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‘You understand—’
‘I do. Yes. And I thought she was a man. Why didn’t David ever correct me? And an Italian too. Are we related? Mum brushed off the idea.’ The blurriness cleared. I needed clarity of thought not emotional reactions. As for David’s lies, I would have to wait for those answers when I finally contacted him.
Yvette squeezed my hand. ‘She claims in this first letter to be your grandmother’s half-sister. Born in 1937. She starts writing to Isabel in 1952, when she was fifteen. How she found out about Isabel isn’t clear.’
‘She found Izzy’s address? There had to be a record of it somewhere, perhaps in papers Loretta’s family kept. Maybe when Nigel married Catherine, she contacted Loretta’s father. But would you want the father of your love child to know you were getting married?’
Yvette selected another letter from the pile. ‘Isabel, unsurprisingly, didn’t believe her at first, because Loretta writes again, pleading with Isabel while acknowledging the lack of evidence. She wrote a name: Catherine Maynard. Familiar?’
I nodded. ‘My great-grandmother. After she married Nigel, she became Catherine Drake. She was in Italy before the war. The timings fit. I already suspected she was Loretta’s mother, she has to be. And she abandoned her?’
Yvette skimmed through a few pages, and I waited, schooling my impatience as she looked a few words up in a dictionary.
‘Neither family approved of the relationship and hushed it up,’ she said eventually. ‘Loretta is illegitimate – must have been a scandal back then.’
Another scandal in my family. We seemed to attract them. Was I about to manufacture one with Joseph? A hard lump formed in my throat.
‘There are references to leg braces,’ I said quietly.
‘Yes, some kind of disability. Perhaps she was born premature. Maybe she couldn’t travel?’
Medici wasn’t able to take the photographs herself – David had told me this upfront. Numbness struck my mind dumb. I had to accept that the person responsible for Joseph and I meeting was connected to my family.
Yvette continued. ‘Catherine returned to England, kicked out of Italy by the sounds of it, and Loretta’s father, Giuliano, was married off to another woman.’
‘Mum said Nana Catherine was involved in political activities against Mussolini. That would have made her unpopular there, but not here, so why not bring Loretta home to England?’
Yvette pulled a face. ‘Imagine the disgrace of being a single woman fathering a child with a man from a country allied to the Nazis.’
‘Oh God. I see.’ Loretta, though, had been an optimist. ‘They kept writing. She hoped to meet Izzy one day.’
A smile washed over Yvette’s frown. ‘It’s rather lovely, I think. Ignoring the grown-ups, they became good friends, well, on paper. I think these strange little symbols are some secret code. Without seeing what your gran wrote back in reply, it’s hard to decipher. I think Loretta made it up, not your Gran. They couldn’t risk being found out.’
‘Why? Catherine was long dead by then.’ I paused to think. ‘Do you think Nigel, Izzy’s dad, knew about the secret daughter, because if he loved Catherine, surely he would’ve helped her trace Loretta? But… I don’t suppose they had much time together after they married; they had Isabel, the war came along, and Nana Catherine died in the air raid. What if Colin found out about Loretta after he married Izzy and she wasn’t allowed to write – the letters stopped about that time. She was barely an adult when she married Grandpa and husbands back then…’ A bitter taste formed on my tongue. I would give my dad a big hug the next time I saw him; I was sure he would have helped find a love child and even adopted it as his own.
‘I think,’ said Yvette carefully, ‘Loretta, Lora, knows she has family somewhere near Coalville. But the trail had gone cold: Isabel moved house to be with her husband, and changed her name, then your mum also married, and her name changed too. It must have been impossible to trace the family without marriage certificates. Loretta must have asked David to find somebody local to the area to photograph castles, and she wanted, perhaps hoped to find you, or some relative.’
I shook my head. ‘Nah, it’s just too ridiculous. Why a photographer, why castles?’ I stopped there because though the link was tenuous, it existed in my lineage: Catherine had been an artist, a painter and journalist. But how had Loretta known I existed and followed in Catherine’s footsteps? Medici’s emails now seemed more relevant than ever to my unanswered questions, especially their references to “seeking”. Was that supposed to be me? Seeking out what though? What else had I missed in those brief messages?
There was a long pause; Yvette continued to read more of the letters, working her way forward in time. ‘Oh, according to the last one, it looks like some of Isabel’s letters have been sent back unopened. And they both agree Beryl is behind it.’ With Izzy married off, Beryl had cozied up to my mother as an alternative, and she never married or had kids of her own.
‘Beryl thought Gran was mad, and it would suit her to have everyone believe it. Let’s suppose, given she was only fifteen when Izzy married, perhaps out of jealous spite, she uncovered this secret half-sister and hoped it might put Colin off marrying Izzy…’
‘Go on, why are you smiling?’ Yvette nudged my arm.
I laughed half-heartedly. ‘Isabel deliberately got pregnant so she had to marry Colin. Beryl was side-lined completely.’
‘Granny Izzy wasn’t really crazy back then, was she?’
I lowered my eyes, realising how Beryl had twisted the past to suit her agenda – stealing Mum’s affection away from Isabel. ‘I know the family teased Granny Izzy and it seems we were all wrong. I wish I knew more about Catherine too, why she left her daughter behind in Italy. That’s the thing… the…’
A heavy weight landed in my stomach as the ping of the lightbulb moment sent my mind into overdrive. Why had I not seen the big picture until now?
Yvette poked me again. ‘Robyn?’
‘David is in Italy. I have a secret great-aunt in Italy who is called Loretta, who likes history, castles especially, and—’
‘Joseph—’
