‘NOTHING’S REALLY CHANGED,’ Louise told him.
It was close to midnight. Daniel had spent hours, he didn’t know how long, walking around. He couldn’t call to mind where he had gone or why. He had simply walked until the ache in his legs told him it was time to stop.
In the flat Louise was sitting watching the telly, but she was really waiting for him. ‘I’m worried about you,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you just wait and talk to your mum? All this snooping about can’t be good. Honest. You haven’t found out anything, just upset yourself.’
‘No point talking to her,’ he replied. ‘She’ll just tell me the same bollocks she always has. And I have found out something. I’ve seen those pictures she was hiding. What do you think that’s all about? Why do you think she was hiding them?’
Louise didn’t answer. She didn’t know how to reply to those questions.
That was for certain, but she was certain, also, that there was something wrong about the way Daniel was going behind his mum’s back. The other thing that worried her was that in one day Daniel had changed. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she felt he was torn by feelings and thoughts about which she knew nothing.
‘I don’t like it,’ she said.
‘Tough,’ Daniel said before he could stop himself, then saw the hurt look on her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but why don’t you help me, instead of having a go?’
The oddest thing, he reflected, was the way his feelings about Louise had changed. Before this he would have welcomed her support. Now he had the sense that she was afraid or worried, and that her comments were really meant to discourage him. What she wanted, he thought, was to put all this behind them. After that they could carry on living like a nice middle-class couple. There would be nothing to connect them to anything sordid, like a dad who had run off.
Louise changed the subject. There seemed to be no point in taking her doubts further; and while Daniel was at his mother’s she had been thinking about the entire riddle. She had some ideas about how to start solving it. ‘Have you looked in her computer?’ she asked.
‘I tried, but I didn’t know the password. I never got anywhere.’
‘I had an idea when you mentioned that photo of the students getting their degrees. If you checked out the other people in the picture they might be able to tell you something.’
‘That would be a good idea if I knew their names or how to find them,’ Daniel said sarcastically.
‘But you could find out,’ Louise said. She smiled at him with a hint of triumph. ‘I was looking at our college website. A lot of our old classmates put down their names after uni. They give the place, the names, the dates and what they’re doing now. Maybe you can find at least a few of your mum’s old friends on her college site.’
Daniel stared at her, wondering why he hadn’t thought of it first. ‘You’re a bloody genius,’ he said.
The truth was that he had been stuck for what to do next. When he despatched his class to do what they called research it was all about looking up names and dates which everyone knew. The history he studied had been about making sense of great events and periods of time. He had no experience of looking up certificates of birth and death or addresses. As far as he was concerned that was biography. When it came to tracking down someone who might be alive he had no idea.
They went straight to the computer. Louise hadn’t lost her doubts, but now she was involved and she was eager to get on with the job.
They found the website for his mother’s old college, went to the graduate section, and started checking the names and dates.
‘Anything around 1978,’ Daniel said.
In a short while they had a list of people who had got their degrees in the same year and in the same subject as his mother. There were three Christophers on the list, but none of them had a Nigerian surname. There was, in fact, only one name which looked African.
They had a brief debate about which to try first.
‘Let’s try the Christophers first,’ Louise said. ‘I don’t think it will be one of them, but tracking them down will give you some practice.’
Daniel agreed. He wasn’t convinced by what Louise said, but now he was face to face with a chance of finding out he wasn’t so sure that he wanted to go through with it. They spent the next couple of hours checking their list in the phone book.
The problem was that these were the sort of names which were repeated several times.
‘We could ring them all,’ Louise said doubtfully.
In the end they sent an email message to everyone saying that a graduate of that year wanted to get in touch.
‘If no one rings in a couple of days,’ Daniel said, ‘I’ll try something else.’
He didn’t know what to expect. He asked Louise the same question over and over again. ‘Do you think they’ll be bothered?’
Louise kept telling him to calm down, but he fidgeted throughout the next day.
It was like waiting for exam results. On most Sundays they went out, to the movies, or at least a stroll round the park. This time Daniel refused to leave the house, in case the phone rang. The call came late in the evening.
‘This is Chris Reilly,’ the voice said. ‘I saw your message. Who am I speaking to? What’s it about?’
He sounded cheerful, as if he thought what was coming would be an invite to a party. Quickly, Daniel told him who he was. ‘I’m doing this for my mother. We want to give her a surprise.’
He told Reilly his mother’s name and the subject she had studied. There was a long pause.
‘I think I know who you mean: slim, blonde? Weren’t many like her about, but I didn’t really know her. She was one of the feminists, I think. No. I didn’t really know her.’
I’m not surprised, Daniel thought. He also thought he already knew the answer to his next question, but he asked it anyway.
‘Were there any black students? She mentioned a Nigerian.’
‘Oh there were a couple around,’ Reilly said, ‘but I didn’t really know them.’
‘Yes. Thank you,’ Daniel said, getting ready to put the phone down.
All of a sudden he had the sinking feeling that if he got any more calls they would all be like this.
‘Wait a minute,’ Reilly said. ‘There is someone who might know, a woman who organized a couple of reunions. Jane. She seems to know everyone. I’ll find the number for you.’