A Mother's Secret

by T J Stimson

  ‘Have you got any idea what it was like for me, never knowing what I was going to come home to?’ he asked, his voice raw. ‘There were days you never even got out of bed, and I’d come home to find Jacob sobbing in his cot! Of course I was worried about you. We all were. Does that make me a bad husband?’

  She was suddenly ashamed. Lucas had never once doubted her, all through those terrible months, when many other men would have left. She should never have doubted him. If she’d just told him the truth from the start, he would have supported her. It was her own pride that had got in the way.

  ‘Maddie, I’ve always believed in you,’ Lucas said earnestly. ‘But your depression was very real. Of course I watched you after Jacob. I had to. I needed to be sure you really were better. I was just looking out for you.’ He put his hands on her shoulders and waited until she looked him in the eye. ‘I’m on your side, Mads. You can tell me anything. I’m not going to judge you. But I can’t have you lying to me. What about the next time, when Jacob cuts his lip or Emily sprains her wrist? Are you going to make up some story about that too?’

  She felt very small. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘We’re in this together,’ he said. ‘No more secrets from now on. Promise me?’

  She stiffened. No more secrets. Now was the perfect opportunity to ask him about his secret: about the second mortgage, eighty thousand pounds he’d borrowed without telling her. She didn’t want him to think she was deflecting or trying to shift the blame. And in comparison to what had now happened to their family, it seemed ridiculously trivial. But it still mattered. Marriage was a question of trust, and trust went both ways.

  ‘Lucas, I’m not as fragile as you think,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to protect me all the time. If there’s anything you’re not telling me, any secrets you’re keeping, I’d rather know now.’

  He looked genuinely puzzled. ‘I tell you everything.’

  She suddenly felt incredibly tired. She’d given him a chance to come clean and he’d doubled down on his lie. A week ago, she would never have believed her honest, principled husband capable of deceiving her once, never mind twice. It was as if the ground was shifting beneath her feet. She’d thought she’d known Lucas inside out but clearly she was wrong.

  She remembered Candace’s phone call. ‘Your sister phoned me last night,’ she said abruptly.

  Lucas’s hands on her shoulders were suddenly very still. ‘When?’

  ‘Just after you left to come home. She said she’d done something terrible and needed to apologise.’ She searched his face, looking for any flicker that might betray him. ‘She said you’d know why.’

  Lucas dropped his hands and turned towards the garden again. She could normally read him well, but she had no idea what he was thinking now. It was unsettling, as if a stranger were standing in her kitchen.

  The odd moment passed as swiftly as it had come. Lucas swung round and gave a brief, weary smile, himself again. ‘I have no idea what she’s talking about. She was almost comatose by the time I got there and still pretty drunk when I left. She was probably calling to apologise for dragging me away.’

  He was lying. She knew it instinctively. She had no idea what he and Candace were hiding, but it had nothing to do with her sister-in-law’s drinking, she was certain of that. In the space of two minutes, he’d lied to her twice. And she was little better herself: she’d come clean about Noah’s bruises, but she still hadn’t confessed to her memory lapses. What was happening to them? When had they become the kind of people who lied to each other?

  She remembered reading once that when a couple lose a child, ninety per cent of marriages don’t survive. She was beginning to understand why.

  Lydia

  Frank hasn’t found out about Jimmy yet, Mae’s careful only to bring him home when Frank’s away on a long-distance trip, but Lydia knows it’s only a matter of time before the stupid cow gets caught.

  In the meantime, she lives in fear. Jimmy likes them very young, she knows from experience that’s his preference, and Lydia is eleven now – but any port in a storm. She doesn’t just bolt her bedroom door when Frank’s away now, she pushes her heavy chest of drawers against it.

  She’s so angry, she could kill Mae. They had such a good thing going before Jimmy came back. Enough money coming in the door, a real chance at a proper family life. Frank had even offered to try to find Davy. He’d tracked her half-brother first to Liverpool, where Davy’s dad was from, and then on to Birmingham. Frank’d promised to ask around next time he had a trip there. He’d already put the word out. Truckers looked out for each other, he said. They’d find him sooner or later, Frank had promised.

  And now Mae has put it all on the line because of that bastard Jimmy. Lydia’s seriously thought about sticking him when he’s in one of his drunken stupors, but he sleeps with one eye open, does Jimmy. He’s got good reason, the amount of people who’d like to see him dead. Anyway, she doesn’t trust Mae not to grass her up. The rancid bitch would do it out of spite.

  She drags her feet as she follows Mae up the hill to the Taylors’ big house. She doesn’t feel like playing with Julia today. Jimmy caught her in the bathroom this morning, when she was still half-asleep. The bastard had her pinned between the bath and the washbasin with his hand up her nightdress before she’d known what was happening. She can still feel the raw ache from his thick fingers between her legs. She hates him so much, but she hates herself more for letting her guard down.

  Julia runs towards her as soon as she sees her, flinging her arms around her legs. Lydia picks the little girl up and hefts her onto her narrow hip as Mrs Taylor rushes out of the house without even bothering to say goodbye. I’d never treat my little girl like that, Lydia thinks bitterly. I wouldn’t go out to work in an office when I could stay home and play with my daughter instead. I’d hug and kiss her every day and I’d never dump her with other people to look after. Mrs Taylor doesn’t deserve to have a little girl. It’d serve her right if somebody came and took Julia away.

  She takes Julia upstairs to play, but it’s bright and sunny outside and the little girl soon gets bored with her dolls and puzzles. She wants to go outside, and frankly, that’s fine by Lydia; the more distance she puts between herself and Mae, the better.

  Julia runs into the back garden, straight past the greenhouse and the potting shed to the fence at the end that separates the garden from the old disused railway cutting running along the bottom. She waits for Lydia to catch up and then points to a house high on the opposite embankment, clinging to the edge like a ship’s barnacle. It’s been derelict since before Lydia was born, condemned when the crumbling escarpment became unstable. Over the years, locals have gutted it, scavenging everything from floor joists and roof tiles to doorknobs and bog seats. Frank even built a chicken coop out of old doors he wrenched off their hinges, though the hens didn’t last long before the fox got them. These days, even the dossers don’t much bother with the place. It’s damp and stinks of piss. But Julia begs and begs to go and explore it and in the end Lydia thinks, what the hell.

  Julia may only be four years old, but she’s determined. She wriggles through a gap in the fence, her sturdy little legs pumping as she scrambles up the railway embankment. Her pretty new dress is already torn and muddy and Lydia thinks, serve you right. The kid has far too many new dresses, more than she can possibly wear. When she was Julia’s age, she wore Davy’s jumble sale hand-me-downs, little better than rags by the time she got them.

  Lydia gives the little girl a boost over the top of the escarpment and they go round the side of the old house to the back door. Lydia hesitates suddenly. There are rotting boards over the windows, some of which have been wrenched away and the blank, black holes look eerily like half-lidded eyes. The house feels oddly threatening and she doesn’t want to go inside. She turns to tell Julia they’re going home, but the kid is already ducking under her arm and charging into the house.

  Cursing, Lydia follows her, yelling at her
to come back. It’s almost pitch-black inside and it smells like some strange dead thing. Even Julia is brought up short. They can hear the sound of dripping water in the darkness and something scuttles in the shadows. There is something about this place that chills her blood. She shivers. Let’s go, she says, taking Julia’s hand, but Julia giggles and pulls away, running into the darkness. Lydia shouts at her, it’s not safe, she cries, you’ll trip and hurt yourself, but the little girl just laughs.

  Lydia hates the dark. But she goes after her, holding her arms out in front of her like a TV zombie so she doesn’t walk into anything. Broken glass crunches underfoot. Something brushes her face, a huge cobweb, and she yelps in fear. She could kill Julia, she thinks, plucking it from her face. It’d serve her right if she left the kid here.

  Suddenly there’s a tremendous crash ahead of her, the sound of timber cracking, a tumble of plaster, a loud whoosh! and Julia gives a terrified scream. Lydia freezes, her heart pounding. She calls the girl’s name, and for a long horrible moment there’s silence, but then Julia starts to wail.

  She’s alive, at least. Lydia gropes her way towards the sound as fast as she dares, terrified that one wrong step will plunge her headlong into the darkness after the little girl.

  She pauses at the doorway of what was once the kitchen, daylight visible through the gaps in the boarded-up windows. The floor in the centre has given way, exposing the raw splintered wood of the joists. She edges towards the dark maw and peers down into the old cellar. She can’t see a thing, but she can hear Julia’s whimpering sobs. Great, she thinks crossly. Now I’m going to have to go down there among the rats and the spiders and get her out.

  She shouts to the girl she’s coming and searches for a way down to the cellar. There must be a staircase of some sort. It takes her a few moments to find it, but her eyes are finally starting to adjust to the gloom. She goes down the stairs carefully, testing each tread for soundness before trusting it with her full weight. She has to step over several stairs that are soft or rotted away and nearly falls, but she reaches the bottom safely, her body pulsing with adrenalin. The urge to get out, to run away, is almost overwhelming.

  Julia calls her name again and she snaps that she’s coming. She can hear the kid moving about, stumbling in the darkness, which means she’s not badly hurt. Keep still, she tells her, you’ll only hurt yourself, but once again the girl ignores her and then yowls when she bumps into something in the dark.

  For God’s sake! Lydia shouts. Keep still!

  She can see the kid clearly now, caught in a stab of dim light from the hole above. She’s filthy and covered in plaster dust, but she seems OK, more or less. She won’t stop crying, though, her tears making train tracks on her dirty cheeks. Strings of snot hang unappealingly from her nose and her primped blonde curls are matted with dust. Mummy’s going to be so cross with you, Julia hiccoughs, my dress is ruined, you’re going to get into big trouble!

  Lydia wants to shake her. And she does, she kneels on the filthy basement floor and shakes the girl by the shoulders. Stop crying! she yells. I told you not to go in, it’s your fault, she shouts, you did this!

  Julia’s head snaps back and forth, she’s not crying now, she’s too scared, and Lydia knows she should stop. She can feel her heartbeat pulsing in her ears. All around her is a deadening silence, as if she’s wrapped in black cotton wool. She lets go of the girl’s shoulders and her hands close round the small throat. An abyss opens beneath her feet and the anger and fear drain away. She is in a void beyond rage, beyond pain. She doesn’t stop. She can’t stop. It is no longer a choice. The quiet is absolute. Julia doesn’t make a sound.

  Afterwards, she is calm as she covers the child’s body with rubble and broken beams, checking to be sure that no part of her is visible. She feels oddly protective of the little girl again. She doesn’t want rats or a fox to find her, she must make sure she’s properly covered up.

  She goes back upstairs to the sunshine, wiping off the dust and dirt from the basement on the long grass. She is already the keeper of so many secrets. One more won’t make any difference.

  Chapter 21

  Saturday 10.00 a.m.

  Maddie was standing in the supermarket aisle, surrounded by bottles of Johnson’s shampoo, tubs of Sudocrem, boxes of nappies and packets of wet wipes. She felt groggy, as if she’d just woken up from a deep, drugged sleep. She blinked hard, trying to get her bearings. She had absolutely no idea how she’d got here. She couldn’t even remember leaving the house. The last thing she could recall was making breakfast for Emily and Jacob. Boiled eggs and Marmite soldiers. After that – nothing.

  Her head hurt. It was like having a hangover, only a thousand times worse. Her mouth was dry and cottony and she ached all over, as if she was going down with flu.

  ‘Oi!’

  She jumped. A security guard was making his way down the shopping aisle towards her as fast as his thick body would allow. ‘Oi!’ he yelled again.

  The aisle was surprisingly empty for a Saturday morning, apart from a young mother who studiously refused to meet her eye. The security guard was clearly addressing Maddie.

  He was panting by the time he drew level with her. ‘What the hell is your problem, lady?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, confused.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘That supposed to be funny?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I think I zoned out for a minute …’

  ‘We’ve got you on CCTV,’ he interrupted rudely. ‘Throwing a bloody hissy fit in the middle of the aisle! Chucking things all over the place! We could prosecute you for criminal damage!’

  She looked around her. Someone had knocked down a shelf of disposable nappies; at least a dozen boxes lay scattered across the floor. ‘It wasn’t me!’ she protested.

  He pushed his face uncomfortably close to her own, and she backed away. ‘They’ve decided to let you off with a warning,’ he said unpleasantly. ‘You’re bloody lucky, if you ask me. It’s not you who’s got to clear this mess up, is it? If it was up to me, I’d throw the book at you. Crying and shouting and carrying on!’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’

  ‘It’s on tape!’ he snarled.

  Maddie gripped the handle of her shopping trolley, suddenly really scared. She’d learned to work around her memory lapses, but this was different. Until this week, she’d never acted out of character or done anything she wouldn’t normally do. But vandalising the nursery had been so angry, so violent. And now this.

  She’d obsessively googled blackouts and memory loss, even though she’d known Dr Google was hardly likely to put her mind at rest. She’d discovered they could be caused by brain damage, drugs, excessive alcohol consumption, disorders affecting brain function, emotional trauma, stress – in other words, anything. In her case, the only thing she could rule out was alcohol, since she hadn’t had a drink since she’d found out she was pregnant with Noah. It had to be the pills she was on. The after-effects felt too pharmaceutical for it to be anything else. If she didn’t know better, she’d think she’d been slipped a roofie. She knew she should go back to Dr Calkins, but she was too frightened. They’d take the children away from her. They’d think she was the one who’d hurt Noah.

  Maybe she had.

  No. She’d never harm her own child.

  She knew it deep in her soul. Her instinct to protect her children was visceral; had been from the moment she’d discovered she was pregnant with each baby. No matter what else she might do during one of her fugue states, she would never hurt her children. She would, quite literally, step in front of a train for them. Once, when Emily had been about two, Maddie hadn’t quite put the brake on her pushchair down properly when she’d stopped to talk to a friend in the high street and the stroller had started to roll away towards the busy road. Without even thinking, Maddie had thrown herself into the road to stop it, heedless of the large lorry bearing down on them. It’d missed them both by just inches.

  The secur
ity guard grabbed her shoulder and frog-marched her from the building, forcing her to leave her half-filled trolley behind. Her cheeks burned with humiliation as he left her on the pavement outside, with a final nasty warning not to try coming back.

  She gazed at the sea of cars in front of her. She had no idea where she’d parked. She searched her memory for some hint, but she couldn’t even remember driving here. One minute she was spooning egg yolk into Jacob’s mouth, and the next she was standing in the supermarket surrounded by boxes of Pampers—

  Oh, God, the children! Had she brought them with her? Left them somewhere?

  She speed-dialled home as she ran back inside the supermarket to look for them, exhaling audibly when Emily picked up the phone. ‘Oh, Emily, thank heavens! Is Jacob there?’

  ‘Yes,’ Emily said, sounding puzzled. ‘Daddy’s playing with him in the garden. He’s taking us to Auntie Jayne’s in a minute. Do you want me to get him?’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine. I just wanted to check everything was all right. I’ll be home soon.’

  She went back outside before the security guard spotted her. Clutching her bag to her side, she began running along the rows of parked cars, trying to spot her battered Land Rover amid the shiny people-carriers and smart German engineering. She couldn’t see it anywhere. Her pace quickened as she turned into the next row. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take. She was holding it together by the thinnest of threads for Emily and Jacob’s sake, when all she really wanted to do was curl up into a ball and die. But the blows kept coming. The pathologist’s report, the police interrogations, the growing distance between her and Lucas; and now it seemed she was literally losing her mind.