Let Me Lie(67)

‘I’ve changed my mind.’ There was a tremor in Anna’s voice, but she pressed on, getting louder as though she was having to force the words out. ‘I need to move on. Accept what happened. Accept the verdicts.’

‘That’s what I’m saying, though, Anna. I think you’re right. I think your parents were murdered.’

Anna made a sound of frustration. ‘You’re not listening to me. Look, I’m sorry I wasted your time, but I don’t want this. I don’t want you digging up the past. I don’t want you doing anything.’ The timbre of her voice changed and Murray realised she was crying. ‘Please just drop it!’

This time the click at the end of the line was louder. Anna Johnson had hung up.

The tightness in Murray’s chest returned, and he swallowed the ridiculous urge to cry. He stood without moving, the phone in his hand, and it was only when the smoke alarm pierced through the still air that he realised his supper was burning.





THIRTY-EIGHT


ANNA


On Wednesday, the day after Boxing Day, Joan goes home. There are parcels of leftovers and promises to go up and see her, and several assertions that it’s been lovely to spend time as a family, but eventually she is in her car and we’re standing in the driveway, waving her off.

It is that curious time between Christmas and New Year, when you have to look on the calendar to check the date, and every day seems to be a bank holiday. Mark takes out the recycling, and I lie with Ella on the floor of the sitting room. She is enthralled by the crinkly pages of a black and white book we gave her for Christmas, and I turn them over for her, one by one, repeating the names of the animals on each page. Dog. Cat. Sheep.

It has been three days since Mum came back. I promised myself that, after Christmas – after Joan left – I would tell Mark, and we would go to the police together.

And now Christmas is over.

I wonder if my failure to come clean is a criminal act, and whether such an offence becomes progressively serious over time. Is twenty-four hours acceptable, but seventy-two a matter for the courts? Is there mitigation for whatever offence this is I’m committing? I mentally tick off the reasons I’m keeping this secret.

I’m scared. Of the newspaper headlines, the doorstepping from the press, the looks from the neighbours. The internet means there’s no such thing as tomorrow’s chip papers; Ella will deal with the aftermath of this for ever.

There’s a more immediate, more urgent fear, too. Fear of my father. I have heard from Mum what he’s capable of; glimpsed enough of it myself to take it seriously. If I go to the police with everything I know, I need them to move fast: to arrest Dad and make sure he can’t hurt us. But what if they can’t find him? What might he do to us?

I worry about what Mark will say. What he’ll do. He loves me, but our relationship is still new, still fragile. What if this is too much? I try to imagine what I’d do if the tables were turned, but the thought of sensible, strait, Joan faking her own death is too ludicrous to consider. But I’d stay, wouldn’t I? I’d never leave Mark because of something his parents did. Still, I worry. For all the time Mark and I have been together, my grief has been as present as another person in our lives. Mark has worked around it, made allowances. If we take that away … I finally pinpoint what I’m scared of. That without the grief that brought us together, we might start to pull apart.

I turn the page for Ella. She grabs a corner in a tightly clenched fist and brings it to her mouth. There’s another reason I haven’t been to the police.

Mum.

I can’t condone what she’s done, but I can understand why she left. I wish with all my heart she had done it differently, but going to the police won’t change that. The choice I make now will either send her to prison or keep her out of it.

I can’t put my own mother in jail.

In the last few days I’ve watched Joan with Ella, and seen the joy of a relationship that crosses generations. We’ve bathed Ella, walked through the park and taken it in turns to push the pram. I want to do those things with my own mother. I want Ella to know both her grandmothers.

My mum has come back, and I want so much to keep her in my life.

I need to clear my head. I find Mark.

‘I’m going to take Ella for a walk.’

‘Good idea. If you can wait five minutes I’ll come with you.’

I hesitate. ‘Would you mind if we went on our own? What with Joan here, and the party at Robert’s, I feel like I’ve not had a second to myself.’

His face tells me he’s weighing up my request. Do I need time out because I want some peace and quiet, or because I’m cracking up?

Despite how I feel inside, evidently I don’t look like I’m a danger to myself – or to Ella – because he smiles. ‘Sure. See you later.’

I walk to town. The wind – hardly noticeable inland – picks up, and whips along the seafront. I stop to clip the plastic cover across the front of the pram. The shingle is dark and shiny from overnight rain, and it’s quiet, with most of the shops still closed for the holidays, but there are people out walking on the beach and the esplanade. Everyone seems in a good mood – filled with festive cheer and the joy of an extra day off work – but perhaps it only feels like that because of the turmoil in my own head. Everyone has troubles, I remind myself, although I think it’s unlikely anyone else is wrestling with parents who have come back from the dead right now.