Page 114 of The Stranger in Room Six

Stephen Greaves? Karen’s son? My heart feels as if it’s beating overtime as I walk down the corridor, past the community lounge where two residents are arguing over a jigsaw.

I push open the office door with a trembling hand. A man is standing with his back to me, looking out of the window and over the croquet lawn. He turns to face me.

I gasp. A young Gerald is standing before me.

‘Belinda Wall?’ he asks.

I nod nervously.

His face breaks out into a smile. ‘My mother kept saying she had a lovely carer called Belinda. I wanted to thank you for being so kind to her.’

Phew! So he has no idea who I am.

‘It’s funny,’ he adds. ‘My mother also told me you reminded her of someone. When I asked the manager if I could talk to you, I also asked what your surname was.’

My mouth goes dry.

‘I know this might sound silly, but my mother used to know a Gerald Wall who was married to a Belinda. Of course, it’s a common-enough name but …’

He stops. This is where I tell him that there is no connection. But he gets in first.

‘The thing is, Mum also told me what you’d said to her last night at the barbecue. I was meant to have been there but got delayed by work.’

I pretend to act dumb. ‘I’ve no idea what you mean.’

His eyes are unwavering. ‘I think you do.’

My mind goes back to those seconds just before we heard the shot inside the home, not knowing it was Mabel who was being attacked.

‘My husband Gerald,’ Karen had said.

‘No,’ I’d snapped. ‘I was Gerald’s wife. Not you.’

‘Your mother has dementia,’ I say now. ‘The other week, she told me she didn’t have any children, and yet here you are. So I’m afraid we can’t believe everything she says.’

‘Sometimes she doesn’t recognize me, but I assure you that I am her son. Your husband’s name is on my birth certificate too.’ Then he brings out a newspaper cutting from his pocket. ‘And this is you, isn’t it?’

I stare in shock at a much younger me, the newspaper article headed ‘Mother jailed for murdering husband’. The picture had been taken on that holiday in the Scilly Isles. Had Derek given it to the paper?

‘My mother used to read it out loud to me over and over again. “This is the woman who killed your father,” she would say. It’s how I know that you’re the same Belinda Wall. There’s still a similarity.’

On any other occasion I would be flattered. Instead, I know I’ve lost.

His voice hardens. ‘Did you track down my mother or is it a coincidence that you found a job here?’

‘I paid someone to find her,’ I stammer.

His voice sharpens even more. ‘Did you plan to hurt her?’

‘I was curious,’ I say, evading the question. ‘I wanted to find out more about their relationship and if she really had a child. Years ago, a friend of your mother’s came to visit me in prison and said that Karen had a child, but I never knew if it was true.’

‘That must have been a shock.’

I’m surprised by this sudden sympathy. Is it a ruse? Either way, I need to seize this moment.

‘Tell me,’ I say hungrily, ‘exactly what happened between your mother and my husband. I had no idea they were together, or that they’d had you, until just before he … he died.’

‘My mother just told me that she fell in love with an accountant who was doing some work for her. She said that he had a lonely marriage –’

‘Lonely?’ I burst in. ‘He had me. His girls. His responsibilities. His bloody crosswords.’

‘Mum also said that he wanted to wait until Gillian and Elspeth had gone to university. This upset her. She wanted him to move in and be a proper dad to me. It sounds as if he was trying to please everyone. It couldn’t have been easy for him.’

‘Then he shouldn’t have had an affair,’ I shoot back. ‘My eldest daughter won’t talk to me. Your mother divided our family. She even took our house from us.’

Stephen shakes his head. ‘You divided the family by murdering him.’

‘I lost my temper, but he deserved it.’

It’s not until I hear the words leave my mouth, that I allow the real truth – the one I’d been hiding from myself all these years – to finally come out.

At that moment when I’d pushed Gerald, I had indeed wanted to kill him. More than that. I’d wanted to smash his adulterous skull.

Wasn’t that why, deep down, I had gone along with the lawyer’s advice to plead guilty?

‘Is losing your temper an excuse for murder?’ asks Stephen coldly.

It’s a question that doesn’t need answering.

There’s a long silence before Stephen continues. ‘For what it’s worth,’ he says, ‘I don’t think it was right that Mum and I got the house. He should have looked after you as well – and my father should have told you the truth.’

‘Thank you,’ I say, quietly.

‘I just wish I knew more of him,’ Stephen says, a regretful note in his voice. ‘I have a vague memory of a man picking me up in his arms. That’s all, though I do have photographs.’

He reaches inside his coat and pulls out a packet of prints. And there it is. Indisputable evidence. Here’s Gerald with a little boy on his knee; Gerald holding hands with Karen in another shot. And here’s Gerald by a beach with both Karen and the same little boy.

‘I never thought Gerald was the kind who would have a mistress,’ I whisper.

‘My mother wasn’t a mistress.’ His voice is firm. ‘She loved him. He loved her. Look.’

He hands me a letter. Gerald’s precise handwriting shouts out at me.

My dear son,

I felt moved to write to you in case, one day, I am not able to explain the situation of your birth myself.

I was – still am – married to another woman.

However, I fell in love and you are the wonderful result.

You may think I am weak but I cannot, at present, summon up the courage to leave my family until my girls have become adults in their own right.

But I wish you to know how much I love you and your mother.

You may wonder what I mean by not being able to explain all this. The truth is that I have a serious heart condition, which has only just been diagnosed. The outlook does not look good.

Why hadn’t Gerald told me that? Then I think of the way his forehead would sweat when he did the crossword. How he could never walk far without getting out of breath. If I’d been a more caring wife, would I have picked up on the signs?

‘He was returning from seeing the consultant that morning,’ says Stephen. ‘My mother had gone with him.’

His words come back to me. ‘Sorry, dear, I’ve got a meeting to go to.’

In fact, it had been a hospital appointment and he’d taken her for support – not me.

That hurts. So too does the realization that he might have died anyway, even if I hadn’t pushed him.

‘I shouldn’t have done it,’ I whisper. ‘Nor should he.’

‘My mother wasn’t blameless either,’ he says quietly.

We say nothing for a moment or so. Then he takes me by surprise. ‘I’d like to meet your daughters – they’re my half-sisters, after all. I think Dad would have liked that.’

‘No,’ I say fiercely. ‘That’s too much.’

His eyes turn wistful. ‘I always wanted a proper family. It was hard growing up without a resident dad. Hard for Mum too to be a single mother.’

‘Not as hard as it was for us,’ I shoot back. ‘My girls had a mother in prison. And now I’ll have to go back behind bars.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you will tell the home about my past. They’ll find out I lied on my forms. I’ll be taken before the court and –’

‘I’m not going to do that,’ he says.

‘Why not?’

‘I think we’ve all suffered enough, don’t you? I just want to know one thing. Are you safe to look after my mother?’

It dawns on me that my resentment is beginning to subside now I’ve heard the full story from her son. Besides, I am no killer. Not an intentional one, anyway.

My time in the prison has also taught me to forgive. I’ve seen what rancour can do if you don’t. I’ve also seen a different side to the Karen I thought I hated. She’s no longer my husband’s lover who broke up our family. She’s a woman whose mind is going and who needs looking after.

‘I will never hurt her, if that’s what you mean.’ I almost add ‘not now’ but decide that’s best left unspoken.

‘Having met face to face, I’d like to believe you.’ He gets up. ‘Shall we go?’

‘Where?’

‘To Mum’s room. I think it would be a good idea if we both saw her together, then perhaps she might accept you, depending on her state of mind today.’

‘Her? Accept me? Shouldn’t it be the other way round?’

‘I think it will take two of you.’

So I go, with this young man who looks so like Gerald and, come to think of it, Gillian. It seems the right thing to do.