hadn’t really thought that far ahead. I’d been expecting Mum to be here and had taken a few days off work to see her. I’m sure I told Alec this yesterday, but after ten years together he still doesn’t listen.
‘I don’t…’ I begin, but Alec butts in as usual.
‘Look I’m free tomorrow evening. Have dinner with me, will you?’
I pause, thinking. Now my mother is across the Atlantic, I don’t have to be anywhere in particular until my next meeting at Jones & Cartwright at the end of the week. I may as well go back to Cambridge. Back home.
‘Julia,’ he says impatiently.
‘Yes, sorry! Tomorrow’s fine. Shall I meet you at the college?’
‘Yes, about eight. See you then.’ And he rings off.
It isn’t until he’s gone that I realise he didn’t even ask me what the solicitor wanted.
6th June 1986
My dearest daughter,
Today I held you in my arms for the first time since the day you were born three years ago. You didn’t know who I was and something tells me it will be a long time before you do, but it was a joy to be with you on your special day.
I don’t know much about children – I haven’t ever had the chance to learn – and I don’t know how much you will remember about today, but I will carry it with me for the rest of my life.
Today marks sixty days of sobriety for me, which is the longest stretch in a long, long time. I think that’s why your mother let me see you. I’m staying clean this time, my darling girl, just for you and the hope that if I do, I will get to see you more and more.
There were so many people at the party that I’m sure you won’t remember me. All your mother’s friends were there. I can’t keep up any more with who lives at the house and who doesn’t. I only had eyes for you anyway.
Do you remember dancing with me? Perhaps you do, perhaps you don’t. You said my beard tickled. We danced to Penny Lane by the Beatles; you asked for it to be played three times. You loved the bit about the fire engine.
You fell asleep before the sun set, exhausted from the excitement, the presents, the music and too much sugar. Somebody, probably Johnny, carried you to bed and the party went on late into the night. It may have gone on until dawn for all I know. Once you were no longer there I wasn’t interested in the temptations of a Campden Hill Road party, not like I used to be.
I tried to talk to Delph. I tried to ask her to let me see you. I asked if I could take you out sometime, just to the park or something. I said I would never tell you who I was but she was adamant. There was nothing I could do.
But I will always love you.
Happy Birthday, Princess.
I hope we will see each other again soon.
Your Father
‘You couldn’t make it up!’ Graeme exclaims in astonishment, as he reaches over for another cupcake. I’m sitting opposite him and Pen, my two best friends, trying to tell them about Edwin Jones’s news.
‘And it’s a damn sight better than that elephant’s foot,’ Pen interjects.
Pen and I have been friends for years. We live together in Cambridge and Graeme often comes along for the ride. We all used to work in this café together. I was still a student at the time and am several years younger than both of them. I met Pen the summer before my final year at university. I hadn’t wanted to go back to London that summer; I couldn’t face three months living with my mother, and Pen was looking to rent out the spare bedroom of the house she’d recently inherited from her grandmother.
The café was always looking for new waiting staff, even clumsy hopeless ones like me, so the job came with the room. After I graduated I moved into Pen’s house and the waitressing job full-time. I don’t think she realises how grateful I am to her. She helped me find some independence when I needed it most.
Pen and Graeme run the place these days, whereas I have moved on to the headier heights of paralegal work at one of the big law firms in the centre of Cambridge. I’ve worked my way up from office junior over the last eight years. After university I’d been intending to go to law school and working at the office was supposed to give me some experience. I hadn’t intended to stay there for eight years.
When I worked here the café was one of those ‘Olde Worlde’ tearooms that historic cities love so much. You know the type: scones and cream and white lacy aprons. It had been there for as long as anyone could remember. Just after I left the owner died and the café was bought out by an American, who turned it into a 1950s’ diner, complete with neon signage, old-fashioned jukeboxes, and huge milkshakes.
Cambridge is divided into people who love it and people who think it’s the worst thing to have happened to the city in 800 years. There was so much correspondence about it in the local paper when it first opened that the editor had to call an end to any more letters on the subject. I’m mostly glad I don’t have to work here any more; I’m far too tall for the vintage uniforms.
Creamadelica, as it’s now called, has become one of the busiest cafés in town over the last few years and the three of us are squeezed into one of the hot-pink, faux-leather booths during a lull in service.
‘All my life I’ve wondered who my father was and now it turns out he’s dead and everyone has heard of him but me.’
‘Had you really never heard of Bruce Baldwin?’ Graeme asks.
I shake my head. Somehow this famous Turner-prize-winning artist has passed me by. I wonder how this has happened. It seems Bruce Baldwin was famous enough that even people who weren’t that into art have heard of him, like that guy who pickled a cow when I was a kid. Sometimes I feel as though so much has passed me by.
I realise Graeme is waxing lyrical about my father. Turns out he’s something of an art buff.
‘He held one final exhibition last autumn. He knew he was dying by then I suppose, so he had this big installation at the Tate Modern. Do you really not remember me talking about it, Julia?’
I shake my head again. Graeme talks a lot about a lot of different things. It’s mostly impossible to keep up with him. I notice Pen is staring out of the window; she finds it hard to keep up with him too.
‘I went along because rumour had it that it was his last exhibition. God, it was just wonderful. He left all his work to the Tate, right?’
I realise he’s asking me a question. ‘Everything that isn’t privately owned, yes,’ I reply, trying to remember what Edwin had told me. ‘It’s all in my name now, which is rather mind-boggling, but it lives at the Tate.’
Graeme nods and carries on and I realise that he’s quite passionate about Bruce Baldwin’s work. Pen and I exchange a glance. Who knew?
