by Jane Bidder
‘Mum?’
A small, pretty, dark-skinned girl dived under the barrier and wrapped her arms around her. ‘Mum. You’re back. You’re safe.’
Georgie could only stand in surprise as Ellie held her, oblivious to the other passengers walking around them.
‘How did you know my flight?’ she began.
Ellie took a step back. Her eyes were wet too. ‘Lyndsey and I worked it out together. This was the first flight today. If necessary, we’d have waited for all the others.’
Lyndsey? Yes. Her friend was waiting there too. Rather pale and leaning on a stick.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she said, ducking under the barrier herself to hold her friend.
‘Please stay in line,’ barked an official.
She was breaking rules already …
‘I had to.’ Lyndsey’s eyes travelled from her to Ellie. ‘I needed to know you were all right. We were so worried about you.’
We?
‘I’m sorry.’ Lyndsey’s gaze faltered. ‘But Ellie came to see me in hospital.’
‘I had to,’ burst out Ellie. ‘None of your friends seemed to know where you were and Dad wouldn’t tell me. Then someone told me about Lyndsey so I went to see her.’
‘Where’s Dad?’
Ellie shook her head.
So he’d given up on her. Just as Ellie would when she knew the truth.
‘Have you told her what happened?’ Her voice was harder now as she faced Lyndsey.
‘No. That’s for you to do.’
She turned to Ellie. ‘And your dad hasn’t said anything?’
‘Said what? Come on, Mum. You can’t go on being secretive. Lyndsey said you went to visit an old friend in Bangkok.’ Her face clouded with uncertainty, reminding Georgie that her daughter might look like a young woman but was still a child beneath. ‘Are you having an affair? It’s all right. I can deal with it. I know Dad’s a complete prat at times. But I just need to know …’
There were at the station entrance now, the one to Paddington. The quick route. ‘I’ll explain on the way.’ Then she glanced at Lyndsey. ‘Shouldn’t you be in hospital?’
There was a wan smile. ‘I’m in remission. I can go where I like, within reason. Including Yorkshire.’
She understood!
‘Why Yorkshire?’ demanded Ellie.
‘Because,’ answered Georgie slowly, ‘that’s where your grandmother lives.’
She explained on the train, in a hushed voice, hoping no one else would hear. Lyndsey insisted on buying first-class tickets, which helped.
Both listened, spellbound, with the occasional ‘I don’t believe it’ or a gasp, as she took them back down the years. Georgie was determined to leave nothing out. The fear but excitement of travelling abroad for the first time on her own. Her surprise when someone glamorous like Georgina befriended her in the Arrivals queue. Her admiration for this beautiful girl. Her crush on Joly – she could see that Ellie didn’t like that. The vague knowledge that they were all dealing with drugs even though it didn’t seem that wrong, out there. (A deep inhaling of breath there from Lyndsey).
And then the dark bit. Georgina finding her in Joly’s arms. That panic when they found her missing. Running into the scrubland. The blood. The knife … The boy … The running … The police … and then meeting Sam in Bangkok.
‘You were so brave, Mum,’ said Ellie. Her eyes were wet again. So were Lyndsey’s.
‘So strong,’ added her friend, shaking. ‘I couldn’t have coped.’
No. Georgie brought her hand down on the table as though slicing away the lies. ‘I didn’t tell the truth. I pretended to be someone else. That’s why your father can’t forgive me. And I don’t blame him.’
‘But you had to,’ cried out Ellie. ‘You were just trying to survive. I’d have done the same.’
Lyndsey nodded. ‘Me too. If I’d had the guts.’
Georgie took her friend’s hand. ‘You’ve got more guts than any of us.’
There was a quiet silence. Then Ellie broke it. ‘It’s a bit weird to find out that I’ve got an aunt who died. And a grandmother in Yorkshire. What are you going to tell her?’
Georgie looked at Lyndsey. ‘I’m not sure yet.’
Her mother was in a home now. Her mind wandered and she wasn’t very steady on her legs. It was a nice place with a good reputation. She seemed happy. Lyndsey used to visit regularly before she moved down. Her father still did.
Her friend told her all this in the taxi as they headed out of York Station – just the same as it had been in her time with its vast dramatic ceiling – towards the moors.
Ellie’s eyes were wide. ‘I’ve never been this far north before. It’s freezing.’ She shivered. ‘But beautiful.’
Georgie hardly heard. All she could think about was her mother. What would she do? What would she say …?
By the time the taxi pulled up outside a pleasant, red-bricked building, she was wondering if she’d acted too hastily. Maybe a letter would have done instead …
No, said the real Georgina inside her. She owes us this.
Funny. Ever since she’d discovered she’d had a twin it all seemed to make sense. That feeling that half of her was missing. That desperate need for a friend …
‘She’s been expecting you,’ said the kindly woman who opened the door. ‘Been talking of nothing else. You’re her daughter, aren’t you?’
Georgie nodded.
‘Down here and to the right. Like a cup of tea, would you?’
Her accent reminded her of the warmth up here, despite the climate. Tea. Hospitality. All so very different from this woman who was sitting on the chair, staring at her.
Mum.
She hadn’t changed. Her hair might be grey. She was thinner too. But that look, that disapproving look, was the same.
‘You’ve brought me the wrong one.’
Her voice rose in a cry.
‘You’ve brought me the wrong one. Don’t you think I can tell, even after all these years?’
Lyndsey and Ellie both shot her agonising looks but Georgie knelt down next to the old woman. Then she took both her hands in hers. ‘It’s all right, Mum. I understand. You did what you had to do.’
None of this was what she’d had in mind. She was going to berate her mother. Accuse her of breaking them up. To demand why she couldn’t have kept both. But now, perhaps because she had Ellie next to her, she felt differently.
A mother had to do what she felt best at the time.
‘Georgina wanted to come but she couldn’t,’ she said softly.
Her mother’s eyes softened. ‘She was busy, I expect. Got lots of friends, has she? Going to parties, I expect. Georgina was the lovely one, you know. I knew she’d be all right.’ Then her face sharpened again. ‘I suppose that’s why you left. Just like that. Not a word. Not a letter.’
This was awful. ‘I couldn’t come back, Mum. I – I got into trouble.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
Georgie now felt angry. ‘Do you really care? You didn’t seem to do much of that when I was at home.’
‘That’s because I had to hide my feelings. If I did, I couldn’t have coped.’ The old woman’s voice trembled. ‘I gave away your sister. They would only let me keep one of you. All your life I resented you for that. Wasn’t fair of me, I know. But it’s the truth.’
So much for her mind wandering.
‘Now where is your sister? You said she was outside. Bring her to me.’
This was terrible.
‘She’s not outside,’ chipped in Ellie softly. ‘She’s …’
Mum’s face jerked up. ‘Who are you?’
‘My daughter,’ said Georgie firmly.
‘Your daughter? But she’s not the same colour as you. I suppose you’ve married one of those …’
‘Mum. Stop.’
Ellie’s face was red. ‘It’s all right.’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘BRING GEORGINA. I WANT GE
ORGINA NOW!’ roared the old woman.
There was the sound of a bell being pulled. Feet running. Two staff. Lyndsey slumped on the chair as though it was too much.
‘I think you’d better go now, if you don’t mind,’ said the kindly northern woman who had opened the door. ‘Come back another time, eh?’
Wait. Georgie hadn’t finished. ‘Who was my father, Mum? Please. Tell me. You owe me that.’
Her mother’s eyes went distant for a minute. ‘Your father? I hardly knew him. Here one minute. Gone the next.’
‘So those stories,’ spluttered Georgie. ‘All those tales you told me about him …’
‘All made up.’ Her mother’s voice was clear. Certain. Not like before. ‘I spun you a yarn, lass, to save your feelings. He had his own family. He didn’t want you two as well.’
This couldn’t be right. Her mind shot back to the photograph on the mantelpiece of a handsome man with a moustache and upright stance. It was the only one they had. We weren’t ones for taking pictures, her mother used to say.
‘But the photograph. Dad’s picture.’
Her mother made a snorting noise. ‘That wasn’t your father! Do you think he’d let himself be compromised that way? That was some old snap I found in a junk shop.’
A junk shop? So for years, she’d been worshipping a picture of a stranger? Putting her hands to her mouth, Georgie let out a huge sob and ran from the room.
‘You mustn’t blame her,’ said Lyndsey on the train home.
Georgie, still reeling from the revelations about her father, shook her head. ‘You think I should have got in touch with Mum earlier.’
Lyndsey’s mouth tightened. ‘If I’d had a daughter, I’d have been devastated if she’d just left like you did. Think about it. For years, she didn’t know if you were dead or alive.’
‘For years, she lied to me, you mean.’
‘She had to. In those days – especially in Yorkshire – it was a disgrace to have a child out of wedlock.’
Such old-fashioned words.
‘Maybe she just made it up,’ suggested Ellie.
Lyndsey shook her head.
‘You knew all along, didn’t you?’ Georgie suddenly realised.
This time, her friend’s voice was softer. ‘Mum always said there were rumours. But they couldn’t prove anything.’
So everyone else suspected, apart from her. It was all beginning to make sense now. ‘Your dad didn’t have any family,’ her mother used to say when she asked.
‘I’d like to trace him,’ she said, looking out of the window at the fields racing by. He’d be old by now. But he might still be alive. The thought was so impossibly exciting that she could scarcely breathe.
Lyndsey sighed. ‘I knew you’d say that. But it will be difficult getting anything out of your mother. It would upset her too.’
So what? Didn’t she owe her? Or rather, them?
‘At least she’s in a really nice home,’ Georgie couldn’t help pointing out.
‘Who do you think pays for that?’
‘It’s not state?’
Lyndsey smiled. ‘Definitely not.’
‘Who does pay, then?’
‘Georgina.’
‘Georgina?’
‘She had a trust fund. And, luckily she left a will. After she was found dead, your mother inherited.’
‘So Mum knows she’s dead?’
‘Theoretically. But over the years, her mind has blocked it out. That’s why she talks as though your sister is still alive.’
It was all too much to take in. Good, kind Georgina who apparently knew she was adopted and who could still forgive her birth mother for giving her away.
Would her children be so forgiving towards her? Ellie’s hand was firmly linked in Georgie’s, just as it had been from the minute they’d got on the train. ‘I don’t know how you managed, Mum.’
‘Then you forgive me? For lying?’
‘Absolutely. I’d have done the same. I did, didn’t I? And I didn’t have the reason to do so, like you. Nor does Nick …’
‘What do you mean?’
Nick was still travelling. His latest text had said he was in Morocco.
‘Nothing.’
‘Ellie …’
‘Please Mum. Not yet. It’s not important anyway. Not compared with what you’re going to do next.’ She looked away. ‘Dad gave me this letter for you.’ She handed over an envelope. ‘I wasn’t sure whether to give it to you earlier or not. Sorry.’
… house will be empty when you return so you can stay there … going to spend some time with Rufus … you’re not the woman I married … it’s not the drugs … I might be able to cope with that … Or that girl’s death … I can’t believe you were responsible … It’s the fact that you have lived this lie for so long … that you were someone else … that I am married to someone I don’t know … as for going to Thailand to stay with a man whom you used to love … how could you do that? I know I am rambling … how I feel at the moment. Please don’t try to contact me …
Sam
FORTY-NINE
I’m doing another job now. At first I was worried they weren’t happy with me. But then I was told it was cos the fraud squad were sniffing around our trail.
That made me feel sick. But also excited. Crime’s like that. You know what the risks are – anyone who’s been in Wandsworth can tell you it’s not worth it. But when you’re on the Out again, it’s just too tempting. Addictive. Just look what I earned from the last job.
‘We’re going to try our best to help you get a proper job,’ my social worker told me after I got released the last time.
But I don’t want a proper job. I’m not the type that could be stuck in an office, day in and day out.
I like this life.
I’m prepared to take the risk in return for my freedom. Even if it means I lose it every now and then.
We’re all aware of the risks. Sometimes I wonder how many of us there are in this.
‘Ask no questions,’ said my boss.
Don’t worry. I won’t.
It’s not worth the risk. Not if I want to keep my face looking the way it is.
FIFTY
The house seemed so strange without Sam. It made Georgie realise how much she needed him. How much she loved him. All those years when she’d silently regarded him as ‘second-best’ compared with her naïve passion for Joly … Only now did she realise that there was no substitute for that steady love that was built slowly over the years, based on the foundation of children and gas bills and quiet evenings in.
He might have his faults – like his obsession with perfection – but didn’t they all?
If she’d told Sam the truth in the first place, she told herself, as Ellie now sat with her in the sitting room watching television (her daughter had insisted on moving back in ‘until Dad comes back’), none of this would have happened.
He wouldn’t have married a girl on the run. He might even have handed her over to the police for a crime she hadn’t committed. But then she wouldn’t have had Nick or Ellie. What an awful thought …
Meanwhile, there was still no word from her husband. ‘I’ve left you enough in the bank to manage,’ he had added in his letter.
Presumably he would continue working from Hong Kong. Hadn’t he always said he could work anywhere? As for Rufus, Georgie felt hurt that her brother-in-law hadn’t kept in touch. Although they usually only saw each other at Christmas – and not always then – they’d always got on well.
Perhaps he now thought as badly of her as Sam himself. Meanwhile, Nick’s emails had been brief and infrequent.
‘That’s boys for you,’ Ellie had reassured him. ‘I don’t think Dad has said anything.’
Meanwhile, Georgie tried to pick up the pieces of her old life, aware that it wasn’t just Sam and Nick she had to worry about. It was the threat of the trial hanging over her head. Sooner or later, she would need to return to Thailand to give evidence.
; ‘There will be publicity,’ the lawyer had warned her. ‘You’re an intelligent, attractive English woman with a well-off husband. The papers will love it.’
The very thought made her quake inside. But it had to be done. Her sister’s killer had to be brought to justice. Often, as Georgie began reviving her network of clients through word of mouth (‘I’m back now’) and publicity in the local paper, she found herself wondering why she was bothering.
The children. That was why.
The only important thing in life was family. Her mother might have rejected her out of guilt for giving away her sister – a sister whom she’d failed to recognise. But she still had Ellie.
‘You didn’t give up on me when I went off the rails,’ her daughter kept saying. ‘I’m not going to give up on you, either.’
Still, there was one huge relief. Vanda and Jonathan’s house had a For Sale sign outside. ‘They’ve gone to their home in France,’ Jo had told her when they met up for coffee during her first week back. ‘It was very sudden, apparently. Not long after you went.’
In a way, she didn’t blame them. Perhaps they should be allowed some peace now, after everything. Those years in a Bangkok prison didn’t bear thinking about.
Her old friend eyed her with undisguised pity. ‘Are you all right? Do you want to tell me about it?’
It was the question everyone wanted to know. Why had she just taken off for nearly two months? Why had she come back? And where was Sam?
‘We’re having a break,’ she said, stirring her latte so she wouldn’t have to look up at her friend. ‘That … that fraud business. It caused a lot of tension between us.’
Jo stiffened. ‘I can understand that. My husband wasn’t too happy either when our account was emptied.’
This time, Georgie had to look up. ‘I’m sorry.’
Jo shrugged. ‘It’s all right. Made me more aware, actually. I hadn’t realised how prevalent personal fraud is. Did you ever find out who was behind yours?’
She tried not to flush. ‘Yes and no. It’s partly why I was away.’
Jo frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
Already, she’d said too much. ‘Nor do I. Please, Jo. I don’t want to talk about it.’
