Which was when Courtney got her second big shock of the day.
On a piece of torn notepaper, she saw a name and address printed in her mother’s familiar handwriting. Picking it up, she saw the name written there, Colin Austin, beside an address in the town of Hamblehurst, a few dozen miles north-east of Southampton.
Colin Austin.Who was Colin Austin?
Was Colin Austin some relation of her father, Steven? Surely he had to be? The surname said it all, didn’t it? Why else would her mother have kept the scribbled details of a man with the surname Austin unless he was related to Steven? Was he Steven’s father? Brother? Cousin?
Had her mother met this man, this mysterious Colin?
Was there family out there on her father’s side that Courtney never knew existed? Was this yet another huge secret her mother had kept from her?
One question after another tumbled through her head. While still absorbing the truth about her father’s death, she thought constantly about the name and address scribbled on the piece of paper she’d found and whether she ought to contact the man noted there, this man known only as Colin Austin.
After several days of back and forth, she opted for the middle ground and searched for the man online first of all. It took barely a few minutes for Google to inform her that the Colin Austin she was probably looking for worked as a part-time lecturer at Hamblehurst College. The college website quickly yielded a direct phone number for man, along with a photograph on his staff page.
Despite the passage of years, the man’s likeness to the twenty-year-old photograph of her late father was impossible to miss. Colin Austin looked like he was somewhere in his fifties or sixties, which made Courtney more certain than ever that he was probably her father’s brother. He had a warm smile and kind eyes and the look of a man who’d lived a good and full life.According to his staff webpage, he taught classes for students studying courses on NHS management and administration, and before his role at the college he’d worked as a senior NHS manager in a local hospital trust.
With this information in hand, Courtney spent several more days debating what she should do next. Caught in the midst of moving out of her home and into the depressing bedsit her housing officer had found for her, she had enough to occupy her thoughts without adding the prospect of meeting long-lost family into the mix.
What if Colin Austin was cut from the same cloth as his criminal and drug-addicted brother? There was enough chaos in her life already without inviting in even more.
Genuine though this fear was, Courtney felt fairly confident setting it aside. If Colin Austin was gainfully employed as a college lecturer in a responsible job that carried authority, surely that must prove he was no chaotic layabout or chronic substance abuser?
But what if she got in touch and this man, heruncle, said he didn’t want anything to do with her?
The idea of rejection was scary. After losing her mother so suddenly, and only just getting over the humiliation of Oliver Redman turning his back on her when she revealed her pregnancy, Courtney didn’t want to risk any more heartache.
But the desire to find answers to the many, many questions she had overrode the fear.
She wanted to know if her mother had ever met Colin Austin, and if so, why she’d never told Courtney about him. She wanted to know more about the father she’d never known, and find out what had caused him to go off the rails in life, and get to the bottom of the truth about his death and what had happened on that dark London street on the night he was killed. If anyone could now help answer those questions, it was Colin Austin.
And above all this, she wanted to know if she had any family left out there in the world after all. With her mother gone, she had no blood relatives left, at least none she knew of. Stumbling across the old newspaper clipping and the scribbled name and address of a man who must surely be her father’s brother was, she figured, one last chance at finding family she never knew existed.
Finally, after much thought, she took the plunge and called the number for Colin Austin’s office at Hamblehurst College. Her voice shaking when the man answered the phone on the other end, she introduced herself and explained that she was the daughter of Steven Austin, a man she suspected might be Colin’s relative.
That first phone call wasn’t easy. Colin Austin was obviously stunned by what she told him. But over the course of several phone calls and face-to-face meetings, the facts became clear.
ColinwasSteven’s brother. The two men had had a difficult relationship and Steven’s wild ways and drug use and time spent in prison had driven a wedge deep into the Austin family. By the time Steven died, they’d been estranged for many years.
Colin had known nothing about Steven having a child and he had never met Sharon. He didn’t know why Courtney’s mother had kept details of his old address in Hamblehurst, as he’d moved out of that house a long time ago. Colin speculated that perhaps Steven gave her the address for some reason when they’d first got together, but that when Steven’s true nature revealed itself, she’d made the decision not to delve any further into the Austin family by making contact or informing them of the baby she was expecting.
If that was the reason why Sharon had never contacted Steven’s family, even after finding out she was pregnant, then Courtney supposed she could understand it. After all, Oliver Redman had turned her back on her, despite her pregnancy, andshe was in no rush to get in touch with his family in order to introduce herself and tell them about the child she was carrying. The very idea of it was mortifying.
Courtney wondered why her mother had kept hold of Steven’s brother’s contact details for so long if she never planned on getting in touch with him. Her best guess was that her mother had probably forgotten the information was scribbled on that scrap of paper and stuffed in amongst all the other ancient paperwork she’d clearly forgotten about over the years.
She’d never know for sure. What she did know was that her mother would have liked Colin Austin. A caring and generous man, Courtney understood instinctively that he was nothing like his brother. The more she got to know Colin—herUncleColin—the more she wondered at the family relationships that might have been built had Sharon reached out to him all those years ago, either after finding out she was pregnant or after discovering the news about Steven’s death.
After only a few conversations and meet-ups with Colin, Courtney understood how much it might affect his world—and his family’s world—to reveal the niece he never knew he had. Putting herself in the position of Colin’s wife and daughters, who Colin had told her about and who he obviously adored, Courtney knew it was only right to make sure they were, in fact, related before things went any further.
Sharon had never named Steven Austin on Courtney’s birth certificate. While Colin confirmed that Steven was his brother, Courtney wanted more proof of her relationship to Colin before meeting his family. It only made sense that everyone knew where they stood.
A familial DNA test proved what they both already knew—they were blood relations. With that evidence in hand, Courtney felt better about the prospect of being introduced to her uncle’s wife and daughters. Already struggling with the news that he’dhad a niece all this time and had known nothing about her, Colin wanted to make sure he handled things properly when he told his family about everything they’d discovered.
Courtney understood his hesitation and was happy to wait until he felt the time was right. It was a lot to take in. An obviously loving and caring family man, she realised how much Colin was struggling with the concept of his brother having a child neither Steven nor Colin had ever known about.
When he’d talked about Steven and the life he’d led, it was clear that his criminality and drug abuse had taken a dreadful toll on the Austin family. No matter how much Colin and his parents tried to help Steven mend his ways and find a way into a better life, he’d always fallen back into his old habits. That had brought heartbreak and a sense of failure, and Colin confessed that those feelings never really went away, not entirely.
Bringing Courtney into his family would also conjure ghosts from the past and prompt questions that might not be easy to answer. And yet even as he waited for the right moment to tell his wife and daughters about Courtney, he was clearly also struck by the dire predicament into which his new niece had fallen.
