Tangled Tapestry. Anne Mather
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up the steps and across the verandah. Hesitating only momentarily, she passed Dominic McGill and walked into the dimly lit hallway. All the windows were still shuttered, but McGill walked round, opening them, letting in the brilliant sunshine to flood away all the shadows of the past.
‘I … I always thought film stars lived in Hollywood—you know, Beverly Hills, and all that.’
Dominic McGill shrugged. ‘So they do. Even Elizabeth had a house on Wilshire Boulevard. But this was where she came when she wanted complete privacy. Very few people knew this address. Come through here, and I’ll show you why she liked it.’
He pushed open the double doors of a long lounge; a ghostly place, shrouded with white-sheeted furniture, and thickly covered with dust. Cobwebs hung everywhere, and Debra brushed them aside, grimacing. She had never liked spiders. McGill flung open the shutters of wide french doors that opened on to the verandah at its western elevation. Then Debra saw the view; the height of the hacienda was deceptive, for from here they had a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean, stretched out below them like blue silk edged with white lace. Crumbling bamboo chairs on the verandah here were positive proof that at some time someone had sat here, looking at the view in all its glory. Debra had no doubt that in the evening, with the sun setting into the ocean, it would be even more beautiful than it was at present. It was a strange and eerie thought; that the woman who had rested on this verandah might well have been her mother.
Dominic McGill seemed lost in thought, too, staring out at the view himself, as though recalling a time when things had been different. It crossed her mind momentarily to wonder how well he had known Elizabeth Steel. Of course, she would have been much older than he was, fifteen years at least, so she presumed that they had been merely acquaintances in the same business. At least, it appeared, he had been one of the very few people who had known this address.
He looked at her now, seeing the tautness of her features. ‘Does it bother you?’ he asked softly. ‘Coming here, I mean.’
Debra looked at him. ‘Should it? After all, if she was my mother, which I doubt, she never cared about me, so why should I care about her?’
‘Why do you doubt it so much? The more I see of you, the more convinced I am that Morley was right. You are like her, incredibly like her.’
‘How do you know what I’m like?’
He looked bored. ‘Come on, come on! I don’t know what you’re like—as a person. You naturally have your own personality. There are other things, less tangible things, that connect, somehow. The way you look when you’re angry, the way you twist your fingers together, the way you walk, and move your head. It’s no good, Debra. You have too much going for you.’
Debra compressed her lips, annoyed that he had called her by her Christian name, without her consent. She walked back into the hall, and looked up the flight of stairs to the floor above.
Without her being aware of it, he came behind her, and she jumped when he said: ‘Do you want to see your mother’s room?’
Debra glared at him. ‘She might not have been my mother! And no, I’ve seen enough. Why did you bring me here, anyway? It’s a horribly gloomy place.’
‘It didn’t used to be,’ he remarked, closing the shutters again in the long lounge. Then he closed the hall shutters, and Debra thankfully pushed open the mesh door, and emerged into the sunshine. ‘When Elizabeth was alive, it was never gloomy.’
‘Why hasn’t it been sold?’ asked Debra, kicking a stone.
Dominic locked the doors. ‘Who would sell it? She had no heirs. Everything has been left as it was, mainly I guess because Aaron is such a sentimentalist.’
Debra leaned against the bonnet of the powerful car, but straightened when Dominic McGill remarked that it was dusty after the journey. Brushing down her skirt, she accepted a cigarette from him with ill grace. Then she said, through a cloud of smoke:
‘Tell me something: if Elizabeth Steel was my mother, who was my father? Am I illegitimate?’
McGill blew a smoke ring lazily, and then smiled. ‘Illegitimate? What a terrible word! Would it matter to you if you were?’
Debra swallowed hard. ‘Yes.’
‘Why? You weren’t responsible.’
‘I know—but there’s a stigma attached, all the same.’
‘Imagination,’ he remarked, looking amused still.
‘You know nothing about it,’ she stormed at him angrily. ‘You seem to think you can tell me anything, and I should just be able to accept it—like that!’ She rubbed her nose thoughtfully. ‘I always thought my parents died in a train crash. I wish they had.’
‘Oh, grow up!’ He looked disgusted now.
‘Well!’ Debra drew on her cigarette. ‘Anyway, surely you must have some idea—if this woman had a baby, people would know!’
‘And that’s the only point against this claim,’ he said, nodding. ‘So far as Emmet can remember, Elizabeth worked solidly from the end of the war until about 1953 when we know she took six months’ holiday, on doctor’s orders. She went to Fiji, in the Phillippines.’ He smiled slowly and reminiscently, and Debra looked at him strangely.
‘How old are you, Mr. McGill?’ she asked, frowning.
‘Thirty-nine. Why?’
‘Just curiosity,’ she replied, walking across the gravel sweep to the side of the house where that wonderful view was visible. Hé followed her, the soles of his suede shoes crunching on the stones. She looked up at him for a moment, meeting his eyes. They were so blue, she thought inconsequently, and then colouring, she looked away feeling gauche. ‘So you would be twenty-three, in 1953,’ she said, half to herself, and he nodded. ‘Had … had you started in the business then?’
He shrugged. ‘Only just,’ he replied briefly. He glanced at the gold watch circling his tanned wrist. ‘Come: let’s go. We’ll drive to San José for lunch. We pass through the Santa Clara valley on our way. The fruit groves are blooming at this time of year. It’s quite a sight.’
Debra walked back to the car and slid in easily. It was strange, she thought, how quickly the mind adapted itself to circumstances. She would never have believed a week ago that so many eventful things could happen to her. And to imagine what Aunt Julia would think of her exploring the countryside in company with Dominic McGill was laughable, really. She would be scandalised!
When he climbed in beside her, she looked at him. ‘You didn’t tell me why you brought me here.’
McGill switched on the engine before replying. ‘I guess I wanted to see you here. And after all, this is only a small part of what you would inherit if you really are Elizabeth Steel’s daughter. There’s still the house on Wilshire Boulevard, although that is in excellent repair. Her staff of servants are still employed there. Aaron pays their salaries. It was never closed up. Her death was so unexpected.’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ exclaimed Debra, feeling in her handbag for her cigarettes.
‘What do you want?’ he asked, noticing her fumbling.
‘A cigarette.’
He drew out the slim gold cigarette case from his pocket, flicked it open, and she took one of the long American cigarettes from it. Then he tossed his lighter into her lap, and she lit the cigarette gratefully. ‘Thank you.’
He nodded and put the lighter back in his pocket. ‘Now, tell me about your life in England.’
Debra sighed. ‘There’s very little to tell. My life has been singularly uneventful, so far!’ and she smiled when she saw his humorous expression. ‘It’s true. I teach at the Valleydown Secondary School, and I live with Aunt Julia. When you’ve said that, you’ve said it all.’
He