Sophie Hannah - A Game for All the Family

“No. Why do you want to?”

“I think you know why.” Bearing Olwen’s advice in mind, I say, “I’m sorry if I came on too strong the first time I asked to read it. It was the family tree. It rubbed me the wrong way. I’ve got a thing about family trees—almost a phobia.”

“How come?”

I’m getting too hot in the tub. I haul myself out, grab the green bath sheet that’s draped over the towel rail and wrap it around myself. “Remember you asked me the other day about Granddad and Julia—why we don’t see more of them?”

“Yeah.”

Ellen follows me across the landing to my bedroom. Figgy’s sitting on the bed chewing a metal hair clip. “You should be on the leash, with Alex,” I tell him. “Where’s he gone, and why hasn’t he taken you with him?” To Ellen I say, “Do you think I should call Dad ‘Alex’ when I talk to Figgy, or . . . something else?”

“Like what?” She narrows her eyes in suspicion. “Dad? Daddy?”

“No.” I blush.

“Yes!” She points an accusing finger at me. “That’s totally what you were thinking, and ugh, no. Gross! Dad isn’t Figgy’s father.”

I might ask Olwen about this: get a second opinion from an expert.

“You changed the subject,” says Ellen. “You were supposed to be telling me why you hate family trees, and why we never see Granddad and Julia.”

“We don’t never see them. Occasionally we see them.”

“Mum! Stop . . . procrastinating.”

“I think you mean prevaricating.” Whatever you want to call it, she’s right.

I sit down on the bed. Why is it so difficult?

Ellen says, “You know some people are phobic about their relatives? It’s called syngenesophobia. George told me. He has it.”

“Is there a name for a phobia specifically of George’s relatives? Because I think I have that.” I smile.

“Mum. Tell me about Granddad and Julia.”

There’s no putting it off any longer if I’m going to do it at all.

“When I was about your age, Julia made me a family tree as a present. I’m not talking about a quick sketch on a bit of paper. She was into genealogy and family history at the time, so she did stacks of research and, once she’d gone back several generations, she commissioned an artist to turn the information into a proper family tree for me. It was enormous, and quite beautiful, really. There was only one problem.”

“What?”

It’s easy to make it sound mundane because there was no big drama, no overt conflict. “Julia thought it would be inappropriate to start researching my mother’s parents, grandparents, great-grandparents. Granddad had left my mother for Julia the year before, and Julia was sensible enough to work out that Mum, who was still heartbroken, wouldn’t welcome her getting in touch and pestering her for details of her ancestors. So she didn’t put anyone from Mum’s family on the tree. Just Mum, as Dad’s first wife, but as if she had no parents herself. Just on her own, in a little box sticking out next to Granddad.”

“Did Julia put herself on the family tree as Dad’s second wife?” Ellen asks.

“Yes. Which is fine, and what I’d expect her to do. But she also included several generations of her family above her.”

“ What? ” Ellen’s face contorts in disgust. “You’re kidding! Julia put Julia’s great-grandparents on the family tree she made for you ?”

I nod.

“But . . . She did that when you’re the daughter of the woman whose husband she nicked, and whose ancestry she left off the same family tree?”

“Yes.” I ought to say that Julia didn’t steal my father, that he went of his own volition. It felt like a theft, though.

“That’s offensive,” says Ellen.

“I hated the family tree from the second I laid eyes on it. There was barely any space for my mother in her isolated little box amid Julia’s dozens of forebears. It didn’t occur to Julia that Mum mattered to me if not to her—that I might be upset by a visual representation of her insignificance.”

“She shouldn’t have made or given you a family tree at all,” says Ellen. “It’s like, hello? You’ve broken up a family and now you want to make an illustration of that, and give it to the child of the home you broke?”

I’m impressed that Ellen can see the problem. I tried to talk about it with my father many years later, and he shook his head in disgust at what he saw as my ingratitude.

“When Mum died a few years later, I blamed Julia and the family tree. The official cause of death was cancer, but I saw that as a symptom, not the true cause. Mum saw the family tree. Julia and Dad—Granddad, I mean—gave it to me in front of her. At her house, in fact—one Christmas when we were all trying to spend a halfway decent day together. Mum tried not to show it, but I could tell she was devastated. That’s when I think her cancer started. Though, like so many other things, I can’t prove it. And I know it can’t be true, really, I just . . .” I shrug. “Anyway, that’s why I was funny about the family tree in your story.”

“Right,” says Ellen with venom in her voice. “I hate Julia now, and I’m glad we hardly ever see her.”

“Me too, and me too,” I say, knowing it’s the opposite of the response I ought to give. “Granddad isn’t blameless either. He should have stopped her and told her to buy me a book token instead. Stupid arse. But you can’t hate him because he’s your granddad.”

“You can hate people who are related to you by blood,” Ellen informs me. “George hates his mum. He says he’d be so happy if she died.”

“Really?”

Ellen nods. “She never misses an opportunity to ruin his life, he says. I mean, he wouldn’t kill her or anything, but he’s definitely hoping she’ll die young. Young for an old person, I mean. He wouldn’t be sad.”

“Ellen, listen, this is important. George’s mum . . . I believe she might be a dangerous woman—”

“So does George.”

“—and I think your story about the Ingreys might be about her in some way. If it is, I urgently need to read it. Any information, anything you know about Anne Donbavand, I need to know.”

“Why?” Ellen looks away.

“So that I can keep us all safe,” I explain.

“I don’t see how it would help you to do that, though.”

“So your story is about George’s mum’s childhood?”

Ellen chews her bottom lip.

“My guess is that you’d like to tell me but you can’t because you’ve promised George. I understand that. If you’re going to marry him, your first loyalty has to be to him.” Was that a step too far?

“Maybe if I didn’t tell you . . .” Ellen says tentatively.

“Yes,” I say eagerly. “You could just let me read the story.”

“No. I can’t.”

Damn. “Why not, El?”

“For the same reason you’re so desperate to read it,” she says tearfully. “If you use stuff in it . . .”

Use stuff in it to do what? This is what I’ve been after, isn’t it? Proof? If it’s not a true story, how would I be able to use it in a way that would harm anyone?

“Ask me a question I can answer without answering,” Ellen mumbles, as if saying it inaudibly is the same as not having said it at all.

“All right. Unless you here and now tell me I’m wrong, I’m going to assume the story you’re writing about the Ingreys is about Anne Donbavand. Perrine is her little sister. Anne is Lisette Ingrey. George told you about her childhood. If you don’t contradict me, I’m going to take that as confirmation that I’m right.”

“Hello?” Alex calls up the stairs. “Justine, is Figgy up there?”