Kith and Kin

“Should we tell her?”

“About the boy? Yes.”

So they told little Jenny Roberts that her new-born son, whom she had never seen, had been given away for adoption. It had been a hard birth and by the time it happened she was barely conscious. She went home in a haze of tears. For three days nobody could console her, not even her adored brother Tim, and then she threw herself under a truck. She was still just alive when they lifted her up. Her last words were “Mikey, oh Mikey”.

Jeremy grew up very happily in the Hartley family, blithely unaware that he had ever been anybody but Jeremy Hartley. He was a good-looking boy, lively, intelligent and enterprising. When he was ten he fell out of a tree. He broke his left leg, his jaw and his nose and had a deep gash down his cheek. His face would never come quite back to normal and his smile would always remain slightly lop-sided. “It makes you look a bit like John Wayne,” said his father, and after that Jeremy didn’t worry at all about his appearance. He left university with a good degree in engineering and joined the management training scheme of a large construction company.

At about this time, ten and a half thousand miles away in Sydney, Mikey’s secretary was knocking on the door of his office in his company’s headquarters.

“A Mr. Roberts to see you,” she said, but she was brushed aside by a large, red-faced man.

“Are you Mikey Carson?” he asked angrily, “the bastard who left my sister Jenny behind?”

“Jenny? Jenny Roberts?” said Mikey. “How is she? She never replied to my letters.”

“She’s been dead these twenty years, just because you left her pregnant. And it’s taken a fine time for me to track you down”

“Pregnant? I had no idea she was pregnant. I wanted her to come with me. I thought I could do very well over here, and I have. But she wouldn’t leave her family.”

“No. She had more sense of what’s right than you have.”

It took Mikey an hour and a half, but he persuaded Tim Roberts that he had really wanted to take Jenny to Australia and had not known that she was pregnant. They established a relationship of wary amiability and agreed to a plan of action.

Jeremy Hartley and Helena Mortimer were competitors, both pitching for the same large and complex project. Helena, a very successful woman in a very masculine environment, had a fearsome reputation, but all Jeremy saw was her beauty. They met at a party given by the client and the attraction between them was immediate. They went for lunch afterwards with a group of several colleagues. They met for lunch again the following day, but this time there were only the two of them and they both knew the meeting had nothing to do with business.

“My flat is not far from here,” said Helena.

“Let’s go,” replied Jeremy.

They stood face to face inside her front door, inches apart. Her body swayed towards him, he stepped forward. The doorbell rang.

“Are you Helena Mortimer?” asked the unknown visitor. Then he saw Jeremy and started. “You look like Jeremy Hartley. I hadn’t expected to find you here. That is a lucky coincidence – saves me some trouble. How do you know each other?

“And precisely what business is that of yours?” asked Helena, at her chilliest.

“I’m sorry. My name is Mikey Carson.” He opened his brief-case and started pulling out files of papers. “Many years ago, I was in love with a girl called Jenny Roberts. I asked her to come to Australia with me, but she wouldn’t. Much later, I learnt that she had been pregnant. She had had twins and they were given away to separate families for adoption. She killed herself soon after, but you are those twins, and it has taken me a lot of time and trouble to track you down.” Mikey finally broke through the wall of scepticism and sprang his last surprise.

“I have made a great deal of money in Oz. I am unmarried because I truly never loved anybody but your mother. When I started on this hunt I thought she had only had a baby son and I was going to make him my sole heir, but then I found out about you, Helena, and have decided to split my estate equally between you two. Here is my card. Get in touch when you’ve had time to absorb all this.”

“I have to go, too,” said Jeremy. “I can’t stay here.” Helena saw that he had been very shaken by all he had heard.

“So,” she said slowly, “we are siblings, we are business rivals, we were nearly lovers and now…” Jeremy was already out of the door. “…and now,” she continued, “we’re enemies.” She thought for a little while, and then reached for her telephone.

Mikey went back to Australia. Three months later, Jeremy, like his mother before him, was hit and killed by a truck. In his case, it was not suicide. It seemed to be just a hit-and-run accident.