The Leading Lady Page 5

  My stomach clenched with fear. ‘Sure.’

  I glanced at the bar, willing the coffees to come quickly. Whatever Archie had to tell me, I needed to know as soon as possible, the suspense was killing me.

  Twenty minutes later Archie was striding along, with me scampering at his elbow trying to keep up. We went down the slipway by Big Dave’s Lobster Shack, skirted the harbour where the boats were marooned in less than a metre of sea water and by the time we’d hit the wide sandy beach I was out of breath.

  ‘Okay,’ I tugged his arm. ‘Enough. I can’t keep this pace up and have any chance of speech. Archie, slow down.’

  He stopped abruptly, pushing his hair off his face. ‘Nina, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said breathlessly, ‘it’s just my legs aren’t as long as yours.’

  He sighed, a smile playing at his lips. ‘Not about that. About something that happened a long time ago.’

  A rush of goosebumps covered my skin suddenly. ‘Go on.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘Before Mum died, her speech was slurred, can you remember?’

  I nodded. ‘The penultimate stroke affected her speech and mobility in her right side; of course I remember.’

  ‘I went to see her just before she died and she tried to tell me something. She was trying really hard to communicate with me, making a Gr sound. She kept saying it over and over again. I’d bought her some grapes and thought that was what she wanted, but she pushed them away. Then she produced a photograph from that little bedside cupboard she had in her room. And said the word again. It sounded like “grame”. It didn’t make any sense at the time, but now I think she might have been trying to say Graeme.’

  ‘Dad’s name? What was in the photo? Why didn’t I see this, where is it now?’

  Archie’s face was pale. ‘You’ve got to understand, Nina, I could never forgive Dad the way that you seemed to do. In your eyes, he could do no wrong. All I could think at the time was that no decent man – no father – would abandon his children and never ever get in touch again.’

  ‘And now?’ I said hoarsely.

  ‘Now I think that he may have tried.’

  He took a photograph from his pocket.

  I went ice cold. It was a photograph of a white flat-roofed building, open with white canvas awnings on two sides, tables and chairs on the pavement, glamorous clientele smiling over cocktail glasses. This picture had been taken in full sunshine but apart from that the only difference from Kate’s photo was the name. It wasn’t called Penhaligon’s but The Paradise Club.

  My knees felt in danger of giving way. I looked at him, confused, my poor brain trying to make sense of what I was seeing. ‘This is freaky; I don’t understand. What does this mean?’

  ‘Turn it over. It gets even more freaky.’

  Written in biro in shaky letters were just a few words: Diane, tell them I’m losing my mind.

  Diane, Mum’s name. My fingers traced the indentations made by the pen.

  ‘At the time, there was nothing about the message to make me think it had come from Dad. And of course, being called The Paradise Club, the name didn’t mean anything to me either.’

  ‘I get that. So do you think Dad is in Brazil at this restaurant or bar or whatever it is?’

  Archie held his hands up. ‘Right now, I have no idea. But the thing is, I knew about this photograph. That’s why I want to apologize. Okay, I didn’t know it was from Dad, had no idea this place was in Brazil or what the message signified, but I knew it was important to Mum and somewhere deep inside I had my suspicions that only Dad would have written a message like that. I should have told you. But I was busy, I’m always busy, and then shortly after that she died. And if I’m honest, I didn’t want him coming back into our lives, possibly only to disappear again. We were doing okay. You and me against the world, Neen.’

  I nodded weakly, unable to drag my eyes from the words on the back of the picture. Tell them. Did that mean us? I had to know more.

  ‘Archie, I don’t blame you at all. I love you. You are in fact the world’s best brother, but two things: firstly, you have got to stop protecting me, and secondly, I want you to help me to find Dad.’

  He nodded. ‘I had a feeling you were going to say that.’

  ‘Come on.’ I was already marching back across the sand to the zigzag steps up the cliff.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘We’re going to Google Penhaligon’s and then we’re going to phone up and see if we can locate Dad.’

  ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa.’ Archie caught my arm. ‘Slow down. He’s been gone nearly twenty-five years. There’s no rush, we need to think about this properly, if he is in Brazil he could be married, with kids.’

  My heart fizzed with joy. ‘We could have an entire Brazilian family, just think!’

  ‘Exactly, so we need to tread carefully. The new family might get a bit of shock if Dad hasn’t told them about us.’

  ‘Good point,’ I conceded. ‘But that doesn’t stop a bit of Google research. Last one up the steps buys the ice creams.’

  Chapter 35

  I paid for the ice creams, although technically Archie cheated by hanging on to the back of my jacket and then sprinting past me on the top step. We ate them as we headed back to Driftwood Lodge. There was a van parked next to his Range Rover and I recognized it as Vic the builder’s, and through the gates behind the cottages I could see him talking to Kate and Theo outside the garage.

  ‘Gosh, they’re not wasting any time with these plans, are they?’ I said, nibbling my chocolate flake, which I’d left until last. ‘Goodness knows how Kate persuaded Vic to come out on a bank holiday.’

  ‘It could have been Theo,’ Archie argued. He eyed up my chocolate, having already demolished his own. ‘At uni, he used to go from random idea to reality before the rest of us had even woken up. It’s great to see him back to his old self.’

  ‘I think he was paralysed by guilt,’ I said, watching Theo slide his arm around Kate’s waist and kiss her hair as Vic wafted his arms in front of the old wooden garage doors, presumably explaining how to replace them with a feature more aesthetically pleasing. ‘Kate too. They both felt so guilty when Ivy died, even though there was nothing they could have done to prevent it.’

  I shuddered, remembering that first day on the beach when Theo had confided in me about the pain of losing his daughter.

  ‘And I was useless,’ Archie admitted gruffly. ‘Didn’t know what to say to them. So I did what I always do when things get emotional: I buried my head in the sand and pretended not to notice what was going on.’

  That was Archie to a ‘t’. He’d tackle a business problem head on, but anything personal and he’d shy away from it, had done ever since I could remember. Was that what he was doing with Molly? I wondered. I filed that one away to ask another time; today I wanted to focus on my own family. I looped my arm through his and drew him towards the house.

  ‘You helped in the end,’ I said fondly. ‘Besides, I think this was something they had to work out for themselves. They had to find a way to live with what happened to their little family. For a while it pushed them apart but they made it eventually.’

  Archie frowned. ‘Do you think that’s what happened with Mum and Dad? Something so fundamental that neither of them could face each other again afterwards?’

  Mittens flew out of the house as I opened the door and I scooped him up. He was such a loving little thing and instantly bumped his head against my jaw, purring like a tiny motor.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve racked my brains over the years, trying to recall if anything had happened in the run-up to Dad disappearing, but I was only little and I can’t remember anything.’

  ‘Me neither,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘So whatever happened, they managed to keep it hidden from both of us. It would have to be pretty major, though, for Dad to completely sever all ties with his family.’

  ‘I know,’ I said absently, ‘because if they loved each other
shouldn’t they have found a way to work things out for the sake of their marriage, like Theo and Kate did?’

  Archie gave a half-smile. ‘Remember what Mum always used to say when she was in a bad mood: love is blind—’

  ‘And marriage restores the sight.’ We both finished off her mantra together.

  ‘Good old Mum, never one for romance, was she?’ Archie said with a rueful smile. ‘Told it like it was.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said, remembering how crotchety she could be. ‘But did she, I wonder? Or was she keeping secrets?’

  Archie opened up the laptop on the kitchen table and pressed on the power button. ‘Let’s find out.’

  ‘Can it really be this simple?’ I murmured, watching him type in his password. ‘One photograph taken on a friend’s holiday and suddenly the mystery of our family gets unravelled. Doesn’t it all seem a bit … I don’t know, convenient?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s fate, and you’ve been getting those flowers and then …’ He cleared his throat. ‘Right, let’s google this place.’

  ‘It was in Brazil somewhere, shall I go and ask Kate the name of the town?’

  ‘It was Recife,’ Archie said without looking up.

  My eyes narrowed. ‘How do you remember that? Have you already googled it?’

  ‘No!’ He laughed at my suspicious face. ‘I haven’t had time. When I said last night I had a work emergency I was telling the truth. An email came through informing me that another customer has terminated their contract with me.’

  ‘Oh Archie, I’m sorry.’

  ‘But there’s something else. I wasn’t going to mention it, but … hold on, I’ll read it.’ He pulled his phone from his back pocket and scrolled through his messages. ‘Regret to inform, blah, blah, blah … Here it is, listen to this: “I took you on when you first started in business as a favour to your father who was a friend of mine in college. And you have never let me down, but due to our restructuring, blah, blah, blah” …’

  My scalp prickled; Dad had secretly helped Archie from a distance.

  ‘So Dad knew about your company?’ I whispered.

  ‘Knew and put some contacts my way to help me along.’ He rubbed his neck sheepishly. ‘And if the anonymous flowers are from him too, that means he’s been keeping up with both of us from afar.’

  We were quiet for a moment and I felt my eyes well up with tears. All the time I’d been thinking about Dad, assuming he’d forgotten about us. Perhaps he hadn’t after all?

  ‘Let’s get on with it,’ said Archie, reading my thoughts.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said suddenly, ‘about the problems you’re having with this competitor, you’ve worked so hard and achieved so much, it seems unfair.’

  ‘Funny thing is,’ he said slowly, ‘I wonder what I have achieved. I’ve got money in the bank, a nice house, a good pension fund, but so what? When I was on the beach playing with Ellis last week in those rock pools, I had such a great time. I thought what a fool his dad was not to spend time with his boy because he was too busy working. What a hypocrite I am – me, the man too busy working even to have a family of my own. My balance sheet looks great – or it did – but my work– life balance is appalling. I’ve put making money before making memories.’

  ‘Not ill, are you?’ I pressed a hand to his forehead teasingly. ‘Seriously, though, I agree, you do work too hard and forget to play hard. But do you know what you’re going to do about it?’

  He inhaled a long breath and looked at me. ‘Actually, I do. But for now, let’s try to track down Graeme Penhaligon, shall we?’

  I squeezed his hand. ‘Okay.’

  He returned his fingers to the keyboard and typed into Google: Penhaligon’s Recife Brazil and then shot me a look before hitting enter.

  A website came up for Recife’s premier gay cabaret club boasting Broadway nights every Thursday, the world-class Paradise Girls dance troupe on a Friday and Carnival night on Saturdays.

  ‘A gay club? That can’t be the same place,’ murmured Archie, scrolling down.

  ‘Wait.’ I stilled his hand with mine. ‘I think it might be. Click on “images”.’

  The screen filled with pictures. It was definitely the right place: the name, the white flat roof, the tables and chairs … There was no mistaking it. And the glamorous women I’d seen in the photographs were there too, except …

  ‘The Paradise Girls seem a bit … um,’ Archie began tentatively.

  ‘Manly?’

  We looked at each other, communicating our unspoken thoughts. A gay club frequented by transvestites. Called Penhaligon’s.

  ‘If this really is something to do with Dad,’ Archie’s eyes were like saucers, ‘no wonder Mum never spoke his name again. Can you imagine what she thought about her husband’s new life?’

  ‘Disgusted, probably,’ I said with a nervous giggle. ‘Remember Hairy Sue?’

  Archie snorted. ‘How could I forget?’

  There’d been a transvestite who worked at our supermarket. A lovely lady: I remember her hands being a bit on the large side but she always had lovely nails. Her badge declared her name to be Sue, and Mum would often exchange a few words with her while our shopping was being whizzed along the conveyor belt. Until one day when Sue must have been in a hurry to get ready for work and hadn’t shaved her chest. Mum took one look at the tuft of black hair peeking out of Sue’s overalls, let out a yelp and ran from the shop muttering words like abomination, pervert and freak of nature. We went straight home, minus our shopping, and Mum never set foot in there again.

  ‘I don’t think sexual diversity ever really entered Mum’s world.’ I grinned.

  Unless …

  Archie’s eyes widened. ‘Oh God. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

  We both hunched over the screen. ‘Type in “Graeme Penhaligon drag artist”,’ I urged.

  He blew out a breath. ‘Okay, but I can’t see it somehow. Mum once said he was an accountant.’

  I stared at him. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  He waved his hand. ‘It was at careers evening at school. The teacher asked what professions were in the family. I said there were none and Mum jumped in and said that her husband had been a well-respected accountant.’

  ‘Oh, Archie.’ I looked at him affectionately. ‘She was probably lying to save face.’

  ‘Either that or accountants in Brazil like feathers,’ he said drily, nodding his head at the screen.

  His latest Google search had mostly thrown up the same results as last time. The name Graeme didn’t appear at all, but there was one picture taken at Penhaligon’s of a man dressed in a white suit who looked so much like Archie that we both blinked at it.

  ‘It has to be Dad. He looks …’ I swallowed the lump in my throat. ‘He looks happy, doesn’t he?’

  My eyes blurred with tears as they tried to focus on the picture. It was the first image I’d seen of my father for nearly twenty-five years.

  And next to him was a drag artist in a sequined strappy dress and an elaborate headdress made of peacock feathers and more sequins. They had arms around each other, glasses decorated with cocktail umbrellas and slices of fruit in their hands.

  My heart was in my mouth. My dad, the man who’d read me bedtime stories, cuddled me when I tripped and told me my eyes held the magic of the sea …

  ‘This wasn’t quite what I was expecting,’ said Archie faintly, ‘to find my missing father with his arms round a tranny.’

  ‘Weird,’ I agreed, puffing out my cheeks. ‘I had this vision of discovering Dad living in a cottage by the sea somewhere, digging the garden, an apple-cheeked wife at his side.’

  ‘So now what?’ Archie sighed.

  I had so many questions: was Dad a transvestite, or gay, and if so why had he married Mum and had children? I wanted to know why, even though he’d apparently chosen a new life, he couldn’t have kept in touch with the old. But most of all, I wanted to know if he was still alive.

  ‘Go back to the website,’ I said
.

  Archie clicked on the Penhaligon’s home page.

  ‘There’s a phone number,’ I said. ‘Why don’t we ring and ask to speak to Graeme? At least we’ll know whether we’re barking up the right tree or not.’

  He frowned. ‘I still think we need to be cautious. There’s an email address, why don’t we start there?’

  This seemed like a sensible suggestion, so while Archie composed a suitably calm and collected email, I put the kettle on the Aga hotplate and then rejected the idea of tea and poured us both a glass of wine.

  ‘Medicinal,’ I said, setting it in front of him.

  ‘Okay, send.’ Archie hit the button. ‘Now we wait.’

  We both sat back and sipped our wine. I felt drained. What a day. That kiss with Jude on the terrace at The Sea Urchin felt like a lifetime ago. A smile crept over my face as I remembered his expression when I told him how I felt about him. I felt proud of myself, actually, proud for opening up to him and now proud for being brave about contacting the man who abandoned us all those years ago.

  ‘Archie,’ I said suddenly, ‘what you said to me earlier about Ellis and his dad? You should say that to Molly; let her know how you feel.’

  He raked a hand through his hair. ‘I don’t know, Neen. She’s a lovely girl but I seem to rub her up the wrong way. Trouble is, I don’t really know what she wants.’

  I smiled at him. ‘You’re in luck. Because I do.’

  Bless him. He leaned forward, listening so intently to the things Molly had told Eliza and me that day we first met when we were trying on the mermaid costumes. About earning enough to pay the bills, learning to drive and taking Ellis on holiday. I told him about Ellis loving Disney and about making chocolate cakes and playing football. And after I’d finished a slow smile spread across his face.

  ‘Consider it done.’ His eyes sparked with intent.

  ‘Hey, don’t tell me, tell Molly,’ I said, chinking my glass against his. ‘But remember, don’t splash the cash. Big turn-off. She’s fiercely independent.’