The City Affair Page 8

Behind was a piece of light blue tissue paper which Tish carefully removed to reveal a colour photo of a woman who she surmised must be of Chinese-American origin, wearing an expensive dark red tailored business suit.

  She had long straight black hair, the exact opposite colour and style to her mother’s, and smiled confidently at the camera. At her neck sat a large diamond in the shape of a teardrop. Tish sat slightly forwards in her chair, and her heart lurched as she took a closer look. This must be her father’s mistress, Tish thought, and the mother of her half-brother.

  Looking more closely at the detail in the photo, she noticed a huge, exquisitely cut diamond ring on the woman’s finger, with a stone probably four times the size of her mother’s. These things mattered, she thought wistfully, as she continued to stare at the woman she had never met and yet who’d turned her life and the life of her mother on its head.

  The final and largest photo, taken very close up, was of a small boy with a hugely mischievous smile and piercing blue eyes. Reaching out her fingers towards him, she touched his face with her fingertips and smiled at his innocence and youthful joy.

  After holding the pictures for a few moments, unsure what to do with them, Tish carefully set all of the photos out in front of her on top of her father’s desk so she could look at them one by one.

  As she stared at the picture of the red-suited woman again, Tish let her emotions wash over her. Strangely, she did not feel hatred or resentment towards her. In an odd way, it was a relief to find out what she looked like. Her eyes then moved back to the photo of her half-brother.

  It was difficult to tell how old he was exactly, but probably much younger than she had first thought when Peter Heyworth had originally given them the news.

  These were the photos, Tish thought, that provided the clues to the missing years – the years that her father was absent ‘on business.’ The photos that by rights, should sit alongside the silver framed photos of her and her parents on the antique dresser in the Thorpe family sitting room.

  Tish had known immediately on coming face-to-face with the mistress and the half-brother that her father had wanted her to know about them and to someday meet them.

  As she went to put all the photos back in the blue tissue paper, a small piece of white paper neatly folded floated onto the floor.

  Opening it up, Tish found a list of phone numbers, each with a name next to it. Reaching over to the phone, she dialled the mobile number for someone called Daphne and held her breath as it rang.

  Chapter 16 - Daphne Lu

  Daphne Lu entered the Japanese restaurant at exactly midday, wearing the same jewellery and the same couture burgundy suit with matching Christian Louboutin shoes and handbag which she had worn in the photo. She walked straight over to Tish, extended her hand hesitantly, as if unsure of the etiquette of meeting her dead lover’s daughter, and smiled.

  “Tish,” Daphne said in a strong New York accent. “I’m so pleased to meet with you finally after all this time. I wondered if we ever would, and I’m just so sorry it has to be in these circumstances.”

  “Hullo,” Tish replied as she looked up and shook hands. After finally coming face to face with the woman her father had built another life with, her stomach lurched towards her mouth.

  “I hope you found this place ok?” Daphne continued unfazed, as she sat down. “It’s not the easiest of restaurants to find, but it’s worth it when you do.”

  “I got here in the end,” Tish replied, her voice sounding somehow muffled and distant. She really wasn’t sure how to respond. The hurt tone she had been planning on using didn’t feel like the right one suddenly. “I took a cab from the hotel, and the driver took a few wrong turns at one point so it was touch and go if I ever would get here…”

  “Yes. That can happen,” Daphne smiled before taking control of the drinks and food menu. “What can I get you to drink? I think I‘ll just take a jasmine tea, but please do have something stronger if you want. They do nice beers and rice wine here.”

  “Er, tea will be fine for me as well,” Tish replied. “I can’t drink anything stronger during the day, and especially not after a long flight.”

  “Very wise,” Daphne said, handing Tish a menu. “Why don’t you take a look at the food as well, and see what you want to order. Everything on here is excellent. So you can’t make a wrong choice.”

  “Is it one of your favourites?” Tish asked, scanning the menu while trying to remain calm under the pressure of having to speed order.

  Their conversation was interrupted by a waiter who glided over to the table. “Good to see you ma’am,” he said, addressing Daphne like he knew her quite well. “Are you ready to order?”

  “No not yet, but we soon will be,” Daphne replied, winking up at him.

  “Ok, no problem ma’am, just call me over when you’re ready,” the waiter responded before moving away from the table.

  “I came here with your father a lot over a long number of years,” Daphne answered as a way of explaining the familiarity. “It was a real favourite of his and mine. It’s close to where he worked, and still closer to where I currently work at Lehman Brothers, so handy for lunches and dinner. Nothing takes too long and no-one makes a big fuss.”

  Tish was taken aback by Daphne’s candour. She didn’t seem to have any problem talking openly about the fact she and her father had been a couple for a long time, despite the fact she was sitting opposite his daughter who had only just become aware of her existence.

  “Shall we order?” Daphne continued as she unashamedly called the waiter back over.

  “Yes, sure, fine with me. I just want a salmon sushi and a soup that’s all,” Tish said, quickly looking around trying to imagine her father in the restaurant.

  “I think I’ll join you with exactly that,” Daphne said, as she confirmed their order with the waiter in a very efficient way.

  The casualness with which Daphne had alluded to the relationship she’d had with her father gave Tish an unstoppable urge to ask all the questions that Peter Heyworth didn’t seem to have answers to.

  Like, why and when had it all started? Why hadn‘t her father been honest about the fact he had another life? And how did either of them think they would keep a child secret for ever? Fortunately, Daphne showed no desire to hold back.

  “By the way, your brother’s name is Jake,” Daphne replied, her eyes looking down at the table before clearing her throat and repeating what she had just said. “His name is Jake.”

  “That’s a nice name,” Tish responded in a guarded tone, not really knowing what else to say as the jasmine tea arrived at the table. “The solicitor didn’t give us many details other than the fact that I had a half-sibling and that my father had bequeathed him a sizeable trust fund that he gets when he reaches eighteen.”

  Daphne looked down into her tea at the mention of the trust fund, cradling her cup. “How was your flight?” she asked, keen to change the subject. “I wondered whether you would get here at all. The weather these past few days has been threatening to snow heavily.”

  “It was fine in the end,” Tish answered, looking at Daphne, surprised by the fact she seemed intent on avoiding further mention about the money.

  Daphne reached out an immaculately manicured hand and clasped Tish’s arm. “I’m sure it’s been more than tough for you these past few weeks. I’m worried about how losing your dad is going to affect you and Jake.”

  Tish winced as she mentioned them both in the same sentence and said. “Well, I sometimes wonder how much my father really cared. I mean he left us all with a bit of a tangle to try and figure out actually.”

  “Tish,” Daphne said emphatically. “Your father loved you deeply. He often spoke about how all of this would hurt you when you finally found out. The tragedy is the truth came out before any of it could get resolved.”

  “If my father had cared, none of this would have happened in the first place,” Tish retorted, looking directly at Daphne and starting to sound angry. �
��I have one question in particular. Didn’t you know my father was married when you met him?”

  Daphne closed her eyes and breathed deeply. When she opened them again, she rested her arms on the table in front of her just like she had done in the photo and said quietly “Tish, look, I know you are looking for answers. It is difficult to explain.”

  “But you must try,” Tish said more calmly in order to try and elicit the information she had come all this way to find out. “I won‘t leave until I know why he felt he could set up another life without it having a huge impact on me and my mother.”

  “Ok, I will try and fill some of the gaps,” Daphne said furrowing her brow.

  “I want you to do that,” Tish said firmly. “At the moment, it feels like the twenty-seven years that I’ve lived so far have been one big lie and our family life some sort of sham.”

  “There are no easy answers to the questions you’ve asked me,” Daphne said. “And I never had a conversation with your father about what I would say if I was the one left. I mean we never spoke about death or dying.”

  “I understand that,” Tish said impatiently. “But my father did die so you are just going to have to try and explain it without him.”

  “I will try. Life throws stuff at us and we all deal with things as best we can and in different ways,” Daphne said slowly, trying to choose her words carefully. “Choices have to be made and decisions have to be taken.”

  Tish registered the irony of this being exactly the same logic used by her mother for justifying staying with the same man in a largely loveless marriage.

  “It all started a long time ago,” Daphne began to explain. “Richard and I first met two decades ago when we both worked at Morgan Grenfell. To begin with we were just colleagues working together on the same projects and then, later, after he left to get a better job with Merrill Lynch, we stayed in contact.”

  “Ok, so had it been going on all that time?” Tish asked her face looking incredulous that their relationship could have possibly been going on for most of her adult life.

  “God, no, I mean we knew each other as colleagues for a long time but our…our relationship started a few years ago. In an indirect way if you want the explanation as to why it started, you could say 9/11 finally brought us closer,” volunteered Daphne.

  “What do you mean by that?” Tish demanded. “Dad wasn’t even here in New York at the time. I remember, because I was at drama school and had felt frantic as I thought he might have been, but it turned out he’d been there the week before and had just got back when it happened.”

  “We lost colleagues we both knew,” Daphne replied. “A lot of strange things happened in New York after 9/11. Anybody who went through that and survived had a re-invigorated reason to live.”

  “I knew my father lost colleagues,” Tish said, remembering the past. “It affected him quite badly.”

  “It affected so many of us. We grabbed onto what we could in case things moved and slipped away again,” Daphne replied as she got more into her stride. “The old world suddenly got replaced by a new one which was much less certain. Or that is how it felt at the time. Things took place afterwards which might not otherwise have happened. For some, it was like we tried to live the lives we might have chosen had we been born again.”

  “Isn’t that just an excuse?” Tish asked. “I mean you don’t take someone else’s husband for that reason alone. Death is all around us all of the time.”

  “When people die in the way they did in New York, it changes things in a very profound way. It highlights not just the fact we are all mortal, but that even those who think they have made it to the absolute top of the mountain can lose absolutely everything in the blink of an eye,” Daphne said, trying to rationalise it all as she spoke.

  “Did you ever regret doing what you did?” Tish asked, still trying to understand how any of it could have been acceptable to either Daphne or her father.

  “I don‘t regret any of it,” Daphne replied unashamed by her answer. “It would make today’s conversation easier if I did but I don’t, and I’m not going to lie to you.”

  “Well, you lied about other things,” Tish snapped. “I mean it would have probably been much better if you and my father had told us about all of this before he died.”

  “Tish, you have every right to feel angry,” Daphne said. “I would have preferred for the truth to have come out a long time ago. In the end it has been unfair on everyone. It was not my wish that you or your mother, for that matter, should find out like this.”

  “When did you have Jake? I mean how old is he?” Tish enquired changing tack, as she played with the sushi on her plate, trying to figure out dates, times and places.

  “He was born in 2002 and is now six years old,” Daphne smiled sadly. “He is really growing up fast but is distraught he no longer has the person he loved most in the world to help him understand things.”

  “Look,” Tish said shaking her head. “I don’t doubt that it’s difficult for him for one minute. It must be so tough for a young boy that age even to comprehend what’s happened. I mean I get that but even so…”

  “There was another strong bond that I shared with your father. We both had parents who were alcoholics,” Daphne interrupted.

  “I didn’t really know anything about my father’s family,” Tish replied. “I just know it was dysfunctional. But I never met his parents as they were both dead by the time I was born.”

  “Having this kind of disease in a family isolates you and makes you feel different from everyone else,” continued Daphne. “You try and hide things and learn coping strategies to block out the craziness that happens.”

  “I guess my father’s early life must have been really affected by all that then?” Tish replied.

  “Oh yes, absolutely, he had a horrendous time, some of the really bad stuff didn’t come out till a lot later on after we got together,” Daphne said. “When I got to know your father’s story, I felt a weight had suddenly lifted from my shoulders and he did too. Things that were so terrible we’d both locked them deep inside ourselves.”

  “He never spoke about his childhood really,” Tish confessed. “Although now you come to mention all this, it probably explains why he hated people drinking too much and despised anyone who got out of control.”

  “The same for me,” Daphne said quietly. “Most of us who’ve witnessed the things we have don’t enjoy being around drink when we’ve seen what it can do and we certainly tend not to talk about what we’ve suffered to people who don’t really understand the disease.”

  “Um,” Tish mused. “I always felt he kept his feelings and his emotions under wraps but never really understood why until just now.”

  “We’re very good at keeping things bottled up and being secretive,” Daphne smiled, her face softening. “Just as the alcoholic hides the drink, we hide the shame. It’s not an excuse for what we did, but it maybe gives you a reason why we connected so deeply.”

  “I just wish my father could have told us about his childhood,” Tish said. “Looking back he was good at avoiding questions that might require him to open up. I mean what did he suppose we would do with the information?”

  “I think when he met your mother, he wanted to forget where he’d come from and to build a completely new life,” Daphne surmised. “He probably thought he would be rejected by your mother and her family if they knew about his past. They sounded pretty formal and old school.”

  “I can’t believe he shared that sort of personal information with you,” Tish said, pushing her plate of food away from her. “I find that so insulting to my mother.”

  “Tish,” Daphne said quietly. “I am only telling you all this because you asked for the truth. I did not do it maliciously.”

  “But the truth is Daphne,” Tish hissed, “my father was not free to be with you at the time you met him. He was still married to my mother and he shouldn’t have been talking about that stuff with you.”

  “He
didn’t tell me too much. Just that he loved your mother and that he had a lot of affection for her but that their marriage was not a strong one in the traditional sense,” Daphne replied calmly.

  “I‘m coming round to that way of thinking too, surprisingly,” Tish snarled. “I mean this whole thing has pretty much destroyed us now anyway. It seems like he was just deferring the pain for himself and us. I assume you were still seeing him right up to the point he died?”

  “Is everything alright with the food?” the waiter interrupted at exactly the wrong moment. “Can I get you both anything else?”

  Tish looked up and spoke for both of them, annoyed that he hadn’t had the sense to wait until they had finished their conversation which was clearly getting heated. “Yes, thank you,” she snapped in a clipped British accent. “We don’t require anything else at present.” She then turned to Daphne and asked. “Please answer my question, were you seeing my father right up until the end?”

  “Yes,” Daphne replied. “Yes I was. But things had become strained between us in the past few months. There had been a few reasons, but the main one was that Jake was growing up fast, and I wanted some kind of permanent commitment from your father to ensure he would be there for us on a more full-time basis.”

  “And what did Dad say?” Tish said, her eyes glaring as she got nearer to the truth about what had happened on that awful Christmas Day evening when something most definitely had been wrong.

  “He didn’t respond well to the suggestion,” Daphne said, looking increasingly sadder as she spoke. “He had felt impossibly torn between leaving you and your mother and coming to live in New York full-time. Things came to a head just before he died at Christmas.”

  “Please tell me why,” Tish pleaded. “I couldn’t help suspecting Dad had something else going on in his life that wasn’t right in addition to work.”

  “We were constantly arguing on the phone the day he died,” Daphne recalled, as she looked down trying to suppress more tears. “I started to pile on the pressure for him to come and live here in New York, or somewhere completely different. All I wanted was for him to make a life with me and Jake. We’d talked a long time ago about maybe living in the Caribbean and just retiring and I couldn’t understand why we couldn’t just do that.”