THE LIAR
Jennifer Wells
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About The Liar
What would you do if you saw a girl in a crowd whose face had the same, identical birthmark as your only child? A child who, nearly ten years ago, you were told died?
It's 1935 and housewife Emma glimpses a face in a crowd – a little girl with a very unique birthmark.
Transfixed by the sight of a stranger; Emma becomes convinced that the girl is her long-lost daughter taken from her at birth.
There is only one problem: Emma’s daughter is dead. So who is the stranger?
The Liar follows Emma’s journey as she tries to find out what really happened to her daughter - a journey that unearths secrets from the past and ends in obsession…
For my family
Contents
Cover
Welcome Page
About The Liar
Dedication
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
Acknowledgements
About Jennifer Wells
Become an Aria Addict
Copyright
Prologue
Emma: 1935
My name is Emma Marks and my life had been ordinary until the day I saw a girl at the lido. From then on everything changed, and the girl became my obsession.
It was on a hot day in August that I saw her. It had been nine years since we parted but I knew at once that the girl was Violet, my daughter. She had grown of course, so much that I would not have given her a second glance if it had not been for her face – her cheek stained with a birthmark like a rain of red tears. I had longed for her every day that we had been apart but, now that I saw her, I could not be happy.
How could this little girl be Violet, when I knew that my daughter was dead?
Nine years ago Violet had died. She was a baby, frail and ailing, but a fragile beauty, her cheek marked with red tears. Violet had never known a mother’s warmth, only the dry heat of the incubator. She had touched only the coarse hospital linen, smelled only disinfectant and saw only the glare of the delivery room lamps.
She never had toys or gifts, merely a single sprig of violets from a well-wisher – intended for celebration or mourning, I did not know. Back in those days some people said that violets brought bad luck when they were taken indoors but, deep down, I knew that Violet’s death could not be blamed on bad luck. Even from her conception, Violet had been caught up in my deceit – a string of lies and excuses to conceal the shame of her creation. I had brought this upon her. I had never deserved her.
I had returned home without her, back to my life as a dutiful doctor’s wife in Missensham; a town where the Metropolitan Line trains glimpsed daylight through the leafy cuttings and brambles grew between the tracks. It was a place with a village green, a park, playing fields and a lido; the type of place where my husband and I could have given a child a perfect life, even if our own was not. Our house, Little Willow, was modern and warm, but its large garden would forever be empty of balls and skipping ropes. There was a nursery too, but the door remained closed.
Everything had been ready, everything had been waiting for Violet and, on that hot day in 1935, I was sure that she had returned to claim it. The girl I had seen at the lido was Violet. She was not dead, and right then I knew that I would do anything to bring her home.
Ruby
My name is Ruby Brown and my life had been ordinary until the day that I turned nine years old – a day meant for fond memories but one that I wish I could forget.
It had happened some time after my birthday celebration; a lunch of bread and butter, a card signed only with clumsy initials and a gift of a new polka-dot dress wrapped in brown paper and string. My brothers wore party hats made from old newspaper and there had been flowers too – a handful of violets that I had picked from the copse. Back then country people always said that violets brought bad luck if they were taken indoors, but it was my birthday and the petals had been so bright that, just that once, nobody had minded.
Maudy apologized for the lack of cake – she wished that she could have done more for the birthday of her only daughter but things would soon pick up, she said with a wink. Our home, Rose Cottage, was near to farms where my brothers could find work and only a short walk to the town of Missensham, where the new housing estates and smartly dressed people showed little concern for the Depression. Things were looking up for the Browns, she said, and I started to believe her and forgot about the cake.
But then Clarence had come home.
Things changed after that. The party was over, the jokes and the laughter stopped and Maudy turned to scolding us, urging silence out of respect for our father. As the clock chimed, the boys left for the orchards. I wanted to go too but Clarence put his arm across the doorway and stopped me.
That was when the Bad Thing happened.
When I woke, I saw the violets on the table again, their petals caught in the blur of light from the window. I saw the hardening crusts of buttered bread and the crumpled newspaper that had wrapped the dress. I saw a broken hinge on the stove and a gin bottle empty on the draining board.
From that day onwards I knew that Rose Cottage could never feel like home and I started to see Clarence everywhere – from the print of his boots in the dusty floor, to the dent worn in his chair. I could smell his ale and tobacco in every gust from the window and see his handprint on the door which could not keep him out. From that day, I always fancied that I could see a bunch of violets on the table, even though I knew there were none. Now I believed what people said about violets because I had known the bad luck that they bring.
1
Emma
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had never seen her – the little girl with the birthmark on her face. I can recall her so clearly, standing by the pavilion in that spotted summer dress, her limbs striped by sunlight through the railings. Even after so much time has passed, I find that I can bring little details to mind – the dust on her shoes and the ribbon in her hair, the sugar cone in her hand and the beads of ice cream on her chin. But these are not the memories that come to me when I daydream or when I close my eyes to sleep. No, when my mind starts to wander, my memories of the girl are altered and I don’t see any of this; I remember the droop in her smile as she saw me and the flinch of her muscle as I approached. I remember the jut of her collarbone as my hands tightened round her shoulders and the warp of my reflection in her pupils. I remember the shudder of her breath and the hiss of the scream caught in her throat. I remember her fear. I remember my love. She had returned and she would be mine again…
*
Until I saw her it had been a normal day, like any other Sunday that August. The summer of 1935 had been a hot one, the
blue dome of cloudless sky offering no defence from a relentless sun. Back then, summers in the suburbs had a particular smell – an acrid stew of bitumen from the new roads, wilted stinging nettles and dog muck baking on the pavements. The heat had drawn people out of their houses and on to the streets. They came from the farms, the old town centre and the new housing estates, their bodies merging in the shimmer of air over tarmac as they jostled in the queue for the lido.
I had intended to stay at home, at Little Willow. I’m no good with crowds and I had plans for the garden; some gentle weeding round the pansies and a good lemonade to cool me down. Everything that was acceptable for a married lady to do. But that was all before Audrey arrived.
The doorbell rang as I was kneeling over the flowerbed but I pretended not to hear and lingered in the pantry as George answered.
There was a creak from the door and then a shriek: ‘Doctor Marks!’ Audrey always treated a visit to her neighbours with as much excitement as a chance encounter with long-lost relatives. I shrank back into the darkness of the pantry. Audrey and I had been friends once. But that was before… well, that was before everything.
‘We can’t have her indoors and miserable on a day like this!’ cried Audrey.
Then came the mumble of George’s voice. I imagined him stood in the hallway, one hand resting on the doorframe, his thin body stooped slightly, as he did when his back started to aggravate him. His starched collar would be hanging open, sweat sealing the shirt to his back and his balding scalp shiny with perspiration. Maybe he would send her away; I wouldn’t stop him.
But Audrey called out: ‘Emma! Emma!’ And I had to step into the hallway in my gardening apron.
‘Audrey. What a surprise.’
Audrey burst into the hallway, pushing a large black pram like a battering ram. She was a tall woman and upright, the kind who takes to motherhood like a strong, sturdy animal. Her features were too large to be pretty but she seemed oblivious to this, always dressing in the latest fashions, today a bright yellow skirt and jacket and a matching hat with a pleat on top that bellowed like a concertina when she moved. I felt small next to her, faded and grey. She fussed under the hood of the pram, trying to silence the grizzling baby with rattles and teddies, and glanced up for only a second to shoot me a polite smile, the season’s red smeared on her lips like a life ring. Her three-year-old twins, Alan and Ethel, chased round the doormat, buckets and spades wielded like swords. And then, despite my protest and with little more than a goodbye nod to George, she grabbed my hat and bag from the stand and pulled me out of the door.
‘It will do you good to get out,’ said Audrey as she wheeled the pram down the driveway, gravel spitting from the wheels. ‘You never go out these days, not since, well anyway, you know… well you just don’t.’ She span the pram in a wide circle, narrowly missing the shiny red paintwork on our newly washed Austin 12, and hurled herself into the throng of people on the pavement, a group of schoolboys stumbling off the curb to avoid being mangled by the pram’s huge wheels. ‘Oh no! buggering heel strap’s gone.’
We crossed into the road and stood by the war memorial that marked the crossroads. I looked away, embarrassed, as Audrey leant her shoulder on the plinth and tightened the strap on her shoe. Back in those days, everybody respected the memorial but it did not just commemorate the fallen, it was the place where town met country and old met new – concrete and houses on one side of the road and the trees of the old orchard on the other. That day the stone cross was a meeting place for people, bringing them together from all directions to join the crowds that thronged to the lido. There were the well-to-do families who had not travelled far from the Sunningdale Estate, city dwellers hot from their walk from the Tube station and labourers coming from the dirt track that led up to the farms.
I pulled Alan away from a dirty-looking dog and kicked away a fallen apple that Ethel was grasping at. ‘I’m not a recluse, Audrey,’ I said, tightening my grip on Alan’s hand, but my voice was caught up in the rumble of the pram wheels.
‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘it does one no good to be stuck indoors alone all day.’
I was about to point out that I had George so was not alone, but then realized that there was no point – I would have convinced neither her nor myself. Besides, I knew that Audrey’s invitation was probably a last resort. Her other friends had their own families, yet she knew I would be free and easily bullied into watching Alan and Ethel as she basked in the sun.
The lido’s lawns were packed with sunbathers; swimsuited walruses beached on the grass, their folds of white flesh turning an angry pink. Children dodged and weaved through the legs of chattering parents and a wet dog showered picnickers with droplets. We forced our way through the crowds on to a grassy bank overlooking the swimming pool. Most of the spaces were taken, but Audrey insisted that we could squeeze ourselves in.
‘You just watch,’ she said loudly, ‘these city dwellers just aren’t as fortunate as us Missensham residents. Just as soon as the two o’clock bus shows up they’ll have to be home for dinner. There’s not many buses on a Sunday and they won’t want to wait until four. The place will be emptied, and then we will have plenty of room.’
People looked at us crossly as Audrey ploughed the pram through picnic blankets and towels. Oblivious to the stares, she shunted the wheels back and forth, the sunbathers grumbling as they shuffled to get out of the way. When she had cleared a large area, she wriggled out of her clothes, bumping her rump in the air to release her skirt. Underneath was a red swimsuit, striking against the dazzle of her white skin. The yellow concertina hat stayed firmly on her head – consciously, I thought, as if she was posing for a photograph in a magazine.
I lay back and tried to relax while Audrey screeched at the twins: ‘No Alan, please, Darling, that’s no way to behave… Oh Ethel… Don’t do… oh no. Little bleeders!’ Then she was up and fussing under the hood of the pram.
I turned my head to the pool and shielded my eyes, pretending to watch over the children as was expected of a loyal friend, but I soon found that my eyes were wandering. On the opposite bank a row of uniformed girls were on lunch break from the bus depot, their rigid hats and shoes discarded on the grass. One had taken her blouse off and was sunbathing in her slip and petticoat. An old couple lay hunched on their sides, the woman snoring gently and a child on a tricycle was cutting dusty rings into the grass. A girl sat on the edge of the pool, small breasts budding under the weave of her orange costume, her hair cascading over her face as she leaned forward to wave at two gangly youths. The boys swam over but she waited until they were close then kicked up her legs, spraying them with water.
The boys reminded me of the children from my old school, back when I had been the bathing beauty. We had gone on church picnics in Evesbridge and then there was a party at the end of the war, but those boys were dead now, dead or married, but either way they were gone. It all seemed like such a long time ago. I put my hand to my face, conscious of the heat of the sun. I had no wrinkles yet but my skin was slacker than it once was, a slither of fat under my jaw threatening a double chin and a couple of grey wisps in my hair. My youth had been kind, but it fades so quickly on the fair-skinned. And then, of course, there were the scars.
The orange-costumed girl stretched out on the bank, unaware a muscly youth was squatting beside her. She flinched when he pressed a cold bottle of lemonade onto her thigh but then laughed and lay back with him, holding hands as if permanently bound.
Suddenly my mind was wandering. A vague memory of when I had lain like this in the sun, many years ago. I remembered my skin stroked by a man, a gentle hand on my thigh, his fingers moving under my skirt. I was shocked at the memory and how easily it had returned. How long ago that day had been! But, in the daze of the heat, the days seemed to blend into one and I let myself dream, once more seeing my lover’s face over me and once more feeling my body sink into the grass under the weight of his. I let the memory linger a little, my face warming, and m
y breaths becoming longer. Then I remembered how it had felt to open my eyes and see the violets in the hedgerows as our bodies moved together.
‘You don’t want to listen to George!’ said Audrey suddenly. I lifted my head, shielding my face from the glare of the sun. Audrey’s eyes were darting back and forth as Alan and Ethel ran along the poolside. ‘I don’t care about all that medical training. He’s an old man now, just remember that – he’s got fifteen years on you. He was born in Victorian times,’ she continued, unaware that she had shattered my daydream, ‘and that’s where he should have stayed – the world has moved on. One just has to embrace the modern world. Embrace all things la moderne. But no, nothing for George that might sound a bit foreign. Heaven forbid, continental!’
In front of us, an old man shuffled in his deckchair, a tight vest straining round his belly. He coughed and took a knotted handkerchief from his head, wiping his nose with the yellowed cotton.
‘Of course, there weren’t any Missenshams back then,’ continued Audrey, ‘let alone any Sunningdale Estates, just a few run-down farms, but now look! Compared to how things were in George’s day, this is paradise.’ She swept her hand in a wide arc. As if it needed no more explanation; the paradise would speak for itself. The old man looked into the handkerchief and then replaced it on his head, patting it down so that the wetness hugged his scalp. He folded his thick arms and began snoring. On the other side of the pool a dog was flicking sods of lawn in the air with its back legs.
I nodded. ‘Paradise.’
‘Oh Emma, you should embrace it. She stopped to look me up and down. ‘You do know that suntans have been fashionable for a good ten years now?’ She laughed. ‘Do you even own a bathing suit?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, laying my hand protectively across my belly. ‘Honestly, I’m fine.’
‘Emma, really, at least brush the hair out of your eyes, get some sun on your face. You know that it’s really not good to—’
The Liar Page 1
