‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘My name is Christopher Harris. Could I speak to the mother superior? It’s extremely urgent.’
She nodded and let him inside, gesturing towards a stone bench and leaving him there in the foyer. He waited, trying not to stare at the replica pietà in the recessed arch in the opposite wall, the Virgin larger than life so that Christ lay small upon her lap like a child sick or dead. There was a smell of old, cold stone, of damp perhaps, but what struck him most was the silence. It occurred to him that the nun had not spoken. And yet he knew he was to wait, that she would be back. After no more than a few minutes, she returned and gestured for him to follow her down a long corridor that smelled faintly of varnish.
Maintaining her silence, she opened another wide arched wooden door to reveal an elderly nun sitting behind a mahogany desk with a green leather top. Behind her, the wall was lined with bookshelves – he was pretty sure they were the same bookshelves from the photocopied photograph Ben had sent with his letter, and he felt the rope tighten within him.
Upon seeing Christopher, the nun stood and held out her hand.
‘Christopher Harris, is that right?’
He shook her hand. ‘Yes, that’s right. Thank you for seeing me.’
She gestured for him to sit down and sat herself, clasping her hands together on the desktop. ‘You said it was urgent.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll come straight to the point. There’s been a terrible mistake.’
* * *
He came out of the convent around midday, he said. He was worried sick by now, but there was still time to do what he needed to do. It was as he’d thought. There had been another boy born on March 12th, 1959, to a woman called Rebecca Hurst. A boy named William but whom his mother had called Billy.
He studied the map, compared it to the address in his hand. Whitefield Road, in a place called Stockton Heath. The town lay almost equidistant, on the other side of Runcorn, from where he had come. At the realisation, he gave a sigh but continued to study the map, noting down directions for himself on the back of the piece of paper the mother superior had given him. Stockton Heath lay south of the Manchester Ship Canal – Christopher was pretty sure that was the canal that ran along the edge of the Mersey – and north of the Bridgewater Canal, the same canal that had its basin in his home town, Runcorn. It was a wonder Billy wasn’t born on a barge, he thought, and for a moment he wondered if this might be the case. He imagined himself and Billy, both born on different barges, one heading up the Manchester Ship Canal and one up the Bridgewater, like Vikings en route to Avalon.
Forty-five minutes later, he turned into Whitefield Road, surprised to find it so well-to-do. He parked outside a particularly imposing Victorian house, not daring to pull into the driveway, which, he calculated, could probably have held four or five cars. As it was, there was a new BMW parked there. It looked clean enough to perform surgery on the bonnet. Breathing deeply and as regularly as he could, he made his way to the door. A cord hung next to it. He pulled on it and heard a sombre chime ring out from the depths of the house.
He waited, checked his watch. It was 1 p.m. He still hoped to be back before Phyllis.
At the sound of footsteps, he straightened his shoulders, coughed into his hand and threw back his head. The door opened. A tall, rather elegant-looking man with silver hair stood on the threshold.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said. He wore round tortoiseshell glasses, a pale red knitted waistcoat over a beige and brown checked shirt. On his feet were tartan slippers.
‘Good afternoon,’ Christopher began, all the words he had rehearsed in the car disappearing at once from his mind. ‘My name is Christopher Harris. I’m looking for Rebecca Hurst.’
‘Rebecca doesn’t live here, I’m afraid.’ The man made to close the door.
‘Wait a moment.’ Ben’s story came back to him. ‘She’s a friend of my mother’s, or was – a close friend. My mother received a phone call from her the other day – well, in truth, I did. I didn’t realise how important she was to my mother and I’m afraid I didn’t take her number. My mother was very cross and I was keen to put it right. To cut a long story short, she knew where Rebecca lived when they were teenagers and so she gave me this address.’ He saw something flicker in the old man’s face. He was a decent chap, kind, gentle, of that there was no doubt. ‘But perhaps I’m mistaken. I’ll let you go.’
‘No, wait.’ The man stood aside. ‘She did live here. Come inside a moment. I have an address.’
As Christopher stepped into the enormous hallway, the man continued to talk. The hallway was bigger than Phyllis’s living room, with a staircase that doubled back on itself, walls that continued up beyond the second flight. An antique telephone table, what he thought was called an occasional chair, and on the wall opposite, an ornate cross covered in polished coloured stones.
‘She’s our daughter. She did live here but she doesn’t any longer. I’m afraid we’ve had very little contact with her for a few years now.’ The man opened the drawer of the hall table and pulled out a leather-bound address book. ‘Let’s see. Do you have a pen and paper?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t. What an idiot.’
‘Not at all. Let’s not be hard on ourselves.’ The man smiled. Really, he was so very nice. Classy, Phyllis would say. Margaret would no doubt have remarked on his lovely way of speaking, his quiet manners. ‘I’ve a notepad here somewhere.’ He dug about in the drawer, found the notepad and a Bic biro. ‘There. Hardly a Sheaffer, but it will do.’ He handed the pen and the paper to Christopher. ‘Come through.’
Christopher followed the man, Rebecca’s father, down the hall, to where there was effectively a T-junction, one way leading left, the other right. He turned right and opened a door with a frosted window in it. Christopher followed him into a spacious kitchen, which smelled of cinnamon, he thought, and sugar. He wondered if the man’s wife was baking, like Phyllis, for the Easter celebrations.
‘Now, if you take a seat at that table, you’ll be able to write down what you need.’ The man nodded towards an old oak table, large enough to seat ten or twelve without a squeeze. Beneath it was a rug worn thin, pinks and reds long faded, flowers almost indiscernible in the flattened pile.
‘Thank you,’ said Christopher, and sat to copy the address.
‘Tea?’ said the man. ‘I’m Claud, by the way. Claud Hurst. Pleased to meet you…’
‘Christopher.’
‘Christopher, of course, you said.’ Claud was staring at him. ‘Have we met?’