Strange Sally Diamond

Over the following weeks, I noted that Peter was as anti-social as I used to be. I could empathize with him. He seemed so alone in the world, but he was never aggressive or threatening in any way.

I asked him to come and see Tina with me, but he didn’t want to. He always made an excuse to go to his room if I had visitors, and refused second-hand invitations from my friends. We told everyone he was Mark’s cousin, my second cousin, and that he was visiting from Australia, which was almost the truth. We didn’t want to mention New Zealand because too many of my friends knew about the weird post I’d been getting from New Zealand. But we didn’t fool everyone. Angela asked me if there was something going on with us.

‘With who?’

‘With you and that Australian fellow. Is he your boyfriend?’

‘No. You know I don’t have boyfriends.’ The thought horrified me, but I was sworn to secrecy that he was my brother.

‘It’s unusual for you to welcome a strange man into your home.’

Sue had said the same thing. And it was definitely awkward even though Peter and I liked each other. He got up at dawn and went walking for hours, and eventually would turn up at dinner time. We stuck to our bathroom rota. And we did not enter each other’s bedrooms under any circumstances. He only showered every second day, even though my shower was beautiful. I couldn’t understand that. He stopped shaving shortly after he arrived and looked generally unkempt. Conversation was often stilted. He didn’t seem to like it when I played the piano. As soon as I started, I heard the front door bang. It was rude. But it was my house and if I wanted to play the piano, I would.

We continued to talk, though. Why had my birth father chosen to keep Peter by his side and abandon me? Peter described a loving, benevolent, indulgent dad, clever and hardworking, and yet, we both knew what he had done to my mother, and how he had manipulated Peter.

The hardest thing for Peter to learn was that my mother hadn’t spoken of his existence. We gave him the tapes and files but we kept from him the tape on which she said, ‘It doesn’t matter. I didn’t want him.’ He read through everything and listened to all of the recordings.

‘She was screwed up,’ he said.

‘Yes, by your loving father.’ Mark was increasingly annoyed by Peter’s defence of Conor Geary.

‘What about other “relationships”?’ said Mark.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, you were living with him there for five years. Did he have access to other children? Didn’t you worry that he might kidnap another little girl?’

‘I only really worked out what had happened with my mother not long before he died. We fought about it. But Dad only took adult dental patients. In New Zealand, kids’ dental care is subsidized by the government but adults are more lucrative, and even the receptionist that Dad hired in the dental office was a man, and that was unusual. He never went after another kid. I’m sure of it.’

‘I find it strange that a paedo who had been so active would just stop and change his ways, especially when he’d got away with it? Maybe he found a way to hide it from you.’

Peter looked away. ‘Look, I know you don’t like me defending him. I don’t think he ever went after any other kids. But he was a misogynist. He always referred to women as stupid or ugly or opinionated. He didn’t like them, that’s for sure.’

‘You know,’ I said carefully, ‘I think Conor Geary might have been messed up by his mother at a young age.’

‘Yeah?’ said Peter. ‘I asked him about his parents once or twice. I was curious about my grandparents, you know? He got tight-lipped and changed the subject.’

‘Why do you think that? About his mother?’ Mark asked me.

‘It was something his sister said.’

‘His sister?’ said Peter. ‘You mean I have an aunt as well?’

‘Yes, sorry, I should have mentioned her before. She died a few months ago. I only met her once with Aunt Christine, after I hit the newspapers. She got in touch. I don’t know why. She was distressed. I suspect Conor Geary ruined her life as well.’

‘What did she say about their mother?’

‘It was kind of an off-the-cuff remark, but I’ve thought about it a lot. She said their father died when they were young and that their mother expected Conor to fill his shoes in every way. She said it was perverse. It was the way she said it.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Mark.

Peter was silent for a moment. ‘Was she … normal?’

‘Margaret? I guess so. But I think she met me out of some sense of duty?’

‘Don’t you feel anything … about her death? You never mentioned it before,’ said Mark.

‘Why should I? I met the woman once. She seemed nice. Isn’t it amazing how different two siblings can be?’

Peter looked at me. ‘We’re different.’

‘We’re not that different. Two years ago, I used to pretend to be deaf so that I could avoid talking to people.’

He smiled at that. ‘That’s a good idea.’