A Mother's Secret

by T J Stimson

  She felt a flare of panic. There could be only one reason Lucas had secretly arranged for the doctor to turn up at her house. He wanted her sectioned. Either he really thought she was crazy, or he wanted her out of the way for some reason of his own after all. She thought again of the paint on his T-shirt, and his insistence that she’d been the one who’d wrecked the nursery. ‘I’m not crazy!’ she cried. ‘You can’t just lock me away!’

  ‘No one’s locking you away,’ Calkins said soothingly. ‘I just want to talk to you. There’s no need to get upset.’

  Lucas looked wretched. ‘Maddie, you’re my wife and I love you. We simply want what’s best for you. Please, let us help.’

  She wanted to believe him. She had to hold fast to the fact that he loved her and not let that detective’s insinuations mess with her head. If he truly thought she was having some kind of breakdown, he was right to call in expert help. It didn’t have to mean anything sinister. She had to stop thinking about that T-shirt, covered with red paint.

  ‘Maddie, you’ve suffered a tremendous loss,’ Calkins said. ‘Of course you’re upset. You’re grieving for your child.’

  She glanced at Lucas. ‘We both are.’

  ‘Yes, of course. But grief affects everyone differently. With your history, it’s only natural Lucas is concerned about you. He just wants us to get ahead of this and for you to know we’re here to help you through it.’

  ‘I know, and I appreciate it,’ she said carefully.

  The doctor looked visibly relieved at her sudden tractability. ‘We have a wonderful new facility available at Alexander House,’ he said. ‘The therapies we offer have been extremely helpful to many of our patients and have proven very effective. You’d have the opportunity to work through your feelings in a neutral, safe space with trained professionals and grief counsellors.’

  A current of shock rippled through her. ‘A facility? You mean, I’d have to stay there?’

  ‘On a purely voluntary basis, of course. But we find that many patients welcome the chance to get away from the stresses of their day-to-day lives and concentrate on healing themselves without any distractions,’ he added encouragingly. ‘It’s a private facility. You’d have your own room and bathroom and would be free to come and go as you choose, though we generally discourage it in the early stages, to allow as complete a break from stress as possible.’

  Lucas squeezed her shoulder. ‘You’d be free to come and go whenever you want,’ he repeated, as if she was a slow-witted child.

  ‘Once you’re through the first period of assessment,’ Calkins put in quickly.

  She suddenly felt uncertain. She was so tired and so confused. She had no idea what had been causing her blackouts, and the idea of being alone, and having some time to heal, to come to terms with the terrible gaping hole at the centre of their family, felt incredibly tempting.

  ‘It’ll give you a real chance to sort yourself out,’ Lucas urged.

  Maybe it was for the best. She could take a few weeks, put herself back together. And that awful policewoman wouldn’t be able to get at her there. ‘But what about the children?’ she asked weakly.

  ‘I’ll take some time off work, and I’m sure your mother will help out. You haven’t been yourself since we lost Noah, Maddie, you know you haven’t. It’s not your fault, I’m not blaming you, but what happened with Jacob yesterday, what you did to the nursery, it’s got to stop. It’s not good for the children, seeing you like this.’

  The nursery. Her self-doubt was abruptly swept away on a tide of fury. Lucas wasn’t suffering from PTSD or shock, he was deliberately gaslighting her, trying to make her think she was going mad. ‘I didn’t do anything to the nursery!’ she cried. ‘You did it, and you damn well know it!’

  Lucas looked nonplussed. ‘What?’

  He was a good actor, she had to give him that. ‘The red paint,’ she snapped. ‘I saw it on your T-shirt, the one you shoved in the toolbox. You vandalised the nursery. You wanted me to think I’d done it.’

  ‘Seriously, Maddie. I don’t know what you mean.’ He turned to Calkins, who was frowning with concern. ‘You see, this is what I’m talking about. She’s not making any sense. You can understand why I’m so worried.’

  Maddie couldn’t believe she’d ignored so many red flags, when the truth had been right in front of her all along. ‘You wanted me to think I was going mad, didn’t you? You thought if you could get me out of the way, you’d have free rein to do whatever you want.’

  ‘For God’s sake! Why would I do that?’

  The doctor gave Lucas a quelling glance. ‘Maddie, why do you think your husband would want to make you think you were mad?’ he asked gently.

  ‘He wants me out of the way.’

  ‘Why would he want that, my dear?’

  ‘She’s paranoid,’ Lucas snapped, his patience at an end.

  ‘I don’t know. But it’s something to do with Candace, I know it is!’ Her voice rose. ‘I don’t know why, I don’t know if it’s something to do with the insurance money, or if he’s just covering up for his sister, but they want me out of the way!’

  Lucas looked incredulous. ‘What insurance money?’

  ‘That policewoman told me about it. You took out life insurance on our children! How much will you get for Noah? Fifteen thousand pounds? Twenty? Is that all he was worth to you?’

  ‘You’re seriously suggesting I’d kill my own son for money?’

  ‘Do you have any proof of this, Maddie?’ Calkins asked.

  She could tell he was just humouring her. ‘I can show you his T-shirt,’ she said desperately. ‘It has red paint all over it.’

  ‘I got paint on my shirt cleaning up the mess you’d made,’ Lucas said tersely. ‘Look, William, you can’t possibly take any of this seriously. It’s like something out of a bad novel. Sneaking around painting rooms in the middle of the night, trying to drive my wife mad for the insurance money! Maddie, you do know how insane this all sounds, don’t you?’

  She knew exactly how insane it sounded, but that didn’t make it any less true. ‘What about yesterday, with the Calpol? You arranged the whole thing so I’d get the blame, didn’t you?’

  Lucas threw up his hands in exasperation. ‘I wasn’t even here when that happened!’

  ‘But Candace was! She came over when I was asleep, Emily saw her!’

  The doctor frowned. ‘Are you suggesting, Maddie, that Lucas and his sister knowingly conspired to put Jacob at risk just to implicate you?’

  Maddie looked from one man to the other. She felt cornered: the more she protested the truth, the crazier she sounded. ‘I know how mad it seems, but that’s the whole point,’ she said, close to tears. ‘They know no one will believe me. They want me to sound crazy. I just don’t know why. I think it’s because Candace did something. I think … I think she’s the one who hurt Noah, and Lucas is covering up for her.’

  ‘Maddie, my dear, I think perhaps it’s all been too much,’ Calkins said gently. ‘With everything that’s happened, it’s not surprising you’re struggling to cope. I really think it might be best if you came with us now, so we can get you the help you need.’

  Panic flared again. Lucas had been so clever, setting her up like this. He held all the cards. She had to tread carefully, or she’d find herself locked up. ‘You said I don’t have to.’

  Calkins hesitated. ‘That’s right, I can’t insist on it, Maddie, but I really think it’d be best,’ he said. ‘Clearly you’ve been under tremendous strain. A short break—’

  ‘Perhaps I could stop by Alexander House in a day or two and have a look around?’ she said quickly, trying to buy time. ‘Let me sleep on it and see how I feel in the morning?’

  ‘Well, we can’t force you to come with us,’ Calkins said doubtfully. ‘Not as things stand. And I’d much rather you came because you wanted to. All right, Maddie. We can talk again in a day or two. But if things get any worse, if you start to experience depressive or suicidal thoughts, I want
you to come in straight away.’

  ‘That’s it?’ Lucas demanded disbelievingly. ‘You heard what she said! She thinks I’m some kind of psychopath! God knows what she’s going to accuse me of next!’

  ‘Lucas, we can’t make her accept our help if she doesn’t want it,’ Calkins said. ‘I think perhaps we need to reconsider the antidepressant medications you’re on, Maddie. In some cases, certain prescriptions can cause paranoia and similar feelings of persecution. I’m not saying you’re paranoid,’ he added hastily, ‘but we should consider your treatment holistically, rather than compartmentalising our therapeutic and pharmaceutical responses.’

  For a moment, Maddie was thrown. It hadn’t even occurred to her to consider the effect her pills might be having on her judgement.

  But she quickly recovered herself. The pills hadn’t put that paint-spattered T-shirt in Lucas’s toolbox. Nor did they explain why he’d taken out life insurance on a ten-week-old baby, or why Candace had been present for every single accident that had happened to either of her sons in the last year. She might not have all the answers yet, but she wasn’t crazy.

  The doctor said goodbye, his reluctance to leave evident. Lucas showed him out, and Maddie could hear the murmur of their voices as they talked in the hall, though she couldn’t make out what they were saying. She could guess, though. Lucas wasn’t going to give up that easily. She might have won this skirmish, but the doctor had clearly bought into Lucas’s version of events. The next time, she might not be able to talk her way out of it.

  She heard the front door close, and a moment later Lucas came back into the kitchen. ‘Did you mean what you said?’ he asked. ‘You’ll consider going to Alexander House?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ she snapped. ‘You know, for a while there, you almost had me going. I actually started to wonder if I was going mad. But I’m not going to let you get away with it. I’ve let Noah down, but I’m not going to let you hurt Jacob or Emily.’

  Lucas crossed the room in seconds. Maddie was reminded suddenly how big he was, how easily he could overpower her. She was trapped in the corner of the kitchen with no way to reach the door. ‘You really believe that?’ he demanded furiously. ‘You really think I’m capable of something this ruthless, this insane?’

  She stood her ground, trying to keep her legs from shaking. ‘I don’t know who you are, Lucas. I don’t even know if that’s your real name.’

  He held her gaze for a long moment and there was something in his eyes that suddenly made her doubt herself again. Then he bent his head so that his mouth was just a fraction of an inch from her ear.

  ‘Did it ever occur to you,’ he whispered, the menace in his tone unmistakeable, his breath warm against her skin, ‘did it ever occur to you, Maddie, that when you told the good doctor to leave, you just sent your last lifeboat away?’

  Lydia

  She’s sixteen, and she knows she’s going to get out soon. There’s a boy a year older than her at Font Hill called Marion who killed a teacher. (‘Bastard took the mick out of my name one too many times,’ he says, ‘it’s not my fault my mother was a bloody John Wayne fan.’) He’s done really well at Font Hill, and Mr Tallack got permission for him to go to the local community college to study mechanical engineering. He can’t stay on campus, he has to come home every night to Font Hill, but he’s allowed to live in a special flat within the grounds with a couple of other boys, and once he gets his qualifications, he’ll be released on licence.

  Mr Tallack promises the same for her. He’s not supposed to have favourites, no preferential treatment, that’s what he always says, but she knows he’s got a soft spot for her. She was a disturbed little girl when she came to Font Hill, he says, an angry little girl, but she’s growing up now, she’s clever, she can do anything with her life if she puts her mind to it, if she decides to make the rest of her life a good life.

  She does well in her exams in the summer (she sits them at the local community college, they give her another name, Miss Jones, they call her), and Mr Tallack says she can do her A-levels next and then go to college, get some proper qualifications, go into a real profession. She’ll be allowed to move out of the secure unit and into a flat in the grounds, like Marion. Eventually, she’ll be released, too. She was only eleven years old when she did what she did, she can’t be held responsible forever. She’ll leave with an education, which is more than she’d have got if she’d stayed with Mae, and a future. A real future.

  She’s made friends at Font Hill, too, for the first time in her life. As far as the boys are concerned, she’s one of them, doing her time, just like they are. They don’t treat her any differently because she’s a girl. It’s just like having forty brothers. Now and again, a new boy arrives, and gets bowled over by her startling blue eyes and developing curves, but the other lads soon put him straight. She can’t be doing with any of that romantic nonsense. She’s had enough of men to last her a lifetime.

  Davy is allowed to visit her one Sunday a month, and he drives down from Manchester, where he’s working part-time as a nightclub bouncer while he goes back to school. He can’t let her be the only one with qualifications, he laughs, she’ll get a swelled head.

  The two of them plan what they’re going to do when she gets out, where they’re going to live. Nowhere near Mae, they’re both agreed on that. She likes the idea of the West Country, Cornwall maybe, it sounds so romantic (she had to read Jamaica Inn for her exams), but Davy says they need to go to a big city, somewhere it’ll be easier for her to blend in and disappear, and anyway, she’d be bored rigid in Cornwall. She’s young, he says, she’s got her whole life ahead of her. She needs bright lights and people. She needs to learn what it’s like to have fun.

  Davy says they should go to London, so she agrees. She’ll do whatever Davy thinks is best. He’s stuck by her through thick and thin when no one else did, and she worships the ground he walks on. He’s the only one who’s never let her down. Frank wanted to come, but they wouldn’t let him. He’s not even allowed to write, Davy says. According to the police, he’s just another one of Mae’s johns. Even when she asks her solicitor, they still won’t let him visit.

  Mae came to see her at Font Hill once just after she’d moved there, and stupidly she thought it was because her mother cared – will she never learn? – but of course Mae just went straight out and sold the story to the papers again. Lydia told Mr Tallack she didn’t want to see her mother anymore, but that hasn’t stopped Mae talking to the press, inventing stories about her childhood and plastering Lydia’s name all over the front pages every time the story shows signs of beginning to die down. It’s as if she wants to make sure no one can forget what Lydia did.

  A couple of weeks after her seventeenth birthday, the staff at Font Hill get together for their monthly case conference, so all the kids go to the common room to watch a film as they always do when there’s a staff meeting. As the only girl, she nearly always gets outvoted on what to watch, the boys always want something like Star Wars or some stupid spaghetti western, so she curls up in an armchair by the window to catch up on her reading. She’s read Pride and Prejudice already, it’s one of her A-level set books, and frankly she thinks Elizabeth Bennet is kind of lame, her name-sake Lydia has much more get-up-and-go; but Mr Tallack says the book is a classic and he’s offered to give her extra English lessons, and she wants to make him proud of her, so she’s giving it another go.

  She looks up as the staff file out of their meeting past the common room. Mr Blake, one of the masters, glances at her through the open doorway and then looks quickly away. He’s white as a sheet. One of the art teachers rubs her eyes, looking suspiciously as if she’s crying. There’s a very strange atmosphere as the staff scuttle away and Lydia wonders if someone has died.

  Mr Tallack beckons to her from the doorway. He doesn’t smile and she gets up and follows him to his office, wondering nervously what’s going on.

  There’s no other way to tell you this, he says, as soon as s
he sits down, so I’m just going to come straight out with it: you’re leaving tomorrow and you’re going to prison. He swallows hard, struggling to speak. He’s tried his best, he says, as his eyes fill with tears, he’s tried for a week to get them to change their minds, the authorities, he’s told them about college, all the plans he has for her, her A-levels and everything, but none of it has worked, they won’t listen, it’s all been decided.

  She’s almost too stunned to speak. She gives a shocked laugh. No, she says, no. Why would they send me to prison? I haven’t done anything!

  He looks at her sadly.

  I was eleven years old! she exclaims, starting to cry. I didn’t understand what I was doing! That’s not who I am anymore! Did you tell them that?

  Of course, Mr Tallack says. He’s been fighting for her all week, he explains, that’s the only reason he didn’t say anything before, didn’t give her more warning, he was talking to the Home Office, trying to get them to reconsider, until that afternoon he’d still hoped he’d succeed, but then—

  Then what?

  Your mother, he says reluctantly.

  It turns out Mae picked this week of all weeks to go to the papers again, stir up a new story. Some nonsense about Lydia’s cushy life at the ‘Font Hill Hilton’, her art classes and private bathroom – of course it’s private! she cries, I’m the only girl! – and swimming lessons on day release at the local pool. They’ve even managed to get hold of a photograph of her sunbathing in her bikini on a picnic rug in the grounds, a pair of sunglasses propped on her head and a drink (lemonade, but the photo’s black and white, so you can’t tell) in her hand. The photographer must have climbed a tree and taken it with a long lens, Mr Tallack says grimly.

  The Home Office doesn’t care that it was her birthday, the staff had made a special occasion of it. They don’t care about her A-levels or college, they only care that it’s making them look bad, letting her live the good life when she’s supposed to be behind bars. Besides, she’s seventeen now. It’s not appropriate for her to be locked up with forty boys.