Julian Fellowes: Past Imperfect

‘Nineteen,’ I said. ‘Her life was a living lie for nineteen years.’

He looked puzzled for a moment, then he nodded. ‘Nineteen and just starting out. Cash would have come in very useful.’ He looked at me. I didn’t have anything to add since, like the lawyer, I thought this all made sense. ‘I would have given her something.’ He was quite defensive. ‘I was perfectly prepared to.’

‘But she didn’t write again.’

‘No.’

‘Perhaps she died.’

‘Perhaps. Although it seems rather melodramatic. Perhaps, as you say, the letter got posted by accident. Anyway, we heard nothing more and gradually the thing drifted away.’

‘So why are we discussing it now?’

He did not answer me immediately. Instead, he stood up and crossed to the chimneypiece. A log had rolled forward on to the hearth and he took up the tools to rectify it, doing so with a kind of deadly intensity. ‘The thing is,’ he said at last, speaking into the flames but presumably addressing me, ‘I want to find the child.’

There didn’t seem to be any logic in this. If he’d wanted to ‘do the right thing,’ why hadn’t he done it eighteen years before, when there might have been some point? ‘Isn’t it a bit late?’ I asked. ‘It wouldn’t have been easy to play dad when she wrote the letter; but by now the “child” is a man or woman in their late thirties. They are what they are, and it’s far too late to help shape them now.’

None of this seemed to carry any weight whatever. I’m not sure he even heard. ‘I want to find them,’ he repeated. ‘I want you to find them.’

It would be foolish to pretend that I had not by this stage worked out that this was where we were headed. But it was not a task I relished. Nor was I in the least sure I would undertake it. ‘Why me?’

‘When I met you I had only slept with four girls.’ He paused. I raised my eyebrows faintly. Any man of my generation will understand that this was impressive in itself. At nineteen, which is what we were when we first came across each other, I do not believe I had done much more than kiss on the dance floor. He hadn’t finished. ‘I knew all four until well into the early 1970s and it definitely wasn’t one of them. Then you and I ran around for a while, and I kept myself fairly busy. A couple of years later, when that period had come to an end, we went to Portugal. And after that I was sterile. Besides, look at the writing, look at the paper, read the phrases. This woman is educated-’

‘And histrionic. And drunk.’

‘Which does not prevent her being posh.’

‘I’ll say.’ I considered his theory some more. ‘What about the years between the end of the Season and Portugal?’

He shook his head. ‘A few, mainly scrubbers, and a couple left over from our times together. Not one who had a baby before that summer.’ He sighed wearily. ‘Anyway, nobody lives a lie who hasn’t got something to lose. Something worth holding on to, something that would be endangered by the truth. She wrote to me in 1990 when the upper and upper middle classes occupied the last remaining bastion of legitimate birth. Anyone normal would have let the secret out of the bag long ago.’ The effort of saying all this, plus the log work, had depleted what remained of his energy and he sank back into his chair with a groan.

I did not pity him. Quite the contrary. Suddenly the unreasonableness of his request struck me forcibly. ‘But I’m not in your life. I am nothing to do with you. We are completely different people.’ I wasn’t insulting him. I simply could not see why any of this was my responsibility. ‘We may have known each other once, but we don’t now. We went to some dances together forty years ago. And quarrelled. There must be others who are far closer to you than I ever was. I can’t be the only person who could take this on.’

‘But you are. These women came from your people, not mine. I have no other friends who would know them, or even know of them. And in fact, if we are having this conversation, I have no other friends.’

This was too self-serving for my taste. ‘Then you have no friends at all, because you certainly can’t count me.’ Naturally, once the words were out I rather regretted them. I did believe that he was dying and there was no point in punishing him now for things that could never be undone, whatever he or I might wish.

But he smiled. ‘You’re right. I have no friends. As you know better than most, it’s not a relationship I could ever either understand or manage. If you will not do this for me I have no one else to ask. I cannot even hire a detective. The information I need would not be available to anyone but an insider.’ I was about to suggest he undertake the search himself, but looking at his shaking, hollow frame, the words died on my lips. ‘Will you do it?’ he asked after a brief pause.

At this point, I was quite sure that I really didn’t want to. Not just because of the prickly, time-wasting and awkward nature of the quest, but because the more I thought about it, the more I knew I didn’t want to poke around in my own past, any more than his. The time he spoke of was over. For both of us. I had hardly kept up with anyone from those days, for reasons which involved him, as he knew, and what was there to gain by rootling around in it all? I decided to make a last attempt to appeal to his better nature. Even people like Damian Baxter must have a little. ‘Damian, think. Do you really want to turn their life upside down? This man, this woman, they know who they are and they’re living their life as best they can. Will it help to find they’re someone different and unknown? To make them question, or even break with, their parents? Would you want that on your conscience?’

He looked at me quite steadily. ‘My fortune, after death duties, will be far in excess of five hundred million pounds. My intention is to make my child sole heir. Are you prepared to take the responsibility for denying them their inheritance? Would you want that on your conscience?’

Naturally, it would have been jejune to pretend that this did not make all the difference in the world. ‘How would I set about it?’ I said.

He relaxed. ‘I will present you with a list of the girls I slept with during those years, who had a child before April 1971.’ This was again impressive. The list of girls I had slept with during the same period, with or without children, could have been contained on the blank side of a visiting card. It was also very precise and oddly businesslike. I had thought we were engaged in some sort of philosophical exchange but I saw now we were approaching what used to be called ‘brass tacks.’ He obviously sensed my surprise. ‘My secretary has made a start. There didn’t seem much point in your getting in touch if they hadn’t had a baby.’ Which was of course true. ‘I believe the list is comprehensive.’

‘What about the girls you slept with who did not bear children at that time?’

‘Don’t let’s worry about them. No point in making work.’ He smiled. ‘We’ve done a lot of weeding. There were a couple of others I slept with who did have an early child but, in the words of the Empress Eugénie’s mother when challenged over her Imperial daughter’s paternity, les dates ne correspondent pas.’ He laughed, easier now that he saw his plan would come to fruition. ‘I want you to know that I have taken this seriously and there is a real possibility that it could be any one of the listed names.’

‘So how do I go about it?’

‘Just get in touch. With one exception, I’ve got the present addresses.’

‘Why don’t you ask them to have a DNA test?’

‘That sort of woman would never agree.’

‘You romanticise them in your dislike. I suspect they would. And their children certainly would when they found out why.’