Mats snorted. ‘She’s outrageous. I’ve had to put up with Andreas, and she has to put up with me seeing someone. But I’m sorry if it hurts your feelings that Josefin’s been so underhand when you were friendly. I’ve emailed her a warning about discretion. I think she knew what she’d set off by running to Inger with tales, so returned to Sweden to be out of the way.’
Ezz sighed. ‘I’d already realised that Josefin’s not feeling friendly towards me. It’s sad, but she changed as soon as she realised we were seeing each other.’ Before he could speak again, Ezz went on gently. ‘Inger’s a different prospect, though. I can’t disregard the beady eyes of your ex-wife – especially if she’s going to continue to put mein my place. I don’t want bad feeling.’ She swallowed and realised that she was going to have to be the one to say it. ‘You’re going home in the New Year, anyway.’
For several seconds, Mats was silent. Then, despondently, unconvincingly, he said, ‘I’m divorced. I’ve left Inger in no doubt that her behaviour was inappropriate.’
Though sad for the frustration in his voice, she headed him off. ‘You can’t let Christmas be ruined by quarrels and an atmosphere. It’s not fair on your family. They’ve travelled all this way to relax and have fun. Their Scottish Christmas, remember?’
‘It doesn’t have to affect them,’ he retorted mulishly, if without conviction.
Wearily, she swivelled around to lie along the sofa, her head on the arm. ‘Well … what are you doing tomorrow?’
‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’ He sounded exasperated.
‘Yes. Because if it’s a day out, you’ll be in a tricky situation,’ she explained softly. ‘You can’t invite both Inger and me because the atmosphere would be terrible. You can’t leave her at Rothach alone, because that’s mean. And neither can you stay at the hall with me, leaving your family with her.’ Just in time, she avoided saying ‘stuck with her’. She made her voice softer still. ‘And if everybody stays at the hall … a repetition of the way she treated me today would be unacceptable.’
He didn’t argue, just said morosely, ‘To quote Dad, this situation’s bullshit.’
She couldn’t argue. They talked on for a few minutes, but there was no way forward in their situation, so she said goodnight, and took herself to bed.
After an hour tossing and turning, she got up again. What she needed was to give her mind something else to work on, something just as significant and emotional asgetting used to the idea of no longer being involved with Mats.
Wrapped in her dressing gown and enormous fluffy slippers, she fetched her laptop and the letter from Julia and Iona and returned to bed. She typed both their email addresses in the ‘to’ line, then began.
Dear Julia and Iona,
Your letter took me by surprise but thank you for reaching out. She paused, rereading those few words while she wondered what she wanted from her stranger-sisters. She must at least be open to a thread of contact, or she would have tossed their letter in the bin.
She began with easy stuff, uncertain how much Rick and Kay would have passed on. I’m forty-four and I was brought up near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk by my parents Maxie and Vince Wynter, who were musicians. Their faces floated before her eyes, Maxie’s long hair and Vince’s rioting curls, and she was deluged both by a fruitless yearning to feel their arms around her, and anxiety that by emailing Iona and Julia she would be betraying those parents who’d loved her so much. She shook herself. Maxie and Vince weren’t here to ask, but she didn’t think they’d have stood in her way. My parents died when I was twenty. I’m the middle child, with my sister Valentina older and Thea younger. Thea and I work at Rothach Hall, while Valentina’s career took her to Edinburgh and now Inverness.
She took a breath before going on. You asked me how I feel to have two new sisters … well, I don’t know. Part of me wants to know about your upbringing; another part doesn’t. I’m still reeling from Rick and Kay turning up. I was prickly, hurt that you’d been kept, while I’d been given away. Yet if I’dbeen brought up with you, I would have missed out on Maxie and Vince, Thea and Valentina, who I love very much. So I don’t know what I feel or what I want – except that I am Ezzie Wynter, not Lindy Loveless. Lindy ceased to exist at a few weeks old.
I assume the woman who you call ‘Nan’ is Kay’s mother. Rick explained that she had alcoholic rages. He obviously wanted me to feel sympathy for Kay, but instead I felt guilty, because I once had problems with alcohol too. She stared at the last sentence, her finger hovering over the delete button. Then she shrugged. Why shouldn’t they know the worst of her? She went on. Kay was raged at, overwhelmed by shame and censure, and so she let me go. Rick was shut out of the pregnancy and birth but subjected to the gossip. With that history, it’s nice for Rick and Kay that they married once she was eighteen, but I suppose I expected a story of a one-night stand or worse, not a happy-ever-after for everyone but me. This may not be rational.
The moments outside the hall with Rick floated back to her, him staring up at the hall. She added, Rick’s the first person I’ve met who looks like me – blue eyes and quite tall. And he showed me a photo from when he had hair like mine before it receded. He seemed interested in Rothach Hall, a place I love, and said he wished he could have been an architect. And as I’m responding to your letter, though much of this email sounds wounded and bitter, it’s clearly not ALL I feel. I feel curiosity about my birth family.
I also feel fear about the future. If we ever meet, will we connect? Or will I be looking in from outside, like a trial run for your family, the Colvilles, that was discarded? There I go with the wounded and bitter again. Evidently, I feel vulnerable.
Best wishes,
Ezzie
A wave of fatigue engulfed her. Yawning, she sent the email, then closed her laptop and turned out the light. Tomorrow, she’d have to deal with the Mats situation but for now, she thought she could at last fall asleep.
In the morning, she woke to two emails. The first read:
I’m so sorry about you losing your parents so young. Thank you so much for responding to us. Totally understand that you must feel a mixture of emotions that are difficult for others to understand. I’d like to email you again when I’ve had time to mull over what you said.
Very, very best wishes,
Julia
The second was shorter:
What Julia said. We’re so lucky that we have our parents whenever we want them.
Iona
It wasn’t until Ezz was showered and dressed that it occurred to her that Iona’s comment had a double meaning. Ezz’s parents were Maxie and Vince, much missed. But Iona had said ‘our parents’, which Ezz had blithely taken to mean Iona and Julia’s parents. But Rick and Kay had created Ezz, just as much as they’d given life to Julia and Iona.
Iona was saying that Ezz had living parents who wanted to know her.
If only she knew whether she wanted to know them.
