‘Wine would be great for both of us—thank you,’ Morton answered.
‘Come and sit down,’ Alice said, directing them to a table and chairs on the deck. ‘I guess we’ve got a lot of catching up to do…’
The three of them sat at the table while Jan disappeared inside the house.
A silence peculiar to their situation settled uncomfortably between them. There was so much to say, yet Morton couldn’t find a way to begin.
‘How long have you lived here?’ Juliette asked, breaking the stalemate.
Alice tipped her head back, as if it were a difficult question. ‘We settled here twenty-something years ago, now.’
‘We live in Rye in East Sussex—I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it?’ Juliette asked, taking a sideways glance at Morton.
Alice thought for a moment then shook her head. ‘No, can’t say I have. I’ve never been to England. The one time my parents went, they left me behind.’
Morton had found his way in. ‘But they took your brother,’ he said. His words came out slightly stilted, sounding neither like a question, nor a statement.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Alice answered. ‘Which I guess is when he met your mother?’
‘Yes, my biological mother was living next door to the guesthouse in Folkestone where your parents and brother came to stay for the week in January 1974.’
‘Here we go,’ Jan chimed, walking over and carefully placing a tray on the table. She poured four glasses of red wine, then distributed them out. ‘Cheers,’ she toasted. ‘To long-lost family.’
‘To long-lost family,’ they all echoed.
Jan took a seat and addressed Morton. ‘I’m real curious about your story—I’ve got so many questions! So, you found out later in life that you were adopted and then set about finding your real parents, is that right?’
‘Yes, that’s right. It turns out that my adoptive father’s sister was actually my biological mother.’
Jan’s eyes rolled heavenwards as she repeated him. ‘Your adoptive father’s sister was your biological mother. Right, okay—I think I’m with you. Golly—tell us everything!’
And so he did. His Aunt Alice sat impassively, whilst Jan made all the appropriate noises and responses expected from his story. He told them how he had tracked down a visitors’ book that had once belonged to the owners of the guesthouse that his father had visited, which in turn had led to a raft of online documents, including the birth record of both his father and his Aunt Alice. He also told them of some of his discoveries since being in America. He omitted to mention anything of Alice’s father’s first marriage, or the connection to California. How much—if anything—did she know? He ended his long account by handing them copies of the letters his father had written to his mother in 1976.
‘I deliberated for so long about what to do with them…’ Morton said, feeling as though he needed to explain himself, as he handed them to Alice.
Nobody spoke while she read the first letter.
Morton tried to read her face, but she gave nothing away. She passed the letter over to Jan and opened the second.
Alice swallowed hard and Morton noticed that her eyes were slightly wet. Saying nothing, she put the letter back in the envelope and handed it to Jan. She read the third letter in the same way—revealing nothing.
‘Awful,’ Jan commented, once she had finished the letters. ‘Just awful.’
Morton looked at Alice and decided that he needed to tackle the problem head-on. ‘Do you know where my father went after the fire?’
‘He stayed for a while with friends then left town. He never came back.’
‘He stayed with the Chipman family, didn’t he?’ Morton probed.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Alice confirmed.
‘I believe that Michael Chipman died in 2007—do you know what happened to Laura, his twin sister?’ Morton asked.
Alice took a long inhalation before speaking. ‘She moved to Canada.’
‘Do you know when, or to which part she went?’ Morton asked.
Alice thought for a moment. ‘Alberta, I believe. It must have been around 1982.’
‘And do you know if she married—so I can try and trace her?’
‘She did, but she kept her own name,’ Alice answered.
‘That makes things a little easier,’ Morton said, scribbling notes onto his pad. He wrote the word fire then underlined it. How was he going to ask what had actually happened on that Christmas Eve in 1976? Directly, he decided. ‘Do you mind talking about the fire?’
He heard her quickly draw breath. ‘No, I guess not. I’m not sure how it will help find my brother… What is it you want to know, exactly?’
‘Just what happened. Where was Jack when the fire started?’
She seemed to take an age to organise her thoughts and answer his question. ‘Jack and I were up in my room—chatting as we did most evenings after dinner. As you know, it was Christmas Eve, so we were expecting to be called downstairs to play board games. We left my dad to go and get them in the basement, while my mom was moving presents from her bedroom to the sitting room. We heard her passing my door several times then she just screamed. We ran out into the hall to see smoke billowing up the stairs and fire shooting out of the sitting room. We used Jack’s bedroom window to escape. Us three made it out, but my dad didn’t.’
‘And you were injured?’ Morton asked.
‘Yeah,’ Alice answered, glancing down at her left arm. ‘I tried to find Dad…but he was in the basement and I just couldn’t reach him.’
‘So what caused the fire?’
‘Some electrical fault with the Christmas tree lights.’
‘But why, then, in the final letter from your brother, did he say your mum blamed him for it?’ Morton asked, taking a sip of wine.
‘I don’t know—things had been really tense between Jack and Mom and Dad for a few
