A Woman of Our Times

‘Harriet? Are you all right?’

‘Yes. Yes, I am.’

Ever since she had been old enough to understand her own story, her father had had no name and no face, because that was how Kath had wished it. Harriet had felt no need for anything more, because her mother gave her all she wanted. The fierce exclusivity of their love had only been disrupted by Ken, and later by Lisa. But now, Harriet was certain that he had both a name and a face, and she understood what a chasm there was to be filled.

She was certain, without needing to ask, without changing the rule of years between Kath and herself, that Simon Archer was her father. Leo had gone, and it was both ironic and apposite that his disappearance should expose a deeper bond waiting to be uncovered.

In a light, clear voice Harriet had said, ‘I’d like to go and see where you grew up. Perhaps he … your friend is still there.’

‘He probably wouldn’t remember me, even if he was. It’s a very long time ago.’

Of course, all my lifetime.

‘I’d still like to go.’

‘But there’s no family left up there.’

There had been a reconciliation, naturally. From the age of five or six onwards, Harriet remembered visits to her grandparents. But by then they had moved away from the Midlands town, and then they moved on again. Now they lived in a retirement bungalow on the coast, with photographs of their two Trott granddaughters displayed on the mantelpiece.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Harriet said. ‘Even if there’s nothing there at all. It’s where I began, after all. I can just walk along the streets and look at it.’

She stretched up and kissed her mother, then scrambled to her feet. Looking down at her she hesitated, and then asked, ‘Why did you tell me all this today?’

Kath answered dreamily, ‘You just made me remember it.’

Of course. Beginnings and endings, one separation and another coming together.

Harriet picked up the tea-tray from between their chairs and walked away down the garden, in through the patio doors.

She was going to look for her father. And when she had found him, from that point she could start again.

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