heavily. ‘We really know nothing about our mother’s life...well, only what Gran told us and that wasn’t much and none of it was flattering. She certainly never mentioned that there were three of us!’
‘When Annabel was young she led quite an exciting life,’ Vanessa volunteered ruefully. ‘She was a highly qualified nanny and she travelled a great deal and lived abroad for long periods. She worked for some very wealthy families and earned an excellent salary, often with lots of perks thrown in. But obviously when she had children of her own she couldn’t take them to work with her, which is why you ended up in your grandmother’s care. But when you were both still quite young, Annabel did return to London, where she tried to set up a childcare facility. She poured all her savings into it. She was planning to bring the two of you home to live with her. But, sadly, it all went wrong. The business failed, the relationship she was in fell apart and she discovered that she was pregnant again.’
‘And she gave birth to another girl? What’s our sister called? Why are we only hearing about her now?’ Polly gasped, only a little touched by the news that the mother she had never known had actually once planned to raise her own children. Indeed that struck her as a very remote possibility because it had seemed to her as a child that she had a mother who ran away from responsibility. Even worse, her outlook was coloured by the reality that she and Ellie had been brought up by a woman who bitterly resented the responsibility of having to raise her granddaughters at a time in her life when she had expected to take life at an easier pace.
Their sister’s name was Penelope Dixon and Vanessa had no further information to offer. ‘I did approach social services but as I’m not a blood relative I wasn’t in a position to push. One of you would have to make enquiries. Penelope could have been adopted but I understand that if that proves to be the case you could leave a letter on file for her should she ever enquire about her birth family.’
Their meals were brought to the table. Vanessa withdrew three envelopes from her bag. ‘Your mother has left each of you a ring and I must ask you to take charge of your youngest sister’s ring for her—’
‘A...ring?’ Polly repeated in a renewed daze of astonishment.
‘And with each a name. I assume, your fathers’ names...although Annabel was very evasive on that score,’ the older woman revealed uncomfortably. ‘I should warn you now that I’m not sure that Annabel actually knew who your fathers were beyond any shadow of doubt.’
Polly paled. ‘Oh...’ she said, in a voice that spoke volumes.
‘She wasn’t specific but I did receive the impression that when she was living the high life, looking after her rich employers’ children, she may...er...possibly have been a little free with her favours,’ the other woman advanced in a very quiet voice of apology.
‘Sorry...? You mean...?’ Polly began uncertainly.
‘She slept around,’ Ellie translated bluntly with a grimace. ‘Well, thank you for being honest enough to tell us that before we get excited about those names. But with that particular disease, I know that Annabel may have had problems accessing her memories and she may have become confused when she tried to focus on the past.’
The instant Vanessa handed Polly her envelope, Polly ripped it open, patience never having been one of her virtues. A heavy and ornate gold ring with a large stone fell out and she threaded it on her finger but it was far too large. It was, she finally registered, a man’s ring, not a woman’s. She peered down at the stone, which flickered with changeable hues of red, orange and yellow.
‘It’s a fire opal, very unusual but not, I understand, particularly valuable,’ Vanessa proffered. ‘It’s also an antique and foreign made.’
‘Right...’ Polly muttered blankly, returning to extract the small sheet of paper enclosed in the envelope and frown down at it.
Zahir Basara... Dharia.
‘My...my father may be of Arabic descent?’ Polly murmured in sheer wonderment, because, in the most obvious terms, she looked as though she had not a drop of more exotic climes in her veins and indeed had been asked several times if she was from Scandinavia. ‘I have heard of Dharia—’
‘Your mother was a nanny in the royal household there...right up until the royal family died,’ Vanessa volunteered.
And Polly immediately wondered if there was a connection to her birth name, which had been Zariyah and which was on her passport. Her grandmother had always called her Polly, having disliked her foreign name.
‘I’ve got an emerald!’ Ellie announced as if she had just opened a Christmas cracker, her whole demeanour suggesting that she had no intention of taking either ring or name too seriously.
‘And the name?’ Polly pressed with rampant curiosity, hoping that it would be the same as her own putative father’s because at least that would suggest that the relationship had been more than a passing fling.
‘Possibly a name of Italian extraction. I’ll keep it to myself for now though.’ Ellie dug the envelope into her bag with an air of finality but she was unusually pale. At Vanessa’s instigation she also took charge of the envelope intended for their sister, Penelope. ‘Maybe our mother collected engagement rings—’
‘My ring is a man’s,’ Polly argued.
‘Yes, but there could have been an intention to make it smaller,’ Ellie pointed out calmly. ‘I wish she’d left us a letter telling us about herself. Would it be possible for us to visit the hospice, Vanessa? I’d very much like to see where Annabel spent her last days and speak to the staff.’
And while the two other women became involved in an intense discussion about the hospice, the disease that had taken Annabel’s life and the research that Vanessa’s charity raised funds to support, Polly drifted off inside her head, something that she did frequently when her imagination was caught.
Just then she was thinking about the fire opal and wondering if it had been a symbol of love. Ellie was of a more practical bent but Polly liked to think she had, at least, been born to parents who had been in love at the time of her conception. Love between two people of different cultures would have been testing, she reflected, and perhaps those differences had become too great to surmount. Even so, that name in the envelope had sparked a mad craving inside her for facts about the country of Dharia.
Did she have Dharian blood running in her veins? Was it even possible that her father could still be alive? And that he might want to get to know her?
Polly had a deep longing to have a real parent. Her mother had virtually abandoned them and while her grandmother had not mistreated Polly and Ellie she certainly hadn’t loved them. Polly thought it would be absolutely wonderful to have a parent who actually cared for her as an individual, someone who would celebrate her strengths and overlook and forgive her weaknesses.
‘You’re not charging off to some foreign country to make enquiries,’ Ellie said drily, having perused her sister’s ring and the name on the piece of paper and surmised exactly where her sister’s fertile imagination was taking her. ‘It would be insane.’
And Polly had never ever done anything insane, never ever...
No, she had not defied her grandmother when she had won a place at art college and the older woman told her that she couldn’t take it up because it was her duty to go out and get a paying job to help support the household. While suitably employed in a lowly but enjoyable position for a charitable enterprise,
