morning about five years ago I decided to go with him.
‘OK,’ he said, ‘but you’ll have to keep up.’
He could be a patronising bastard. But he could also be sweet and tender and funny and he made me feel secure for years for probably the first time in my life. I don’t have to defend him any more though.
That day he was a patronising bastard and of course I kept up. I’m only an inch shorter than him and I didn’t eat the endless rich college dinners and guzzle the gallons of wine that he claimed he had to for his career. I kept up with ease, much to his astonishment, and when I got home that Sunday morning after six miles up the River Cam I felt as though the whole world had slowed down, even the gremlins in my head had shut up. I could be right there in the present moment.
I never ran races or timed myself and I never ran with Alec, or indeed anyone else, again, but I did try to run five or six miles a few times a week and it had become a touchstone in my life, a sense of familiarity rooting me in a world I felt increasingly inclined to escape from.
I set off on the route I always run when I’m here – up the High Street towards Knightsbridge and then into Kensington Palace Gardens, past the residence of the late Princess Di and back into Hyde Park. I can never pass Kensington Palace without remembering the August after my fourteenth birthday, standing outside with Johnny, both of us crying over the dead princess who we always thought of as a neighbour, adding our bunch of pink roses to the hundreds upon hundreds of bouquets and messages from the nameless strangers who loved her.
I run around the outside of Hyde Park towards Park Lane and then back towards Knightsbridge. I don’t think about anything except the sound of my feet on the ground. I don’t stop until I’m back on Kensington High Street and find myself outside the computer shop that stands where Kensington Market used to be. My mother gets upset just thinking about the fact they knocked down the market for this. I don’t think she even comes up this end of the High Street any more on principle.
Johnny is waiting for me when I get back to Campden Hill Road. He’s sitting on one of the immaculate white sofas, trussed up in one of his bespoke suits even on a hot day like this. In his lap he has a shoebox. He doesn’t meet my eye. I don’t know if I’m ready to talk to him yet. How could he have kept all this from me all these years?
I barely acknowledge him as I walk straight upstairs. ‘I need a shower,’ I say.
6th June 1993
My dearest daughter,
Now you are ten! My baby girl already a decade old.
We haven’t met again since your third birthday; we haven’t danced under the stars, or listened to the Beatles together since then. But every time I hear Penny Lane I think of you, every time I see the stars in the sky, I think of you. Oh, who am I kidding! I think of my daughter every day.
Other than not getting to see you, the last few years have been good to me. I’m still clean as a whistle, other than the ‘cancer sticks’ as your Uncle Frank likes to call my nicotine habit. Being sober has made me so much more productive in my work. For the first time in my life, I’m making money from my paintings and my last two exhibitions have been very lucrative. My agent loves me, as you can imagine!
I decided to use some of this money to help you and your mother out. Maybe by the time you read these letters, which sit in a box in a drawer by my bed, you’ll already know this, but your mother isn’t very good with money. She earned a lot back in the 70s. She was beautiful and she worked hard for it, but when the work dried up and she was no longer getting modelling contracts she carried on living as though she was.
I found out recently that she’d been remortgaging the Campden Hill Road house for years. To the point where it looked like she would have to sell it. So I have bought the house! Just like that! I can hardly believe I’m able to do such a thing. Frank says I’m getting ideas above my station. He says it in a thick Yorkshire accent like our father’s so I know he’s joking.
One day I hope I can tell you about our father, about my family, well your family as well of course. I’d like to take you up to Yorkshire and show you where I came from.
Anyway, back to the house. I bought it and put it in trust for you. Your mother gets to live there as long as she likes, but she can’t sell it or move you on without my permission and when I’ve gone it’s all yours.
Maybe your mother will let me see you from time to time, maybe she won’t. I know she is still angry with me and can’t bear to see me. Please always know that the problem is between me and your mother, not between me and you.
I always hear about what you’ve been up to through Frank who still sees you and your mother from time to time. You’re growing tall I hear, just like your mum. I’m so proud of you, sweetheart.
Happy Birthday, Princess.
I love you.
Your Father
When I come back downstairs Johnny is still on the sofa, the shoebox on the seat next to him, as though he’s not yet ready for me to sit too close. He’s made sandwiches, tiny triangles of white bread and smoked salmon, thin slivers of cucumber and a pot of Earl Grey. Johnny is so very English it’s like being with someone from another era. I suspect this is what Mum has always liked about him.
I feel calmer after my shower; my brain feels more ordered as though it’s ready to ask the right questions and take in the information. I put a couple of sandwiches on a plate and sit down opposite Johnny while he pours two cups of tea, adding a slice of lemon to each one.
Only then does he finally meet my eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
I have no idea if I’m ready to forgive anyone. I’m glad Johnny’s here though. It gives me someone to be angry with instead of Edwin Jones, who, after all, is only doing his job. But then in many ways so is Johnny.
‘What’s in the shoebox?’ I ask.
‘Photographs. I thought you might like to see some.’
‘Of my father?’
‘Amongst other things, yes.’
He hands me the shoebox. It’s heavy and I wonder how many photos are here and how Johnny ended up being in possession of them. He doesn’t say anything so I take the lid off and look inside.
Lying on top is a photo of a face I recognise immediately. It’s him, the Penny Lane guy. I take the photo out and examine it. Nothing is written on the back and there’s no indication of who it is or when it was taken.
‘Who’s this?’ I ask, turning the photo around so Johnny can identify it, although I already know what he’s going to say.
‘That’s Bruce, your father.’
So it was him all along.
‘Do you remember the night that was taken?’ Johnny asks. He doesn’t wait for me to reply. ‘I think it was your third birthday. After you were born Philadelphia only threw parties on your birthday. Oh, but back in the 70s she threw them all the time and everyone would come.’ He smiles, drifting off into his memories.
I look at the photo again. If this was taken on my third birthday then it must have been the night he danced with me and if there’s photographic evidence then, despite what she claimed, my mother must be able to remember. But then my mother claims to have forgotten a lot of things that she blatantly hasn’t.
‘I remember,’ I say, nudging him out of the reverie he seems to have slipped into. ‘It’s one of the clearest memories of my childhood, despite Mum trying to pretend