Let Me Lie(58)

Every second I hold on to this secret is making me more nauseous. More anxious. I wish Joan wasn’t here. It’s only the third time I’ve ever met her; how can I throw this at her? And on Christmas Eve …

Mark puts down a single tile. ‘Ex.’

‘Nine,’ Joan says.

‘I think you’ll find that’s a double word score …’

‘Oops! My mistake. Eighteen.’

‘Watch her, honey. She’s a terrible cheat.’

‘Don’t listen to him, Anna.’

Hey, guess what, guys. My parents aren’t dead after all – they were just pretending!

It doesn’t feel real.

The thought takes hold. What if it isn’t?

For the last two days I’ve imagined my mother’s presence so strongly I even smelled her perfume; saw her in the park. What if I’ve conjured her up? What if the conversation I had on the doorstep was one of the post-bereavement hallucinations Mark was so insistent I was experiencing?

I’m going mad. Mark was right. I need to see someone.

But it seemed so real.

I don’t know what to believe any more.

Just after eleven, we get ready for midnight mass. The hall is a muddle of coats and umbrellas and Ella’s buggy, and I think about all the people I’ll see at the church, all the people who will wish me well, and tell me they’re thinking of me, and say how hard it must be without Tom and Caroline.

And I can’t. I just can’t.

We’re standing in the doorway, half in, half out. Laura pulls up in the street – no room on the drive with Joan’s car squeezed alongside mine and Mark’s – and jumps out, wrapping a scarf around her neck. She walks towards us.

‘Happy Christmas Eve!’

There are introductions – Mum, this is Laura, Laura, this is Joan – and all the time my heart is thumping fit to burst, and I stare at the floor in case what’s in my head is written across my face.

‘How are you doing, lovely?’ Laura squeezes my shoulder. Solidarity, not sympathy. She thinks she knows what I’m going through. How I feel. Guilt gnaws at my insides. Laura’s mother died. Mine lied.

‘I’m not feeling too good, actually.’

There’s a flurry of concern.

‘You do look a bit peaky.’

‘Do you think it was something you ate?’

‘Such a hard time – it’s understandable.’

I cut in. ‘I think I might stay here. If you don’t mind.’

‘We’ll all stay,’ Mark says. He makes light of it, even though I know he and his family have never missed a Christmas Eve service. ‘I never have enough breath for that Gloria one, anyway.’

‘No, you go. Ella and I will have an early night.’

‘If you’re sure, dear?’ Joan is practically down the driveway.

‘I’m sure.’

‘I’ll stay and look after her.’ Laura comes up the steps, concern in her eyes.

‘I’m fine.’ I don’t mean to snap. I half smile, in apology. ‘Sorry. Headache. I mean, I’d rather be on my own.’

They exchange glances. I see Mark weighing up whether it’s safe to leave me; whether I’m safe to be left. ‘Call if you change your mind. I’ll come back for you.’

‘Feel better soon,’ Laura says. A proper hug, this time; her hair tickling my cheek. ‘Happy Christmas.’

‘Have a lovely time.’ I close the door and press my back against it. My pretence at illness was only half a lie. My head aches and my limbs are stiff from tension.

I unzip Ella from her padded snowsuit and lift her from the pram, then take her into the sitting room to feed her.

Ella’s eyes are just starting to drop when I hear a noise from the kitchen. Rita jumps up. I exhale slowly, trying to slow my heart, which is hammering against my chest, then take Ella off my breast and rearrange my top.

Cautiously, with one hand on Rita’s collar, I walk across the hall. From inside the kitchen I hear the scrape of a chair on tiles.

I open the door.

The faint scent of jasmine gives me the warning I need not to scream.

My mother sits at the table. Her hands are folded neatly in her lap, two fingers twisting the fabric of the same cheap woollen dress she had on earlier. She’s wearing her coat, even though the heat from the Aga makes it far too warm in here for outside clothes, and it’s jarring to see her sitting like a visitor in the kitchen that was once hers.

She’s alone. I feel a rush of anger that my father hasn’t had the courage to face me himself; that he’s sent Mum ahead to soften the blow. My father. So confident in business. Full of banter with the customers. Almost cocky with the reps, who would hang on his every word, thirsty for the nuggets of wisdom they hoped would one day lead to a showroom with their own name above the door. Yet he doesn’t have the balls to face his own daughter. To own what he’s done.

My mother says nothing. I wonder if she, too, has lost her nerve, then I realise she is transfixed by Ella.

I speak to break the spell. ‘How did you get in?’

A pause. ‘I kept a key to the back door.’

The penny drops. ‘Yesterday, in the kitchen. I smelled your perfume.’

She nods. ‘I lost track of time. You almost caught me.’