The Accusation

by Zosia Wand

  ‘No, he didn’t tell me. What else hasn’t he told me?’

  Laura leans in. ‘Eve, listen to me. He never speaks about it. He’s never spoken to me about it and you know he tells me pretty much everything. I only know because Mum told me. She told us all, because he was being… It upset him and he didn’t handle it well.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He wrote to his birth mother. When he turned eighteen. He got the files and he wrote and arranged to go and see her and… I don’t know. I don’t know the details. This isn’t my story to tell, Eve, but she was in a bad way and he couldn’t help. She didn’t want help. She didn’t want him. And then Tina. It was bad timing, the two things. He was worried about Tina, possibly more so than he would have been normally, but Neil is honourable, he needs to do the right thing, and when he tried to see Tina, after the party—’

  ‘What party?’

  She shrugs. ‘A house party. Someone’s eighteenth? I think he would have seen her again, but her mad dad wouldn’t let him. She told Neil she’d climbed out of the bedroom window to get out that night.’ I picture the man gripping the steering wheel. The bruise on Ann’s neck. What sort of life did Tina have with a father like that? ‘If Tina was important I’d have known, Neil would have told me.’

  But he didn’t. He didn’t tell her.

  She leans forward and places a hand on my arm. ‘You are important. You were from the moment he met you. Nobody that came before could hold a torch to you.’ She stands up, rubbing the small of her back and wincing, but her eyes remain fixed on me. ‘He met you that day at the pool and that was it, he never stopped talking about you: Eve this and Eve that. “Do you think Eve will like this T-shirt?” “Do you think Eve will want to see this film?” He was desperate to impress you.’

  ‘Seriously?’ This isn’t the way I remember it. The Neil I remember was confident and in control, but what do I know?

  ‘What you have to understand about my brother is that he has no sense of entitlement. Everything he has is hard earned. Mum says it’s as if he’s never got over being grateful for being adopted, though they’ve done all they can not to make him feel he should be grateful.’

  I know this is true. They’re good people, Neil’s parents. Hard-working, which is probably where he gets it from, decent. Their love for him is unconditional and no less than they feel for the girls who were born naturally after Neil. Betty’s admitted to me, after too many beers during a summer barbecue in this very garden, that, if anything, she loves him more. ‘He was my first and I wanted him so much, and he released something in me, Eve. In some way, I believe he brought me the other two. Without him there would be none of this,’ and she waved her arm to encompass the grandchildren, and Julie and Neil fighting like two kids over the ketchup as Mike distributed the burgers.

  There is always a goal with Neil. He’s a man with ambition. Driven, not for wealth or power, but a certain life. He wanted a family. He wanted to adopt a child, as his parents had adopted him. He wanted to teach as his mother had taught, and open doors for those less fortunate than himself. He wanted a house and a garden and a solid career and he’s achieved all those things. But why did he want all that? Why was he so dogged in the pursuit of that? Was it because he nearly lost it before he began? If Tina told him she was pregnant, if he accepted responsibility for that, he would have had to go to work. He would have had to support her. The travelling, the teaching abroad, the freedom and adventure he craved and achieved, wouldn’t have been available to him. Is that why it was so important? Maybe this has been driving him all these years.

  Laura is still talking. ‘He wanted you, Eve, but he never assumed you’d want him. He had to earn you, the way he’s had to earn everything in his life. He’s the same in sport. If he swims, he must be fast, achieve a certain number of lengths. If he plays cricket he has to do his best to win. He’s not a bad sport, he can cope with losing if it’s a fair game, as long as he’s satisfied he’s done his best.’

  Tina falling pregnant was not fair. It scuppered his plans. I know how frustrated he gets when things aren’t going his way.

  But Neil is patient. He follows the rules. He gets frustrated, but he’s honourable. He tried to get in touch with Tina but her dad wouldn’t let him talk to her. If Tina had told Neil she was pregnant he wouldn’t have walked away. He would have taken responsibility. He would have talked to Betty and Mike. They would have supported him.

  If it happened. If Tina Lord was telling the truth.

  Why didn’t she tell Neil? All these years. Would she keep a secret like that for so long? How did she keep it a secret? No one knew all this time. Did she move away? Did her parents send her away? Maybe Neil isn’t the father of her child, and that’s simply a convenient lie. Neil was what every reasonable mother would regard as ‘a nice young man’. But if Tina Lord broke out of the house to get to a party once, maybe she’d done it before. Maybe Neil wasn’t the first. There may have been someone else, someone who wasn’t ‘a nice young man.’ Someone who raped her. She might not tell her mother. She might not admit it, even to herself.

  ‘My brother gets frustrated when things impede him,’ says Laura. ‘But he’s a good man and he loves you.’ I allow myself to be comforted by this. Laura knows her brother. Tina is history. Unimportant history.

  *

  The door creaks as I go back into the bedroom and Neil stirs. He rubs his eyes, squinting at me in the half light from the hall. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Go back to sleep.’

  He sits up, stretches, yawns. So relaxed. While I carry the burden of everything. I can’t help myself; the words are out before I can stop them. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Tina Lord?’

  He is absolutely still but I can feel the tremor of fear as he waits, silent, weighing up what I know. He shakes his head. ‘Why do you let her do this, Eve?’

  ‘Don’t turn this on Mum. I asked you a question!’ Milly shifts and rolls over. I lower my voice. ‘Why can’t you answer the question?’

  ‘Why are you talking to me like this?’ He’s defensive. Why is he defensive?

  ‘Why can’t you answer the question?’

  ‘I can answer it, I’m just not sure I want to right now. Why are you interrogating me? What has she said?’

  ‘No. No, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to check what I know before you tell me the truth.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ He sighs, dragging his fingers through his hair so it stands up in tufts. ‘Look, it was a horrible time, OK? I told you. I don’t like to think about it. I met Tina once, at a party. I didn’t see her again.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her. She wasn’t interested.’

  ‘What happened between you?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing happened. We were two teenagers. We got a bit hot and sweaty. That was it.’

  ‘How hot and sweaty?’

  He squirms. ‘Eve. Why is this important?’ He’s embarrassed. ‘What is it your mum thinks she knows?’ He had sex with her. He doesn’t want to come out and say it, but I know and he knows I know.

  I examine his face. He’s embarrassed, but he’s not ashamed. There is no evidence of shame. If he’d raped her he would be ashamed.

  I have to stop. I have to stop this now. Naz is right. We can’t let this come between us. We have to think about Milly.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I sit down on the bed.

  He strokes my back. ‘I felt bad about her. I felt bad about that whole time. Talking about it won’t change anything. You don’t tell me everything.’

  ‘I’ve told you about all my boyfriends.’

  ‘All two of them.’

  I hadn’t slept with either of them. The first time Neil and I made love is a watermark in my memory. We spent the night in a hotel, in Rome. We were inter-railing and had slept on trains for three nights to save the money to pay for the room. He’d been out and bought candles, selected the music. He knew it
was my first time and he was tender, cautious, ‘Are you OK with this? Are you sure this is OK?’ Never pushy, never anything other than respectful and gentle. Was he like that with Tina? Or was it more urgent? Something frantic and hungry and more difficult to gauge? Maybe. Maybe it was eager and faster, but Neil would never be disrespectful, never forceful, not Neil, not my Neil.

  He’s entitled to his secrets. I may have told him about my boyfriends, they weren’t serious, I wasn’t giving anything away. He knows nothing of the episodes in the bathroom. Fingers down my throat. Heaving over the sink. I have not shared that shame with him.

  *

  Home. I feel it beckoning to me as we turn off the M6 and head west across the top of the peninsulas. Morecambe Bay is all silver puddles and hammered pewter under gunmetal sky. We’re heading home and I can feel the tension loosening as Neil navigates the winding road. Milly is fast asleep in the back, her mouth wide open. We stayed for Betty’s Sunday nut roast which is always planned for three o’clock but never ready before five. It’s now almost midnight and we’ll all be shattered in the morning, but I’m blissfully drifting. I don’t need to worry about Tina. She was not important. Her baby has nothing to do with Neil.

  I glance back over my shoulder. Milly’s head has dropped onto her chest and she’s snoring gently. She will start school this week and I’ll be back at work full time, making it up to Lizzie for last week. Kath will take care of Milly at the park in the afternoons and I’ll be in the office if anything crops up. This has all been agreed in advance with social services; I’m not taking any risks. Poor Kath had to attend an interview and complete a Disclosure and Barring Service check to make sure she had no convictions. I felt terrible asking so much of her, but she was very generous and upbeat about it all over the phone, and India has reassured me that with her own younger grandchildren miles away, and having retired from teaching, it’s as good for Kath as it is for us.

  We pull up outside the house and Neil switches off the engine. Neither of us moves for a moment. He takes a long, deep breath and turns to me. ‘Home,’ he says firmly and I plant a kiss on his soft mouth.

  21

  It’s the last day of September and our probationary period with Milly is almost complete. We’ve been back in Tarnside for two weeks and life has returned to a comfortable rhythm. Neil and I are back at work, Milly is settled into school and there is a pattern to our days. This is our safe place. This is home.

  We’re almost there. On Monday we’ll have the final review and if all goes according to plan we’ll be given the green light to apply for our adoption order. It really is happening. I’ve done it. I’ve shoved all that horrid business aside. Here, in Tarnside, far away from Hitchin and Mum and that whole ugly episode, I can do this. We’re a family and soon it will be signed and sealed and this fear that’s been puddling at my feet, this sense that at any moment it could all be snatched from us, is beginning to drain away. Life is good.

  I haven’t spoken to my mother. There’s nothing to say.

  Today is the Tarnside Lantern Festival. Neil and Milly are in the garden, putting the finishing touches to her first lantern. Betty and Mike are on their way. They were planning to stop at a B&B in the Forest of Bowland last night. I did offer for them to come straight here, but Betty insisted they would prefer to break the journey. I know she was thinking of us. Neil finishes work late on a Friday and I was in the park until nearly midnight last night, helping the lantern team rig the lights. We’re lucky with the weather. The forecast is for it to cloud over later, but hopefully the rain will hold off. The procession and finale in the park are an annual event that’s been taking place in Tarnside for over thirty years. It’s my job to manage it but, in truth, it’s the local community who make it happen.

  Milly holds out a soggy square of gluey tissue paper between her fingertips. Neil takes it carefully and presses it into place against the withy frame.

  I shout, ‘Let Milly do some!’ He’s so fixed on it looking perfect the poor child won’t get a look in. The theme for the procession this year is Once Upon A Time, an excuse to revisit our favourite fairy tales. Milly has chosen Little Red Riding Hood and we’ve used my Ladybird edition, which I brought back from Hitchin, for inspiration. I thought, for her first year, she should make the standard pyramid from withies and tissue paper, but Milly wanted a full Red Riding Hood, which even Neil baulked at, so we persuaded her that she could be Red Riding Hood and the lantern would be the basket she was carrying to her grandmother’s house. She was a little disappointed, until Betty sent a photograph of a red duffel coat she’d found in a charity shop. I’d assumed the basket would be basket size, not the giant structure I can see on the lawn in front of me, but Neil’s competitive streak has kicked in.

  He’s a wonderful father. He’s the right father for Milly. Whatever happened that night with Tina Lord was innocent. Two teenagers. Hot and sweaty. Not ugly or violent. He is not a predator. He is a good and honourable man. He’s head of sixth form at the high school, for God’s sake. The kids love him. Kids know. Milly knows. She has a sensor. She sussed Mum. She adores Neil.

  This is Milly’s first lantern procession. We’ll remember this one for the rest of our lives. The procession is led, every year, by a giant lantern, commissioned from a team of artists-in-residence during the week running up to the event. Milly’s basket is almost as big as Milly herself and will require the two of them to carry it, but it’s no match for the giant wolf I saw being assembled in the park this morning. It looked spectacular, even in the daylight, spanning the length of two cars with vast, moving jaws and alarming jagged teeth. The bulk of it will be carried on three custom-made packs strapped to the back of the artists, with two more people managing its lower jaw, and it will be lit by LEDs rather than the standard candles. I can’t wait to see Milly’s face when she sees it.

  Milly’s basket is simple in design, as the withies naturally lend themselves to circular shapes. Neil sensibly soaked the long, skinny twigs in advance. He insists it’s all in the preparation. There are squares of tissue paper cut neatly and piled on the garden table with a stone to stop them fluttering off in the breeze and the glue is in a shallow jar, diluted with just the right amount of water. Milly’s pressing the tissue paper into place, under Neil’s supervision. I can see him itching to straighten it. At the end of the day no one is going to be looking at the detail, they just need to get it covered before seven thirty tonight.

  I’m in the kitchen when the doorbell rings, Neil is in the garden with Milly, but I call him to greet his parents while I flick the kettle on. Milly remains on task with her lantern. I’m expecting hearty welcomes and cheerful banter as I take four mugs down from the shelf, but instead there’s an awkward hush. I instinctively move into the hall. Betty is ushering Neil away from the front door, her hand on his arm, whispering urgently. His face is dark. Behind him I can see Mike and, leaning heavily on his arm, my mother.

  The space around me stills. Why is she here? Cold fingers inching up my spine. A chill puddle at my feet. Drip-drip.

  Betty is manoeuvring Neil towards me. She throws me an apologetic smile and mouths a quick ‘Sorry’, but the full force of her attention is concerned with calming Neil. ‘This isn’t about you. Whatever you think of the woman, she is Milly’s grandmother and she’s sorry and you have to put this behind you.’ She looks to me for support. ‘She really regrets the smack, Eve. She wants to make amends.’

  Mum gives me a pathetic smile. ‘Darling!’ and holds out her free arm. I step forward automatically and give her an awkward hug. ‘Will it be all right for me to stay? I can book into a B&B if it’s not convenient?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She knows we have room. I’ve made up the bed for Betty and Mike in the spare bedroom next to Milly’s, but Mum will need to go in there if her knee is as bad as it appears to be. She won’t be able to manage a flight of stairs to get to the toilet in the night. Betty and Mike will have to sleep on the sofa bed in the study next to u
s on the top floor.

  Fortunately, Milly remains in the garden, more concerned with her lantern than the visitors. Mike and Betty go out to greet her and are immediately presented with a glue brush and enlisted to help. Neil hovers for a moment but I send him out to join them. ‘Let me and Mum have a chat.’

  I close the door after him and turn to face her. ‘What are you doing here?’

  She looks wounded. ‘Is that any way to treat your mother?’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘To see you.’ A look of concern settles on her face and I have to turn away. ‘Have you spoken to him?’

  I shake my head, try to swallow. My heart is galloping. I grip the table. In the garden Milly is laughing at something Mike has said. Betty’s focus is on Neil, who is standing stiff as a rod, a little distance from them, looking back into the kitchen, at us. My family out there. My mother, here in my home, waiting to pull the pin on her grenade.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  She’s all innocence. ‘What do you mean?’

  I slam my fist against the table. She jumps back, shocked. ‘Evangeline! What on earth do you think I’m going to do? I’m here for you. To support you.’

  ‘I don’t need your support!’

  ‘Well,’ her voice trembles, ‘maybe I need yours.’

  I say nothing. Milly is distributing tissue squares to her grandparents. Her kind, loving, normal grandparents who have no agenda, no ammunition. Neil mouths ‘OK?’, ready to come in and rescue me. Or is he worried about what Mum’s going to say? Does he know what she knows?

  I shove the thought from my mind. I am not going to let her do this to me again. She’s watching me, waiting. ‘You say nothing!’ I hiss. ‘Do you hear me? You keep your poisonous little lies to yourself.’

  She gives a slow blink and nods. She nods. Poisonous little lies. She nods. I am back on firm ground. I can do this.