He laid his hand over mine and I put my other arm around his shoulders. He was shaking, still crying. It’s a terrible thing to see a man cry – any man, let alone one you love. I knew how much it cost him to let me see him like that. I knew it must have been bad, what had happened.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Tell me, tell Phyllis.’
And he did. He told me everything. Between racking sobs, he told me how Ben had come to the house claiming to be my son, how he’d written to Ben pretending to be me. He told me all about Ben, how he lived in San Francisco, how he worked as a graphic designer, had a girlfriend called Martha. He told me how he’d been to the convent. The mother superior had seen him straight away, he said, and he’d told her there’d been a mistake.
‘I asked her if she’d had a visitor,’ he said. ‘A Benjamin Bradbury.’ He tried to smile at the memory but his mouth had set, would not move beyond the bare minimum required to speak. ‘I told her she’d given Benjamin my details. It took all my willpower not to shout at her. I told her I didn’t know how that had happened but that I’d been reunited with you, my birth mother, for some years now.
‘I told her I’d been through the official channels, that I had a birth certificate at home and letters from the adoption counsellor. “The mistake can’t be with me,” I said. “There must have been a mistake here at the convent. I’ve thought about it a lot and it seems to me it would require nothing simpler than documentation put in the wrong file or a missing file or a file not sent – something administrative. Or an ankle band put on the wrong baby. Or a label on the wrong crib.” ’
I took more tissues, dipped them in water, pressed them to his bleeding lip. ‘What did she say?’ I asked him.
‘I was right,’ he said. ‘Turned out there were two boys born that day.’
‘So there was a mistake?’ I said.
‘She remembered you. She was Sister Lawrence.’ He looked at me.
I nodded. ‘I remember her. She’s the one I told you about. The one I had to give you to.’
‘That’s exactly what I said. I told her you said she was kind. Anyway, I asked for the other mother’s address. She told me she couldn’t give it to me. So I stood up. I stood up because I know I’m tall and I knew that would intimidate her. My hands were clenched into fists and I pushed my fists against her green leather desktop.
‘ “I’m afraid you must,” I said.’
He had stopped crying by now and he gave a loud sniff before carrying on.
‘I knew I’d made her afraid and I felt the weight on my soul. All through my time at college I’d been haunted by that monster who made women afraid, and here I was, standing over an old woman, threatening her.’
‘You did what you had to do,’ I said. ‘Then what happened?’
He shrugged. ‘She gave me what I needed. Ben’s mother was called Rebecca Hurst. Her family came from Stockton Heath. She said Rebecca used to sing to him.’
Christopher told me the sorry tale of how he’d found Rebecca, a poor, desperate woman, and how he’d given her friend the rendezvous time and place. How he’d met Ben in the pub and how when he tried to explain everything, Ben had half-closed his left eye.
‘And I knew,’ he said.
‘Knew what?’
‘Knew I couldn’t lie to myself any more.’
‘What about?’
He turned to me and held both my hands in his. ‘Oh Phyllis.’ He was crying again. ‘The mistake was mine. Ben is your son. He is Martin.’
‘What? What are you saying?’
‘Lies. I’ve been lying. I knew it the moment he came to the door – I could see he was your son. Oh God.’ He broke, his face in his hands.
I waited, in chaos, for him to continue.
‘I couldn’t let you go,’ he said once he’d composed himself enough to speak. We were still holding hands. ‘I can’t. I love you, Phyllis.’
‘And I love you. Nothing can change that, Chris.’
‘But I’m not Chris,’ he said, his voice ragged. ‘And I’m not Martin. Don’t you see? I’m not your son. I’m Billy. I’m not your son. I’m no one.’
And I knew it then too. I could not explain how or why, but when Christopher said it, it was as if I too had known. He had presented me with a truth I wanted so very badly that I did nothing to doubt or question its veracity. I didn’t want another truth. I wanted my son. I saw my son. But he was not my son.
Yet he was not nothing. He was not no one.
‘Did I do wrong,’ he said, ‘to send him away?’
‘Is that what happened?’
He nodded. ‘I told him he had to leave us alone. We’re happy, I told him, and he had to let us live in peace. We had a fight. That’s why I’m all muddy. But in the end, he accepted it. He thinks the mistake is his. He goes back to the States tomorrow. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I only did it because I knew if you saw him you would know and then where would I go? Who would I be? If he came and took you, I’d kill myself, I would.’
‘Don’t say that,’ I whispered. ‘Don’t even let yourself think things like that. We’ll work this out, the two of us, I promise.’
‘I know where he’s staying. You can go there now if you like.’
‘No, love,’ I said. ‘I can’t leave you here like this.’
I’ll admit I felt the pull to go, to see my son just once, to tell him I had not abandoned him, that I had loved him. But I was also speaking the truth – how could I leave Christopher like that? Ben was my son. But I loved Christopher.
Christopher, whose despair was depthless. The pink light gave him a kind of halo, and his eyes were so deep and brown and he looked so sad and so innocent. He was a child, really. No more than a child. He collapsed across my lap and I stroked his tangled hair.
‘I’ve loved you since before I met you,’ he said.
‘And I you.’ We were both crying.
‘I’m Billy,’ he said softly.
‘Yes, you are. But I love you whoever you are, whatever you’ve done. I would forgive you anything, anything at all.’
Through the crack in the curtain, the sky had begun to lighten. I checked the radio alarm and saw it was after four.
‘Then I need to tell you the truth,’ he said.
‘What truth? You’ve already told me.’
‘There’s more.’
And then he told me the rest. What had really happened down by the canal.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
If I close my eyes now, I can see the whole scene play out. Christopher and Ben, down by the canal. Soon there will be footsteps clack-clacking over the bridge, giggles ripe with promise. The night owls are already hooting and staggering away to their homes, to alleyways, to back terrace walls. Skirts will be concertinaed against bare white thighs, flies will be unzipped in haste. Yes, it is late. The hour for drunks and geezers has come, the hour for sex, for murder. Is that what this was? Or was it a kind of exchange for him – one life for another where two could not be? Was murder the only way he thought he could secure his place in the world?
Christopher pleads his case. Ben punches Christopher because he doesn’t believe him. Maybe he realises that Christopher has brought him here under false pretences. Whatever, they fight. Who is Billy, who is Martin?
You’re Billy.
No, you are.
You.