Conspiracy of Secrets. Bobbie Neate
were navy with cerise stripes. I disliked them and thought them garish. Stepfather seemed to be a walking encyclopedia on the cities of Cambridge and London, so again I never doubted anything he told me.
There was a time when I began to wonder whether Louis had been married before. Until then it had not concerned me. One night when I was about 12 my sister went to answer the phone. She came back into our sitting room in a state, saying, ‘There’s a man on the phone. He says he’s Poppy’s son.’
Everybody stopped what they were doing and looked at each other in shock. Louis pulled himself out of his deep chair and struggled to his feet; he had been in a half-slumber. But he was wide awake when he glanced at my mother on his way out. After the door closed behind him there was a long awkward silence, which nobody broke. We had been too well groomed to discuss any delicate matters among ourselves. Each person was left to ruminate on the significance of the call, as nothing was forthcoming on his return.
There were other embarrassing times when Auntie Mamie tripped up and called my brothers by the wrong names. At the time it was too unsettling to consider why she might do this. So we all ducked the issue. Just as I did with the memories of my own father, I buried them.
It is only now that I can allow myself to recall some memories of my biological father.
A three-flame gas fire had been fixed into the angular chimney-breast that dominated the room I had as a toddler in the Old Mill House. Mum had insisted on retaining the original floor tiles with only a low, raised brick rail, warning of the potential hazard of the heat of the fire. My real father must have left the family home in the colder months of the year, because I recall that my cot was placed parallel to the fireplace, which meant that it was at a peculiar angle to the long rectangular bay window that overlooked the sprawling lawn.
In those days children slept in their cots until they were four or five, so I can easily recall mine. It had solid legs and a sturdy frame with dropdown sides, and it was painted off-white. On the inside of the two curved wooden ends were hand-painted images of angels and clouds. I remember listening and waiting for the clickety-click of a side panel moving down over its ratchets – the signal that I would soon escape from my secure containment.
I don’t know how long the tall greying man in the dog collar had been standing over my cot. My recollection was not of fun but of tears – tears that splashed, from a height, onto my upturned face as I tripped on the ends of my long nightgown, reaching up with my arms. His tall, thin body heaved and whimpered in his effort to disguise the pain. When he finally held me, the tears abated, but then a voice called from some eerie distant place that interrupted our moment. We heard the high-pitched, almost distorted, voice.
‘Leslie, it’s time to go. Come on, you must go.’ He held me tight, looking over my shoulder.
The voice became more shrill.
‘Leslie, it’s time to go.’
I felt him shake as he gently kissed me on the cheek. Then he hurriedly put me back in my cot. I had no idea that he was leaving for ever but, as he left the door ajar, I heard his measured steps retreating down the back stairs.
Other memories of my father were scant. I could recall what must have been the Christmas Eve before his final departure. There were many excited adults and children in our large nursery. I remember a glittering Christmas tree placed in a wooden box in the huge bay window, and people were attaching clip-on candles to the lower branches. A lofty man whisked me up high in the air and flung me over his head. I sat perched on his shoulders way above the rest, so high I felt I could reach the beam that swept across the ceiling. I was thrilled with his jiggling shoulders that danced me around the tree. Exhausted, he settled down in a comfy chair and sat me on his knees. I was warm and secure in his arms as we looked at the elegant timepiece that he had on his left wrist. It had a worn and stained brown leather strap. We both gazed at the ticking of the tiniest hand, in its little sphere, a circle within a circle. The movement jerked as it jumped from one little division to the next, while the other larger hands had miniature arrowhead tips that tediously moved towards the Roman numerals and my bedtime.
At times I ventured into wondering if my memories had been wrong. But, if I was right, why was Stepfather so keen to introduce us as his offspring? Children are often uneasy with introductions, but for years I continued to find them embarrassing. The greatest discomfort was experienced on the motor-racing circuit. Through my mother’s interest in Formula One, racing cars and their drivers were a normal part of our lives and Stepfather insisted that everybody be told that we were his natural children. Nobody ever dared to argue with him, and even when we were older fear kept us from ever using the term ‘stepfather’ even with our best friends. He had ensnared us in his lie and I carried this untruth into my schooling. Boarding-school friendships, like any others depend on honesty, so I never felt completely comfortable with my pals. To them this bulky man whose appearance was so frightening was my father. Each time he accompanied my mother and arrived in the school driveway I felt pangs of betrayal. I had let myself down. I parried if friends asked about his role in my life. I did not want anybody to know how much I distrusted him. What had started in youth continued into later life. I had been party to a lie and I knew no way to escape. What was my fear? I am not sure I can explain.
As we grew older we probably probed with our questioning a little more. Stepfather had no sympathy with teenage angst and, as he never mentioned his own father, we began in concert to be a little braver. On one memorable evening he rasped that his father had been a ‘cotton executive’, as he had told us on one occasion before. But when we asked a further question about his father we put him into a terrifying mood that lasted until the next day.
There was another time when I got into trouble asking about names. One evening Stepfather and Mum were talking about somebody with the surname Bonham Carter who had been mentioned on the Home Service (which later became Radio 4) on Mum’s kitchen radio. ‘Bonham Carter, that’s a strange name,’ I ventured.
‘Yes,’ said Mum in a supportive tone, her voice reaching me from around the corner where she was doing the pans at the old butler’s sink.
‘Fancy being called Bonham Carter!’ I giggled.
But this was one step too far for him. ‘How dare you?’ he scowled. ‘You ignorant little tyke!’
His retort was so harsh I felt as if a ton of rubble had fallen on me. Mum tried to defuse the situation and talk about our dogs, but the damage had been done. I was never going to forget the name Bonham Carter. But strange names kept cropping up in Stepfather’s vocabulary. I was desperate to make some comment about the Aga Khan, Masterman or Trevelyan, but I had learned my lesson.
Beaverbrook was a surname that captured my imagination. One evening I was grateful to Bette Hill for helping me out when she and her husband Graham Hill, our entertaining racing driver and a world champion, came to dinner.
She was sitting in one of the broad chairs in the dining room, when Louis started to name-drop: ‘When I saw Beaverbrook last week in the Dorchester Grillroom, he told me he was enjoying life but he asked my advice about what to do in a difficult…’ ‘Oh, so, you know that tycoon, as well, do you, Mr Stanley?’ Bette Hill was one of the few people I knew who were brave enough to interrupt Stepfather. Perhaps she knew Stepfather was more civil to those who were useful to him. The evening must have been going well, because Mum was also in a jovial mood and allowed herself a sideswipe: ‘Oh, Bette, Louis knows everybody, don’t you, dear?’
He sighed at her but from his demeanour it was clear he took her words as a compliment.
Louis obviously thought we should be impressed, but the name Beaverbrook meant nothing to me, just like his other brags. But, as I got older, there remained a fascination about his mysterious past and I began to invent motives for why he refused to chat about his previous existence. I decided he and his mother, Home Granny, were suffering from unresolved grief. As neither of them ever talked about his father, I was sure this mysterious figure must have died when Stepfather was very young.
Mum used to try to justify to us why Stepfather was such a fussy eater – he wanted only plain food