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For a brief while, I was certainly infatuated with him. He was all I could think about. I got butterflies in my stomach every time he walked into the room. I created opportunities to run into him even when we’d only seen each other the day before; I made too many phone calls, sent too many texts. And I frightened myself. The intensity of what I was feeling had reminded me too much of Roger. I even went to his house one day, afraid he was lying to me and that he was married after all. I saw his elderly mother through the kitchen window, and she saw me, though of course she didn’t know who I was. She waved, the way people do when they think they’re supposed to know you, and I’d had a sudden glimpse of how she’d see me if she knew I was stalking her son. Because that’s what I was doing. At that moment, even I realised that.
I ran. Literally and figuratively. I broke it off with him, and focused all my energies on repairing my marriage. Andrew was the one I really loved, I told myself firmly. The one with whom I had a life, a history, a family. We’d shared a thousand moments, from the small and insignificant, to the life-changing and dramatic: the birth of a child, the loss of a parent, lunch on Sunday, feeding the cat. This was the stuff of life, this was what wasreal, not a romantic novella ‘connection’with a man whose full name I didn’t even know.
And then the impossible had happened, the miracle that was Tolly, and I’d convinced myself it had to be Andrew’s child. Anything else was unthinkable.
‘Do I know him?’ Bella asks. ‘Tolly’s dad?’
I shake my head. That much, at least, is true.
‘How … how did you find out?’ I ask.
‘We had a Bio project about blood groups, and Mrs Lockwood told us to find out about our family. You were in London so I just looked in the file in your office.’ She looks up, flushing. ‘I wasn’t prying. I didn’t know it was private. I found the tests they did after Tolly was born, when you got so sick, and they thought it was some kind of Rhesus antibody reaction.’
I should have burned them. Or at least put them under lock and key.
‘Your blood group is A, and Dad’s is O, like me,’ Bella says. ‘Tolly is group B. Which means he can’t be Dad’s. That’s how he found out, too, isn’t it?’
I nod, blinded by tears. My daughter will never forgive me for this. How can she? I can’t forgive myself. It’s one of the many reasons my anger at Caz is so bitter and unrelenting. She didn’t just take Andrew from me: she destroyed my better self. I would never have betrayed my husband if not for her. I would never have betrayed myself.
I haven’t told anyone about Tolly, not even my mother, though I think perhaps she’s guessed. As he’s grown older, he’s started to look more and more likehis biological father. Secrets have a way of finding their way to the light.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say thickly, knowing how hollow it sounds. ‘I understand how angry you must be. But please, don’t tell Tolly. Your dad is the only father he’s ever—’
‘I’d never do that,’ Bella says sharply. ‘I love him. He’s mybrother.’
‘If you want to go and live with your dad and Caz, I won’t fight it,’ I say bleakly.
Bella twists the silver ring on her finger. ‘Gree said something the other weekend,’ she says, staring at her lap. ‘When we were talking about Uncle Nicky. She said love is like water: if something blocks its path, it always finds another way through.’ She pauses for a long time, and I suppress the urge to fill the silence. ‘I figured it must’ve been like that for you, when Dad met Caz,’ she adds finally. ‘You needed somewhere for love to go, and Tolly’s dad was there.’
I stare at my wise, extraordinary daughter, overwhelmed with conflicting emotion. Relief, pride, shame, regret. She has behaved better in all of this than any of the sorry adults in this saga.
‘Caz isn’t the enemy,’ Bella says softly. ‘Please, Mum. Can you just stop hating her now?’
I nod. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’ll stop.’
BRIAN ROBERTS
PART 1 OF RECORDED INTERVIEW
Date:- 25/07/2020
Duration:- 31 Minutes
Location:- Kingsbridge Police Station
Conducted by Officers from Devon & Cornwall Police
(cont.)
POLICE
