The Liar

by Jennifer Wells

  ‘’Ere!’ Maud nudged my elbow. ‘I’ve got something for you.’ Then she lowered her voice: ‘Don’t say anything, mind, not out loud.’

  I turned to her, a little reluctant to miss Ruby’s stories.

  She was holding out a fat brown envelope, bearing the address of Crozier and Hampton, the Green, Missensham. ‘I met with Mr Crozier about this matter last week,’ she said. ‘He is a kindly chap, always ready to help folk like us. He said we would need something in writing, even told Andy which big words to use and checked it all for us after too, said it was legally binding since we’d got it signed and witnessed by someone reputable. I can’t read, mind, so he read it to me and showed me how to put my mark by the right bit.’

  I opened the envelope but my eyes got no further than the first line of jumbled script. ‘Oh, Maud, No!’ I said. I thrust it back at her but she would not take it. ‘I’m sure it won’t come to that. You must have some hope.’

  But Maud’s face was calm, as if she had some deeper knowledge. ‘It’s just instructions for when I’m gone,’ she said. ‘Ruby never had no godparents and with Clarence and me not married I need to make provisions.’

  I unfolded the document, my eyes skimming over the blocks of text. Each sentence comprised a mix of clumsy phrases and complicated legal terms and I had to read some of the paragraphs over and over until their meaning sank in. Then I continued until I reached Maud’s inky cross. ‘Thank you!’ I said. ‘Thank you!’

  ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’ She looked at Ruby. ‘After all, you got what you wanted in the end.’

  I followed her gaze. Ruby had rescued the remains of the sugar cane from the floor and held a jagged fragment out to Henry, jerking it away whenever he lunged for it. Maud was right, I had got what I wanted but somehow I didn’t feel like I had won.

  ‘You understand that it’s not an easy thing for me to do.’ Maud nodded to herself. ‘So please could you leave her here with me tonight and let her stay with me for a week so that I can have some time alone with her - to explain things and say my goodbyes. You can see that the place is cleaner now and I will keep my face covered and—‘

  ‘Of course!’ I said. My joy had only lasted a few moments for now the true meaning of the document was becoming clear to me – Maud was dying and this was her dying wish.

  ‘You will let her visit her old home, of course and her brothers?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘as often as she wants to.’ But then I paused. There was something uneasy about the situation and the document did not have all the answers. ‘Maud…’ I whispered, glancing round to make sure that none of the children were listening. ‘What about the others?’

  ‘Clarence will manage, he’s a good father when he’s around. He’ll just need some…’ She stopped suddenly her brow furrowed. ‘…Some support.’

  ‘Support?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, support. Do you understand me, Mrs Marks?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, my heart sinking. ‘I think I do.’

  Maud turned her head slightly and I leaned over so that she had my ear. ‘I was thinking a couple of hundred quid would be fair, Mrs Marks.’

  ‘Two hundred pounds!’ I hissed. ‘What?’ I stuffed the document back into the envelope and thrust it back at her. ‘You can’t sell a child, it’s wrong!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t like to think of it that way, Mrs Marks.’ She patted the fat envelope. ‘Can’t we call it charity?’

  ‘You always said you were too proud for that!’

  ‘Pride!’ she whispered. ‘I lost my pride many weeks ago, Mrs Marks, a disease like this robs you of pride. In my last days my own family will have to feed me like a newborn baby. They will watch as I soil myself and sit at my bedside as I drown in my own juices. What is pride anymore? I don’t care about pride.’

  ‘No!’ I said firmly. ‘It’s immoral.’

  ‘That’s a shame, Mrs Marks, I did think that it was what you had wanted all along.’ She stopped and looked me in the eye. ‘It is, isn’t it?’

  I didn’t answer.

  Henry snatched the splintered sugar cane and ran outside, the others scrambled after him laughing. I watched them through the window. Maud was selling a child – the one who had embraced her so lovingly just moments before, the one who was running past the window, her hair streaming behind her. The one who she told was special. I wondered what kind of mother Maud really was and how she could live with this decision, how she would be judged by God, but then she was not the only one who was shamed, because deep down, part of me was already thinking about the money. It would have taken the family years to save £200 and, if they had it, it would mean that the rent would be paid, the children would be properly schooled and that they always had the meat that Ruby craved. But that was not taking into account all the lemonade and blancmange that would probably be bought instead. Then there was Clarence, Ruby said that he drank; £200 would buy a lot of ale and might mean that he never worked again. It would also be enough for frivolous purchases such as refrigerators, wirelesses, gramophones, even a motorcar! Two hundred pounds was also my life savings. It was what I had managed to squirrel away while George paid the bills, but I did have enough. It was all I had, but it was there if I needed it.

  ‘I don’t need to pay you any money,’ I said slowly. ‘She’s mine anyway.’

  I had forgotten about the birth certificate in my pocket – the one that Ruby had failed to deliver on her last visit and the one that I had now come to return. But as I reached down and touched it, I wondered what it really showed. It had George’s name on it, whatever that meant. He had never wanted a baby, he had made that clear often enough. Could he have taken Violet from the incubator after I had seen her? Could he have been lying to me when he told me that she had died? Could he have given her to Maud? Swapped her for a dying Ruby Brown? I didn’t know. Maybe I never would. But what did George’s name matter anyway? What did it matter when what could not be disputed was the name of Ruby’s mother – Maud Brown. My only hope was a last piece of honesty.

  ‘I had a baby,’ I said. ‘You know this, Maud, a girl with a birthmark on her face – a mark just like Ruby’s. I never saw her body, not after I was forced to leave her. I don’t know what happened, but that baby wasn’t buried. She’s here with you, Maud – you have Violet.’

  Maud’s face didn’t change, maybe even the flicker of a smile crossed her lips as her beady eyes watched me intently. ‘Can you prove it?’ she said.

  I fingered the birth certificate in my pocket again but there it stayed.

  ‘Can you prove it?’ Maud repeated slowly.

  I knew that I could not.

  38

  I had left Rose Cottage without Ruby. Maud and I had agreed that Ruby would not return to me until a week on Sunday. It was not really an arrangement that I was happy with, but I consoled myself with the fact that I had left Rose Cottage with something much more important – a document that said that Ruby would soon be mine forever. All I had to do was keep to my side of the bargain.

  The bank in the High Street had demanded a week’s notice for the withdrawal of two hundred pounds. When I dropped in to request it, the pinstriped manager remarked that it was a substantial sum, considering the weight of the Depression. He hoped I was going to spend it wisely. I nodded and said that I surely would and, unperturbed by his stern manner, I couldn’t help smiling to myself like a schoolgirl as he signed the forms.

  It had been agreed that Sadie would meet me at Little Willow to collect the money. Ruby was sharp and it would not do for her to see anything changing hands between me and Maud. Ruby would stay with her brothers in the almshouse for the night – this would make the departure seem less final and avoid things being held up by any tearful goodbyes from Maud. Then Sadie would prepare her for the move during the day and bring her round to me at Little Willow in the evening. Ruby would be told that she was visiting again. It was a little unfair but I didn’t want anything to suggest that her farewells would be final or reveal
the inevitability of her mother’s death. Still, I thought, once she had settled in, had a warm bath, proper food and a comfortable rest, she would soon forget Maud and when I finally had to tell her, the blow would not be so hard.

  The next Saturday Sadie called round early. I had the money ready in a large purple envelope and handed it over. In return she gave a little nod but could not manage a smile.

  ‘It’s just the milkman,’ I called to George playfully. Then I gave her a little wink and shut the door.

  I busied myself arranging the back bedroom, locking myself away from George but, as the day drew on, I knew that I had to tell him. After all, it seemed respectable enough – a friend, a dying woman, had made me the guardian of a little girl. It was her last wish and it was all I could do to help. After all, we had, long ago, nearly had a child of our own.

  George tilted his head, the light from the window washing over his spectacles. ‘Forever?’ he said slowly. ‘Stay with us forever?’

  ‘Yes!’ I smiled.

  ‘After all her trouble?’

  ‘She’s no trouble, George, you know that. Mr Tuttle took that money – we shouldn’t have left it out to tempt him.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t just mean that, there’s the matter of… well there’s…well there’s everything else too.’

  ‘Oh George, can’t you just see it as giving a needy child a home? Think of all the charity work you do for the hospital, and they do say that charity begins in the home, don’t they? Think how it would look to the hospital board if we did this.’

  ‘Well, I suppose that is true and usually I would do, but…’ He paused.

  ‘What, George? What?’

  He made a little cough while gathering his thoughts. ‘Well it’s just this child in particular – she does seem to have an unhealthy effect on your mental state, Emma.’

  ‘You mean her face, George – the mark. It’s that mark that means she’s mine.’

  George opened his mouth but then shut it again. He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes, as he did when he was studying one of his medical texts.

  ‘You never wanted a child before,’ he said. ‘Yes, there was that little mistake – we should have been more careful about that, and it’s natural that there was a lot of expectation there. But you never wanted us to try again, never wanted to adopt. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘It makes perfect sense, George; it’s only natural that she comes here.’ I knelt beside him and patted his knee. ‘Can’t you see, she’s been mine all along? She’s not some tinker girl, as you put it, and she’s not really Maud’s baby, she never has been, she’s my Violet. Can’t you see she’s Violet?’

  He stared at me for some time, then said firmly: ‘Violet is dead.’

  ‘No George.’ I laughed. ‘Violet’s coming home!’

  *

  The next morning I found a note from George on the breakfast table. He was going to stay with his brother in Oxworth for a while – needed some space to clear his head. I was surprised at how little I cared and I actually felt relief; George had complicated things. All those accusations and refusing to make the effort, deliberately not understanding, making things difficult and, besides, George’s absence would give me the time that I needed together with my daughter. She had lived as Ruby for so long, but now that time was over and it would be as Violet that she came home to me. From now on, things would be simple – Little Willow would just be for the two of us; me and my daughter. Violet and I.

  I removed the rest of George’s things from the bedroom, locking them away in a cupboard. Then, full of energy, took the Tube all the way to Regent Street and to Hamleys, where I flitted through the aisles, filling bag upon bag with dolls and teddies. The bags hardly weighed me down on the way back home and I swung them happily by my sides. The payment of the two hundred pounds had made me frivolous, and I felt heady as I skipped along the pavement, like I imagined an American movie star would feel; Peter’s Greta Garbo all over again, the fortune I had spent on toys suddenly feeling small to me.

  I hurried back to Little Willow, half expecting to find Violet waiting on the doorstep, but no, she wasn’t there; it was still far too early.

  I sat in the lounge, arranging the bags around me and glanced nervously at the clock on the mantelpiece; both hands were pointing to the twelve, the big neatly obscuring the small. Suddenly I realized that I was in silence but for the tick of the clock. There was no wireless and not even the rustle of George’s newspaper.

  After a while I noticed that the minute hand had moved a whole half hour while I had been sat with my thoughts. I went into the kitchen and made a cup of tea, standing in the hallway while the kettle boiled so I did not miss the sound of the doorbell.

  Then I went to the window seat and sat there until my untouched tea was as cold as the rain that fell on the glass. I mused that maybe Sadie and Violet would be arriving by bus and I rested my head on the windowpane to listen for the vibration of engines. But buses meant problems too; the old 34 often broke down and there would be nobody to help the driver in the lane. And now the rain would bring plenty of mud for the wheels to get stuck in.

  As the hands of the clock clicked on to 5 p.m. I cursed myself for not agreeing a time. At the cottage, the excitement had been too much and I had been carefree, not worrying about details and being generous with what I agreed to. I kicked myself for my lack of foresight. I didn’t want our first evening together to be spoiled by last minute rushing around.

  I went up to the back bedroom and arranged the new toys on the bed – Violet wouldn’t have any time to play with them now, but they would be nice for when she woke. I took out the baby photo and looked at it, thinking about how much the little girl had grown, and I started to daydream. Sometime later I started to plan supper; shepherd’s pie, Violet’s favourite. I had been keeping the ingredients since the weekend.

  But I ate my supper cold, putting hers in the larder, the mashed potato hardening under the baking parchment. I went back into the lounge and sat in the window seat, checking the clock against my wristwatch; only three minutes behind. The front garden was still empty and, through the glass, the sky was almost black.

  I started to get a sinking feeling in my stomach. What if Violet didn’t want to come? What if she was being difficult? What if she didn’t want to leave after all? Maybe they’d had to tell her that Maud was dying? Was there a problem at Missensham House? Maybe she had been unable to find her clothes among all the boy’s clutter – yes, those kinds of thing would all take some time.

  I wrote a note for Sadie and pinned it to the front door. Then I grabbed my coat and hat and set out for Missensham House. I hurried past the war memorial, lifting my skirts to quicken my pace once I had passed the village green. The dark clouds of night chased me along my way, but I seemed to be moving in slow motion while the hands on my wristwatch whirled round. I could not be gone from Little Willow when Violet arrived home, not after all these years had passed, and I quickened my pace until I was running, my boot’s echoing past the builder’s hoardings and the dark station.

  At last I reached St Benedict’s, where a dull reflection of stained glass shimmered in the puddles and the rain pattered loudly on the tiles of the lichgate. The almshouses were in darkness, the only light coming from streaks of moonlight reflected in the windows.

  ‘Hello?’ I called, my voice tiny in the darkness. ‘Sadie?’

  But there was nothing but the distant quake of rails from a train far down the line. Fence posts jutted from the lawn, barbed wire pulled taut between them. I grabbed the wire and pushed it down, scrambling onto the entrance path, not caring when the fabric of my skirt shredded on the barbs. The door to number five was boarded over as well as the doors to numbers one, two, three and four. There was not a soul in sight. I put my face up to the window of Sadie’s lounge and saw nothing but the grey outline of an empty room, the air echoing hollow as I rapped my knuckles on the glass.

  I hurried back into the
road, my heart racing. ‘Sadie? Vi…Ruby?’

  A sign flapped loose on the wire and I tore it free, holding it close to my face. It was printed large and bold but my eyes struggled to make it out in the shadow of the building. Then the crack of electricity on steel sounded from deep in the cutting and the railway came to life with the hiss of the approaching train. I waited for it to pass, the clatter of wheels getting closer until the engine sped by. But I barely noticed the train – as I stared at the sign in my hands, the strobe of carriage lamps flashed through the trees lighting the air around me. The sign flickered out of the darkness, a triangle of bright red and one single word: ‘CONDEMNED’.

  *

  The road was in darkness, the distant wobble of an approaching bicycle lamp the only marker of the carriageway. My boots fell heavily on the mud but I continued homewards, barely noticing that my hair had unravelled down my back and my stockings were swollen with rainwater.

  The flat clank of St Benedict’s bell tolled nine – indisputably night-time. The evening I had so long anticipated was over and I could never get it back. The agreed handover had not happened and Violet and I remained apart.

  At Missensham station, the ticket hall stood empty, the platform lost in darkness, as if it ceased to exist after the departure of the last train. Somewhere a drip of water echoed in the night air, then a gust of wind from far down the line. I folded my arms to my chest and continued down the road, the rhythmic trudge of my boots the only reminder that I was moving at all.

  In front of me the hazy outlines of neat bay-fronted houses faded slowly out of the darkness; eerily tidy gardens, perfect fences and grinning cardboard housewives. This was the site of the new housing estate – no longer hedge-lined fields but a bulldozed pit caged by advertising boards. Then the neat brickwork and privet hedges flashed with colour and I looked up the road to see the quivering filament of a cyclist’s lamp tracing circles of light across the hoardings.