The Healing of Broken Souls

Chapter 14

I now knew why my father had clammed up when I'd joked about changing my name to David Beckham. I must have hit a nerve. But I was more puzzled than surprised by his revelation. After he'd dropped the bombshell that he and my mother were never married I'd dug out my birth certificate to see if I'd missed something. There it was, mother's name Clara Lewis, father's name Robert Lewis. But I'd wrongly assumed that my mother had taken his name, not the other way around.

"Wouldn't it have been more conventional if Clara had changed her name to yours?" I asked.

"Without a doubt, but I didn't discuss it with her. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I thought that, not only would it solve our problem with the council, but it would also prove to her how committed I was to being her lifelong partner. I wanted her to know I was never going to abandon her."

"So what was your real, I mean ... old name?"

"My original name was Maynard-Scott."

I nodded, wondering if my life would have been any different if I'd grown up as Michael Maynard-Scott instead of Michael Lewis.

"But, Michael, you're quite right that it would have been far better if I could have convinced Clara to change her name, because I hadn't thought things through properly. That spur-of-the-moment decision brought about our worst-case scenario. You see, I had to inform everyone I dealt with of my new name and provide copies of the deed. That included my bank, and what I hadn't taken into consideration was that the monthly allowance from my father was paid to the account of Robert Maynard-Scott. The bank clerk explained that if my father didn't change the name on the transfer details, the payments would be automatically rejected. I had no choice but to telephone my father and tell him what I'd done and why, and pray he'd be sympathetic."

"And, of course, he wasn't, otherwise I would have met my grandparents," I observed needlessly.

"That's right. I expected him to blow his top over the doctor's bill, but I'm sure that would have been nothing compared to his reaction when I told him I'd changed my surname. That was more like a nuclear explosion. My father said some awful things about Clara that I'll never repeat."

As he was speaking, I could tell my father was getting increasingly upset, he took some deep breaths from his oxygen mask before continuing.

"He screamed at me down the phone and told me he was going to disown me and cut me out of his will. I slammed the phone down and never spoke to him again."

"Why did he make such a big deal out of it? What's in a name?"

"I was an only child, Michael, and my parents had big plans for me. When I qualified as a lawyer I was supposed to join my father at his bank and, I suppose, eventually head up his legal team. He was expecting me to marry well and produce a litter of well-bred grandchildren who would inherit the family name. In his eyes, I'd betrayed him and put an end to his dream of continuing the Maynard-Scott dynasty."

He grabbed for his oxygen mask again and then put it back down.

"I'm sorry, Michael. My oxygen has run out. I'm going to need some more."

#

I took my father home and helped him to his bedroom to lie down while I drove into Valencia to get more oxygen. I'd called Helen to make sure she was at the port and she promised she'd have a new bottle ready by the time I got there. It was siesta time so the traffic in the city was light. I was there in 30 minutes.

"How long is your visitor staying? It's been a week already," she remarked as she exchanged the old bottle for a new one. "Just so I know if I should order more medical oxygen. I have to get it through the pharmacy."

I had to think about that. My father had an open return ticket but I hadn't considered how long it would take me to get the truth out of him.

"Another week," I hazarded. "We've got a lot of catching up to do, and we're trying to find a rare bird."

"He's one of your old birdwatching buddies, is he? I should have guessed that was why you've been ignoring me."

"Oh, heck!" I slapped my forehead, "I'm sorry, Helen, I'm an idiot! I meant to call you to see how you got on at the bank but I clean forgot. What happened?"

"Not a lot. The manager asked me to prepare a business plan, so I'm working on it at the moment."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" I offered.

"Yes, I have to make a spreadsheet with all the projected incomes and outgoings and profit margins and staff wages and all sorts of other things and I'm just a simple Ozzie girl from the outback."

"Don't worry," I laughed. "Email me all the facts and figures when you have them and I'll put them all into a spreadsheet for you."

"Thank you, sweetie," she said, kissing my cheek. "You may not be rich, but you've plenty of other talents!"

#

When I arrived back at the finca I quietly opened my father's bedroom door a fraction and saw that he was sleeping. His breathing sounded laboured and he was wheezing asthmatically. I crept in, put the new bottle by his bed, and connected the mask. I made sure he could reach it easily and then left him undisturbed.

I fixed myself a sandwich and a beer and took them to my writing room. Downloading the latest file from my voice recorder only took five minutes even though I'd been leaving it switched on permanently in case my father unexpectedly said something incriminating. It only activated when it detected speech, so the actual recorded time was only a couple of hours.

I started editing one of my short stories but struggled to concentrate. I couldn't help thinking it would be very convenient if my father died soon. I didn't know if he had anything worthwhile to leave me, or if he owned the house he lived in, but, if he did, I would give Helen whatever I could to save her dive school and keep her in Valencia. Scuba diving was her passion and she'd told me a hundred times how much she loved instructing novices, and that she would never give it up, no matter what.

I had an awful feeling that she might go back to Australia to find a job if her business failed. The story of my father's love for Clara brought it home to me that I felt the same way about Helen. I was determined to do whatever it took not to lose her. Maybe even commit murder.