we married. Harry was a real father to you. Your biological father would, I know, have been an equally good father to you, but sadly he never even knew he had a son.’ She paused. ‘I was lucky to have the love of two men in my life both as precious as the other. And they both gave me the gift of a wonderful child,’ Joan said, wiping away a stray tear.
Leon, never truly at home with sentimentality, shifted on his seat.
Joan gave him a brief smile. ‘You know your middle name of Jake is after your father. And the Christian name Leon, I chose for you was deliberate too. It sounds like his surname Lyon. So effectively you have his full name. If we could have told you more, I promise you we would have. If there had been any chance of you meeting Jake, we would have encouraged you, but he was dead. Why risk upsetting the man who had brought you up and loved you as his own fixating on someone you could never meet.’
‘Because surely I have the right, if at all possible, to know about the man who actually helped create me?’ Leon said quietly. ‘I loved Dad, he was a great dad to me and I’ll never forget him, but I’d also like to know more about… about my real roots, I suppose. Didn’t you ever think about contacting Jake’s family?’
Joan sighed. ‘I had no way of contacting them. I’d never met them, knew only that they lived somewhere on the outskirts of London. I didn’t even know which part of London – north, south, east or west.’
Leon took a swig of his beer before sighing.
‘So why the urgency to see me this evening if you don’t have anything to add to what I already know?’
‘I do have something new to tell you…’ Joan swallowed and took a strangled breath before starting again. ‘Something happened yesterday that makes it possible for you to learn more about your biological father. And it is something you unknowingly kicked off.’
Leon stilled and stared at her. ‘Go on.’
‘I saw a photo on Wednesday evening in the hallway of Villa Celestia that came as a big shock to me, to say the least. It was a black-and-white photograph of two men, one of whom I recognised – Jake Lyon. I admit I was selfish in more or less deciding to ignore it, reckoning that there was little possibility in trying to investigate its origins and discovering anything. But then you started pushing for details, and I knew I owed it to you and your father to at least find out if the photograph could be the key to you getting some answers to your questions.’
Joan took a deep breath.
‘So yesterday I went back to Villa Celestia and met Guy Lyon, the owner, and asked him about the photograph. He confirmed that it was Jake in the photograph and that he was the man standing next to him. That information has drastically changed things and has brought someone unexpected into your – our – lives. Someone who will be able to answer most if not all of your questions about your father.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Your father’s brother. Your uncle.’
There was a stunned silence as Leon stared at her in disbelief before he broke the silence. ‘You’ve met a blood relative on my father’s side? I have an uncle?’
Joan nodded.
