The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,156
journalist last year – I overheard them. But she said she could only reveal it now because my dad – the man I thought was my dad – was dead. He’d been paying maintenance, you see.’
‘Well … not really,’ said Ned, still frowning.
‘Then the story came out and some of my friends said stuff – but Mum wouldn’t discuss it with me and I didn’t know where you were until I saw you on the telly the other week,’ the boy finished in a rush.
‘Right … so you’re Sammie Nelson’s son?’ he ventured.
‘Yeah, the one she was pregnant with when you threw her over and she had to leave college,’ the youth said accusingly.
Now I came to really look at him, he did remind me of Sammie, though fairer. But he didn’t look a bit like Ned, which was hardly surprising.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mike sit back down again, with an expression of enjoyment on his face.
‘Look—’ I began, then broke off. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Jonas,’ the boy said sulkily.
‘Right, Jonas, I’m Marnie Ellwood and I was in the same year as your mum at Honeywood Horticultural College. Ned was in the year up and though they did briefly go out together, she threw him over, because she’d got off with the presenter of a documentary that was being filmed there. Is that the man you thought was your father?’
The boy, who looked very young and very angry, nodded. ‘He thought I was his, too, and he lived with Mum for a bit, but then he went back to his wife after I was born and I hardly saw him. He had a heart attack.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ said Ned gently, ‘but … I’m afraid he was your real father. How old are you?’
‘What?’ Jonas looked taken aback, then said, ‘Fourteen,’ then added his birthday and Ned and I both did some rapid arithmetic.
‘She met your dad in late April the year before you were born and dumped me within the week – so there’s no way I could be your father,’ Ned said.
Jonas took some convincing, but when Ned said in exasperation that he’d even take a DNA test, if that made him feel better, he finally gave in. ‘But why would Mum sell lies to the newspaper?’
‘I think “sell” is a bit of a clue,’ I suggested.
‘Yes, she must have needed the money badly,’ agreed Ned. ‘And she didn’t actually come out and say I did all those things to the journalist, just suggested them. But none of them was true and I can prove it.’
The boy slumped and Steve, presumably deducing that the drama was over, slipped back out.
‘I hitchhiked here and it’s taken me all day,’ Jonas said accusingly, as if it was our fault. ‘No one seemed to be heading in this direction. It’s the back of nowhere.’
‘That’s why we like it,’ said Ned. ‘But hadn’t you better let your mum know where you are? She must be worried sick.’
‘I left a note, but I turned my phone off so she couldn’t call me,’ Jonas said. ‘Not that I expect she’s even noticed I’m not there yet.’
But there he did her an injustice, for the door burst open for the second time and a woman threw herself at him, shrieking, ‘Jonas!’ and tried to shake him.
I’d have known her anywhere, even if she was about twice the size she’d been at college. The excess weight was all well distributed, though, and she probably still looked pretty when she wasn’t snarling.
Jonas fended her off. ‘Leave me alone! I know the truth now.’
‘What do you mean?’ she demanded. ‘I’ve never told you anything but the truth!’
She whirled round on Ned. ‘What have you been telling him?’
She hadn’t noticed me, and started when I said, ‘Hello, Sammie – fancy meeting you here.’
‘You!’ she exclaimed, eyes widening. ‘I’ve heard all about you and the Heritage Homes Trust! What—’
‘You really shouldn’t believe all you hear,’ Ned interrupted. ‘Or read.’
She looked at him in a baffled way and then turned back to Jonas. ‘What were you thinking of? Didn’t I tell you—’
‘He says he’s not my dad and I believe him.’
‘All right – I never said he was, did I?’ she snapped.
‘You let that journalist think he was.’
‘Well, I needed some money, once the maintenance from your dad stopped,’ she said, as if that excused it. ‘And now I’ve had to fork out a fortune for a taxi from the station to get here.’