Girl Unknown by Karen Perry

and steady nerve disarmed me. It would not have been unreasonable for her to raise her voice, to display some outrage. Instead there was a steely, implacable propriety. I should not have been surprised. Caroline had always demonstrated a degree of strength and inner resolve.
    ‘It didn’t actually name me as father …’
    ‘Then how can you be sure she’s your daughter?’
    ‘I can’t, not categorically. But there was a resemblanceto Linda, I suppose, and the dates match up. She had some photographs …’
    ‘Photographs?’
    ‘Of myself and Linda.’
    Caroline looked about her as if to reassure herself, to check that she was where she thought she was – that the kitchen, with its stereo on the counter, the glass fruit bowl, the children’s assorted books and computer games, the black-and-white framed pictures of us as a family on the far wall, were all there. I thought for a moment she might reach out and touch something – the need in her appeared so real.
    ‘And where is Linda now?’ she asked evenly.
    ‘She’s dead,’ I said, and it sounded like a vindication, though I hadn’t meant it to.
    Caroline’s eyes widened. ‘Dead?’
    I took the chair opposite her and went on to tell her what I knew of Linda’s passing.
    She reached for a napkin from the holder on the table. ‘When did this happen? When did the girl tell you?’ she asked.
    ‘I found out at the start of the week.’
    ‘The start of the week? Why didn’t you say something?’ Caroline said, a little more worked up, annoyed now. ‘Why did you wait to tell me?’
    ‘To be honest, I needed more time.’
    ‘More time?’
    ‘It was a shock to have her walk into my office and make that claim. I needed time to think it through before telling you.’ I remained calm, pragmatic. ‘I wasn’t trying to keep it from you.’
    ‘You should have told me straight away,’ Caroline said.
    ‘I wanted to get things clear in my head.’
    ‘And are they?’
    I hesitated. In my head there was an image of the whitewash of water whipped up by the wind on the beach in Holywood, breaking relentlessly, wave after wave, against the shore, where Linda and I stood hand in hand.
    ‘I don’t know,’ I said in answer. ‘The girl makes a convincing case …’ I meant Zoë, but I was thinking of how Linda and I had tripped down Botanic Avenue on those evenings on our way to the pub or a poetry reading at Oxfam.
    ‘But we need to be sure,’ Caroline said. ‘We need to know for certain whether she is your daughter or not.’
    ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’ve thought about it and there are several ways of finding out.’
    ‘What? Like a paternity test?’ she asked, with a grim laugh.
    ‘Why not?’ I answered, reaching out to her to try to reassure her, but her hand remained motionless.
    ‘All these years …’ she said.
    I wanted to say what a relief it was to tell her, but I didn’t. Something stopped me – the strange mix of emotions I was feeling, at once frightening and painful.
    ‘You never suspected?’ Caroline said.
    ‘No … never.’ As I watched for her reaction, I noticed something else, something within me, a disbelief at my own words because, to put it quite simply, they were not true. I had suspected . But it was a buried, unconscious suspicion. You see, ever since that weekend in Donegal, the seed of possibility had stayed with me. Had we beencareful? Linda had asked me back then. Careful: up until then, we had always been careful. In fact, care was what had defined our relationship. We’d had to be both careful and circumspect. Nobody knew we were there in Donegal. Nobody knew we were together. Nobody knew we were even lovers. She was my student, after all.
    ‘It’s hard to believe …’ Caroline said, bringing me back to the present. ‘What will you do if it’s true? What will we do if she really is your daughter?’
    ‘If she is, she is. It doesn’t have to change everything. It doesn’t have to disrupt the lives we have.