‘Thank goodness you’ve come!’
Helen heaved a dramatic sigh of relief.
Manoeuvring herself around her desk, she strode across the office and gave Dr Parker a hug.
‘I was worried you might be called into theatre on some kind of emergency at the last moment, leaving me to deal with my dear mama and all her old cronies on my lonesome.’
Dr Parker wrapped his arms around Helen, returning her embrace. She smelled of expensive perfume. As always, he had to force himself to let her go.
‘I wouldn’t have missed one of your mother’s infamous soirées for all the tea in China,’ he said, a smile playing on his lips.
‘Come in and take your coat off.’ Helen walked over to the tray that had been left on top of one of the filing cabinets.
‘Talking of tea?’ She took hold of the ceramic pot.
Dr Parker hung his jacket up on the coat stand by the door and rubbed his hands.
‘Yes, please, I’m parched.’
He watched as Helen poured carefully, adding a touch of milk, the way he liked it.
‘How are you feeling after yesterday?’ He scrutinised Helen’s face as she turned and handed him his cup.
‘Still in shock,’ she admitted, exhaling. ‘The thing is, John, I’m at a loss as to what to do. I can’t forget it, and I’m not the type of person who can just shove it under the carpet.’
‘That’s true,’ he agreed, eyeing her.
‘I have to know,’ she said, picking up a pile of papers, shuffling them together and tapping them on the desk. ‘Otherwise, I’ll always be wondering.’
She paused, papers still in hand.
‘Either way. Even if it is simply a fluke that my mother and Bel look alike … God, if it wasn’t for the age gap, I’d say they were twins.’
She put the papers in the top drawer and slammed it shut.
‘Either way, I need to know.’
She walked over to the large windows that divided her office from the open-plan work area that made up the rest of the administration department and yanked the wooden venetian blinds free, lowering them ready for Monday morning when everyone would be back from their three-day Christmas break. As she did so, her gaze was naturally drawn to Bel’s desk, which had, as always, been left neat and tidy.
‘I mean, it’s not as if I can ask Bel, can I?’ She turned back to look at Dr Parker drinking his tea. ‘I can’t just casually ask her when she gets in tomorrow, “Lovely wedding, Bel, wasn’t it? Oh, and by the way, I couldn’t help but notice that you are the absolute spit of my mother. You wouldn’t know if you’re related by any chance, would you?”’
Dr Parker allowed himself the slightest of smiles. Helen’s dry sense of humour always amused him.
He looked across at her; her sparkling emerald eyes never failed to captivate him. ‘The thing is, Bel’s probably totally unaware of the fact that she has a doppelgänger. She didn’t seem particularly shocked when she was introduced to your mother at the wedding yesterday.’
‘Mmm.’ Helen took a sip of her tea and put the cup and saucer back on the tray. ‘That’s true. But then again, that could be because she is well aware.’
Helen was quiet for a moment.
‘Really, John, when Bel was introduced to my mum at the Grand, it must have been like looking into a mirror – a mirror that shows you an image of your future self.’
Still feeling the need to play devil’s advocate, Dr Parker argued, ‘Bel was run ragged yesterday organising Polly and Tommy’s wedding. She probably barely even registered Miriam.’
‘Possibly,’ Helen said.
She put her hands on her hips and stared down at her desk, lost in thought.
‘It could also be that she didn’t react to seeing my mother because …’ she looked up at Dr Parker with wide eyes ‘… she knows that they are kin.’
Dr Parker took a final slurp of his tea and stood up.
‘I think you had one too many gin and tonics yesterday and your imagination has gone into overdrive. This is simply a case of two women who look alike.’
He went over to the stand and slipped his coat back on.
‘Now, come on, get yourself ready. I feel like you’re procrastinating because you don’t want to go to your mother’s Boxing Day extravaganza.’
Helen let out an exasperated sigh.
‘Oh, John, don’t. It’s going to be hideous. And even more of an “extravaganza” as Mother has made it quite plain that she feels she was deprived of a proper Christmas Day celebration because I deserted her to go to “some welder’s wedding”.’
As John helped Helen into her winter coat, he had to force himself not to wrap his arms around her, hold her tightly, then turn her around and kiss her.
God! Perhaps he was the one with the overactive imagination.
As they walked out into the stillness of the shipyard, Helen looked around and took in the metal and concrete landscape she loved so much. It was a love that had grown greater since the start of the war, as the importance of what they did had increased tenfold. For the ships they built and repaired were crucial to the war effort. Without the cargo vessels and warships that this yard produced, along with dozens of other shipyards across the length and breadth of the country, the war would quite simply be lost.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been here when it’s so quiet,’ Dr Parker said as he buttoned up his overcoat against the icy-cold air.
As if in defiance of the peace, the clanking of steel suddenly sounded out from the platers’ shed.
Dr Parker looked askance at Helen.
‘We’ve still got a skeleton staff keeping things ticking over,’ she explained.
Five minutes later they had left the confines of the yard and were scrunching through thick snow along the promenade. Daylight was starting to fade, although there was still enough light to see the grey waters of the North Sea and the outline of the lighthouse on the North pier.
‘So …’ Dr Parker looked up at the darkening skies. The clouds looked heavy with yet more snow. ‘I’m guessing that Tommy will be somewhere over the Atlantic by now?’
He tried to sound casual, but he was desperate to know how Helen was feeling about the departure of the man he knew she had loved all her life.
The man who had just married another woman.
‘I’d say so,’ Helen said, pulling up the cuff of her coat sleeve and looking at her watch. ‘It’s gone half four. I know his flight was at one – so, allowing for delays, and the time difference, I’d say he’d be there by now.’ A worried look fell across her face. ‘God willing.’
They walked for a while in silence. The snow glinting with a sparkling topcoat – the result of the morning’s fall.
Eventually it was Dr Parker who spoke.
‘So, how are you feeling about everything?’ he ventured, his mind still on Tommy.
Helen sighed. ‘Well, a little confused, to be honest.’
Dr Parker’s heart sank. They had not talked openly about Tommy since the day Helen had declared her love for him at the hospital. That had been over two months ago, and Helen had barely mentioned it since.
‘Well,’ Helen said, ‘I was thinking last night when I was trying, unsuccessfully, to sleep …’
Dr Parker felt an ache in his chest. His heart.
‘ … I was thinking,’ she said, ‘trying to work out that if Bel is related to my mother – and to me for that matter – then what are the possible options?’
Dr Parker was momentarily confused. Had Helen deliberately avoided talking about Tommy and her feelings for him? Or was she genuinely obsessing about Bel?
Sometimes he thought he could read Helen like a book; at other times she was a complete and utter mystery.
‘Options?’
‘Well …’ Helen said as they crossed the road. There was no need to check for any traffic. The roads were empty. ‘There’s the possibility that Bel could be my mother’s illegitimate love child, before she met Dad. I mean, they do look like mother and daughter. And the age gap is about right. I’ve worked it out. Mum would have been about sixteen. Possibly seventeen.’
‘True,’ Dr Parker conceded.
They continued walking.
‘Actually, I wouldn’t mind having another sister.’ Helen laughed. ‘I always wanted one when I was growing up. I might now have an older sister – as well as a little sister.’
Helen smiled as she thought of Hope. She’d looked particularly gorgeous in her ivory flower-girl dress yesterday. She couldn’t believe she was now nearly one and a half years old. She had fought with herself when Hope was just a baby; had tried her hardest not to have anything to do with her father’s illegitimate child, but it had been hopeless. As soon as she’d clapped eyes on her in her pram the day she’d bumped into Gloria in town, she’d fallen in love.
‘What about your aunty?’ Dr Parker knew that Miriam had a sister who was very similar in looks, but the complete opposite in nature.
‘Mmm,’ Helen mused. ‘I did think about Aunty Margaret – that Bel could possibly be her child – but I can’t see her having a child out of wedlock. Besides, she was never able to have children with Uncle Angus – could never carry them to full term …’ Her voice trailed off.
Dr Parker knew Helen would be thinking of her own miscarriage earlier on in the year.
Stepping aside, he let Helen pass through the wrought-iron gate and walk into the park. The place had been turned into a winter wonderland. Bushes and trees were draped in thick white shrouds. The model boating lake was a sheet of ice. The bowling green no longer green.
‘The other spanner in the works,’ Dr Parker said, ‘is, even if your mother or your aunty Margaret had an illegitimate child, why would Bel’s mother – what’s her name again?’
‘Pearl.’
‘Why would Pearl claim that Bel was her daughter? From what I’ve seen, she doesn’t strike me as your typical adoptive parent.’
‘That’s putting it politely,’ Helen said. ‘The only reason someone like Pearl would take on a child would be if she was being paid handsomely for it. And the woman clearly hasn’t got two pennies to rub together.’
By now they had reached the other side of the park.
‘Which,’ Helen continued, ‘brings us to the men in the family.’
‘Your grandfather?’ Dr Parker said, pulling open the gate.
Helen burst out laughing.
‘Hardly, John!’ She walked out and onto Roker Park Road. ‘Do the maths. Bel’s roughly the same age as me. She’s more likely to be his granddaughter.’
Helen’s face suddenly lit up.
‘Unless it was my grandmother’s secret love child? She was much younger than Grandfather. And I get the impression she was a bit of a dark horse.’
They crossed the road and started walking the short distance to the corner of Park Avenue.
Helen looked at Dr Parker.
Her excitement waned.
‘But that still brings us back to the problem of Pearl, doesn’t it?’
Dr Parker nodded.
Helen could feel herself getting exasperated.
‘There’s far too many ifs and buts and maybes and maybe nots. It’ll end up driving me mad.’
She took Dr Parker’s arm as they crossed Side Cliff Road to her front gate. It was the only house in the vicinity that had managed to keep its Arts and Crafts ironwork.
‘To be continued,’ Helen said.
Dr Parker smiled and shook his head.
‘I still think that imagination of yours is running riot.’
He wondered, though, if Helen’s current obsession with Bel was her way of avoiding thinking about Tommy.
They walked along the short pathway and up the stone steps. Putting her key into the front door, Helen turned to Dr Parker.
‘I’m thanking you in advance,’ she said with a grimace. ‘I’m sure this is probably the last place you fancy being today. On Boxing Day of all days. And one of your rare afternoons off.’
Dr Parker dismissed her words with a shake of his head.
If only Helen knew. He didn’t give two hoots where he was right now – as long as he was with the woman he loved.
When Helen opened the front door, they saw Miriam walking into the lounge, her hand clutching a glass of what could only be a large gin and tonic.
Their arrival caught her eye and she turned to welcome them with outstretched arms.
‘Darling!’ she said, air-kissing her daughter and then Dr Parker. ‘I thought you’d deserted your dear mama – again.’
Neither Helen nor Dr Parker said anything.
Miriam inspected her daughter.
‘Go and get yourself spruced up.’ Miriam tilted her head towards the landing. ‘I’ve put out a lovely dress for you to wear.
‘And John,’ Miriam purred, ‘come and meet the rest of the guests. They’re all dying to meet you.’
She suddenly burst out laughing.
‘Dying. Well, I hope not.’
She leant towards Dr Parker.
‘But at least if they are, we’ve got our very own doctor on hand to save the day!’
She chuckled again at her own joke.
Not for the first time, Dr Parker was reminded of his own mother.
As Miriam took Dr Parker’s arm, more to steady herself than in affection, Helen shook off her coat and hung it up. She didn’t go upstairs, though, but instead headed through to the back kitchen.
Dr Parker knew she was on her way to see the cook, Mrs Westley.
As he walked into the lounge with Miriam by his side, he stole a sidelong glance at Helen’s mother.
There was no doubting it, she really was the double of Bel.