This Much is True: How far will a mother go to protect her shocking secret?

by Jane Sanderson

  ‘I didn’t reply because I didn’t read them,’ Annie said at last. ‘I saw the postmark and put them straight in the range.’

  ‘The range? You burned them?’ Martha was smiling, as if this was funny, a twist in the game, and it unnerved Annie, who had meant only to wound. So she didn’t answer, she just walked away, pulling Andrew with her in a fierce grip. Martha stayed where she was, but said, ‘That’s my boy you have there, Mrs Doyle.’

  Andrew looked back at her, over his shoulder, but Annie, still holding his hand, stepped up her pace so that he had to gallop alongside her to keep from falling. Being Andrew this made him laugh, not cry. They arrived at the school too early and Annie was on pins as they waited, then, when the bell rang and children streamed out into the playground, the teacher asked for a word, and kept her there at the gate while she talked at some length about Michael’s latest catalogue of misdemeanours. Michael held himself aloof from the little group and listened impassively to the details of his crimes.

  ‘… and then, after all that, Mrs Doyle, he’s completely incapable of saying sorry. Mrs Doyle?’

  The teacher looked at Annie for affirmation, or sympathy, or some recognition at least of the problem, but Annie’s eyes were darting up and down the street; she was barely listening.

  ‘Perhaps if his behaviour was managed better at home?’ said the teacher, turning hostile in the face of Annie’s apparent unconcern. ‘Perhaps if you and Mr Doyle could—’ but Annie just said, ‘I really have to go now,’ and she seized Michael by the coat sleeve and marched the boys away down the pavement, in completely the wrong direction for home. She was deaf to Michael’s protestations as they weaved their way back to Sydney Road via a strange, circuitous route that forced them to walk part of the way in single file beside the railway tracks and make a terrifying bolt across the Ringway. Only when they were safely inside the house, with the bolts drawn top and bottom across the back door and the key turned in the lock at the front, did Annie allow herself to drop her guard, and even then for the rest of the evening she found her heart was skittering and her breathing came fast and shallow.

  After that, Annie saw her everywhere; that is, she thought she did – a flash of blonde hair, a swift turn of a slim ankle, a steady gaze across a busy street – and the torment lay in not knowing when the girl was real or imagined. The streets of Coventry were suddenly filled with menace; the walk to school, a trip to the library, the butcher, the greengrocer: all of these ordinary destinations took on a newly threatening aspect and Annie walked everywhere with darting eyes and her hand firmly clasped around Andrew’s. She knew she was being watched: she knew it. And one day Martha confirmed it by boarding the same bus as Annie and Andrew but at a different stop, taking the seat behind them and speaking in a low, insistent voice into Annie’s ear. You’re a thief and a fraud, and I’ll have him off you, and you won’t be able to do a thing about it. Annie, trapped like a partridge in a copse, just let the words drop into her ear until she could free herself at the next stop and hurry on, turning her face away from Martha’s knowing stare through the bus window. But she passed each day in watchful agony and became a benign jailor to Andrew, who was never free, never alone, even to play and potter in the small, enclosed back garden in Sydney Road. She told no one – well, there was no one to tell – but she found she missed Barbara, all over again, and longed to sit with her old friend in the cluttered cosiness of the haberdashery and spill the contents of her wounded heart. She could all but hear Barbara’s voice, indignant on Annie’s behalf, absolutely on her side. But Annie didn’t go to Sew and Sew’s: she kept her distance and held her misery close, and repeated to herself the pledge that, while ever she had breath in her body, she would never, never, never relinquish Andrew. She considered Michael, with his oddness, his white-hot fury, his darting eyes and private mind, and she understood that he could never be enough, could never compensate for the loss of the child whose existence had shown her how it felt to be loved. If she lost Andrew, she would lose everything.

  One day, Martha changed tactic and knocked on the door and Annie, expecting the milkman, opened it wide. Before she understood what was happening, the girl had stepped clean inside the house, grim-faced and fleet-footed, so that Annie could only close the door and face her foe, although she nipped around Martha and stood in her pinny, arms folded across her chest, occupying the foot of the stairs like a sentry. Martha only smiled and gazed boldly, judgingly, around the little hallway. She was far, far prettier than Annie wished her to be; her long hair fell in loose waves, and her eyes were just like Andrew’s, grey, wide, beautiful. But she wasn’t a good person, Annie thought: oh no. She only had to look at her to see she was hard-edged, spiky, demanding. Her mouth was twisted in disdain, as if the wallpaper wasn’t to her liking, or the carpet offended her. She was wearing flat red pumps today and a pair of flared jeans, and her short belted jacket was cinched in to show her waist and the curves on her aggravating, arrogant young body. She carried a bulging white shoulder bag made of the sort of cheap patent leather that cracked and peeled at the edges like dry skin. She seemed to fill all corners of the hallway with her presence: that and her scent, which was cheap and sugary. Woolworth’s, thought Annie: trollop, she thought. With such silent insults she bolstered her courage, while at the same time keeping the peace so that Andrew might sleep on upstairs until she could get Martha back out onto the street.

  ‘Right,’ Martha said, bringing her unsettling eyes back to Annie. ‘I’m bored with all this. I suppose he’s upstairs. Bring him to me now.’

  Annie staggered and groped for the bannister as if it was the deck rail of a lurching, storm-tossed ship. Martha laughed and stepped a little closer.

  ‘Oh God, you’re pathetic,’ she said. ‘Vincent was right about that.’

  Her tone was as insulting as her words. She spoke without fear, as if Annie was beneath her, as if she, Martha, was the older woman.

  ‘Thing is,’ she said, ‘I can just bloody well take him from you, and if you don’t like it, hard cheese. I’ve tried asking nicely.’

  ‘Have you?’ Annie said, rallying with pure indignation. ‘Whispering your threats in my ear, while the child sits beside me on the bus?’

  Martha widened her eyes mockingly.

  ‘You don’t love him,’ Annie said steadily. ‘Look at you, playing foolish games over a child’s future. You might think you want him now, but within a week you’d be bored with him and on to the next thing.’

  Martha shrugged her narrow shoulders. ‘Still,’ she said. ‘Robert’s mine.’ She looked past Annie, up the stairs, and Annie shifted her stance as if she was trying to fill the space between Andrew and Martha. She thought – no, she knew – she could thwart this chit of a girl. She just didn’t, at this moment, know how.

  ‘He’ll be four next birthday,’ she said to Martha, in an urgent whisper. ‘He’s not a baby who knows no better.’

  Martha gave a short laugh. ‘Yes, well he was two when I first wrote to you.’ She pointed up the stairs. ‘He’s up there, isn’t he?’

  Annie nodded, because to deny it was absurd. ‘And he’s staying there,’ she said. ‘You’re a stranger to him – do you think he’d just take your hand and walk away with you?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Martha said. She stepped closer again, but Annie stood her ground, although she couldn’t look directly at Martha: couldn’t let her own eyes settle on the girl’s calm, casual allure. Instead, she kept her gaze down, looking at Martha’s feet, her scuffed red pumps, waiting for them to make one more move towards the beloved little boy upstairs.

  One more move, thought Annie; but her heart was hammering, and then suddenly it came – a lunge forwards, sharp nails in the flesh of Annie’s arm, a violent sideways shove. Annie spun as Martha gained the stairs, and she grabbed out wildly, but Martha was too quick. She reached the landing easily and then, by pure chance, she pushed open the right door, the door to Andrew’s room, and she saw him there, sleeping in his cot, face do
wn, bottom up in the air, a soft grey velvet rabbit squashed under one arm.

  Martha seemed to hesitate now, on the threshold of his room, as if the reality of this sleeping infant hadn’t entirely struck her until this moment, and the few seconds’ pause gave Annie the time she needed to reach her.

  ‘Get out of my house,’ she said, in a low, threatening voice.

  Martha turned to look at her, and then took her gaze back to Andrew.

  Annie said, ‘I’m warning you, if you touch my child—’

  ‘My child,’ Martha said, but miraculously she stepped backwards, away from the open door, and there was a grain of uncertainty in her expression, a small but crucial loss of self-belief.

  Annie said, ‘He’s more mine now than he is yours.’ She wanted to add, to beg, Please leave us alone, please, please go away, but it would have been too weak, too revealing, so she said no more, only reached for the handle and pulled the door shut, very, very softly.

  Martha began to go downstairs and Annie followed. The constriction round her heart was beginning to loosen; the girl was leaving, Andrew remained safely upstairs, reason – it seemed – had prevailed. She allowed herself the faintest glimmer of hope and then Martha, at the foot of the stairs and with terrible contempt in her voice, said, ‘I will have him, but I’ll just get him from Vincent.’

  And she walked to the front door as if she was leaving, then turned and laid a look on Annie of naked pity. ‘He’ll do anything for me,’ she said. She tossed a hand in the air as if she was discarding an apple core. ‘But you can have him. It’s just the bairn I want.’ Again she made as if to leave, but once more she seemed to think twice. ‘Oh,’ she said, bitterly cheerful. ‘Nearly forgot.’ She delved into the white shoulder bag and took out a piece of paper, the pale parchment colour of officialdom.

  ‘Know what this is?’ Martha asked, but got no reply. ‘Robert’s birth certificate,’ she said. She unfolded the document and held it out, but Annie kept her arms folded and shook her head.

  ‘No,’ Annie said, and she was astonished at the steel in her voice, her outward calm. ‘There is no Robert, there’s only Andrew, and you lost all claim when you walked out of his life. This is where he belongs. This is what he knows. This is where he’ll stay.’

  Martha shrugged again, her gesture of infinite unconcern. ‘That’s what you think,’ she said, and she folded the document and put it back. ‘But I’ll write to Vincent and tell him your game, then we’ll see.’

  ‘We shall,’ Annie said, feeling none of the confidence she was feigning. She knew Vince too well. One sniff of Martha Hancock and he’d be out of this house like a rat up a drainpipe, dragging Andrew behind him.

  Martha tossed her another cheerless smile and left the house, closing the door with quiet control, and Annie gazed at the space she’d vacated, wondering miserably what the girl’s next move might be. She knew now that she had a formidable foe and that she herself must stay steadfast and strong, but for the time being she had to lower herself carefully onto the bottom stair to let the terror dissipate. She steadied her breathing and tried to think what she must do. Martha’s lawful claim on Andrew had no meaning for Annie, who loved him more than any other being in the world, and yet the birth certificate had shaken her. She wished she had such a document, and wondered if they could be bought. Or stolen. Or forged. She leaned her head against the newel post and wondered bleakly if she’d ever be free from fear.

  23

  It was Wednesday morning, Dog Day again, but someone was up before Annie and the comforting, surprising smell of toast and bacon rose through the little house and woke her long before the alarm began to chirrup on her bedside table.

  She rose, washed, dressed and trod softly down the stairs. Andrew was in the kitchen at the stove, his back to her, nudging bacon rashers around the frying pan. He was in yesterday’s jeans and a clean white T-shirt. Barefoot. From behind he still looked like a teenager. The bacon spat in the hot fat and he cursed mildly and turned to the sink, then leapt in shock to see Annie standing in the open doorway watching him.

  ‘Jeez, Mum, you frightened the life out of me!’

  She was so happy to hear him say Mum that she smiled hugely, as if she was delighted to have startled him, and for a short while they just looked at each other, thinking their separate thoughts. She was remembering a dream from the depths of last night; in it, Andrew had called her Annabelle, shaken her hand and said how nice it was to meet her. That was all, but in the dream she’d cried and cried and Andrew had only walked away, indifferent to her distress.

  ‘Mum? You okay?’

  Yesterday, he had discovered that a young woman named Martha Hancock was his mother, not her. He’d discovered he was once an unwanted baby called Robert. He’d discovered that she, Annie, had kept these facts secret from him all his life. Then, while this extraordinary information was still in the first, shocking flush of infancy, his father’s life had come to a shuddering halt, so that although Vince had seemed already lifeless, his shattered body took on a new degree of stillness, as if he was no longer a man, but a waxwork of a man. The only person who had cried was Moira, but then, she didn’t really know him.

  ‘Mum?’

  He was so generous with his concern, and it astonished her. He would be justified in raging, making demands, crushing her with recriminations.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘Where’s Finn?’

  ‘I let him out for a pee.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Will you have a bite of breakfast?’

  ‘Andrew, I couldn’t,’ she said, but anyway she did, joining him at the little kitchen table, eating strips of bacon cooked the way he liked it: crozzled, he called it: burned, she said. The kitchen was a tip following his exertions. The hot frying pan fizzed in the sink, the bacon pack was still out and there was a trail of breadcrumbs scattered along the worktop. Annie put the bacon in the fridge but left the rest and sat down. Pot it, she thought. What did a bit of mess matter, anyway?

  ‘I’m walking the dog this morning,’ she said. ‘On his lead, poor thing. Round the res, with Josie and Sandra.’ The bacon was crisp and salty, quite delicious. He was licking his fingers so she did too. There was a camping quality to this early-morning tryst; there seemed no cause to stand on ceremony.

  ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you have friends.’

  He meant he was glad she wouldn’t be entirely alone when he went back to Byron Bay. This was unspoken, but entirely understood. She nodded.

  ‘Come visit,’ he said. ‘What’s to stop you? Riley’d love it. We all would.’

  She couldn’t fly to Australia; such a journey was beyond her imagination; he knew this as well as she did. She said, ‘My friend Josie drove all the way to, erm, Pakistan was it? Or somewhere.’

  ‘Well then.’ Andrew rocked back on the rear legs of his chair and picked bacon from his teeth. Oh, the rules that had been broken since he arrived! ‘What’s stopping you?’

  ‘Well, but she’s one of these free spirits,’ Annie said. ‘She sells ethnic bric-a-brac in a shop on the internet.’

  He smiled. ‘She sounds interesting. I bet she’d tell you to visit us.’

  ‘Oh, she would.’

  But they left it there, each of them knowing the subject was closed. Outside, Finn looked in, his black nose touching the glass of the kitchen door. He was silent, as he always was when he wanted Annie’s attention. He was willing her to let him in, his dark eyes fixed upon her, trusting that she’d oblige, and she was about to – she was getting up from her chair – when Andrew said, ‘Look, about yesterday,’ and her stomach somersaulted so she sat back down.

  ‘I don’t want to drag up the past,’ he said, and she thought, amen to that. ‘I mean, I’d love to know a bit more about Martha, but I know who my mother is, and it’s you, obviously.’

  She was overwhelmed with gratitude, but all she could manage was a damp smile. He reached across the table and enclosed one of her hands in his
.

  ‘You’re the one who wanted me. You’re the one who loved me and raised me and sent me on my way,’ he said.

  ‘I never meant you to go as far as you did,’ she said, and he laughed, although she was entirely serious.

  ‘Well, anyway, I’ve told you now, and I want you to remember that, so that if I do a bit of digging, you won’t feel hurt or angry.’

  What could he mean, digging? Annie looked at him fondly, wondering why his face was all of a sudden so grave.

  ‘I mean it’s important, Mum. A whole different gene pool from the one I thought I had. I need to find out something about Martha Hancock – who she was, you know?’

  ‘Oh!’ Annie pulled her hand away from under his.

  ‘Mum, don’t be like that. My kids share their DNA with a stranger and it’s freaking me out.’

  ‘Well anyway, you won’t find anything,’ she said, and she stood up.

  ‘Why? You can trace practically anyone on the internet these days. All those genealogy websites …’

  ‘People like her don’t leave traces.’

  She was up now, bustling about, letting in the dog, preparing to leave the house.

  ‘People like what?’ Andrew said, following her with his eyes, trying to keep his voice level. ‘See? You know more than you’re letting on.’

  She’d gone to the coat-stand now for her fleece, and she couldn’t see him so it was easy to say, ‘Well I never met her, but what kind of woman would abandon a baby?’

  ‘Well, quite,’ Andrew said. He was in the hallway too now, leaning against the wall, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. ‘What kind of woman would leave a baby? That’s what I want to find out.’

  She sniffed, opened the two front doors, then patted her jacket pocket to check for the car keys, knowing full well they were there. ‘It’s ancient history,’ she said airily, although actually she would have liked to scream and pound at his chest with her fists. ‘Let bygones be bygones,’ she said, and off she went down the path with Finn.