“Goddamn it, Kit, we’re not talking about Ian, we’re talking about me. And I’m your dad.” Kincaid heard his words with horror, but it was too late to recall them.
Kit stared at him. “That’s bollocks. What are you talking about?”
Bloody hell, Kincaid thought. What had he done? Shaking his head, he said, “I never meant to tell you this way. But I’m certain I’m your father. I thought—”
“That’s daft. My dad’s in France.”
“Look at me, Kit.” Kincaid reached for Kit’s shoulder, but the boy flinched away. “Look at my face, then look at yourself in the mirror.” He flipped down the passenger side visor. “You are the spitting image of me at the same age. My mother saw it instantly. I see it every time I look at you.”
“I don’t believe you,” Kit said, but he darted a look at the glass.
Pulling his wallet from his pocket, Kincaid extracted two dog-eared photos. “My mother sent me this one. I was eleven.” He handed it to Kit, who accepted it reluctantly; then he held up the second photo. “This one I took from your mum’s office.” Vic and Kit stood arm in arm in the back garden of the cottage in Grantchester, laughing into the camera. “You can see the resemblance, too, can’t you?”
“No.” Kit shook his head and dropped the photo of Kincaid in the console. “I don’t believe it. My mum wouldn’t have …” His eyes strayed to the photo again.
“This doesn’t mean your mum did anything wrong, Kit. You know we were married before she married Ian. She must have been pregnant with you when we separated.”
“She’d have told me. Mum told me everything.”
“You must see that she couldn’t. She was with Ian by then, and she wanted you to think of him as your father.” And then Ian had abandoned them. After Ian’s defection, Vic had brought Kincaid back into her life, and Kit’s, but they would never be sure what she’d intended for them.
Kit kneaded the knees of his jeans with his fingers, refusing to meet Kincaid’s eyes.
“I didn’t know about you until that day I came to Grantchester. Your mum never let me know she’d had a child.”
A tiny rip in the denim grew larger as Kit picked at it. “You’re not my dad. You can’t prove it.” His barley-fair hair fell over his forehead, hiding his eyes, but the stubborn set of his jaw was clear.
Kincaid looked out at his quiet street in the early evening light. Next door a man and a boy washed a car, laughing as they got soaked in the spray. He could smell the smoke from someone’s barbecue, hear the high voices of children in the back gardens. It was the language of families, and he didn’t know it. “I can prove it, Kit, with a DNA test, but I won’t try until you want me to. Give me a chance at being a dad. I know we can work things—”
“Like this weekend?” There was a ripping sound as Kit pulled at the bit of fabric he’d worked loose. “Like you let my mum die?”
“Kit, I—”
“I want to go back to Cambridge. Tess needs her dinner and she won’t have been eating well with me away.” Kit reached for his seat belt, snapped the buckle into place. He hugged his arms across his chest and stared straight ahead.
They drove to the station in silence.
• • •
LEWIS FOUND THE KITCHEN NOT ALL that different from his mum’s. Although the room was enormous, the oak table in its center was scarred and bleached from much scrubbing, with a bottom rail worn by generations of feet. Tea towels hung drying on a rack suspended above the old cooker, the room smelled of baking, a muted wireless played dance tunes in the corner. And Cook, a plump and floury woman as different from Lewis’s willowy mother as chalk from cheese, scolded him in the same affectionate way.
Cook had fed him part of a steak-and-mushroom pie and some cold ham—what she called bits- and-pieces—but it was more meat than Lewis had ever eaten at one sitting. With the addition of a pot of cider, he could hardly keep his eyes open by the time John Pebbles returned to fetch him.
John carried a shaded lantern, and he led Lewis across the cobbled yard by its dim light. When Lewis caught his toe on a stone, John steadied him and clucked with disapproval. “Shame on Cook, plying a mere lad with cider.”
“She said I needed nourishing,” Lewis explained.
John gave a disgusted snort. “Hot, sweet tea, or a jug of milk from the dairy, would have done better. You remember that next time and don’t let Cook teach you bad habits. Here we are, then,” he added as they reached the stable.
As they entered through the central doors, John uncovered the lantern, and Lewis caught a glimpse of stalls to the right. One held Zeus, who looked curiously at them over the door, and the other a dark brown horse with a white blaze down the center of its face.
To the left the old stalls had been torn out, and two humped, canvas-covered shapes filled the open bays. But before Lewis could exclaim, John said, “Tomorrow, lad,” and nudged him up the steep flight of stairs. “You can have a look at the autos then. In the meantime, you’ll be snug enough up here.”
Lewis saw a small, bare-planked room with a single, blanket-covered bed. A straight-backed chair and an old chest with a china basin and ewer atop it completed the furnishings. His battered case sat neatly beneath the heavily curtained window.
“There’s an oil stove, but you won’t be needing that tonight. The pump’s in the yard, and there’s a privy on the far side.” John seemed to hesitate, then said, “I’ll leave you the lantern, but you must promise to take care with it, and don’t forget the blackout.” He set it gently atop the chest, then went to the door. “You just go across to the kitchen in the morning. Good night, lad.” His heavy footsteps clumped down the stairs, and the door at the bottom banged shut.
At home, Lewis had always slept in the same room as his brothers, and his mum or his sister had
