seven years, wasn’t it time he thought of re-marrying?’
She was seventeen when their parents disappeared on a sailing holiday, seven years older than he was, and she’d assumed the rôle of mother figure. John suspected that she resented Rees taking that authority away from her at the time but there was nothing she could have done about it. So now at thirty-nine, she still sometimes tried to set his life to rights. They’d been over the question of marriage several times although she’d never gone as far as asking if he was celibate. Maybe that was on the agenda this time? But he was wrong.
‘It’s about David,’ she said, and immediately John felt a familiar twinge of guilt. Gwen had taken David into her home when he was a baby of four weeks old and at that time John had felt nothing more than relief. For the first years he’d been content to be a visiting father, but gradually guilt had replaced the relief and as if she could read his thoughts, Gwen spoke gently.
‘My own three are settled in boarding-school and Greg wants me to sell up here and join him in Aberdeen. He’s tired of us being separated for weeks on end and the move wouldn’t make any difference to our boys. They’d come to us in the holidays as usual, but David’s a different matter. We feel …’ she hesitated. ‘Greg says I should ask you if you want to make a home for David.’
‘Mm.’ John let his breath out in a long sigh and Gwen quickly went on.
‘He could always board like my three, or be a day boy. There’s no rush to decide,’ she said anxiously. ‘And to be honest I’ll weep buckets because he’s like my own son. Greg is right, though—it has to be your decision.’
He hadn’t expected this. Somehow the future had stretched ahead much the same as it was now, with David growing up happily with Gwen.
‘I don’t know anything about being a father,’ he said, which was very true. ‘And David is always so polite that I feel more like his uncle—you must have noticed how he is with me. Wouldn’t it turn his life upside down to move him now?’
‘The only alternative is to take him to Aberdeen,’ she reminded him, and John knew he didn’t want that. It wasn’t fair on Gwen for a start, but he realized that he didn’t like the idea of not seeing his son regularly either.
‘Maybe you should ask him,’ Gwen said. ‘I know he’s only seven but he may know exactly what he wants.’
John had looked around the comfortable room which was almost shabby in its comfort. Gwen had never been interested in smart décor and the furniture showed the knocks of rough handling by four growing boys. The bungalow had an acre of garden that was trampled by football and rugby, and Gwen herself had the comfortable roundness that came from a contented life, while he had a small flat and no idea of how to be a father to a seven-year-old boy.
‘Just think about it,’ his sister urged. She didn’t nag, although in the past she had made it plain that she despaired of the way he’d lost all impetus in life after his wife was killed. It had been very easy for him to take each day as it came, letting others make the decisions.
Lights were coming on in the houses of the little market town. A milk-float hummed by and some early commuters quietly left their homes, closing doors on families still asleep. The world was waking up as he headed back to breakfast, his breath streaming out in a condensed cloud while sweat trickled down inside his tracksuit.
He would have to look for a house, he’d decided, and home help. He couldn’t provide all that Gwen hoped for—certainly not a mother-figure, and that was the one aspect that she hadn’t mentioned. Maybe she knew of the existence of Clare Aitken and the unconventional affair that had lasted for three years, and guessed that in that respect he had a different problem.
How would Clare react to having a young child thrust into their lives? What difference was it going to make? He had no idea. And how did you ask your son if he’d like to live with you when you’d never been able to reach out to hug him? There were no rough and tumble games, no physical contact at all—David never even reached for his hand when they were out together. The years of partial separation had put a barrier between them and he didn’t know how to cross it. In the last few years, when fatherly feelings had finally come to the surface, he admitted to himself that he’d been afraid that his child would flinch away from him and had even felt jealous when he saw how easy the relationship was between David and Greg. Greg had been the natural father-figure and perhaps David had become confused by the two male adults in his life. Who could blame him?
Gwen was grilling bacon. He could smell it as he went up the path of the house and the juices ran in his mouth.
‘I’ll have a quick shower,’ he said, popping his head around the kitchen door and she nodded. She knew where he’d been, and why.
‘You know, David has been asking questions lately,’ she said as they ate. ‘We’ve never made a secret of why he lives with us but he’s obviously been thinking about it. And little boys don’t miss much.’
‘Does he talk about Trish as well?’
‘Of course. He has photographs of her and I know he talks to his grandfather about her.’
‘Gumley won’t be able to tell him much,’ John said angrily. ‘He hardly saw anything of Trish after his wife walked out on him.’
‘Maybe the old man has forgotten those days. You only remember the bits you want to remember.’
John pushed away his plate. Gwen didn’t know all of Albert Gumley’s background and she tended to see good in everyone. He changed the subject.
‘I’ll have a talk with David before I go—I had intended leaving right after lunch but we’ll see how it goes.’
‘I heard the forecast and it isn’t good. There’s snow sweeping down from the north,’ she said as she got up to clear the table and John went to look at the heavy sky.
‘How much film have you got left?’ he asked David later. It turned out that most of the spare spools that he’d bought to go with the camera had been used up, so they walked to the shops to buy more and to put the others in to be developed. And as they walked, David skipped ahead with the camera hanging from a strap around his wrist. His legs were long and out of proportion to the rest of his body, showing that he might one day match his father’s height, and he had John’s dark colouring.
There was hardly any physical resemblance to his mother, but he had a lot of her mannerisms: her easy laughter, a way of tilting his head when he was thinking, and sudden spells of quietness when nothing could distract him from what he was doing. And he had Trish’s eye for detail and colour; John realized that it was only lately that he’d even noticed that his wife lived on in their son. And he’d felt cheated. They could have had a proper family life if a drunk hadn’t driven up on to the pavement …
‘David, Aunty Gwen and I were wondering if you’d like to go to school with your cousins,’ he said as they walked back to the house. David didn’t seem surprised by the question and he even paused to zip up his camera bag carefully.
‘Joseph asked me that in the summer holidays but I didn’t know if you’d let me,’ he said with a shrug.
‘What made you think that?’
David looked up at him thoughtfully. ‘Because then you’d have no one to visit except Uncle Rees.’ He chewed the inside of his cheek before going on and his expression was quite serious. ‘But Joe thought you
