Page 75 of A Summer Scandal

The only thing Vi had taken care of herself was hiring an electrician to come and festoon the pier with fairy lights, and she’d agreed to be on site in the birdcage just in case they needed her. Beau and Cal were both attending in their professional capacities, and the plan was for Lucy to come as Beau’s plus one while Charlie hung out in the birdcage with Vi. As plans went, it was pretty watertight.

The downside for Violet of Keris decamping to her grandpa’s apartment was that it had made getting Barty alone nigh on impossible. He revelled in having his granddaughter as a temporary flatmate, cooking up a storm of carrot cake to send over to the pier and planning their evenings around cinema trips, dinners and theatre outings. Keris half-heartedly complained that he was monopolising all of her time, but in that affectionate way that said she was indulging him and didn’t really mind.

In truth, Violet was almost relieved. She knew she had to speak to Barty, but she had no clue how to raise the fact that she knew he’d lied to her, or even what she was going to gain by doing so. She didn’t need him to confirm he was T, she knew that much already. It was more visceral than that; she needed to hear that Barty had loved her gran, that she hadn’t died desolate and lonely because he’d spurned her and the baby.

Vi checked her watch. It was just after lunch; Keris would be busy front of house in the birdcage for a couple of hours yet at least. Seizing the chance, she picked up her bag and headed for the Lido.

‘Violet, my child!’ Barty’s face cracked into his trademark wicked smile when he opened the door and found her there a few minutes later. ‘Time for a mint tea?’

She smiled, tight and fraught, nodding. ‘Sounds good.’

She hadn’t actually been inside Barty’s apartment up to then. It was unsurprisingly different from her own, and different from Cal’s too. Simple and traditional, full of photographs and mementos from a long, colourful life. While Barty busied himself in the kitchen, Vi studied the collection of framed photos on the fireplace.

Keris was easily identifiable, white-blonde and cheeky as a child clinging to a young woman’s hand, her mother presumably. Barty was easy to spot too, especially now she knew him to be the man in the newspaper image. But here she saw him as a family man, and as a husband.

‘Is this your wife?’ she said, looking up as Barty came in carrying two china teacups, slightly rattling on their saucers.

He put the cups down carefully and came to stand beside her. ‘Yes. That’s my Florence.’ His voice was full of tenderness as he gazed at the black and white photograph. It was a formal wedding day pose, Barty tall and proud, his wife willowy and blonde beside him in ivory parachute silk and a clutch of dark roses.

‘And this is Keris of course, with her mum.’ Barty touched the image of Keris as a child.

‘Your daughter,’ Vi said, looking for other images of the woman and not seeing any.

‘Alison,’ Barty said, his voice devoid of emotion.

‘Is she …?’ It was too difficult a sentence to finish.

‘Dead?’ Barty said, then huffed wearily. ‘No, she isn’t dead. She just … well, she wasn’t a settler. Still isn’t, truth told. She left Keris with us because she couldn’t handle the pressure of motherhood.’

‘Do you never see her?’ It seemed unimaginable to Violet to lose touch with the people you love.

‘Sometimes,’ Barty said, his voice gruff. ‘Every now and then when she needs money or she’s exhausted herself and needs to clear her head.’

He didn’t say it with any trace of malice or mistrust, more heartsick resignation about a situation he was powerless to change.

Inside Vi’s head, the cogs whirred as she scanned the various photos, finally coming to rest on an image of Barty cradling a tiny baby beside a Christmas tree, his daughter presumably, because it was too dated to be Keris.

‘That’s lovely,’ she asked, keeping her tone light even as her heart grew heavier in her chest. ‘When would that have been?’

A thoughtful frown creased Barty’s forehead as he recalled the details. ‘Alison was born in a snowstorm, the worst Swallow Beach had ever seen. She was a month early and we didn’t have a prayer of making it to the hospital, so she was born right here in our bedroom on Christmas Eve.’

‘In 1978?’ Violet said.

Barty looked at her oddly. ‘Yes. How did you know that?’

Violet held his gaze, unsure what to say next, and his expression cycled from puzzled to something else. Fear, fleetingly, and then pure despair.

‘It was the same year my grandmother died,’ Violet said, barely more than a whisper.

‘Yes.’ Barty turned and walked to his armchair, suddenly looking his age as he lowered himself down and reached for his tea. Violet did the same, perching opposite him, her hands clasped in her lap.

‘I know, Barty. I know about your affair with my gran.’

His face blanched, and for a moment the air crackled with tension as he made his decision: truth, or more lies.

‘Monica was utterly captivating,’ he said at last, with the heaviest of sighs. ‘I knew it was wrong Violet, but I couldn’t help myself. There isn’t an excuse in the world for what I did, it was an unforgivable sin to both Florence and Henry. He was my friend, and she my wife, yet I was consumed by your grandmother. I like to imagine that she was fond of me too,’ he whispered. ‘Tolly, she used to call me. I’ve always been Barty to everyone else, but your gran always called me Tolly.’

Barty put his cup back down again untouched, because his hand was shaking so violently that tea was spilling into the saucer. Violet sat quietly, watching him, glad he hadn’t made her ask him outright.

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