Tangled Tapestry

Debra compressed her lips. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Come on. When?’

Debra squared her shoulders. ‘Now look here,’ she said. ‘You’ve come here, practically forced your way in and asked a lot of questions for which you’ve received answers. Now this is all! Do you understand?’ Her green eyes were blazing, and he seemed lost in some speculative study. Then he shrugged, his eyes cold.

‘You look here,’ he said, in a quiet voice that emanated suppressed violence. ‘Sure I’ve come here uninvited, sure I’ve asked you questions, and can you say in all honesty you don’t know what in hell I’m talking about?’

‘Of course I can!’ Debra felt something suspiciously like tears behind her eyes, pricking uncomfortably. ‘If I knew what it was all about, maybe I’d be able to tell you what you want to know. Because it seems obvious to me that you want something that at present you’re not getting.’

‘You’re damn right,’ he muttered, his blue eyes piercing her cruelly. ‘I really believe you’re on the level!’

Debra was breathing swiftly. ‘For goodness’ sake,’ she exclaimed, ‘get to the point!’

‘All right, all right, I will!’ He flung his cigarette out of the half-open window, staring momentarily on the midnight blue scene below him, lit like stars with the myriads of lights of the city.

Then he looked back at her. ‘All right, Miss Warren. You can have it straight. Elizabeth Steel may have been your mother!’

For a moment there was silence in the apartment, and then Debra gave a nervous laugh. ‘You must be joking,’ she exclaimed.

He shook his head, and said: ‘Say, do you have anything to drink around here?’

Debra shook her head. ‘Only Coke.’

He smiled sardonically, and for a brief moment she could not drag her eyes away from him. Then she hunched her shoulders and looked towards the kitchen. ‘Do you want some coffee?’

He shrugged, and then tucked his fingers into the back waistband of his trousers, walking across to the television, and switching it off firmly. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘let’s have some conversation. What do you really know about your parents?’

Debra twisted her fingers together. ‘Before you start asking questions, let me ask one,’ she said. ‘Why are you so sure I might be Elizabeth Steel’s daughter? Where’s the connection?’

He put his hand into his inside pocket and drew out a wallet. From it he extracted a photograph which he handed silently to Debra. She stared at it in amazement. She might have been looking at a photograph of herself. But this woman’s face was older more mature, and yet, basically, there was little difference. The hair, the eyes, the whole expression, was emphatically identical.

‘I see,’ said Debra, breathing shakily. ‘Now I understand.’ Then she looked up at him. ‘Even so, it’s possible for anyone to have a double.’

He lit another cigarette before answering. ‘Sure it is, and that’s why Emmet wanted to test you. I guess he thought that if you were conceivably some relation of Steel’s it would show.’

‘And?’

‘Well, let’s say the resemblance was sufficient to warrant further investigation.’

Debra brushed back her hair from her eyes, feeling bewildered. It was like some crazy dream, brought about by the disturbing affair at the studios. This couldn’t actually be happening to her. Her parents had been English, they had been killed in a train crash when she was a baby. She could not possibly be Elizabeth Steel’s daughter.

‘This is ridiculous,’ she said unsteadily. ‘My parents died in a train crash years ago. If I was Elizabeth Steel’s daughter why was I brought up in England? And who is Aunt Julia?’

Dominic McGill put the photograph back in his wallet, then he said: ‘Elizabeth Steel was English, even though she made her greatest impact professionally in the States. It’s quite possible that your aunt—did she bring you up, by the way?’ and at her nod, he continued: —‘it’s possible that your aunt was Elizabeth’s sister—or I should say is her sister.’

‘That sounds unlikely.’

‘I agree. It is unlikely, but I find in this business the unlikeliest things can happen.’ He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘What are you thinking? That you wish you’d never gone to the Omega studios?’

‘How did you guess?’ Debra managed a small smile.

‘But why? For most girls it would be a dream come true?’

‘If it is true, why didn’t Elizabeth Steel bring me up herself? And why have I never heard of her from Aunt Julia?’

Dominic McGill shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you that. Not at the moment, anyway. Her producer, Aaron Johannson, knew her longest. He might know. Unfortunately he’s out of the country at the moment, filming on location in Spain. But when he comes back …’

‘Mr. McGill,’ Debra chose her words carefully, ‘even if it’s true, that I am Elizabeth Steel’s daughter, what then? What will it achieve to know the truth?’

‘Look, Miss Warren, when Steel died she left a small fortune. She had no apparent next of kin. The money is in trust.’

Debra shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t want the money,’ She shivered. ‘If that’s the whole point of this enquiry, then forget it. I have enough money for my needs.’

Dominic McGill looked exasperated. ‘Oh, don’t give me that,’ he said, raising his eyes heavenward. ‘Look! Okay, I guess the knowledge that your mother may have abandoned you at birth isn’t pleasant hearing, but at least have the sense to realise that if there is any money it’s yours to use as you like.’ He drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘Besides, that’s not all. Aaron is on the point of remaking “Avenida”. Can you imagine the impact you would make in that part?’

‘Me?’ Debra looked astonished. ‘I can’t act!’

‘Anybody can be a film star,’ replied Dominic McGill laconically. ‘They’re not all Oliviers, you know.’

‘Does it occur to you that in spite of all this I may be happy as I am?’

McGill’s eyes were derisive. ‘You really are quite a girl, aren’t you?’ he mocked her. ‘The only woman I’ve ever met who is actually not curious! Do you mean to tell me you can go back to—what was it—Valleydown, and forget everything I’ve told you? Won’t it ever trouble you that I might just be right?’

Debra turned away. She couldn’t take it in. She couldn’t be Elizabeth Steel’s daughter. She just couldn’t. But as she tried to find some truth in all that she had been told certain things came back to her; her aunt’s refusal to discuss her parents; the pathetically little she knew about them; and most of all, Aunt Julia’s hatred of all things American.

She turned back to McGill. ‘So,’ she said, ‘if I do accept all that you’ve told me, what then?’

Dominic McGill’s eyes narrowed. ‘Well, now, I guess we wait until Aaron comes home. And then it’s up to you. Can you dismiss it all?’

Debra felt the hot tears pricking at her eyes. ‘You know I can’t,’ she cried tremulously. ‘Oh, why did you have to come here, why did I ever arrange that visit to the studios?’

‘The astrologers would likely call it fate,’ he remarked lazily. ‘Calm down, kid, it’s not the end of the world. It may be the beginning of yours.’

‘I was happy, I was,’ she cried, staring at him with wide eyes. ‘You’ll never believe me, I know, but I’m not cut out for this sort of thing. I never wanted to be anything than what I am!’

‘A schoolteacher!’

‘Don’t say it like that. I like working with children.’

‘You don’t look much more than a kid yourself,’ he said.

‘I’m twenty-two,’ she replied indignantly.

‘A great age,’ he remarked sardonically. ‘Oh, to be twenty-two again!’

‘I’m sure you don’t mean that.’

‘You’re right. But even at twenty-two, I didn’t have that dewy-eyed innocence. God, if Steel was your mother you’ve a hell of a lot to learn.’