CHAPTER 1
Kate Scott, a curvy brunette and associate editor of the Evening Herald and judge of the newspaper's story competition, smiled when she read the covering note attached to the thick manuscript.
My name is Harry Blackwell. I submit this story as my entry in the Evening Herald's Annual Best Story Competition. I don't believe I have much chance of winning the $100 prize and have to admit my entry is many times over the 800-word limit but there you are. All I can tell you in this covering letter it's a story that needs to be told because it happened during my youth and the principal character was my late mother, Emma Blackwell.
Kate came from the village of Peakville, twenty miles east of the city, and knew Harry Blackwell as did everyone in the village and for miles around.
Harry had been confined to a wheelchair since he was seventeen in a bout of foolishness when drunk, he fell off the head and shoulders of the statue of Silas Peak in the village square. Harry landed on a very solid wheelbarrow at the base of the statue that had been used in Peak Coal Mine a century ago. He suffered spinal and severe pelvic injuries and never walked again.
When Harry came home from hospital his parents encouraged him to live as normal life as possible and he enrolled at an agriculture college and gained a degree in farming practice. The then editor of the Evening Herald, acting solicitously, agreed to Harry becoming agricultural for the eastern sector of its circulation area. Harry excelled and when the newspaper's farming editor retired, Harry was appointed to the position. He'd retired four years ago, aged forty, and became Radio Rural's 'Farming Notes' broadcaster for two hours every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings and his 'Gardening Notes' hour on regional television on Sunday mornings had a huge following and the show was syndicated to other TV stations.
Kate knew Harry was a very likeable guy. Over the years several caregivers had lived with him and her widowed mother Helen was currently Harry's live-in housekeeper. Rumor was he was sensation in delivering cunnilingus. Kate wasn't sure that her mom was into that at her age.
Sighing although hardened by the work of her judgmental career, Kate tossed the manuscript aside because the entry failed to keep within the 800-word limit. When going home that evening she pulled the manuscript from the pile marked 'return to sender' and took it home to read. Her engineer husband Noel, whom Kate suspected had a girlfriend he's so far had managed to keep secret, was away on a consultancy project and so she had plenty of reading time as their two young adult children had long left the nest.
Kate knew a deep secret, that she was Harry Blackwell's half-sister and believed even Harry didn't know that truth.
She read for hours, hugely fascinated to learn about her real mother and finally fell asleep sometime in the small hours, having wept at times because she'd not been allowed by her foster mother to even talk to the fascinating Emma Blackwell.
Until Helen confessed, Kate hadn't known Helen was not her real mother and that when she was a child she was unaware Emma was simply enquiring about young Kate because she always took an interest in her eight illegitimate children that had been 'adopted out' to overcome legalities
In reading the manuscript, Kate had learned far more that what her mom Helen had confessed to her when Kate turned twenty, that Emma Blackwell had been Kate's genetic surrogate mother.
Kate finished reading Emma's story next evening and was left emotionally devastated.
Emma had died only a year ago. Why had she not contacted Emma? Just because her legal mother made her promise not to was no excuse.
Kate wept, unable to accept she'd been so weak. She'd always loved her mother Helen but now she realized she should have also loved Emma for making her birth possible. Kate thought of seeking counseling but gritted and scolded herself, "Don't be such a wet. Go to Harry and ask is it all right that you love the memory of his mother because she was also your mother."
Feeling a little better about it, Kate decided she must keep this secret intact from everyone but Harry.
Then she thought why hide it? She was proud of Emma Blackwell. She should tell her husband Noel and then Jenny and David. Oh that would really place her in the thick of things.
So what?
Yes so what?
Then another thing hit Kate. Harry knew then names of his eight half-siblings. Although it was clear the names being used were not the real names of the couples and babies, Harry knew so much, enough to write a book? Yes Harry did that because he knew everything. That meant Harry knew she was one of the eight, that he was the only legitimate child of Emma Blackwell!
God what a mess.
Kate felt quite sick but went to work just before 8:30 am as normal and after the editorial conference, wrote the day's editorial about community litter being a sign of poor civic management and untidy people who were the thoughtless or willful members of a consumer society. How fucking banal, Kate fumed, as she collected her thoughts about litter to add to the editor's waffling comments and other options tossed around by other senior editorial staff who gave the impression they would never litter the landscape.
Kate knew she'd much prefer writing a tribute to the great and loveable Emma Blackwell.
She banged out the editorial and emailed it to editor Guy Watson so came in grinning and said, "What's got into you today Kate, all the fire and brimstone about people engaged in littering."
"Then edit it. You usually do."
"No it's about time that bastards received a good tongue lashing," Guy said, picking up a piece of screwed up paper off the floor.
"Guy are you going out to lunch today?"
"No I have Peggy bring in something for me."
"Then order me a chicken sandwich a cappuccino. I'd like to spend time with you and give you something to read."
"My wife forbids me to read porn."
"Guy!"
"Oh sorry, yes come through at 1:00."
Munching a thick bacon and egg sandwich, the florid-faced 51-year old Guy Watson began reading.
"So Harry has written an excessively long obituary about his mother?"
"It's more like a memorial essay."
Good-natured Guy eyed her, brushing around crumbs to litter the carpet.
"But it was good enough for you to read right through."
"Yes." Kate confirmed uncomfortably, knowing Harry had been acknowledged as the best investigative reporter in the newspaper's 162-year history before he was appointed its current editor. She braced herself.
"So you know Harry, as we all do, but you read on looking for something you've always wanted to know?"
Kate couldn't believe it. She'd doubted the dubious claim that Guy was the newspaper's best investigative reporter ever and knew he had an acutely active mind but that question had virtually floored her.
"Read the preamble and Chapter 2," she choked, and ignored Guy's fucking know-all grin. The editor read the preface and then said, "Chapter two eh? Pour two glasses of wine and start on yours darling. You look as if you need it."
* * *
Accompanied by her best friend Nellie Stott, heavily pregnant Emma Blackwell waddled in late for Sunday morning's church service. The central core was packed because the side pews were closed off while the stone exterior walls were being strengthened from inside the church in compliance with new codes for public buildings.
Stopping reading, Guy said, "My pick is Nellie Stott will be your mom Helen Scott. Nellie is a derivative of Eleanor and Helen."
Kate cringed and gulped her wine and was told to pour herself more.