Painted the Other Woman

He gestured towards the table and after a moment’s hesitation Eva went and took her place.

Marisa did likewise. Her body felt very stiff. Immobile. She watched Athan stalk to the other side and sit himself down opposite her, while Ian took his place opposite his wife. Just like two couples settling down to a dinner party. As though a bombshell hadn’t just exploded in the middle of them.

‘I don’t know about you, but I could do with a glass of wine,’ Ian said in a shaky voice, trying, Marisa knew, to keep it light.

He reached for the bottle of white wine cooling in its chiller, and for the next few moments there was a hiatus while he poured four glasses and handed them round. Instinctively Marisa found herself taking a gulp.

She needed it.

As she set the glass back on the pristine white tablecloth she realised her hand was trembling slightly. Involuntarily, her eyes glanced across at the dark figure sitting opposite her. His face was like marble—showing absolutely nothing.

Emotion spiked in her, but she crushed it down. She mustn’t let anything out—nothing at all. She was here to support Ian, that was all. And he, poor lamb, looked drawn. She watched him take a generous mouthful of wine, then he straightened his shoulders, looked straight across at his wife, and started.

‘Marisa is my half-sister,’ he said. ‘We share the same father. But Marisa’s mother—’ He stopped.

Across the table, Marisa could see Athan tense. Her eyes went to his. For one brief moment they met, and in them she could see that he knew exactly what was going to be said next.

And it would have to be by her. It wasn’t fair to get Ian to say it.

‘My mother …’ She swallowed, turning her gaze to include Eva. ‘My mother was Ian’s father’s mistress.’

She dropped her gaze, unable to continue for a moment. Emotion welled in her like a huge, stifling balloon.

Eva said something. It was in Greek. Even to Marisa’s untrained ears it sounded shocked.

But she dimly realised it didn’t sound surprised …

Ian was talking again, and she could hear in his voice what she had heard before so often when they had talked about themselves and their backgrounds: a weary resignation.

‘You both know what he was like—Eva, you of all people know because of your mother’s long friendship with mine—how she supported my mother through so many unhappy years. Even when my father threatened your parents’ marriage with his troublemaking.’ He took another mouthful of wine, as though he still needed it. ‘Marisa’s mother wasn’t the first of his mistresses and she certainly wasn’t the last. But she was …’ He paused, and now he reached his hand out and slipped it comfortingly around Marisa’s wrist. ‘She was the only one who made the terrible mistake of falling in love with him.’

Marisa spoke. Her voice was low, and she couldn’t look at Eva—let alone Athan. Above all not Athan.

‘I don’t exonerate her. She knew he was married. But she told me that he always said it was a marriage wherein both partners understood—’ her voice twisted ‘—understood that it was primarily about business and property, preserving wealth and inheritance and so on, and that he had never married for love.’ Marisa took another breath, lifting her eyes this time and they were filled with a bleak, sad pity for her foolish, trusting, self-blinded mother. ‘She chose to believe him. He pursued her relentlessly because she’d said no to him.’ Her voice twisted again. ‘He wasn’t a man who liked women to say no to him, so he told her whatever he considered effective in getting her into bed. He told her his wife had met someone else and asked for a divorce.’ Her voice became tight. ‘When she had yielded to him, and subsequently found herself pregnant, he suddenly didn’t want to know any more. And she realised far too late how stupid she had been.’

She took a heavy breath.

‘He gave her a lump sum—enough to buy the cottage I was brought up in—and a small income to go with it. He got her to sign a document waiving all claims to official child support from him. She was too devastated to refuse, and she went along with being bundled out of his life and kept quiet. She moved to Devon and disappeared. I grew up having no idea who he was—only that he was “the great love of her life,” as she used to say. After she died I came to London to try and find him. But I had no name and nothing to go on but a photograph my mother had kept—’

‘Which is how she found me,?

? Ian interjected. ‘It was total, absolute chance. Marisa took a job at a cleaning company and my office was one of their contracts. One evening I was working late. She saw me, stared at me—and that’s how we found each other.’

‘Of course,’ Eva said slowly, comprehension dawning. ‘Ian looks the image of his father … and presumably the photo was of a man around his age?’

Marisa nodded. She could say no more.

‘It’s extraordinary,’ Eva breathed. ‘To have absolutely no idea that you had a sibling.’ She turned to her brother. ‘Athan, imagine not knowing you even existed—it would be dreadful.’

He didn’t respond. Then, abruptly, he got to his feet.

‘Excuse me. I must—’

He stopped. There was nothing he ‘must’ do except get out of there.

‘Athan?’

Eva’s voice was bewildered, but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help anything right now. He just had to walk out.