Tangled Lives by Hilary Boyd

icing sugar dusting the top like a light fall of snow. Annie hovered, hardly daring to look at the man.
    ‘Do take your coat off,’ Marjory urged him. ‘There are hooks just outside the door to the right.’
    Daniel obediently removed his battered black leather jacket and disappeared to hang it up.
    ‘OK?’ Jamie mouthed at Annie, smiling encouragingly.
    The ritual of tea and cake took up the next half-hour. Conversation was light and mostly conducted by Marjory and Jamie, who adopted a breezy normality that wasn’t matched by the other two. It was Jamie who asked the questions: Had he found the house all right? Did he know the area? Where had he come from? What shocking spring weather they were having. Yes, Marjory was an artist. No, Annie didn’t live round here, but in north London.
    Annie listened and watched. This was basic information, but it was daunting, reminding her how much she didn’t yet know about her own son. Apparently he lived in north London too. In a rented flat in Finsbury Park – no distance from her at all. I could have bumped into him anytime on the street, in the supermarket, and never known, she thought.
    He’d been brought up in Brighton, had only passed through Kent on his way to the ferry at Folkestone, so no, he didn’t know the area. He wrote plays. So far he’d had short ones put on in pub theatres and the like. He’d been to Cambridge, started as a copywriter in advertising, then made the leap to theatre – his one true love. He seemed shining and confident to Annie, articulate as hetook the grilling with good grace. How can he not be nervous? she asked herself, in awe.
    When Jamie got up to fill the teapot, Marjory turned to Annie.
    ‘Why don’t you two go through to the sitting room? It’ll have warmed up by now, and it’s more private.’
    Annie felt suddenly panicky at being alone with him.
    ‘Daniel?’
    He nodded, but she could see in his uncertain smile the first sign that this meeting was hard for him too.
    The sitting room was warm and quiet, the furniture soft and yielding with age. They sat opposite each other in worn chintz armchairs, the fire between them making the air sharp with wood smoke. The gold carriage clock ticked like a sentinel on the mantelpiece. Neither of them knew where to look. Where there had been too little intimacy in the kitchen, now there was almost too much.
    ‘This is so strange.’ Daniel was the first to speak.
    She nodded. ‘I’ve imagined it a million times since …’ She couldn’t say it. But her heart suddenly soared with happiness. This is Tom. This is him. This is my son.
    ‘Am I as you imagined?’ he asked quietly.
    ‘I only knew you for a few days,’ she paused, ‘I can only remember you as you were then. A baby.’
    ‘So not quite as you thought then,’ he joked, his confidence returning.
    ‘You’re the spit of my uncle – your great-uncle – Terence.’
    She saw him waiting expectantly.
    ‘My father died when I was young, and Uncle Terence sort of took over. He was a gorgeous, flamboyant character, a life-enhancer in every way. I loved him very much. He was my mother’s brother.’ How much could she fairly say about Mother, the pivotal figure in both their histories …? ‘I don’t know … for some reason I never expected such a strong family resemblance. I suppose I hadn’t dared think about it … about you … as part of my family.’ She knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
    ‘It’s odd,’ he replied, ‘because you know every bit of my genetic history, and I know absolutely none. Was my father … was he important in your life?’
    She gave a small sigh. ‘Your father was … not really important, no.’ She wouldn’t utter the words ‘one-night stand’.
    Daniel looked at her, waiting for her to continue, but she didn’t know what to say.
    ‘So you weren’t in a relationship with him when I was born?’
    ‘No. No, I wasn’t,’ she said quickly. He mustn’t