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

by Jane Sanderson

  He glowered at her for a moment, then said, ‘Is this because I didn’t ask about the bloody dog?’

  ‘Is what?’

  ‘This passive-aggressive pseudo-medical cod-diagnosis?’

  Annie said, ‘Can you say that again in English?’ He curled his lip and looked away.

  ‘I’m only telling you because it explains everything,’ Annie said. ‘It’s not a word we knew when you were little.’

  ‘Explains what, exactly?’

  She shrugged. ‘Everything. The way you were as a boy, the trouble we had with you at school, the way you took to the violin, the fact you couldn’t leave for the Guildhall, when the time came—’

  ‘Oh, the fucking Guildhall,’ he spat. ‘Back to that old chestnut.’

  ‘And … well … just everything else, and the way you treat Andrew … and me for that matter. It explains all that.’

  ‘Might it simply be possible that I just don’t like Andrew?’

  ‘Or me?’ Annie said. ‘Do you not like me, either?’

  Michael gave a bitter laugh. ‘You’re the one who made him Golden Boy,’ he said. ‘Andrew, the Chosen One.’

  They held each other’s gaze but Michael’s expression was fierce and Annie was first to look away.

  ‘Oh Michael, I don’t know what to say,’ she said, utterly weary, utterly spent. In all their years together, she wondered, was this their first argument? She was always so ready to concede ground to Michael, always so wary of breaching the fragile peace of their small household.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I dare say you don’t.’

  She sighed deeply and retreated to her default position. ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said.

  A look of sly triumph passed swiftly over Michael’s dark features, but he needed to be sure of his victory. ‘Green tea,’ he said as she made for the kitchen. ‘Oh and Mother?’

  She stopped and looked at him through bleary, cold-ridden eyes.

  ‘Don’t pass remarks,’ he said. ‘And I’d be obliged if your friend kept his opinions to himself as well.’

  ‘He didn’t mean any harm,’ Annie said. ‘Neither did I, although I suppose I did blurt it out a bit sharply just now.’

  Michael waited a moment, as if he was collecting himself, mustering all his patience, then he said, ‘It’s not the manner of your delivery I object to, but the content of what you said.’

  She knew what he was up to: backing her into a corner with his superior verbal skills.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to fall out with you, but might it not be nice to know there’s a reason for the way you are?’

  ‘Nice?’

  ‘Reassuring, then.’

  He tossed her a look of withering disdain, then turned to walk up the stairs.

  ‘You could have studied at the Guildhall, Michael,’ Annie said. ‘But you chose to stay here, in this little house, with your mother.’ She spoke kindly now, not in anger or even irritation, but her words were laced with sorrow.

  ‘And there’s not a waking moment when I don’t rue the day,’ he said without looking round. He disappeared into his bedroom and slammed the door, and when she took him his tea, he wouldn’t look at her.

  Later, when she looked in his room and said goodnight, it was as if she wasn’t there. But it was only what she expected; Michael hated many things and chief among them was to be reminded of his reliance on his mother.

  In the bathroom she cleaned her teeth, washed her face and patted some cold cream into the pale soft flesh of her cheeks and neck. She stared at her reflection and recalled the despair it used to cause her when she was younger. She wondered, not for the first time, whether if she’d had the good fortune to inherit Lillian’s looks instead of Doreen’s, her life would have been happier. And then she thought – as she’d often thought before – that her pudgy, cheerful Auntie Doreen had seemed happy enough with all those children and a husband who never left her.

  At Doreen’s funeral there had been rows and rows of mourners, and the children – young adults by then – had wept and leaned in to each other for comfort, stricken with loss. Annie, sitting on the third pew from the front among a row of strangers, had cried too, but for herself, not for dead Doreen, and then soon after that she’d moved house, lock, stock and barrel, coming here, to this poky little place in Hoyland, where nobody knew them but where Annie felt safe. Safer, anyway: back where she’d started, when her life had been all ahead of her, an unwritten book. Vince went straight into Glebe Hall, so that had been a blessing, but oh, the boys had been livid, Annie remembered now; even Andrew, normally so placid and kind, had raged at moving from Coventry. He’d come along, of course; well, he was only fourteen so what choice did he have? Anyway, he’d made the best of things, done all right at the secondary school, collected a few O-levels … except then he’d refused to stay on to do his A-levels. Instead he’d packed a rucksack and gone off on a train to Paris and met Bailey in a queue for the Eiffel Tower. Barely out of boyhood, and Annie lost him to a girl from Brisbane. He’d never really lived at home again, after that.

  She’d still had Michael, of course. But that was only because he didn’t know how to leave.

  She found the paracetamol Alf had bought at the service station – was that really only today? – and took a couple more with a glass of water, swallowing painfully and tenderly prodding the glands in her throat to check for swelling. Sleep was what she needed more than anything but when she finally climbed into bed she found it wouldn’t come and instead her overwrought mind whirred with anxious activity. She wondered about Alf: pictured him on the phone to some faceless Coventry detective, instructing him to re-open the case of the bones in the Sherbourne. He had a new prime suspect, Alf was saying; Annie Doyle: aged seventy-three, white hair, blue eyes, approximately five foot three inches tall, not believed to be any danger to the public but potentially a danger to herself.

  What had she done? she wondered. What did she say? Truly, she couldn’t remember, though again and again she pictured herself speaking, pictured Alf listening, remembered the awkward silence that followed, but just couldn’t recall the specifics. She tossed and twisted under the duvet and fell, eventually, into a patchy, exhausting sleep.

  The next morning Josie rang the doorbell. She had a box in her arms, with holes punched in the side, and a smile on her face that immediately made Annie feel wary: a knowing smile, one that hid a secret.

  ‘Welcome home,’ Josie said. ‘I brought you a gift,’ then she looked closely into Annie’s face. ‘You look poorly,’ she said.

  ‘It’s a cold,’ Annie said. ‘It’s nothing.’

  Josie clucked sympathetically. ‘You’re all bunged up,’ she said.

  Annie didn’t answer but just stared at the box so Josie held it out. Annie didn’t take it.

  ‘Go on,’ Josie said. ‘Quibble-free return if you’re not completely satisfied. Can I come in?’

  She pushed the box at Annie, who accepted it, but only because Josie looked as though she might just let go. It was light, with a small, central point of heaviness that felt warm against Annie’s hand. Whatever was in there was far too small for the box. ‘Sorry,’ Annie said. ‘Come in.’

  Josie followed her into the house. ‘Don’t shake it,’ she said. ‘Or drop it. Just open it.’ She walked straight into the living room as if she was more at home there than Annie, then she sat down and looked expectant, so Annie placed the cardboard box on the floor and opened the flaps.

  It was a puppy; white, black and tan, very small but with eyes as alert and knowing as an old sailor’s. It saw Annie and promptly sat up, as if the boat it was waiting for had finally docked. Annie clasped her hands together, and stared at the little dog, which waited and watched, full of innate confidence in its own lovability.

  ‘Mr Wright says she’s all yours if you want her.’

  ‘Mine?’

  Josie laughed.

  ‘The only girl in the litter, which just shows how much Mr Wright lik
es you, since he could have sold this one for twice as much as the boys.’

  ‘Likes me?’

  ‘Annie!’ Josie said. ‘Just pick her up!’

  But Annie didn’t want to, in case she couldn’t put her down again.

  ‘Look,’ Josie said. She leaned down and lifted out the puppy between two hands, gently competent. She nuzzled her nose against its own then held it out to Annie. ‘Mr Wright thought you’d miss Finn, and this is the puppy Riley liked. That’s all.’

  At the mention of Riley, Annie reached out and plucked the little dog out of Josie’s hands. It squirmed and to make it safe she clutched it to her chest, where it tucked its tiny domed head under her chin and licked her throat. The warmth of its sleek body was a comfort, like the memory of one of her little grandson’s hugs.

  ‘I hadn’t really reckoned on another dog,’ Annie said, more to herself than to Josie.

  ‘It’s too easy to get used to not having one,’ Josie said, ‘and then there’s always a gap in your day where the dog should be.’

  Annie thought the last thing she needed was any more gaps in her day. She looked down at the puppy.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘I’ll call her Lottie.’

  Josie smiled. ‘Nice. I’ll tell Mr Wright she’s staying, then.’

  Annie thought of Michael and the new battles ahead, but they hovered hazy and manageable behind the greater sensation of creeping euphoria that this new little dog, this Lottie, could be hers. She was settling down, the puppy, curled tight as a nut in the soft hollow of Annie’s hands and she wished Riley were here to see.

  ‘So, how was the whole Finn thing?’ Josie asked.

  ‘Oh,’ Annie said, and her face fell. ‘He’ll be fine with Dora but getting home yesterday …’ She tailed off and shook her head.

  ‘Yes, I’ll bet that was tough.’

  ‘Sandra came.’

  ‘I know. She’s a brick in a crisis. And look, the hardest part’s behind you now.’

  ‘It is, yes. I should ring Dora. I meant to ring yesterday, but it all got a bit much.’

  Josie looked directly into Annie’s eyes. ‘Mr Dinmoor’s being a bit odd about your trip,’ she said, lightly casual, as if she was trying to lure Annie by stealth into this conversational trap, but Annie only glanced at her and didn’t speak.

  ‘I said, “How was the trip?” and he said, “Very good, up to a point,” and I said, “How do you mean?” and he said, “A bit mixed towards the end,” and then he clammed up.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I’ll be needing that cage I used when Finn was little,’ Annie said. ‘He slept in it for the first two weeks, just to get him used to being in one place overnight. Oh dear, he didn’t half howl the first night.’

  ‘I see,’ Josie said. ‘A conspiracy of silence.’

  ‘Do you happen to know what food she’s on?’

  ‘Just tell me this: did you fall out?’

  Annie looked at Josie, and did her level best to radiate unconcern. ‘What a thing to say,’ she said. ‘Of course not.’ She wouldn’t, she absolutely wouldn’t, tell Josie what she may or may not have told Alf Dinmoor. Even if Josie plied her with a gallon of hot chocolate, Annie would not even so much as hint at it. On that subject, her lips were sealed for ever.

  34

  Andrew Doyle had encountered few barriers in the search for his biological mother. Metaphorical doors swung open. Calls were answered and messages returned as if the authorities had merely been waiting for these very questions to be asked. And if global time zones proved problematic, there was still the World Wide Web, a teeming virtual market place of family histories, where hard facts were laid bare for the curious, the dogged, the displaced. He spent hours at his desk at home in Byron Bay, his face bathed in a pool of white light cast by the screen of his laptop. He’d meant to share with Annie what he found as he found it: to include her and thereby protect her from hurt. But the fact was, he didn’t feel like speaking to her yet. A sort of delayed resentment was settling in his heart like silt in a dark pond.

  Of course he already knew his birth mother’s name and the name she’d chosen for him, and Andrew wondered now if his father had deliberately left these as clues in spidery ink on the back of the pictures, because he would hardly need to write those names for his own benefit. But as well he also knew, now, that he hadn’t been born in Coventry, but in Durham. He knew that Martha Hancock’s middle name was Catherine: that she was sixteen years and four months old when she gave birth to him: that Vince was nearly twice her age. There were birth records detailing all this information, and at first he was only relieved that for the past forty-six years he’d celebrated his birthday on the right day. But then he remembered his own birth certificate, which he dug out of the document box then stared at coldly, for a long time, reading and re-reading the lie that he was born to Annabelle Margaret Doyle, nee Platt. It was only a piece of paper, but it seemed to undermine his very existence, and what did it say about Annie? One thing to keep secrets, another thing entirely to go to criminal lengths to do so. He hung his head and Bailey stepped up behind him and kissed his neck, rubbed his shoulders. She understood Andrew’s hunger for information; Martha’s blood ran through their boys’ veins and anyway, Bailey was intrigued by the photographs. Riley’s eyes, Riley’s smile.

  Andrew hadn’t yet discovered what became of Martha, but he was very far from giving up the search. Bailey suggested he go easy on himself by handing over the details to someone in the UK, a private detective perhaps, but Andrew didn’t know. What he thought was, he might fly back to England and visit Durham. If someone found Martha, he said, it ought to be him.

  He booked a flight. He didn’t tell Annie a single thing.

  Lottie was the new darling of Glebe Hall and Annie was welcome to take her to visit whenever she liked. It was Moira’s idea. She rang and said that Annie mustn’t feel she wasn’t welcome, now that Vince was gone.

  ‘Don’t be a stranger,’ she said. ‘Bring that lovely big dog of yours in with you – everybody loves a visit from a dog.’

  ‘Oh,’ Annie had said. ‘Finn’s gone.’

  ‘Ah no,’ Moira said, her words coming out on a sigh. She was picturing a double bereavement for poor Annie, until she heard that he was alive and well and living by the sea and that Lottie had taken his place in Beech Street. ‘A Jack Russell puppy,’ Annie said. ‘Cute as a button.’

  So Annie and Lottie dropped in two or three times a week. Puppy therapy, Moira called it, which made Annie feel official, like a social worker. It was a perfect arrangement, now that Vince wasn’t there to snarl at her and remind her of the past. There was an old lady in Vince’s room called Violet who believed she was sixteen and liked Annie to brush and plait her long grey hair. And across the hall was Trevor who had no visitors, only Annie. He held her hand when she let him, and his eyes welled with soft tears when she left. And Lottie wandered free-range around the home, visiting whom she pleased, getting a taste for garibaldi biscuits.

  Sandra had a new dog too, a rescue greyhound called Beverley, lean and rangy and as dark and velvety as a mole.

  ‘Beverley?’ Annie said, when Josie told her the news.

  ‘I know,’ Josie said. ‘It sounds like somebody you were at school with, doesn’t it? But it’s what she’s called, so …’

  ‘Can’t Sandra change her name now she’s the owner?’

  ‘No!’ Josie said. ‘It’s bad luck, like renaming a boat.’

  She’d phoned, on a late December afternoon, seeking out Annie, who, for the past three Wednesdays, hadn’t joined Josie and Sandra for a walk. Lottie hadn’t had all her jabs, Annie said, and Josie said, ‘So? Carry her along in your pocket. Or let me carry her. But don’t hole up there like a hermit.’

  Annie demurred and Josie pressed, but it was impossible for Annie to articulate the precise reason she had for staying away, and truly, Lottie and her inoculations were the least of it. Rather, it was a reversion to old habits: a feeling that th
e merciless glare of friendly interest had somehow lit those dark parts of her past she longed to forget. That she alone had put herself in jeopardy – talking too much, dallying with confession – was beside the point. She couldn’t even think about Alf Dinmoor without feeling a stab of alarm at what had almost happened. Her defences, painstakingly constructed over decades, were evidently easier to breach than she’d realised so she’d simply decided she didn’t trust herself in company, except with the bewildered residents of Glebe Hall, among whom she was entirely comfortable, for they showed no interest in her life at all.

  ‘Did you speak to Dora?’ Josie said, changing tack. Annie nodded, and then remembered Josie couldn’t see her.

  ‘She told me Finn’s a sweetie pie,’ she said. ‘She told me he’s a gentle giant.’

  ‘Ah,’ Josie said.

  ‘Course, it’s lovely she’s taken to him, but she doesn’t need to tell me what Finn is.’

  ‘No, I suppose not. He’s happy, though?’

  ‘She put him on the phone,’ Annie said. ‘Held the phone to his ear so I could say hello.’

  ‘Ah,’ Josie said, again. ‘And did you?’

  ‘It would’ve seemed rude not to. He didn’t say anything back, though.’

  Now Josie laughed, and so did Annie. ‘Dora told me Finn knew it was me, but I’m not so sure. He’d just sit there like a lemon, wouldn’t he, while she pressed the phone to his ear?’

  ‘Dear Finn,’ Josie said, and their conversation ended in fond reminiscence, which Annie could bear, now she had Lottie.

  She was back in the kitchen now, making mince pies: one batch done, one batch in, one batch waiting. The puppy sat at the oven door as if she was watching them bake, but it was her own reflection she was looking at in the glass door; there was a Jack Russell in the oven, she was certain of it. The house was filled with the smell of hot, sweet pastry and there were carols on the radio, turned down low so the sound wouldn’t carry upstairs. Annie sang along softly, as far as she was able, anyway; who knew the words, beyond the first verses? Outside, darkness had fallen and through the kitchen window Annie could see dainty pin pricks of white lights adorning the little laurel bush in next door’s garden and, on the sloping roof of the house opposite, a lurid Santa Claus flashing red and green. Every year, two weeks before Christmas, up it went, and every year Michael hotly complained, first to the culprits and then to the council. Nothing ever happened, except that Michael got crosser and crosser. Well, his bedroom was at the back and the light did flash faintly red and green around the outside of his bedroom curtains, and this was Michael, who woke up if you dropped a feather on the landing. Still, Annie wished he’d give it a rest. Herself, she welcomed the advent of Santa on the roof. His familiarity was reassuring, and he was something to look at, something festive. In Annie’s house you wouldn’t really know it was Christmas, except for the bumper issue of the Radio Times when it came and, just now, the smell of baking.