Jeffrey Archer - As the Crow Flies

Unlike the young cavalier, I simply didn't know the answer. In fact I had no idea who my father was, or my mother, for that matter. Most people don't realize how many times a day, a month, a year one is asked such a question. And if your reply is always, "I simply don't know, because they both died before I can remember," you are greeted with looks of either surprise or suspicion or, worse still, disbelief. In the end you learn how to throw up a smokescreen or simply avoid the issue by changing the subject. There is no variation on the question of parentage for which I haven't developed an escape route.

The only vague memory I have of my parents is of a man who shouted a lot of the time and of a woman who was so timid she rarely spoke. I also have a feeling she was called Anna. Other than that, both of them remain a blur.

How I envied those children who could immediately tell me about their parents, brothers, sisters, even second cousins or distant aunts. All I knew about myself was that I had been brought up in St. Hilda's Orphanage, Park Hill, Melbourne. Principal: Miss Rachel Benson.

Many of the children from the orphanage did have relations and some received letters, even the occasional visit. The only such person I can ever recall was an elderly, rather severe-looking woman, who wore a long black dress and black lace gloves up to her elbows, and spoke with a strange accent. I have no idea what her relationship to me was, if any.

Miss Benson treated this particular lady with considerable respect and I remember even curtsied when she left, but I never learned her name and when I was old enough to ask who she was Miss Benson claimed she had no idea what I was talking about. Whenever I tried to question Miss Benson about my own upbringing, she would reply mysteriously, "It's best you don't know, child." I can think of no sentence in the English language more likely to ensure that I try even harder to find out the truth about my background.

As the years went by I began to ask what I thought were subtler questions on the subject of my parentage—of the vice-principal, my house matron, kitchen staff, even the janitor—but I always came up against the same blank wall. On my fourteenth birthday I requested an interview with Miss Benson in order to ask her the question direct. Although she had long ago dispensed with "It's best you don't know, child," she now replaced this sentiment with, "In truth, Cathy, I don't know myself." Although I didn't question her further, I didn't believe her, because some of the older members of the staff would from time to time give me strange looks, and on at least two occasions began to whisper behind my back once they thought I was out of earshot.

I had no photographs or mementos of my parents, or even any proof of their past existence, except for a small piece of jewelry which I convinced myself was silver. I remember that it was the man who shouted a lot who had given me the little cross and since then it had always hung from a piece of string around my neck. One night when I was undressing in the dormitory Miss Benson spotted my prize and demanded to know where the pendant had come from; I told her Betsy Compton had swapped it with me for a dozen marbles, a fib that seemed to satisfy her at the time. But from that day onwards I kept my treasure well hidden from anyone's prying eyes.

I must have been one of those rare children who loved going to school from the first day its doors were opened to me. The classroom was a blessed escape from my prison and its warders. Every extra minute I spent at the local school was a minute I didn't have to be at St. Hilda's, and I quickly discovered that the harder I worked the longer the hours I was allowed to remain behind. These became even more expandable when, at the age of eleven, I won a place at Melbourne Church of England Girls' Grammar School, where they had so many extracurricular activities going on, from first thing in the morning until late every evening, that St. Hilda's became little more than the place where I slept and had breakfast.

While at MGS I took up painting, which made it possible for me to spend several hours in the art room without too much supervision or interference; tennis, where by dint of sheer hard work and application I managed to gain a place in the school second six, which produced the bonus of being allowed to practice in the evening until it was dusk; and cricket, for which I had no talent, but as team scorer not only was I required never to leave my place until the last ball had been bowled but every other Saturday I was able to escape on a bus for a fixture against another school. I was one of the few children who enjoyed away matches in preference to home fixtures.

At sixteen I entered the sixth form and began to work even harder: it was explained to Miss Benson that I might possibly win a scholarship to the University of Melbourne—not an everyday occurrence for an inmate from St. Hilda's.

Whenever I received any academic distinction or reprimand—the latter became rarer once I had discovered school—I was made to report to Miss Benson in her study, where she would deliver a few words of encouragement or disapproval, before placing the slip of paper that marked these occurrences in a file which she would then return to a cabinet that stood behind her desk. I always watched her most carefully as she carried out this ritual. First she would remove a key from the top left-hand drawer of her desk, then she would go over to the cabinet, check my file under "QRS," place the credit or misdemeanor inside my entry, lock the cabinet and then replace the key in her desk. It was a routine that never varied.

Another fixed point in Miss Benson's life was her annual holiday, when she would visit "her people" in Adelaide. This took place every September and I looked forward to it as others might a holiday.

Once war had been declared I feared she might not keep to her schedule, especially as we were told we would all have to make sacrifices.

Miss Benson appeared to make no sacrifices despite travel restrictions and cutbacks and departed for Adelaide on exactly the same day that summer as she always had. I waited until five days after the taxi had driven her off to the station before I felt it was safe to carry out my little escapade.

On the sixth night I lay awake until just after one in the morning, not moving a muscle until I was certain all sixteen girls in the dormitory were fast asleep. Then I rose, borrowed a pen torch from the drawer of the girl who slept next to me and headed off across the landing towards the staircase. Had I been spotted en route, I already had an excuse prepared about feeling sick, and as I had rarely entered the sanatorium at any time during my twelve years at St. Hilda's, I felt confident I would be believed.

I crept cautiously down the staircase without having to use the torch: since Miss Benson had departed for Adelaide, I had practiced the routine each morning with my eyes closed. Once I had reached the principal's study, I opened the door and slipped in, only then switching on the pen torch. I tiptoed over to Miss Benson's desk and cautiously pulled open the top lefthand drawer. What I hadn't been prepared for was to be faced with about twenty different keys, some in groups on rings while others were detached but unmarked. I tried to remember the size and shape of the one Miss Benson had used to unlock the filing cabinet, but I couldn't, and with only a pen torch to guide me several trips to the cabinet and back were necessary before I discovered the one that would turn one hundred and eighty degrees.

I pulled open the top drawer of the filing cabinet as slowly as I could but the runners still seemed to rumble like thunder. I stopped, and held my breath as I waited to hear if there was any movement coming from the house. I even looked under the door to be sure no light was suddenly switched on. Once I felt confident I hadn't disturbed anyone I leafed through the names in the "QRS" box file: Roberts, Rose, Ross . . . I pulled out my personal folder and carried the heavy bundle back to the principal's desk. I sat down in Miss Benson's chair and, with the help of the torch, began to check each page carefully. As I was fifteen and had now been at St. Hilda's for around twelve years, my file was necessarily thick. I was reminded of misdemeanors as long ago as wetting my bed, and several credits for painting, including the rare double credit for one of my watercolors that still hung in the dining room. Yet however much I searched through that folder there was no trace of anything about me before the age of three. I began to wonder if this was a general rule that applied to everyone who had come to live at St. Hilda's. I took a quick glance at the details of Jennie Rose's record. To my dismay, I found the names of both her father (Ted, deceased) and her mother (Susan). An attached note explained that Mrs. Rose had three other children to bring up and since the death of her husband from a heart attack had been quite unable to cope with a fourth child.