Page 42 of Seduction Under the Southern Stars
My lips curve up. “No, I’m not selling anything. I’d just like to know: do you remember a woman called Nancy Green?”
He’s quiet for a moment. There’s a sound of a sliding door opening and closing again, and then I hear birdsong—he’s gone into the garden. He doesn’t want someone to overhear his conversation. My pulse picks up speed.
“I knew a Nancy Green a long time ago,” he says. “Why?”
My heart skips a beat. Holy fuck. I’ve found him on the first call.
“I’m her eldest son, Linc. I’ve been living in the UK, but I came back a couple of days ago for a funeral. I saw my mother there, and… she told me that the man whose funeral I’d come back for, who I thought was my father, wasn’t, actually. My father, I mean. And that somebody else was.” I know I’m waffling, and I curse myself silently. “She said his name was Edmund Mansfield, and that she had an affair with him early on in her marriage, but when my father—that is, her husband—found out, he stopped the affair, and she never saw Edmund again. That’s all I know, so I thought I’d call all the Edmund Mansfields in the White Pages to begin with, and you were the first one I’ve called.”
My revelation is met with complete silence.
“Hello?” I say after about twenty seconds.
“Nancy has told you that I’m your father?” he asks.
“Yes. I appreciate that this is a bit of a shock.”
“You think? Jesus.” He’s quiet for a moment. I look out of the window at the seagulls wheeling in the air. What was I expecting? That he’d say, ‘Oh my God, that’s amazing, you’re the son I’ve always wanted?’
“How old are you?” he says eventually.
“Twenty-eight. I was born on October fourteenth, 1996. I would have been conceived sometime in the last two weeks of January 1996.”
“Okay, that was when we were together,” he says slowly. “But we used contraception. And also, she was married at the time, so I can’t see how she could say who the father was.” He doesn’t sound aggressive, to be fair. He’s just stating the facts.
“She said she’d had an argument with Don—her husband—and they weren’t sleeping together at the time. I haven’t seen her for ten years, but when I saw her a couple of days ago, she said I looked just like you. My father had blond hair and mine is dark. But I know that doesn’t mean anything.” I hesitate. “I just want to say, I’m not calling for anything. I don’t expect you to take me at my word, and I’m not looking for… you know… money, or anything.”
“Bit of luck,” he says. “I’m no Croesus.”
“And there’s me hoping I was the son of the King of Lydia.” The words come out before I can vet them, and I think Jesus, Linc, you’re such a fucking idiot.
But Edmund gives a husky chuckle. “Are you into history?”
“I’m an archaeologist.”
“Oh? I’m a history teacher at the local high school.”
It doesn’t mean anything. It’s certainly not confirmation that he’s my father. But for some reason my heart lifts. Don Green had no time for anything except Formula One and fixing cars. He would have sneered at my choice of career.
There’s a creak, maybe of a chair as Edmund sits. “It was really hot that summer,” he says, and I realize he’s thinking about when he met Mum. “I was on a teaching course at a hotel here in Queenstown, and she was waitressing. We got talking and… well, anyway. These things happen. Her husband came to the hotel to pick her up one afternoon and saw us together. He hit me and broke my nose, and dragged her away. I never saw her again.”
“That’s pretty much the story she told me, too.”
“She was a lovely little thing,” he says. “How is she?”
I look at my feet, thinking of the dour, sullen woman she turned into. “She’s not the woman she was, unfortunately. Don made sure of that.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that.” He sighs.
“Are you married?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “I wasn’t when I met Nancy, but I am now. Isabel is also a history teacher, would you believe? I have two girls. Marie is twenty-two and she’s just finished a science degree, the traitor. She’s thinking of teaching too, probably primary. Claire is twenty-five, also a historian—she’s doing a post-grad at Otago, and she lectures there, too. She’s just had our first grandchild, Lily.”
I smile, although my head is spinning. Two sisters! I can’t imagine either his wife or his children would be happy to hear of my existence, though. Oh well, it’s not the first time I haven’t been wanted.
“Are you married?” he asks. “Kids?”
“No to both. I’m single at the moment.”
