The Choir on Hope Street

by Annie Lyons

  ‘Oh, Charles,’ she said. ‘We love this one, don’t we?’

  And then I realised. She was there again, sitting next to my father in the car on a day-trip to Clacton, happy, beautiful and in love. She swayed in gentle time to the music. I watched the whole ghostly performance as she carried on singing and dancing, lost in time. When the piece finished, she drifted back out of the kitchen, towards the living room, as if nothing had happened. I felt shaken by what I’d witnessed. I was so used to seeing her motionless and often helpless.

  It was as if I’d seen my mother as a completely different person, a younger version of herself trapped in an old person’s body. She had been young once. She had been happy once.

  What had happened to the Patricia Winter who had lived, loved and laughed with my father? How had she become replaced by such an angry and bitter woman, who made the childhood I recalled so unhappy and devoid of love?

  I started to recall Laurie’s words and wonder. Something had happened, something deeply troubling. I realised that I didn’t want to hold onto my anger any more. I could now see what it had done to my mother, how she had lost her happiness and hope because of it. I didn’t want the same to happen to me. I didn’t want to continue to be angry after she was gone, forever wondering what had caused her anger.

  I had to know.

  I went into the living room. My mother was back in her chair, her face fixed on the screen. I walked over and switched off the television. Her eyes remained glued to the blank screen. I went to the bookcase and pulled out a photo album. I sat down next to my mother and flipped it open. I stared at a picture of me in a sun hat sitting in front of my mother on the beach at Clacton.

  Where to begin? How do you start a conversation after so many years of not talking?

  ‘I remember that sun hat,’ I remarked. ‘I never wanted to take it off.’

  My mother’s head dipped as if listening, but her eyes still stared forwards.

  She can hear me. This is progress.

  ‘I was thinking about our day-trips in the old Maxi, with you and Dad singing along to those Irving Berlin songs – “Top Hat, White Tie and Tails”, “Putting on the Ritz”.’

  My mother turned to look at me, the corners of her mouth inching upwards.

  Keep going, Caroline. Keep talking.

  ‘You remember too, don’t you?’ She moved her head down slightly; the merest of nods. ‘You were happy then, weren’t you? And then something happened, didn’t it?’

  The corners of her mouth moved back down as the ghost of a frown spread across her brow.

  Never mind the frown, keep asking the questions. You’re onto something.

  ‘What was it? What was it that happened?’

  She started to shake her head very gently as the frown deepened.

  Maybe I should have stopped but I wanted to know. Something drove me on to find out. ‘Who was Virginia? Who was that boy?’ I asked.

  She stared at me in horror and suddenly her face looked more familiar, transformed to one of anger and hurt. ‘Virginia bitch, Virginia bitch!’ she growled.

  I felt a pang of fear but kept pressing. No going back now. ‘But who is she? Who is Virginia?’

  ‘Virginia bitch, Virginia bitch,’ she shouted, pounding her gnarly fists on her lap, harder and harder.

  I was frightened by her anger. I’d pushed it too far. ‘Stop it!’ I cried. ‘Stop it, mother! Stop this at once!’

  ‘Virginia bitch, Virginia bitch!’ she repeated, hitting her lap and chest with increasing ferocity.

  ‘Stop it, mother! Please stop it!’ I caught hold of her hands and held onto them. She was strong but I managed to make her stop. She was starting to weep now, worn out by her own efforts. She rested her head against my arm. I hesitated for a second, paralysed by the fear and anger of my own past before I found myself placing an arm around her shoulder and patting her gently. The roles of mother and daughter reversed.

  There, there. We’re all right now.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘We don’t have to talk about it. It’s okay. Really. Stay here a second. I’ll be right back.’

  I hurried to the kitchen and fetched the Ella Fitzgerald CD. I put it on in the lounge. Soon my mother seemed happy and calm again – the other, younger Patricia Winter. After a time she closed her eyes and went to sleep. I watched her for a while, realising that I needed to know the truth. It was high time.

  I returned to the kitchen and reached for my phone. Laurie answered after just two rings.

  ‘Caroline?’

  ‘You said to call if I ever needed anything.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Please help me. I need to find out who Virginia is and what she did to upset my mother.’

  ‘I was hoping you’d call. I think I actually might know but I need to make some phone calls first.’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’

  It was a little after five when the doorbell rang. Oliver was home, reassuring me that he’d had a very productive day, but he didn’t want to say more until he’d had confirmation. Matilda was reading to my mother and I was starting to make dinner.

  ‘I’ll get it!’ I called, heading down the hall. I had hoped that it might be Laurie with news, so I was surprised to see Guy standing on the doorstep. He looked pale and worried. ‘Hi Guy, is everything okay?’

  He swallowed, his face deadly serious. I realised he was nervous. ‘Caroline, are you able to come somewhere with me? We’ll need a couple of hours.’

  I glanced behind me before turning back to him. ‘What’s this all about? What about choir?’

  ‘I think we may need to cancel choir this evening. This is important, though. I’ll wait for you in the car.’

  He was starting to worry me now. ‘Can’t you tell me what this is about, Guy?’

  He hesitated before he answered. ‘I need to take you to see my mother. Her name is Virginia Henderson.’

  I stared at him in amazement. ‘Virginia.’

  ‘Please, Caroline. Will you come?’

  I ran back inside and quickly brought Oliver up to speed, then I grabbed my bag and ran out to the car. We drove to the care home in silence. Guy was clearly uncomfortable and to be honest, I was in shock.

  Laurie met us in reception. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

  ‘I think that depends on what I’m about to be told,’ I replied.

  She nodded kindly. ‘It will come as a shock but you need to know.’

  I felt my body stiffen. I don’t like surprises, shocks or anything that occurs without notice. She led Guy and me along the corridor, past my mother’s old room and around the corner to another wall of doors. She paused outside one and knocked.

  ‘Come in,’ called a frail female voice.

  ‘After you,’ said Laurie, opening the door and ushering me inside. Guy’s mother sat at a table by the window, identical to the one in my mother’s room. She was gazing up at us, a nervous expression on her face.

  ‘Hello, Mum,’ said Guy, leaning over to kiss her.

  ‘I think you better sit down,’ said Laurie to me. ‘Mrs Henderson has something she wants to tell you.’

  I sat down at the table and stared expectantly at Guy’s mother. She was a tiny woman, as frail as a sparrow, and, I estimated, a little older than my own mother. She was looking at Guy and wouldn’t meet my gaze.

  Guy turned to her. ‘Mum, you have to tell Caroline. It’s not fair that she doesn’t know the truth.’

  The truth.

  She kept staring at him. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered.

  Laurie knelt down beside her. ‘Virginia, you have to tell Caroline what happened. She needs to know why her mother was behaving the way she was. I know you understand this.’

  Mrs Henderson gave a small nod before transferring her gaze to me. She looked frightened. ‘I’m sorry, dear,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What could you possibly have to be sorry for?’

  She looked down at the floor. ‘You
r father …’ she began.

  ‘My father?’ I replied. ‘Did you know him? How did you know him?’ Panic rose up inside me.

  The old lady looked as if she might cry. ‘He’s Guy’s father,’ she said with a sob.

  The world started to blur around me. ‘W-what?’ I stammered. I looked at Guy. He was staring at me and suddenly I saw something in his eyes, something familiar I’d noticed the first time we’d met.

  Blue eyes. Bright-blue eyes, just like my father’s. My darling father. My hero.

  ‘But this isn’t possible. My father was married to my mother. They were together until he died,’ I protested. A pathetic, pointless protest.

  ‘He had two families,’ said Guy. ‘He lived with you most of the time but he came to stay with us some evenings and at the weekends.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ I murmured. ‘He lied to me.’ Betrayal slammed my body like a wrecking ball. ‘How on earth did he stop people finding out?’

  ‘Your mother knew,’ said Virginia, through her tears. ‘She put up with it. We both did, really. I did it because I loved him. I was a fool and I’m sorry.’

  I stood up, feeling hot and faint. ‘I have to go,’ I said. It’s too much. I can’t listen to this. I don’t want to be here.

  ‘Caroline, please don’t go,’ said Guy. ‘Let’s try and talk about it. We can make everything all right.’

  I stared at him. My half-brother. I had a half-brother. ‘You knew! All the time you knew and you didn’t think to tell me! How could you run the choir, how could you socialise with me and not say anything? How could you do that?’ Fury surged through my body. ‘How dare you? How dare you?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that, Caroline. I didn’t know who you were to start with. I wanted to talk to you but you seemed so closed to it.’

  ‘Oh, so this is my fault, is it? This is all my fault? No! This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. I have to get out of here.’

  ‘Caroline—’ Laurie began.

  ‘No! I should never have listened to you! I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of this!’ I shouted as I fled the room and ran down the corridor. My body was shaking as I reached reception and remembered that Guy had driven me here.

  ‘Please, Caroline! At least let me drive you home,’ cried Guy, running after me.

  ‘You stay away from me! And my family! Do you hear? I don’t want anything to do with you!’

  I ran out of the door of the home and onto the main road. I rushed to the nearby railway station. Luckily, it had a mini-cab office. I fell into a cab and told the driver where I wanted to go, then I slumped back into the seat and stared out of the window, my brain whirring as revelation after revelation sped through it.

  I have a half-brother. And a lying, cheating father; a father who hasn’t even done me the decency of staying alive so that I can hate him. And my mother. My mother, once young and full of joy, transformed by anger, weary with bitterness at having to deal with my father’s double life.

  Everything I thought I knew was imploding, my world was being turned on its head and I realised that I had no idea how to handle it.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  NATALIE

  Caroline had dumped me in it. Yet again and without even having the decency to ask. I just received a call from a BBC researcher to confirm a time for ‘the interview we discussed with Mrs Taylor’. I’m not good when I’m put on the spot and particularly nervous around journalists.

  I think it dates back to when I was running the school newspaper at secondary school. A boy called Jeremy sabotaged an entire edition by changing all the names featured to ‘penis’. I had wanted to become a journalist until that moment and I still shudder today at the memory.

  So receiving a phone call from a BBC journalist filled me with dread and awe. The BBC is the pinnacle for me. It was basically like getting a call from Sir David Attenborough. The researcher was kind and friendly. She told me that they would love to ‘just pop round’ and do a ‘tiny’ end-of-the-news piece about the campaign. ‘It’s really no big deal.’

  I agreed with gushing enthusiasm. Then I ended the call and wanted to throw up.

  No big deal? This is a very big deal. I don’t want to be on television. I don’t want to brush my hair and worry about whether my eyebrows are presentable and I definitely don’t want to change out of my elasticated-waist trousers.

  I was just back from the school run and had several hours of writing planned, after which I would collect Woody and bring him home to share biscuits and tales of our day. I was also wondering about phoning Tim to see if he wanted to pop round for a glass of wine. Well, he could drink water and I would have the wine anyway. It had been a week since I’d seen him and I’d enjoyed our evening. It had made me forget all the crap and stress of my other life for a bit. The kiss had been a mistake but only a minor one, to my mind.

  It had also been a week since I discovered Dan at Ed’s flat. I had been ignoring calls and texts from both of them. I even sent Dan a very childish ‘Just fuck off!’ text. I thought it might make me feel better but it just made me sad.

  I knew I would need to sort things eventually, if only for Woody’s sake. But for now, I wanted to deny everything and indulge in some harmless flirting with a Tory MP.

  Yes, I know. I was officially crossing the bridge of sanity into crazyland. Hey ho. There had been a lot of unexpectedly events over the past few weeks. I was just going with the flow, albeit a flow with more twists and turns than a corkscrew.

  I had fire in my belly and anger in my bones. Usually I kept it in check but I got the feeling that if pushed, I could do some real damage.

  I was therefore pretty wound up when I called Caroline about the interview. Not only had she dropped this particular surprise in my lap at the last minute but she had also cancelled choir the evening before with barely any notice or apology. ‘Unforeseen circumstances,’ was the reason given in the very brief text. I probably would have been sympathetic if it weren’t for the fact that she had been particularly annoying lately. Plus I was peeved because I had managed to find a babysitter for once.

  ‘Caroline?’

  Her voice sounded husky and flat. ‘Natalie, this isn’t a good time.’

  Dismissive cow. How bloody dare she? ‘Well, pardon me for not phoning at a good time. It wasn’t a brilliant time for me to get a phone call from the BBC about the interview they’re doing this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh, that.’

  ‘Yes, that! When were you planning to tell me?’

  She sighed. She actually sighed as if I was boring her. ‘Apologies. I’ve been rather busy.’

  Apologies? That’s the word used by people who never apologise or think that they’re wrong. ‘Yes, well, I’m rather busy too. I have writing to do and … stuff. Why does it need to be me?’

  ‘Because,’ she said, as if she were addressing an idiot, ‘you’re the closest thing our campaign has to a celebrity.’ She managed to make it sound like an insult.

  ‘I write children’s books.’

  ‘Yes, which is even better because everyone loves children’s books and that makes you very appealing.’

  ‘How flattering.’

  She ignored my sarcasm. ‘What time are they coming?’

  ‘Two o’clock,’ I replied with weary resignation.

  ‘Fine. I’ll see you then. And maybe wear something a little bit—’

  Clean?

  Fashionable?

  Less frumpy?

  ‘A little bit?’ I demanded, barely containing my fury at her utter, bloody cheek.

  ‘Smart,’ she said finally. ‘Anyway, I must go. See you later.’

  She hung up. I glared at my phone before casting it onto the bed and doing the very mature thing of hopping from foot to foot whilst flicking V-signs at an imaginary Caroline. ‘Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off!’ I cried. This time I did feel a little better.

  I spent the next hour in a blind panic, worrying about what to wear. I had a shower and washed
my hair before going into the bedroom and throwing all the half-decent clothes I owned onto the bed in the hope that this might force two matching items together. I was just trying on an ancient wrap dress that made both my bosom and belly look enormous when there was a knock at the door. I cursed, flung on my dressing gown and jogged downstairs, hoping that it was just Jim with a parcel.

  Of course, life is never kind at these moments. The last people you want to be confronted with when you are wearing a bulky dressing gown over an ill-fitting dress along with a hastily wrapped towel-turban, are your estranged husband and the best friend with whom you suspect him of having an affair.

  Before my marriage had become a car-crash in which there were no survivors, the three of us would have laughed about this. Ed would have teased me for looking a state and Dan would have told me I’d look beautiful in a bin bag. That was then. This was now.

  I stared at the pair of them standing on my doorstep, looking for all the world like a couple of naughty schoolboys. ‘This isn’t a good time.’

  ‘Please, Nat. I need to talk to you,’ said Dan. ‘We both need to talk to you.’ His eyes were pleading. Those eyes. They had won my heart once. My poor fractured heart.

  The trouble was that my heart was now scorched by anger and blistered with hurt. There was a pounding fury where kindness and sympathy had once lurked. I was basically like the bionic woman but instead of replacing my body parts, all my emotions had been replaced. Mainly with negative ones – angry, sweary, negative ones.

  ‘This isn’t a good time,’ I repeated. ‘In fact, I’m not sure that there’s ever going to be a good time to have this discussion.’ I glared at the pair of them. ‘Why don’t you just piss off back to your love-nest?’

  ‘Nat, there’s nothing going on.’ This was Ed’s voice. ‘You have to listen to Dan. Please.’

  I turned on him. ‘Do I? Do I really, Ed? And why is that? To make you feel better? To ease your troubled conscience? Fucking hell, you were my best bloody friend. I trusted you. I told you everything, and it turns out that you were laughing at me and shagging my husband. You couldn’t make this shit up!’