The strange appearance of a long-lost uncle had left Stella with a long list of questions. Questions that her parents seemed reluctant to answer. Her mother was frustratingly vague about him.
“Uncle Dodds has always been a bit mysterious,” she told Stella the morning after the party. “He was a lot older than my mother, and I don’t think she used to have a great deal to do with him.”
“But you must know something about him,” Stella said. “He knew it was my birthday, after all.”
“Well, of course he knew it was your birthday. In fact, the last time we saw him was the day we signed the adoption papers for you.”
For as long as she could remember, Stella had known that she’d been adopted; however, it was only when she got older that she had properly understood what that meant. Her mum and dad were her real mum and dad: they’d always been there for her, and she’d never known anything else. She’d once been worried that a set of ‘other’ parents might suddenly appear and want to take her away. When Stella had asked her mum about it, she’d looked sad and said that her biological parents had been in an accident and that was why Stella had been put up for adoption.
Stella didn’t like asking questions about where she’d come from because she felt they upset her mum and dad, but this didn’t stop her from being curious. What had these other parents been like? Maybe they would have been able to tell her more about why she felt so different from everyone else at school.
“Does Uncle Dodds know where I’m from?” Stella blurted out, before she could stop herself. “Before the accident, I mean.”
“Look at the time,” Mrs Mayweather said in a firm tone. “If you don’t leave now, you’ll be late for school.”
Stella was then too busy collecting her school things and cramming the last bits of toast into her mouth to be able to ask any more questions.
On the way to school, Stella said to Helix, “I think Mum’s behaving really oddly.”
It was Helix’s habit to walk with Stella to the school gates in the morning. Go back home on his own and then return at the end of the day to walk her back from school. It still perplexed Mrs Mayweather that the dog never got lost and would scratch on the front door to be let in and out at the same times every school day.
“You haven’t heard them say anything about this Doctor Dodds, have you?” Stella asked Helix.
Helix told her, rather huffily, that he wasn’t a snooping kind of dog.
“I’m sorry,” Stella apologized. “It’s just, you saw how Mum and Dad were yesterday – something’s going on.”
Stella knew her mum well enough to realise that she wouldn’t get any more information about Uncle Dodds from her, so that evening she decided to ask her dad, who was working in the garage. She could only see his legs, as he was stretched out on the garage floor, trying to fix his van. The van had certainly seen better days, but he was sentimental about it and forgave every stuttering clank that would normally mean another long walk to the garage.
“Uncle Dodds must work abroad a lot,” Stella said to her father, in what she hoped was a matter-of-fact way.
“He might do, I suppose. I don’t know,” Mr Mayweather said.
“Maybe that’s why he hasn’t spoken to Mum for such a long time,” Stella persisted. “He looked quite tanned as well. I bet he works in a hospital somewhere warm. Like somewhere in Africa, I bet.”
“I’ve not heard old Wilberforce mention anything about Africa. Anyway, I think he’s some kind of scientist. He’s not the kind of doctor you’d go to if you had the flu. Last we heard, he was living in London. Greenwich, I think. Pass us that spanner, would you, Stell?”
Greenwich? Stella didn’t think that sounded a long enough distance away to not visit in ten years.
“Did him and Mum have an argument, then?”
“No, Stella, they did not have an argument. Apparently, it’s quite usual for him to disappear off the face of the earth for ages and then pop up again when you least expect it. Not that one, the bigger spanner.”
Stella never got to ask anything more because a large spurt of oil splashed onto her dad’s face.