“Look, Dad. No Rose. No nothing. She lied to you about it being her middle name. That’s not why she used to be called Greta Rose.”
“It’s not enough,” said Peter stubbornly. “It doesn’t mean anything. Greta told me herself that she stopped calling herself Greta Rose after she left Manchester, and so it makes sense that she’d leave it off her renewal application. It’s the birth certificate that’s important. It’ll be here somewhere.”
“Let me look,” said Thomas impatiently. “You’re taking forever.”
“No, I don’t want you touching anything,” said Peter angrily.
“Look in the drawer where the passport was, then,” said Thomas. “She’s going to keep all those kind of documents together.”
Thomas was right. There was an old black address book held together by a liberal application of masking tape and underneath it a thick brown envelope with the word certificates written on it in Greta’s neat handwriting.
Peter emptied the contents of the envelope out onto the writing surface of the bureau. At the top was a much newer piece of paper than the others, which turned out to be the certificate of Greta’s marriage to Peter. Underneath it was a document headed University of Birmingham, and then a copy of a death certificate for a George Grahame, and at the bottom the certified copy of an entry of birth for Greta Rose Grahame, a girl born on November 17, 1971, at 2 °Cale Street in Manchester. Greta Rose had had a home birth.
Peter felt an overwhelming surge of relief flood his body. For a moment it was ecstasy. He was like a soldier told that he’s lost a leg who then looks down to find the leg still there. Peter’s spinning world righted itself, and he forgot for a moment that Thomas was the enemy.
“Thank God,” he said. “Deep down I always knew she was Greta Rose. She dropped the Rose because she had a bad time up north. Just like she said.”
“She may be called Rose, but that doesn’t mean a thing,” said Thomas furiously. He felt crushed by the disappointment that the birth certificate had inflicted upon him. For a moment he had really believed that the nightmare of the last year was going to end. He wouldn’t be alone anymore; people wouldn’t say he was a liar. But now it was worse. Doubt removed is certainty redoubled. Thomas felt his final defeat approaching. Greta had almost won. He made a last appeal to his father.
“It’s not the birth certificate that matters, Dad. It’s me and you. I heard Rosie talking about Greta. I saw him outside this house. She had Mum’s locket in this desk.”
The smile on Peter’s face faded and the light went out of his eyes. It was as if Thomas’s words had reminded him of who Thomas really was. His son was the enemy. He’d brought all this about. He was the reason why his wife was on trial for murder when she was innocent, entirely innocent.
“You saw; you heard,” said Peter angrily. “It’s always you. Not you and me. You and your lies.”
“I’m not lying. What do you think I am? Why would I want to make it up?”
“Because she rejected you when you tried to — ”
“Tried to what?”
“Tried to… I don’t know what you did. I wasn’t there, but I know what you wanted. Greta told me.”
“What did I want?”
“To sleep with her.”
“And she said no and I went crazy. Is that the idea?”
“You feel guilty too. That’s another reason why you’ve done what you’ve done.”
“Guilty! You’re the one who should be guilty. You left Mum on her own all those years and she never complained. And you left me too even though I was small and would have liked to have had a father. What did you ever do with me?”
Peter said nothing. Thomas didn’t know if he was even listening, but it did him good to tell his father what he felt. He probably wouldn’t have another opportunity.
“I can’t even remember you taking me for a walk. You just weren’t there. Your career was too important for you to spend time with your family.”
“I was earning money for you and Anne,” said Peter defensively.
“No, you weren’t. You were suiting yourself. And it got better, didn’t it, when Greta came along. Green-eyed Greta. That’s what Mum used to call her. You and her in this house. You and her and your brilliant career.”
“I never slept with her before…”
Peter stopped in midsentence and Thomas finished it for him.
“Before Mum died, but you did on the night of her funeral, didn’t you? That’s how you heard that conversation that rattled you so badly, wasn’t it?”
Thomas’s words were pouring out in a flood now. There was no chance for Peter to reply to his questions even if he had wanted to.
“Your first wife spending her first night in the ground and you fucking your secretary up in London. What a picture.”
“Shut up, Thomas,” said Peter. There was a warning note in his voice that Thomas ignored.
“And somewhere deep down you must know that she sent those men to kill Mummy, but it wasn’t enough to sleep with your wife’s murderer — you needed to marry her as well. You’re a pig, Dad, and this place, it’s your fucking sty.”
Thomas was shouting now and he had brought his face close to his father’s, so he had no chance of defending himself when Peter lashed out. His fist was clenched this time, and he hit Thomas on the side of his mouth with a swinging punch that sent his son crashing against the bureau and from there to the floor.
Peter put a hand out toward his son and then immediately pulled it back. He felt disgusted with himself for what he’d done but at this moment of crisis he wasn’t man enough to face his guilt. Instead he swamped it beneath a torrent of self-justification. It was Thomas who had brought all this about with his crazy witch hunt against his stepmother.
“You shouldn’t have talked to me like that,” said Peter, as Thomas slowly got to his feet clutching the side of his face.
“Fuck you, Dad.” The anger had gone out of Thomas’s voice, and he spoke the words softly like a curse.
“Here, take my handkerchief,” said Peter, but Thomas backed away. The blood had seeped through his fingers and dripped down onto his shirt.
“You don’t want my blood on the carpet, do you? You don’t want your bitch wife to know I’ve been here.”
“Shut up, Thomas.”
“Shut up or you’ll hit me again. Is that it?”
“No, it’s not. I’m sorry I hit you, but I’m not going to let you say those things about Greta.”
“So it’s perfectly all right for her to have killed my mother?”
“She didn’t kill your mother. I don’t want to talk to you about it anymore, Thomas.”
“But you did half an hour ago. You thought it was a possibility then, didn’t you? It’s wonderful what a birth certificate can do.”
“I was stupid. I feel ashamed of myself, but that’s between me and my own conscience.”
“If you’ve got one.”
“This is pointless,” said Peter wearily. “We’ve got nothing to say to each other.”
Thomas turned away. He didn’t disagree with what his father had said. His objection was that his father had no right not to love him, but there was no point in telling him that. He couldn’t make his father feel things if he didn’t. At the door, Thomas turned back. The situation called for a parting shot, but Thomas could think of nothing suitable to say. He felt suddenly exhausted. A sense of utter desolation overwhelmed him, and his father’s words came to him as if over a great distance.
“You can stay in the house for as long as you like. Jane too. It’s just I can’t see you. Not after all that’s happened.”
Down below, the front door opened. Greta had come home early.
Looking back on the moment later in the evening, Thomas wondered why he hadn’t walked down the stairs to meet his stepmother. He could have told her that he was there at his father’s invitation to search through her personal papers. How could their marriage have survived the revelation of his father’s doubt? The only explanation that occurred to Thomas for his decision to hide was that a victory based on doubts that his father no longer felt would be no victory at all. He could only properly avenge his mother by showing up Greta for what she really was. He needed proof. The birth certificate was not that proof. He could not use it against Greta now.