False Hope

by Lynne Lee

  The words escaped before I could catch them and kill them. They’d spent far too long confined to risk missing their moment.

  A heartbeat of silence ensued. And despite knowing she’d been the one to press the button, I shouldn’t have reacted, so I deserved what was coming. I’d been petulant and childish, and should instead have taken a breath and had the guts to air the more important truth. That these days my status as her ‘rock’ or her ‘good girl’ were contingent only on need, or as a conduit to her boys. And only then so she could display them, like trophies.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘there’s something you’d do well to keep in mind, Grace. That these are my grandsons we’re talking about.’

  ‘And your point is?’

  ‘You know full well what my point is.’

  ‘No, I really don’t. Look, I really don’t want to argue with you, Mum, but if there’s something you want to say to me, then say it.’

  ‘You know what my point is. If you weren’t in London—’

  ‘London, which is my home.’

  ‘Exactly!’

  It was my turn to press now. To make her come out and say what I knew she really thought; that no matter what the law said, she had the greater claim on Dillon. Without a word ever being said, it had come down to that. It was sickening. I said again, ‘And your point is?’

  ‘That both my grandsons are in London. Which I don’t need to spell out would not be the case had you not—’

  Fearing opening up a chasm that would never be bridgeable, I put the phone down so I wouldn’t have to hear the rest.

  We made up, as was traditional in our family, by pretending. That there was nothing to see here. That there was nothing to say here. Least said – everything unsaid – soonest mended.

  In short, we reverted to family type. In ours, we didn’t have such conversations. We liked to nurse all our grievances, not air them.

  I considered that now, as I watched the snow continue to float down. It was getting heavier, the flakes the size of fifty-pence pieces. The boys were going to be so excited when they saw it, and the beauty of it almost made my mother’s betrayal worse. I had come down here to care for her, given up so much that was dear to me. A home I loved, friendships. A support network. Trusted colleagues. Dragged Matt and the boys away from all they knew and cherished too. Would I have done that if I’d known what I knew now?

  And had that ugly conversation been the line in the sand? The catalyst? Was that the point when my mother took full-throated ownership of the notion that, in taking Dillon to London, as opposed to moving to Brighton, I had cruelly and thoughtlessly compounded her loss by, in effect, taking her grandson away as well?

  It was already so familiar, this grinding mutual resentment. But was it also the furnace in which she and Norma forged their unlikely bond? Had it helped them set aside their differences and find common ground? Had it united them against a bigger enemy? Me?

  Because, to some extent, there was an element of truth to be found there. We’d been at loggerheads from the start about Dillon – there was no getting away from it. Over the difference between me honouring my sister’s memory and making sure Dillon knew how much she’d loved him, and, as my mother seemed determined to, having the circumstances of his birth constantly rammed down his throat.

  I’d tried to be accepting of Mum’s obsession with making sure Dillon knew who his real mother was, understanding that it was almost certainly an unintended consequence of her own maternal guilt. But for Dillon, who had never asked for this complication in his life, it only created a chronic anxiety about his place in the only family he did know.

  We had never resolved it. So the shocking truth was that I could see it. See Mum doing it wilfully. Self-righteously. For years.

  I drained the last of my tea and unfolded my legs from beneath me. It was almost three now, but I was still as sleepless as when I’d come downstairs. Why would Norma go to Mum’s? To collude with her further? To threaten her? Because it was unlikely that she’d have known about Mum’s dementia.

  Or would she? If she’d been in touch with her right after Aidan’s accident, might she know now? And with the police having been to caution Norma – assuming they had – would that mean she wanted to cover her tracks? Or might there be other things Mum might have knowingly kept from me?

  Even more agitated by now than I’d been when I first came downstairs, I went out into the garage, retrieved Hope’s holdall from the boot of my car and brought it back into the conservatory to investigate further.

  It would be eerie, I knew, to be reacquainted with its contents, and I had a powerful sense of Hope watching over my shoulder. The last time I’d looked inside it had been a few weeks after her death, when Mum and I had gone to her house to perform that most bleak of jobs: sorting through, and getting rid of, her possessions.

  Perhaps because of that stark reminder that the story had so abruptly ended, we’d tackled it in similar fashion – spit-spot, like a military operation. We’d booked a collection from the British Heart Foundation and had them take most of the furniture, and bar what was left of Dillon’s toys, and the few things of Hope’s we’d decided to hang on to, everything else, pretty much, we had methodically bagged up or boxed, bound for the local Cancer Research charity shop.

  All that was left, then, was the paperwork, the files and bills and knick-knacks, which Mum, who was beginning to fray at the edges by this time, had gathered up indiscriminately, for sifting through later. Everything that looked private, or official, or might warrant further investigation, she simply decanted (in some cases by upending entire drawers) into the enormous holdall we had found beneath Hope’s bed. I let her get on with it, busying myself by running the vacuum over the carpets. I knew she was desperate to be gone before her grief so overcame her that she’d collapse and never leave the place again.

  I knelt down on the rug and unzipped the holdall. Hope had bought it to go travelling around Europe with Aidan – one of many such grand plans that had never materialised. So, though many years old, and liberally scuffed from its time covered in shoes in Mum’s wardrobe, on the inside it looked almost new.

  Once open, it had an odd, sweetish scent to it. Perhaps a long-discarded hand cream, or a leaky bottle of perfume, part of the creepy smorgasbord of personal detritus. It was almost too personal; I felt as if I were an archaeologist, picking over remains. The half-used ChapSticks, the tampons, the expired store cards, the lidless ballpoints, the scribbled shopping lists, the random coins, the lone mitten, the tweezers, the single condom in its black crinkly wrapper.

  I found another cache of photographs, in an envelope from one of those mail-order photo services that everyone used to use. All of Dillon. Only Dillon. All taken down here, in Brighton. And all of them – I didn’t recognise a single one – taken by Mum. Must have been. And some had duplicates, others didn’t, so were these part of a collection expressly curated for Norma? How could she have done all of this and still looked me in the eye?

  But then I found something I recognised: a long-forgotten journal. It was in a pink hessian bag that I remembered from Hope’s childhood, among what looked like the contents of her bedside-table drawers, and within that, as if the prize in a long-ago game of pass the parcel, it had also been wrapped up inside a polka-dotted scarf. It wasn’t a diary, as such. There were no pre-dated pages. Just an exercise book, bounded by a soft metallic fabric jacket, and held together by a wraparound raw-edged leather fastener, as if the property of a medieval monk. On the front the words ‘Sparkle Every Day’ were embroidered. I’d definitely seen it before. I didn’t know where, but I remembered it.

  Though now I’d discovered it, a part of me didn’t want to open it. This was too personal a thing for me to feel comfortable delving into. But this wasn’t a secret teenage diary, complete with padlock and tiny key. Just a journal. And hadn’t I already had the evidence, in the form of all those voice recordings she’d sent before she’d died, of just how keen Hope had
been to bare her soul to me?

  But it was private. Why else would she have buried it inside a scarf, inside a bag, and tucked it away in her bedside drawer? Because she harboured secrets that, at the time, she very much needed to keep secret?

  I untied the leather strap. The first pages I flipped through told me little. They seemed mostly to consist of long lists of flower names, both common and their Latin counterparts, some grouped together – perhaps a wish list for an arrangement she’d been tasked with making? – others with question marks, underlines, numbers, presumably quantities and costings. And I realised why I’d recognised it. She had it with her often because she’d used it for work.

  But it wasn’t so much what was written on the pages as what was hidden among them, in the form of an envelope, a white A4 one, which had been folded in half, and half again, and which slipped from between the pages and fell into my lap.

  I opened it out. It had been addressed to a Mr D A Prentice, at a firm of solicitors whose name I immediately recognised, because they’d been the ones to execute Hope’s by then miniscule ‘estate’ and carry out the wishes in her will. There was a piece of paper too. Not inside it, but folded with it, on which Hope had started writing a letter.

  The deterioration in my sister’s handwriting shocked me. I knew fine motor skills could be affected by brain tumours; that forming letters might prove challenging once the cancer progressed. But seeing Hope’s tremor – so obvious in all the tailed letters, the way the words meandered across the paper, swelled and shrank, misbehaved – was a powerful reminder that all had not been as it had seemed, at least from my long-distance perspective.

  Dear Mr Prentice, it read. Further to our phone conversation earlier, please find enclosed the testimony statement intended for my sister. It’s really important that this gets into no one’s hands other than Grace’s, and, as I mentioned, ONLY in the circumstances we discussed. And only then, if Grace specifically

  At which point she must have been interrupted.

  And had never gone back and finished it.

  It was undated. So when had she written it?

  I looked inside the envelope, in which there was another, smaller envelope, which had been stuck down, both with its own glue and Sellotape.

  On the front, in Hope’s handwriting again, it read, For Grace’s eyes only. (So very Hope, I thought. So very Miss Marple.) And I guessed what it might be straight away.

  I picked it up. Felt the bulge. Knew there was something solid in there. Something rectangular – about the size of one of those matchboxes you used to get in high-end hotels. But this wasn’t a matchbox. It was covered in rows of tiny knobbles.

  I unstuck the envelope. The knobbles were diamanté crystals. Which, again, I remembered, because Hope had shown this very thing to me – it was the diamanté-encrusted memory stick her friend Daisy had bought her for her last birthday.

  I scanned the unfinished letter again. Ran a finger over the crystals. What could be on here that must get into no one else’s hands but mine? And in what circumstances?

  I felt a rush of adrenaline. Light-headed, as if I’d stood up too quickly.

  What the hell was I holding in my hand?

  Chapter 17

  I went back into the kitchen, where my laptop was charging overnight, to find Mr Weasley thundering round and round on his wheel. So, partly to stop the noise, but also so I could hold him, I went over to the cage, lifted the latch and got him out.

  It was a novel thing for me, having a pet. Because my father suffered from asthma, we’d never had one as children, and though Matt and I had discussed getting a dog on several occasions, there were too many obstacles – the hours we worked, the amount we travelled, our tiny London garden – so the right moment had never been found. So although Mr Weasley was technically the boys’ pet, it was me who most often sought him out. It was probably this – just the fact that I handled him so much – that meant he never bit me, or, whenever I picked him up, showed any desire to wriggle free.

  Shoving the laptop under my arm, I took him back with me, spooling him hand over hand the way he liked, grateful for his warm, undemanding presence. I had no idea what I’d found – wasn’t sure I understood enough yet to even make a guess – but whatever it was, Hope had taken great care to keep it hidden. So what might it be? A stumbled-upon manifestation of some kind of brain-tumour-induced mania, after all? Or something real? Something serious? Something so explosive that it could not be voiced, to me or anyone, before her death?

  And about what? Dillon’s future, surely. It had to be about Dillon. For Grace’s eyes only. To get into no one else’s hands.

  Back in the conservatory, having transferred Mr Weasley to his tiny Zorb ball so he could ping around the room a bit, I opened my laptop and immediately realised I’d fallen at the first hurdle. Time had moved on a long way, and technology with it. Diamonds are forever. Diamanté memory sticks, less so. I realised I was stymied without a USB port. But then I remembered Matt digging an adapter out of a box a few weeks back, so he could attach his old wireless mouse to his new Mac. I padded back into the study, pulled out the drawer, and was in luck. It was still there.

  It took a while then – a few verses of round and round the hard drive – but eventually, up it popped, and I was in. It was date-marked November 2010, so she’d recorded it less than three months before her death, and, unlike the recordings she did for Dillon, it seemed to have just one enormous file on it. A massive audio data dump, even by her verbose standards.

  I pressed play.

  And there was my dead sister’s voice again, clear as day.

  18-11-2010. 14:47.

  Okay. We’re go.

  Aidan’s left, G. He’s gone. Gone for good. And let me tell you, weirded out doesn’t even begin to cover it.

  Funny, isn’t it? This should so have been a crying kind of day (obviously) but go me – I completely styled it out. You’d have been really proud of me – your feckless, reckless, dying little sister. I managed to stay dry-eyed like a pro, even when he was giving it both barrels.

  I’m crying now though. Not sobbing – not even seeing him disappear round the corner. Not even with the knowledge that I’m never going to see him again. These are quiet tears. Not even tears, really. More leakage. That’s the word for it. Like I’m full to the brim and they have nowhere left to go. You should see me, G, standing in my finery, dripping tears on to the laminate – like I’m a modern-day Miss Havisham, with my clock about to stop.

  And by this time tomorrow, I’ll have called you, and you’ll be round here. And by the end of it, you’ll be having to pick up all those pieces. And I’m going to be in pieces, you can be bloody sure of that. I have no choice. I really don’t. And I know you’ll understand.

  Anyway, to the point. Which is to tell you the truth. Only please remember this, sis. Whatever happens when I’m gone – no, whatever happens now I’m gone (shit, that’s a hell of a thing to say, isn’t it?) – I just wanted to die having done the right thing.

  That’ll be a first, eh?

  But no time for rambling. I have such a lot I need to tell you. But where to start? The beginning or the end? No, you know what? I think I need to start with Dilly. Oh, my precious, precious boy. Can you imagine how much my heart hurts right now? How much it aches? How much it’s bleeding? Of course you can. You’re a mother. I’d say a better one than me, too, because of course you probably are. Though I wouldn’t exactly know, would I? Shit, Grace – isn’t that awful? And now I never will. But I trust that you are. I have to. And you’re bound to be. You’re just better at everything than I am. Always were. Except, actually, again, how would I know, really? How do I know I’m not a fabulous mother? Or at least might have become one. I have nothing to measure myself against, do I? Well, apart from you. And between you and me, I’m not sure either of us really has this thing nailed yet. You know, I’ve watched you with Daniel and it tickles me, it really does. Fumbling around. Not quite on top of things. Your
veneer of calm cracking. It’s been good – and I honestly don’t mean this in a bad way – to see you realising there are some things in life that you can’t ace, can’t control.

  But you are a mother. So I don’t need to waste time telling you any more about that, do I? You’ll be fine. Hark at me, telling you that!

  I will tell you this, though. There’s this itch I keep scratching at and scratching at. It’s frightening. Because it’s that strong. It’s that fierce, it’s that compelling. I lie in bed with him sometimes and watch him sleep. Literally, just lie there and look at him, and look at him – I know you’ll get that – and up it pops. I think: why don’t I just take him with me? Fuck the afterlife. This is not about the afterlife because there is no afterlife. When you’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead. I just think (and, boy, would you have something to say about that) that he needs me that much. That he’ll miss me that much. That there’s no one who’ll love him the way that I love him. How can they? So isn’t the simplest thing, the best thing, the right thing, the only thing, to take my baby with me? Have him die with me?

  Won’t lie. It’s incredibly scary. It’s such a hum in my head, such a constant angry hum. Like a wasp’s nest you poked a stick in, you know? It’s so bad that I nearly said something to Kayleigh about it yesterday. You know – that nurse I was telling you about last week, at the centre? I came that close to telling her about the thoughts I was having. But then I thought – shit. If I tell her what I’m thinking they’ll take him away, won’t they? As in right now. Because they would, wouldn’t they? Because they have a duty of care. And I have a sodding great brain tumour.

  So this is where we are now. This is just how high the stakes are. There’s only one person standing between me and these terrible urges. And, though you don’t know it, and won’t know it, that person is you, Grace.

  Come good for me. Please. Just come good for me.

  God, though. Aidan. Aidan, Aidan. How to make you understand? Because you never did, did you? Not as in now, as in you listening to this, obviously – I’ll get to that, I promise – but as in how I felt about him. Why I loved him. What I saw in him. Ha – I can hear your brain working, sis – ‘What on earth do you see in him?’ Because you couldn’t understand. Not really. Because to do that you’d need to be me, wouldn’t you? Have lived my life. Not yours. Remember that first time you met him? When you came home from uni that weekend? God, your face was a picture.