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Callum turned around to find Thea standing at the shop door. He took a deep breath. ‘Er, sorry, yes. I was trying to persuade them to wait until the grand opening to see the place.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly. Come in. Callum has just made a pot of tea. Or we have coffee, if you prefer? Come and join us.’ Her eyes roved to little Fergus. ‘I have chocolate biscuits.’
‘Mummy, can I have one?’
Beth smiled. ‘All right.’
Callum stood there in the middle of the yard and watched them all troop inside. He glanced around the yard, thinking, ‘Can my day get any worse?’ Across the courtyard, he caught Mabel standing at the shop window staring his way.
He took a deep breath before he walked back to the shop.He wasn’t looking forward to the grand reopening. He’d heard Thea and Lexi setting a tentative date, in a week’s time.As far as he was concerned, it couldn’t come soon enough. It was going to be a fiasco. If he got through the day without anyone finding out the truth, he’d be the luckiest man alive.
He took one last look at Mabel across the yard. If his secret was going to be revealed, then he was taking them with him. He had the copy of the newspaper article revealing that their brother was Henry. He was going to confront them with it. Just not straight away. He had enough on his plate for one day.
Callum stepped inside the shop, hoping his friends did as he asked and didn’t let on that he owned it.
Chapter 53
‘When are you going to tell them, Mabel?’ Callum had a rare moment alone with Mabel in the bookshop when Lexi had to return to work in the library, and Thea was paying another visit to her sister. The week had flown by, and the opening night was upon them.
‘Tell them what?’
‘That you’re their aunt?’
‘Why, whatever do you mean?’
‘Henry is your brother, isn’t he? I saw an old article about the bookshop that had been written after the Second World War. There was a photo of you and your sister, with your father and brother.’
Callum waited for her to deny it. She didn’t. Not at first. Mabel said,‘But you don’t understand, we’re not related. My father just brought him up as his own.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Henry was adopted by my father. Towards the end of the war, we took in an evacuee – well, two – a young woman and her child. Then, after the war, there was another round of evacuations. You probably aren’t aware. You see, although the war had officially ended, the government believed there might still be further bombs dropped on London. So the evacuees returned. She was pregnant, and she stayed and had Henry.’
‘Okay.’
‘But then she left the baby with us, and returned to her husband.’
Callum didn’t want to be the bearer of bad – or maybe good – news, depending on how they looked at it, but there was no denying the resemblance between the picture of Mabel as a young child and the childhood photo of Henry’s daughters – especially Thea.
Although the image was black and white, and a bit grainy, Callum had printed off the article. He showed it to Mabel, and got out the photo of Thea, pairing them up so she could see the photos side by side.
Mabel stared at the photos. ‘No, no. I don’t … I can’t believe it.’
‘You said that your mum had died before the war.’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t want to state the obvious,’ Callum said, ‘but it looks like your dad had an affair with the woman who was evacuated here. She got pregnant, and left the baby with him to bring up, and most likely returned to her husband. He’s your brother, Mabel – your and Marjorie’s brother.’
Mabel looked at him, wide-eyed. She clutched her chest.
Oh, god! She really is having a heart attack this time. It’s the shock of finding out her father had an affair. Oh, god, I shouldn’t have just come out with it like that.
‘Mabel, speak to me? Have you got a pain in your chest or arm? Having trouble breathing?’
Mabel shook her head.
‘Do you need a glass of water?’
