Chapter 7.

For the rest of week the news that she might have had another uncle kept Ellie distracted with ‘what-ifs and maybe’s’. She was so distracted; she struggled to hold it together at work. Several times she made simple mistakes with her analysis and figures. By Thursday Beverly had had to correct the errors and because they were so simple she realised that Ellie was seriously upset or distracted by something; she felt forced to speak to her ‘girl Friday’.

“Are you okay Ellie? You seem to have been addlebrained all week?”

“I’m okay boss. There’s been a bit of bother at home, family business; by that I mean family secrets, skeletons in cupboards and all that.
Hopefully it’ll be sorted tomorrow night. My dad’s organised a family get-together.”

“Well I hope it does get sorted. These figures you prepared need re-doing all over again. One of the girls picked up some mistakes and brought them to me. When I checked them I found several more serious ones. It’s not like you to make such basic arithmetical errors.”

Ellie ran her eye over the figures and frowned an apology.

“I’m sorry. I’ll redo them tonight.”

“No, it’s not necessary. I suspected something was wrong so I've gone over the figures myself. You’re usually so reliable and accurate – and quick. One of the girls has double checked my figures and corrected the remaining errors. We both think they’re okay now. You just get your personal business sorted and hopefully it’ll be okay by next week.”

"I'll check them all again by the end of the week," Ellie asserted herself, "after all that's my job."

Friday arrived and Ellie made doubly sure of her figures. The extra work caused her to be late finishing work. By the day’s end she was glad to be closing her office and heading home. When she arrived home, she found two unrecognised cars parked thoughtlessly on the cottage forecourt. At first Ellie thought they might belong to the family lawyers then she realised they were probably her aunties’ cars. Her aunties did not get on with their mother and they visited so rarely that they had possibly changed cars since their last visit. Ellie was philosophical about this but curious to know what the big secret was.

As she locked her car she began to realise that the ‘skeleton-in-the-cupboard’ that had dragged her aunts out of their self imposed separation must be more important then she first realised. Obviously it was important or serious enough to propel her aunts halfway across England to address the issues.

Having little idea of what this bii-ig secret was, Ellie had not mustered much interest in the forthcoming discussion. Originally she had felt it was something to do with her grandfather’s will that apparently hadn’t yet been sorted out after donkey’s years of contention. She certainly wasn’t expecting it to involve her. Indeed, Ellie was more interested in meeting her older cousins if they had accompanied their respective mothers. She had only ever seen them but a few times in all her life. The last time was when Ellie had been ‘wheeled out’ as the family success story because she had graduated to Cambridge. The aunties hadn’t even come to Ellie’s wedding. Henry her dead husband had never actually met them and now never would. Ellie frowned thoughtfully as she opened up the door around the back because all the available parking space on the forecourt was taken.

‘Such a large family and I hardly know any of them,’ she reflected and sighed as she opened the back door. She promptly stopped at the threshold. There was a row going on as women’s voices were being raised in the communal living room. Ellie paused in the back kitchen and listened as she recognised her aunt Sandra’s voice arguing the toss.

“You should never have done it! It was evil and Dad was just as bad though he regretted it later and he recanted when the kid finally disappeared. But too bloody late! The boy was gone forever! No trace! Nothing! He could be anywhere on the planet by now!”

“He’s most probably dead!” Auntie Rose added.

Aunty Sandra continued.

“So how does Dad punish you and us when he died? He deliberately includes the boy in the will with that monstrous codicil. The estate was to remain undivided for twenty five years after his death unless the boy turned up. Well mother! I hope you die and never see your share!”

Nana Charlotte shrieked back in anger.

“Your father should have told me at the time he didn’t want to do it! He was weak; he left me to sort the whole mess out! I had to do the dirty work!”

Auntie Rosie’s softer voice responded to her mother’s defence.

“And dirty work it was. How could I have known you’d have acted so brutally? Yes; I was furious with him about my stockings, as any young woman would be; but I only wanted him to stop stealing my cloths! Not have him put away! You could at least have gone to visit him. Is it any wonder the kid never came back?

“Your father and I were coming around to that. We were going to wait until the boy’s sixteenth birthday but he disappeared, escaped from the home.”

Auntie Sandra snarled back.

“Home! You called that place a home. It was a bloody prison mum!! I checked it out a few years ago! I didn’t even know what a Borstal was until I checked it out! The trouble is the records are gone, destroyed; and now we all know why. It was in the papers for months. It wasn’t a home; as you so genteelly put it! It was a bloody borstal mother, a boy’s prison! He was twelve when he was removed from the psychiatric unit and they put him in a bloody borstal! - No, worse than that, a bloody paedophile hell!”

Ellie listened mesmerised as she tried to make sense of their shouting. She was so transfixed that she failed to hear her father enter from the dining room. He crept up behind her and spoke softly.

“People who listen at keyholes usually hear ill of themselves.”

Ellie jerked up with surprise and hit her head on the sideboard.

“Ow!” She cursed. “Dammit dad! Don’t sneak up like that! What’s this boy they’re talking about?”

“Probably my younger brother, he’d be your uncle if he was alive – which I doubt!”

“My uncle? So it’s true then, I did have an uncle”

Her dad paused as he collected his thoughts.”

“Yes_ and you might still have one; if he’s still alive. Though it’s very doubtful.”

“Are you serious? Are you saying I had an uncle? Is this the person they’re arguing about in there?”

“Yes, now we’d best join them. The girls have been shouting since they got here and that’s a good thirty minutes ago.”

“I’m not sure I want to. It sounds pretty frenetic.”

“They’ve finally lanced the boil, I think. They’re having the same argument with your Nana that I had with your grand-dad just before he died. Now they seem to be just going over old ground again.”

“What’s that?”

“Mum and dad shouldn’t have had the boy put away.”

“Put away? D’ you mean like mental patients?”

“Precisely. He was my brother but I never got to grow up with him.”

“Are you seriously saying you had a brother? This isn’t some sort of lie is it?”

Her father got a little angry at the implied questioning of his integrity.

“No dammit Ellie! I am not lying! I once had a brother and that’s exactly what I’m saying. Now let’s join them. I hasten to add, I’m the innocent party in this. My brother was six when he disappeared. I was eight and they never explained it to me.”

“Oh that’s obscene!” Ellie protested loudly just as her father opened the door to the living room.

The arguing ceased as if by magic as both her aunts and her Nana turned towards Ellie. She stared hard at the three women then exercised her adult right to question them in her own home. And it was Ellie’s home for she still held title to half the deeds while her father and Nana only held a quarter each. As she collected her thoughts, Ellie picked up on the last words she had heard before her father had caught her listening at the keyhole.

“So what should Nana not have done?” She asked her aunties.

Sandie and Rosie stared sullenly at their mother while Nana Charlotte span around angrily.

“Have you been listening?”

“It was hard not to.” Ellie replied calmly. “I heard the shouting even as I drove past that open kitchen window. It was so loud you never even heard my car scrunching on the gravel. Yes I heard the last few remarks; so I ask again. What is it you should not have done and is it true there was another child in this family?”

After a guilty silence Nana Charlotte answered the question.

“Yes.”

Ellie nodded slowly as she made a show of digesting the shocking fact.

“And is it true he was ‘Put away’, as dad just described it to me?”

“If you knew that, why are you asking? Are you just trying to embarrass me?”

“No.” Ellie replied firmly but softly. “I’m just trying to confirm what Dad just told me. Is it true? Do I have an uncle out there?”

“I doubt it,” Rosie replied, “he’s in all probability long dead.”

“But you have no proof?” Ellie pressed.

“No.” Sandie confirmed. “But kids coming out of care don’t usually thrive; they don't thrive even today and they certainly didn't back then Plus he was a queer.”

Ellie nodded as she digested the facts then referred to her grandfather’s will.

“Dad says granddad wrote a will, with something about a twenty five year codicil. What’s all that about?”

“It’s true,” Nana Charlotte admitted, “their father put a clause in the will concerning the boy saying that every endeavour to find him must be continued for twenty five years before the estate can be divided. In the meantime I could live in the family home until the twenty five years was up. It was hell’s own job getting the courts to allow me to sell the original home because I was too frail to keep running it. The estate has been a millstone around my neck since he died.”

“And ours!” Sandi added angrily.

Ellie frowned.

“As I recall, the law says it's only after seven years if somebody does not turn up to claim what is theirs. After that she or he is deemed to be legally dead. Now you’re telling me about this thing in grand-dad’s will. So why did he write it if this supposed uncle is legally dead anyway, at least for property and inheritance things.”

“He’s not legally dead if the will specifically requires other factors and conditions to be fulfilled,” her dad added, “your grand-dad specifically stated twenty five years! I think that illustrated the extent of his anger.”

“Have you ever looked for him?” Ellie asked nobody in particular.

“Of course we have,” Rosie confirmed, “we’ve never stopped looking! Sandie and I could do with the monies.”

Both sisters glared at Nana Charlotte as Rosie continued.

“It’s our inheritance and that bitch has caused it to be denied us for twenty years. She’s fine you see, living here in this fine cottage all nicely provided by you and the courts. As is your dad, - but not us, oh no! We’ve had to scrimp and struggle to get by.”

“Ellie turned to her Nana.”

“So it’s definitely true then, I did have an uncle.”

Nana Charlotte nodded but remained silent. There was little she could add that would not cause more contention but Ellie pressed on.

“So what happened? Why was he ‘put away’? I want to hear it from your mouths.”

“What right have you got to demand that?” Nana Charlotte protested.

Ellie snapped back angrily.

“The same right as the rest of my cousins or do they still not know either?”

“You’ll have to ask your aunts that.”

With raised eyebrows Ellie turned questioningly to Rosie and Sandie. They wagged their heads to confirm that they also had also kept their own children ignorant. Ellie turned to Nana Charlotte again.

“So it seems that I don't have the right to know if my cousins don't; it's that or you don’t want to tell me; why? You said he was 'queer' so would I be right in thinking it might be something similar to Callum?”

Her grandmother sat upright with alarm then almost spat the answer.

“Yes Dammit! It must run in the family - bloody perversions! It's probably from your grandfather's side!”

Ellie didn't get angry, indeed she felt the sweet taste of victory for Nana Charlotte had just destroyed her own ‘Nurture over nature’ arguments.

“So you’re saying that my Callum was born the same as this missing uncle. What was his name? I’m presuming he did have a name then.”

Both aunts and her father angrily chorused ‘Bernard’! And Nana Charlotte reluctantly nodded affirmation - as though giving the missing child a name somehow gave him rights and dignity. Ellie sighed silently and wagged her head as she surmised her own son Callum had been lucky. He had two generations between himself and a great-grandmother who might have committed ‘god-knows-what’ to have the child ‘cured’. She turned to Nana Charlotte.

“So if it runs in the family then, you have to agree Callum was born this way and he can’t be changed. It’s genetic.”

“People can change.” Nana Charlotte replied in one last feeble defence of her own faltering beliefs.

“Why should he change?” Ellie pressed home her advantage. “Who should he have to change for?”

“But it’s so shameful!” Charlotte tried to maintain her belief but in the face of Ellie’s more modern outlook he arguments were being quickly nullified.

“You may think so.” Ellie riposted.” “My generation certainly doesn’t think so. You saw Jackie at Henry’s funeral. She lives full time as a female and she’s married to Gwendolyn. They’ve got children for God’s sake! Where’s the shame!?”

“The Bible says – “

“Stuff the Bible. It's a load of cod's-wallop written four thousand years ago!!!” Ellie replied angrily. "Anyway; when did you last go to bloody church?"

“That’s blasphemy!” Nana Charlotte almost screeched.

“That’s science Nana! Now what about this uncle I never had or met. Have any of you any idea where he might be?”

“Your aunties are probably right,” Ellie’s dad replied, “they’ve been searching for years and they’ve found nothing. He disappeared without trace when he was fourteen, so he’s most probably dead. Transgender people didn’t usually thrive all those years ago. He probably ended up as the victim of some sex crime or God knows what.”

“Have you tried finding him?”

“I tried when your grand-dad was around but we had no luck.” Her father explained. “I know Rosie and Sandie have searched for years. The records from the hospital only told of his being put in a children’s home and –“

“Borstal! Tell the truth Bill! It was a bloody borstal not a home!” Auntie Sandra interjected.

“Alright then, a bloody Borstal!” William conceded. “Whatever it was, he absconded and that was the last he was ever heard of. I’m sorry Ellie, it’s pretty certain we’ll never find him so we’ll simply have to wait until the clause in the will comes to its conclusion. It’s only a few more years to go.”

“Huh. Well I’ll probably be dead by then so I won’t see any benefits.” Nana Charlotte complained.

Ellie’s father rounded on his mother and spoke with soft venom that Ellie had never seen before.

“D’you think you deserve any mummy? I don’t think Dad ever forgave you.”

“There was nothing to stop him going to see the boy.” Nana Charlotte snapped back.

“Except you and your hyper-religious family, he didn’t want to hurt you but it always wounded him. Besides, what would it have looked like to the boy if his father had turned up without his mother?”

Ellie stood in numbed silence as her father argued with her grandmother. She had never dreamed that such a big family secret had lain like a stick of unlit dynamite between her olds. Now the fuse was lit and she was fearful of the consequences. It was obvious that her father and aunts were still carrying the scars from that partition of the fourth child. It had shocked Ellie to learn of it and it cast Nana Charlotte in a wholly new light.”

‘How could Nana have been so cruel and uncaring? How did she still live with what she had done; what damage she had done to the other children; the rift it now caused and would that rift be healed?’ She wondered.

Ellie went into the kitchen to make some tea and escape the vitriol while the argument resumed in the living room. The shouting soon became intolerably loud to Ellie’s ears and she became angry with her olds; so much so that she burst in upon them.

“For fuck’s sake Stoppit, Stoppit! Stoppit!! Can you not hear yourselves?”

Nana Charlotte span around with stunned disbelief that her favourite grand-daughter had sworn so vehemently.

“Ellie, don’t use such foul language!”

“Don’t you tell me what language to use in my home. Think instead of what you have done. This row for instance! It’s your doing. What is it, fifty - sixty years ago? And still the scars bleed. I’m not asking you, all of you that is; to stop this shouting; - I’m telling you! Stoppit!”

The four adults fell silent then finally her father spoke.

“You’re right girl. This must come as a shock to you. Come on, let’s drink the tea and call it a day. Arguing and shouting is never going to solve the problem. Bernard is gone and gone forever. We have to accept that.”

Nana Charlotte pursed her lips irritably but said no more; Sandie and Rosie nodded their heads reluctantly. It was obvious that they still lived in hope of finding their brother and resolving the issues of their father’s will. As they sipped their tea, the strained silence gave them time to reflect that the cruel truth was, they would very likely never find their brother and they would have to wait for several years more before the will was settled. Ellie let out a deep sigh as she stood to leave and put Callum to bed.

~~000~~