He told his mother quickly about Louise finding out she was pregnant. She watched him, smiling, as if she knew what he was going to tell her. He smiled back, telling himself that he had been mistaken about her first response. Of course Louise had been right, he told himself. After all, they liked each other, and a baby would be the family that both he and his mother had missed.
‘It happened,’ he told her, ‘and, once we knew, we thought everyone would be pleased if we got married.’
‘That was something that always worried me about you,’ she said. ‘You so much love to please.’
He frowned. She always said this, and it always got on his nerves.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she said. ‘I like Louise, but I wish it hadn’t turned out like this.’
‘I thought you liked her,’ Daniel said. Suddenly he was angry.
His mother’s look was intense, as if she was trying to work out what to tell him. ‘I wasn’t certain,’ she said, ‘if you liked her because she liked you. I can see she loves you, but you’re different.’
Suddenly what his mum had said when he told her he was moving in with Louise came back to him. ‘What about her family?’ she’d wanted to know.
He had told her there was no problem, but he had never been sure. Louise’s mum and dad had been friendly enough. Her father had been some kind of manager, and now they lived by the sea. That was all. He had kept their visits short and resisted getting any closer to them, telling himself that he couldn’t be sure how long he would be with Louise. The ties between them were about their life in London. Somehow the life she’d had before seemed like a threat but she had seemed hurt when he tried to explain this to her.
‘I don’t want to know them,’ he told her. ‘I don’t want to be part of their nice, quiet life.’
At the back of his mind had been the fear that this was the life she wanted. Although he had tried to hide his feelings of doubt from his mother, somehow, though, she guessed. In any case, he’d known already that she would dislike Louise’s parents. She hadn’t yet met them, but he knew her well enough to guess. In her mind these were the same boring, narrow-minded people from whom she’d had to protect him. ‘Straights’, she called them.
‘You do go for these nice, sensible young ladies,’ she used to say, teasing him.
The strange thing had been that in his own mind he’d agreed with what she felt. On the other hand, something about the fact that she didn’t approve had pleased him.
‘I know what I’m doing,’ he had told her. ‘You’re just a sucker for romance.’
Now he could see that she was somehow troubled.
‘Don’t feel you have to get married,’ she said, ‘just because of the baby. This is your life, and her life. A long time. You should decide what you want to do, then think about the baby.’
‘We’re getting married,’ he told her. ‘And that’s the end of it.’
His mother watched him, frowning a little.
Knowing that she had already guessed that he had doubts made him more angry. ‘You’ve got these ideas about romance,’ he told her. ‘It’s like you want me to go out and fall madly in love with some crazy girl. Well, I’m not like that. I want a mortgage and a home and I want my kid to grow up feeling safe. I don’t want him to worry his whole life about what’s going to happen next.’
She winced. He had told her this before when he was angry, and she knew he was talking about his own childhood. These outbursts hurt her more because usually he was so controlled. When he was like this she knew that he meant every word.
‘If that’s what you want to do,’ she said. ‘Let’s not argue. I just want to be sure you’ll be happy.’
‘I know what I’m doing,’ Daniel said.
It was only later on that Daniel would admit to himself that this was very far from the truth.
His mother smiled broadly as if to make up for her first response. Then she clapped her hands, jumped up out of her seat and hugged him again. ‘I’m so glad for you,’ she said. ‘I told George this was coming.’ She held his hand and pulled him into the front room. ‘George,’ she called out. ‘George. We’ve got some news.’
It was another half an hour before Daniel could escape. He had the odd feeling, though, that his mother had been hiding something. Part of how she had reacted, he thought, had been sheer relief at having a good excuse to avoid talking about his father.
‘I believe her,’ he told Louise when he got home, ‘but there’s still something funny about it. The way she looked at the photo.’
He had been sure that there was something his mother had not told him, but he couldn’t guess what it might be. It was just that he knew her so well. When he was little and they only had each other, she had called him ‘her little friend’. Sometimes, at bedtime, when she read to him, he would sense that she was tired or sad. At such times he would hug her tight, as if he would never let go.
‘My little friend,’ she used to say. ‘What would I do without you?’
That was why he could sense how upset she was when he showed her the photo.
‘It’s just strange that she doesn’t remember,’ he told Louise.
Louise had been watching a video, already dressed in the T-shirt and baggy pyjama bottoms she wore in bed. Now she sat curled up on the sofa in their living room, her eyes intent on Daniel as he paced around, talking.
That’s how she was, Daniel thought. When it was needed he could count on her to listen quietly, taking it all in before she said anything. It was a habit which reminded him of his mother. That was not the only thing. They were both teachers, and to most people their slim figures and blonde hair made them look alike. At first sight, strangers were likely to assume the two women were related.
Daniel didn’t mind. He agreed there was a likeness, but to him it wasn’t about their looks. It was more to do with the way they both acted towards him. Apart from that, they weren’t at all alike.
‘If she’s not telling you all she knows,’ Louise said gently, ‘maybe she has a very good reason.’
He made a frustrated gesture. ‘I can’t think what the reason could be.’
‘I can think of lots of things,’ Louise said. ‘If he beat her up, for example, she might not want you to know.’
Daniel frowned, and, before he could stop himself, gave her an angry look. Somehow it had begun to annoy him that Louise was taking his mother’s side.
‘I’m not saying that’s how it was,’ Louise said quickly. ‘But you have to agree that it might be something like that.’
Daniel looked away, gazing into space and thinking about it. He hated the idea that his father might have been harsh and cruel, but he knew that it could have been that way.
‘I guess you could be right. But, even if he did, she didn’t have the right not to tell me about him. She had no right.’ He was shouting, and he took a deep breath, trying to calm down. What he’d told his mother flashed through his mind and he turned to Louise, knowing that he would have to tell her sooner or later. ‘I told her about the baby.’
‘Oh. You promised. I haven’t told my own mum yet.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Daniel said. ‘She guessed.’
He should have known that she would guess when he started asking about illnesses his father might have passed on. He braced himself, but if the thought crossed Louise’s mind she kept it to herself.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter. They’ll all know soon enough. Only tell her not to let on she knew before anyone else.’
They went to bed well after midnight, having spent over an hour talking about his mother. Daniel still couldn’t guess what was going on, but he had made up his mind about one thing. He didn’t tell Louise, because he knew she would argue, but he now knew what he had to do.
In the morning he would begin tracking down his father’s footsteps, and he would not rest until he knew the truth.