Page 102 of The Way We Are Now

‘Theo, I told you, the last time I saw you ten years ago, when you came into my office, demanding answers: you only have to look at Noah to see how much like Michael he is. Noah is not your son. He’s Michael’s son. He’s dark haired. You’re fair. Their politics are the same.’

Theo gave a hollow laugh. ‘That’s no answer and you know it. Anna, you’re dark haired and I can be pretty sure, without asking, that your and Noah’s politics will be the same.’

When I say nothing, when I have no further argument, Theo goes on, ‘But you still refused to confirm it by having a paternity test. I’m assuming that’s still the case?’

I indicate with a nod that I’ve never gone down that route.

‘Why the hell not? Surely Michael wanted to know?’

‘Theo,’ I breathed, ‘we discussed this when I saw you just after Noah was born and again – ten years ago, was it? – when you wanted me to have a test. Michael would have little to do with me throughout my pregnancy: I’d cheated on him, and the baby I was carrying was possibly not his. He couldn’t cope with it at all. I couldn’t cope with him at the time. Didn’t need his constant haranguing of me for the truth. Which I didn’t know myself. This was my baby and, at the time, I felt that was all that mattered. Maybe wrong of me, I don’t know, but I knew I wouldn’t be seeing you again after… you know…’

Theo looks away, unwilling to meet my eye, says nothing.

‘My dad had just died and Mum basically – despite hating London, or so she professed – came down to the apartment towards the end of my pregnancy and looked after me. Made me eat nutritious things like steak and kidney pudding and…’ I shiver at the memory ‘…cow heel…’

Despite getting off the subject of Noah’s paternity, Theo pulls a questioning face. ‘What the hell is that?’

‘Don’t ask. It’s disgusting. And then, as I told you, within a few months of Noah being born, Michael couldn’t keep away. He so desperately wanted a child of his own – particularly a son he could take to see his precious Everton – that it didn’t seem to matter that there might be a chance he wasn’t actually the birth father.’

‘What does it say on Noah’s birth certificate?’ Theo asks.

‘Again, Theo, I know I’m repeating myself, but I told you. I showed you the actual certificate. It says Father: Michael Wrathmell: Member of Her Majesty’s Government. And if there’s even the slightest chance that it ever turns out Michael is not Noah’s birth father, then does it matter? Michael is his father! He’s changed his nappy, he’s been to parents’ evening, he saw Noah take his first steps, he’s been Dad to my son for all Noah’s life.’

‘Does it matter?’ Theo breaks into my glowing CV of Michael Wrathmell as father to my son. ‘Does it matter? Well, yes, if there’s even the slightest chance that Noah is mine, then of course it fucking well matters. Immi is his sister.’

‘His half-sister.’

‘Oh, sorry for being pedantic.’ Theo is beside himself.

‘Theo, I’ve so many times been going to do a paternity test,’ I now admit. ‘As Noah’s got older, I’ve thought perhaps he should know the truth, you know, if the truth does turn out to be different from what he’s always believed. But how was I going to do that with a ten-year-old? To a bolshy teenager? He’s smart, smarter than most. He’d have wanted to know what was going on, me messing round in his mouth with a swab. And then, if it had turned out he was yours, was I supposed to tell him? Tell him that Michael, who adored him, the dad he in turn adored, who took him to football, picked him up from school, had him most weekends, wasn’t actually his father? That his half-sisters – Michael and Tania have two girls only a few years younger than Noah and they’re as close as full siblings – are not actually any relation of his? Do I now tell him that his dad turns out to be just some bloke his mother went out with for a year? Who she didn’t want to marry or move in with because at the end of the day, she knew he wasn’t the one? Had never been the bloody one? Because… because… for me there was only ever the one…’ I look at Theo before dabbing furiously at my eyes with a tissue. ‘And…’ I’m on a roll now, crying through my words. ‘Would you really have wanted Noah to come up to North Yorkshire, knocking on your door, saying to Honor: Excuse me, but I think your husband is my dad? Or saying to your children: Erm, I think your dad’s my dad as well?’

Theo takes my hand, pulls me into him, wiping at my tears with his thumb and I breathe in the very essence of the man I’ve loved for… how long is it now since Fliss and I caught sight of him in the Wimpy Bar in the centre of Leeds? Since I saw him, full-on bollock naked, as he climbed, embarrassed, out of the bath?

For forty years.

‘You and I have must have upset the gods somewhere along the line,’ Theo says, breathing into my hair, his arms wrapped tightly around me.

‘As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods – they kill us for their sport…’ I murmur back.

‘King Lear?’ Theo whispers into my ear.

I nod. And I know what I must do. For Noah’s sake. And for that beautiful, happy little girl I once saw following her dad around the North Yorkshire estate on the nature programme.

For Immi’s sake.

32

‘Right, well, let’s do it, now. This minute!’ Noah is upset, angry. Would I expect anything less? ‘A paternity test, Mum!’

‘But, Noah, you’ve only known this girl – Immi – a few weeks.’

‘Mum,’ he says, ‘I’ve fancied her from afar since the beginning of term. Even before that, last year even. She’s gorgeous, she’s fun, she’s so bright. Mum, if she turns out to be, to be… my sister, for fuck’s sake… Jesus, Mum, what have you done?’ Noah doesn’t know where to put himself, paces the room like a caged lion.

‘OK, Noah, you have to remember your dad is your dad.’

‘Which dad? Which dad are we talking about here?’ Noah turns on me and I see he’s near to tears. He’s always reminded me of my dad. Noah has my and my dad’s dark hair, our brown eyes, our slightly aquiline nose. No wonder Mum has adored Noah from day one, when she was the first to hold him at the hospital. He’s taller than Theo, but then he’s taller than Michael too. Aren’t all sons taller than their parents? He loves history – he’s studying history and politics at Oxford – but Mum loves history – look at all that ancestry she did, going back in time to find our relative strung up on the Northumbrian gibbet, left to the crows to finish off.

I’ve convinced myself – and probably Michael too – that Noah is Michael’s son. But if he is Theo’s, if Immi turns out to be his sister, then, as he tells me, I’ve ruined his life. Forever.