Emma and I talked more about Robert, telling me what he’d what he liked and disliked, his sense of humour, what he’d been like as a boy. I asked about him joining the Royal Marines, and a line appeared between her eyebrows.
“You’ve got me there, Darryl; none of us know what made him do it; Robbie was so quiet, gentle, and soft-spoken, it was a complete surprise, actually, it was a huge shock, when he announced he’d joined-up. Robbie was interested in art, in sketching, painting; he spent all his spare time drawing all sorts of things; birds, insects, cars passing the house, the other kids in the playground at school, and of course endless studies of Lizzie; I think he thought he was somehow letting dad down, that he wasn’t being ‘manly’ enough or something, but I don’t know where he got that from, certainly not from dad; dad was so proud of his ability. No-one in our family had ever been anything like that; they were always blue-collar working men, not a trace of artistic ability or inclination; Robbie was the first. When he went away to the Falklands, dad was convinced he wasn’t coming back, and when he heard the news that he’d been killed, he just locked himself in his room and stayed there for days.”
She stopped talking while she took a sip of her coffee, her eyes distant.
“He never mentioned Robbie again after that, but then he hardly ever spoke again, and when he died, one of the things he’d requested in his will was that we collect all Robbie’s drawings, sketches, paintings, everything, and bury them with him. When Lizzie heard the news of his death, she took all the sketches and paintings of her, everything Robbie’d ever done for her, and burned them, just so she’d never be reminded of him. She took his loss as hard as dad did, in her own way, which is why I never judged her; what do you do when the centre of your world is wrenched away from you? Lizzie chose to remove any reminder of it, to deny it ever existed, and I can’t say I really blame her.”
She paused to take another sip from her coffee, her eyes glittering with unshed tears.
“I believed then, and I still believe now, that my dad died of a broken heart when that sniper took his son away, it just took a while for him to realise he was dead. Robbie was one of a kind, a gentle, sweet, generous boy, and when he was taken, something broke inside Lizzie as well; she’d owned him since he was six years old, he was always there, always in arm’s reach; they always knew when the other needed them, they didn’t even need to speak, they just knew what the other was thinking. I know Lizzie didn’t want him to join-up, but she also knew it was something he thought he had to do. He was 20 the week he was killed; his mates on the ship even gave him a cake on the way down there. What a bloody waste that war was, all those boys killed, on both sides, for a couple of wind-blown, desolate islands in the middle of nowhere…”
Much as I tried to suppress it, I began to feel a connection and a strong surge of sympathy for this young man who’d fathered me and died before he ever saw me, and it made me feel guilty, as though I was being disloyal to dad; after all, he was the one who brought me up, in every way I could describe it, he was my dad, no-one else.
Emma picked up on that conflict, and gently steered the conversation away from me and onto the rest of her family, telling me about my other aunts, and my cousins, in Australia and in London. I learned about the scandal surrounding my cousin Julie and the circumstances of her birth, and how Emma and her youngest sister had lost touch with Lois, the middle sister, the mother of Mark and Julie. As we chatted, it became obvious she missed her sister, and regretted not trying harder to keep in touch with her
“I wish I’d tried to locate her years ago, I know where she used to live, but the last time I went to London I went to the last address I had and it was a supermarket, the whole area was gone, ‘redeveloped’ they called it, even the street names had been changed. Mark would be about four years younger than you, you’re what, nearly 26? So Mark would be about 22, and Julie would be maybe 18 or 19 now; I wish I’d been there to see her grow up; she needed so much, and got so little from Lois. I remember Mark, such a sweet little boy, bright golden hair, just like his father, and Julie, the last time I saw her she was just a baby, but she looked like a little angel; it’s a pity Lois did what she did, and her husband just leaving like that didn’t help one bit; I would have taken that little girl, and Mark, in a heartbeat; but she was adamant; Mark stayed with her, and Julie, too, even though she hated her. I often wondered what she did with that little girl, she didn’t want her, she hated her, but she wouldn’t give her up for adoption or let me take her. Lois always was a difficult girl, and, well…”
She took a sip of her coffee, her eyes far away.
“I used to wonder how Julie grew up in a house where no-one loved her; Mark was just a little boy, and Lois just kept him around, she never once treated him like anything except a thing, something to keep around the house; she hated Julie though; it puzzled me how it was possible for a mother to hate her own child so, but she never harmed her or neglected her, so I couldn’t even report her, Social Services would have found nothing, Lois was careful about that, oh yes! It was perfectly alright for her to have an affair, get pregnant, and expect her husband to claim the baby as his own; then, when he decided he couldn’t, she blamed that poor little girl; she should have looked in the mirror instead!”
She sighed and drained her coffee, signalling for another one.
“I do wonder where that poor little girl is now. I hope she’s happy; she was such a sweet, lovely-natured little baby; she had bright golden hair, almost white, it was so fair; she looked like a little golden haired cherub, and she had the biggest, most beautiful, bright green eyes; it makes me so sad to think she must have had a bloody miserable childhood with Lois always breathing down her neck. If I’d known where they were I’d have gone and tried to take her away, and that poor boy too; I can’t even imagine what kind of a life they must have had! It’s always troubled me that I didn’t do enough to get those children away from Lois; I loved her dearly, but she had a mean streak and a nasty side to her tongue, and so much anger in her; she had it in her to hurt them one day, I just have to hope to God she didn’t!”
We strolled back to the house to find Lizzie, Aunt Doreen, and Lena wreathed in smiles; Lena had booked five return flights to Paphos for Saturday, three days away, returning the following Saturday, so as not to miss the first day of Christmas Term at school
The kids weren’t too happy about that; they’d been hoping for a little extra time off school, but they were getting a trip to Cyprus, so ultimately they were satisfied. Lena had then called mum and told her, but asked her to keep it a surprise that Lizzie and the kids were coming with us. Apparently, Mum had gotten quite teary; even though she wasn’t Lizzie’s mother, she’d had a small part in bringing her up, and had been as heartbroken as dad when she’d disappeared; obviously we didn’t know this, I got it all later from Lena after the visitors had left.