But nothing comes out. Nothing except a swirling sense of betrayal and a pulse of change that she is determined to make.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘Addy, would you mind moving that red handbag from that shelf and putting that cowrie-shell thing on the stand?’
Adelaide glances up from her crouched position, arranging shoes, to see Daphne balanced on a footstool, reaching for a hat stand.
‘What are you doing?’ she says, straightening as quickly as her back allows. Years of playing an instrument one-sided have left her with some imbalances that time is only exacerbating, and her back keeps letting her know about them. ‘You’re going to fall.’
‘Not if you help me get this stuff done.’
There’s a slightly tetchy tone to Daphne’s voice. Adelaide can guess why: she’s been distracted lately, not quite up to speed in the shop, and Daphne’s had to tell her things a few times. It would be annoying. But she’s not doing it on purpose.
The letter about Desmond has occupied her mind during most of her waking hours. Because seeing him would not just be aboutseeing him. That would be too neat, and she’s too old to believe you can do something giant like meet the son you gave up at birth and not have it affect everything else. There’s no way for that encounter to remain contained – it’s a secret too big to conceal. When he was tucked up inside her, all she had to dowas keep herself away from others. But now he’s real – he has his own life, his own connections. She can’t hide a grown man, and she can’t ask him to hide himself.
‘The bag, Adelaide,’ Daphne says.
‘Sorry,’ Adelaide says, finally moving it.
Daphne steps off the footstool and puts her hands on her hips. ‘What in the world is going on? You’re all over the shop. Literally.’
‘Nothing,’ Adelaide says, more tersely than she means to.
Daphne sniffs. ‘That’s the sort of answer my Noel used to give me when he was a teenager. Not the sort I expect from my elderly friend.’
‘I’m not elderly,’ Adelaide snaps.
‘Well, I am.’ Daphne raises her eyebrows. ‘So that means you are.’
Adelaide’s own eyebrows go up, then her face relaxes into a sort of smile. ‘Sorry,’ she says.
‘I should think so. What’s the problem?’
If only there were just the one problem. The prospect of seeing her son brings with it so many that they need their own categories.
‘Don’t say “nothing”,’ Daphne adds quickly.
‘It’s not nothing,’ Adelaide concedes. ‘But it’s not anything I can tell you.’
They stare at each other and, oh, how Adelaide wishes she could tell her friend what’s really going on. Except that would involve revealing that she kept a fundamental truth from Daphne all those years ago, and explaining why. And the explanation … Adelaide doesn’t know if she’d survive it. After constructing such a fierce carapace and tending to it for decades, making sure it remained intact, that it could not be pierced, she can’t rip it away now without the gravest of consequences.
Which is part of the reason why she’s in such a state about the letter. It’s not a matter of whether or not she wants to meether son. She does. What mother wouldn’t? No, the bigger question, the one troubling her so much, is what happens after that. And who it affects, because it won’t just be her. It can’t be. This secret is not simple.
She wishes she had someone to talk to about it but she’s never had that person, and wouldn’t know how to find them now. Being older makes her feel less capable of managing it alone, though, and she doesn’t know how long she can sustain this confusion – this mixture of longing and grief that she probably couldn’t explain to anyone else anyway.
The shop door opens and a man comes in. They don’t get many men in here, so it’s a novelty at least. This one is around sixty, Adelaide thinks, neatly dressed, with a cravat, which one doesn’t see often.
Daphne gives her a look and Adelaide realises it’s up to her to serve the man.
‘Hello,’ she says, walking up to him. ‘Please let me know if you’re looking for something specific, otherwise we’ll leave you to it.’
Some boutiques you go into and they’re all over you, but they don’t push in this shop. Not that it’s a boutique any more, but Daphne’s had the same policy regardless and she’s impressed it upon Adelaide and the other volunteers.
‘I am,’ the man says, although he looks confused.
‘You are?’
‘Something specific. Yes.’ He glances around. ‘My wife. She had a bracelet …’ He encircles his left wrist with his right hand.