The Accusation

by Zosia Wand

  Lizzie, dressed in her hi-vis vest, falls in beside me. ‘Hello, Milly. Awesome lantern.’

  ‘Me and Daddy maked it!’ says Milly, proudly. ‘And Nanny Bet. Nanny Bet is my daddy’s mummy,’ she explains. Listing the family members is her latest thing. Names and titles, keeping a log.

  I ask, ‘Is Pearl here?’

  Lizzie points over the heads of the crowd. Pearl is sitting high on someone’s shoulders, but it won’t be her dad; Jonty is stewarding for us in the park tonight. Lizzie sees me frowning and mouths, ‘Sam.’ Of course, Jonty’s son. Pearl’s eighteen-year-old half-brother. I watch as she grabs a handful of his dark hair in her little fist and pulls. He yelps in pain and reaches up to disentangle her fingers.

  ‘You OK?’ Lizzie asks.

  I groan. ‘My mum.’

  She laughs. I wish I could laugh at this situation. I’ve never met Lizzie’s mother, but I’ve heard about her. Lizzie has her own problems. She makes the occasional duty visit to London, but their relationship isn’t close. She seems to suffer none of the guilt and angst that I battle with. Or maybe she’s just better at dealing with it. What would Lizzie have done in my shoes this evening? She would have insisted that tonight was not the night for an elaborate meal. She would have been firm and reasonable and things would never have reached that exhausting, emotional climax. Why can’t I be like that?

  Sam lifts Pearl off his shoulders and turns her to face him, shaking his hair at her as she squeals in giggly delight.

  We hear Betty shout over the crowd as we reach the Market Square, where four more processions join us to head together towards the park. We’re effectively looping back on ourselves, but it’s wonderful to navigate these streets, lined with people cheering us on. Some sit on chairs, outside their front doors, with cups of coffee or tea, while in the town centre a more raucous crowd gather outside the pubs and shops clutching glasses and bottles of beer. The crowd is thick here and bodies press up against us. Neil calls out and rises on tiptoe, craning his neck to see over the mass of heads. Above the shops people hang out of the windows of their flats exclaiming and pointing at the more adventurous lanterns as we pass. The shopping trolley gingerbread house gathers lots of laughs. Someone shouts, ‘Look! Red Riding Hood with her basket!’ and Milly beams up at me proudly.

  I see Betty’s grey bun, held together with jewelled pins, strands of hair spiralling free. She shoulders her way through the bodies, apologising politely, determinedly insistent, clearing a path until she reaches us. Behind her, Mike is struggling to navigate the wheelchair, with my mother sitting like an overgrown toddler, grimacing at every jerk and bump.

  ‘Nanny Bet,’ Milly announces to Lizzie.

  ‘Well, hello, Nanny Bet,’ Lizzie replies with a little bow.

  Milly doesn’t introduce Mum, who sits huddled in her chair, shivering. ‘They really need to manage this better.’

  ‘They? I’m they, Mum! I’m the one managing this.

  ‘I meant the council. The police.’

  I shake my head. ‘The council and the police are here. The stewards are prepared and keeping an eye on things. Everyone else seems to be enjoying themselves.’ I can hear the petulance in my voice and hate myself for it.

  Mum throws me an injured look and suddenly her face is transformed with a smile that disarms me. It’s her proud mother smile. ‘You work so hard, Evangeline. It’s extraordinary.’ I’m immediately ashamed of the resentment I’ve been feeling towards her. She turns to Lizzie. ‘Isn’t my daughter amazing?’

  I interrupt, quickly. ‘She’s had as much to do with all this as I have, probably more.’

  ‘Really?’ Mum sounds unconvinced but Lizzie laughs, taking it with good grace. I search the crowd for Sam and Pearl. They’re with India and Guy’s son. He and Sam will have been at school together. Different years, but they’re both into their music and I seem to remember were in a band together, briefly. Pearl is back on Sam’s shoulders, drumming a rhythm on the top of his head. He reaches up to take her hands in his. She wriggles and squirms. I watch the two of them for a moment, mesmerised. All that affection. What they have is unique; beautiful and valuable in its own right.

  Tina’s son will be twenty-six. A young man. He may be troubled and difficult and better kept a secret. But he may be someone like Sam. Someone Milly might love. Someone who might love her.

  I glance at Mum. She’s watching me, her face concerned. I don’t want her reading my thoughts. I don’t want this knowledge that exists between us. ‘That’s Pearl,’ I explain. ‘Pearl is Lizzie’s daughter. And Sam’s her brother, Lizzie’s stepson.’

  Mum beckons me to her. Her face is full of pity for me. I shake my head and turn away. Neil is introducing his parents to India and Guy. Milly is gazing up at her lantern, head tipped back towards the sky.

  ‘Evangeline.’

  She starts to struggle out of the wheelchair. Betty says, ‘Are you all right there, Joan?’

  ‘I need the toilet. Evangeline?’ She reaches for me to support her.

  Betty offers to help. ‘Let me take you, Joan.’

  But Mum bats her away. ‘No, no. You go ahead. Evangeline will take care of me.’

  Neil, seeing Mum on her feet, asks, ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Mum needs the loo.’

  He folds the wheelchair. ‘We’ll come with you.’ But I don’t want Milly to miss the procession. I tell him to go ahead and promise to catch up and take the wheelchair in one arm while Mum leans heavily on the other. Clumsily, we nudge our way through the surrounding bodies.

  Inside, the pub is empty, everyone having spilled out onto the street with pints in hand, to watch the gathering procession. Mum sits down heavily on a bar stool with a sigh.

  ‘I thought you needed the toilet?’

  ‘Evangeline, I have to talk to you.’

  ‘Now? You want to have a conversation now?’

  Her fingers are interlaced, thumbs circling. ‘You can’t keep this up.’

  A twitch in my peripheral vision. Chill breath on my neck. The barman is loading the dishwasher with dirty glasses. Two men that might be father and son walk in looking for refills. I take a lungful of air, straightening up to full height. I am not going to discuss Neil’s past in here. ‘Mum, I’ve warned you.’

  She shakes her head. ‘All this – it’s too much for one person to cope with alone.’

  Something inside me is unravelling. I swallow, lean in close, whisper, ‘That baby is not Neil’s. If it was, Tina would have told him. This is the truth. Do you hear me?’

  She’s silent, watching me. Unpicking me. ‘I’m worried about you.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Darling, you are not fine. This is not fine. You can’t do this.’

  No, no, no. Tensing, holding it in, tight, tight. ‘I have to. For Milly. Do you understand? If you say anything, I could lose Milly!’ She watches me, processing this. And then she nods and I relax the tension a little. Breathe. ‘The review is on Monday. We just have to get through that so we can get the adoption approved and ratified in court.’

  ‘I understand.’ Her voice is firm. She is capable, strong. She has recognised the challenge ahead of me and she is on my side.

  ‘This is about Milly, now. My daughter. We have to think about her.’

  ‘You’re sure you can convince them?’

  ‘I have to.’

  She frowns, watching me. She isn’t sure, and again, I can feel everything loosening. I clench my teeth and look away. As she takes my hand in hers and squeezes, I count the upturned bottles that feed the optics, blinking back tears.

  ‘Don’t worry, Evangeline. We can do this.’

  We.

  23

  The sky is completely black by the time the crowd gathers in the park and the scaffold tower has been draped in black cloth, so all we can see is the twinkling outline of three fat pigs wearing illuminated masks. The community police officer estimated about ten thousand people, but it’s eerily quiet beyon
d the haunting, lilting music that conjures the dance. Milly sits on Neil’s shoulders, mouth open, transfixed.

  Mum believes Neil has a son, but Ann Lord may be wrong, Tina may have been lying. What’s important now is Milly and making sure the adoption goes ahead as planned and, whatever she thinks of Neil, whatever she believes, Mum understands this. No one else knows. No one can know. I have to keep this secret, but I’m scared. I’m not sure I can carry this responsibility on my own.

  I understand.

  Mum is on my side. She is here, for me. I can feel her strength. I need to draw on that strength. For Milly’s sake, I have to pull this off.

  The wolf breaks the hush, running from the pigs with a panicked roar, across the lawn, towards the tarn, not through the crowd as Raf had planned, but to one side to avoid any accidents. There’s a trickle of enthusiastic applause swelling into a flood of hoots and whistles of delight as the pigs pretend to do battle with their predator at the shore. A sudden gasp and hush. One of the pigs has stumbled. A young woman in black, wound in tiny lights, falls on the ground. Her fellow pigs haven’t noticed, they’re too busy helping Raf and his colleagues divest themselves of their harnesses and balance the wolf lantern on the raft. The wounded pig struggles to her feet and gives the crowd a reassuring wave, limping towards the tarn.

  I knew I was never going to conceive. Not because of any scientific evidence, not in any way I could prove, I just knew, as if it had been scratched into my bones before I was born. I’m not a person who expects things to go well. It’s not that I’m a pessimist, I like to think I’m a hopeful person. I’m not negative or downbeat, I’m just a realist. Never presume. Things will be what they will be. I’ve always been aware there’s a limit to how much I can control, but this doesn’t mean I need to be powerless. Be prepared. I’m always prepared. This is why I’m good at my job. Expect the unexpected. Life throws you lemons, make lemonade. I know all the lines. I’ve never expected anything to be easy. It hasn’t stopped me moving forward or having dreams, like everyone else, I just make sure they’re modest. I don’t ask too much. And I don’t expect to get what I want first time around; it doesn’t work like that for me. Patience. Persistence. Flexibility. The trick is to always have a Plan B.

  My mother taught me: you want something, you must work for it. And she supported me in that. She gave me courage. She believed in me. Everything that matters to me I’ve fought for. She was always proud of me. Until Neil.

  Did I ask for too much? I found Neil, his wonderful family. I found foreign adventures, new experiences and this place, this town, this job, this community. Was it too much to ask for family of my own?

  Maybe Mum’s right. There was a reason I didn’t conceive – a bigger reason. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be with Neil. We were not meant to be parents. I’m not cut out to be a mother. Maybe the writing is on the wall. Maybe Claire will sort herself out and take her daughter back. A happy ever after. Just not mine.

  I try to focus on what’s happening in front of me, to be here, right now, in this moment. The wounded pig grabs the torch and with a quick flick of flame at the glue-stiffened tissue, the wolf begins to burn and floats out across the water. The crowd roars and the pigs raise their arms triumphantly in the air as they take their lap of honour, one, a step or two behind, dragging a little on one leg. I slip back, putting some distance between myself and the crowd. Lizzie is busy taking photographs from the top of the slide in the playground. She gives me the thumbs up. We’ve done it. She shouts, ‘I think this might be the best one yet!’

  Tina was pregnant, but that doesn’t mean she gave birth. She may have terminated the pregnancy. That would explain why no one knew about the pregnancy. She may have miscarried. There may be no child. But I’m clutching at straws. Ann Lord would have told me. She knows. Neil has a child. She told Mum, Tina had a son.

  Betty makes her way over to join me, the woollen shawl she bought in the local boutique earlier today wrapped tightly across her shoulders and under her chin. She has befriended the girl who knits these shawls, after meeting her in the shop last year, and has made a point of returning to buy one in a different colour this time. She’ll have recommended the website to friends, because she’s generous like that, a community-minded woman, who sits on the board of the local arts trust and fundraises and lobbies for all sorts of interesting, creative projects. She’s the one who understood that teaching wasn’t for me. It’s thanks to Betty that I got involved in community arts and discovered an alternative, more creative career. She appreciates what I do in a way my mother can’t. For my mum work is all about money and status. She was a teacher, like Betty, but it was a means to earn a living, not a vocation. I was my mother’s vocation.

  Tina was pregnant. Tina has a son. Neil is the father.

  How was that child conceived? What happened between Neil and Tina? Why did no one know about the pregnancy?

  We were asked if we would adopt a child born of rape. I said yes. Neil resisted. The idea appalled him. I said yes to a child born of rape. Did I invite this into my life?

  Neil is standing with Milly on his shoulders, talking to Sam, oblivious. Has he forgotten? Has he justified it in his mind? How could he live with himself? Is he the man I believed him to be, or have I been blind? Drip-drip-drip.

  Betty snuggles up beside me with a shiver that could be delight or simply the chill, and wraps the shawl around us. I am bone cold. I long to confide in her, to ease this burden, but she doesn’t have the strength to keep a secret like this. I remember her biting her lip, admitting how she’d betrayed Neil to my mother. That was such a trivial indiscretion. How would she cope with something of this magnitude? Only my mother knows and she is holding her tongue. The breeze is picking up. Betty says, ‘We’ve been lucky with the weather tonight.’

  Last year, the wind and driving rain whipped the lanterns into soggy submission, but rain never deters the crowd. Families invest too much to give in. They’ll always line the streets or walk the route, carrying their lanterns proudly, whatever obstacles they face. This festival matters to them. ‘What’s a bit of weather?’ they say. Tonight we’ve been blessed. I must hang on to that. Milly is here. Neil is happy. Mum understands what I need to do and she is a far stronger woman than Betty. She will help me through this. I must put everything else out of my mind.

  We stand quietly and watch as the giant wolf blazes against the inky sky. There’s something frenzied about it. I wriggle a little further into Betty’s shawl. ‘It’s lovely,’ she says with a little sigh, as we watch a group of children trying to snag the raft with their bamboo poles. Some have lowered their lanterns onto the water to see if they’ll float. One resourceful father has found a plastic lid and balanced the lantern on top. Betty says, ‘This, you and Neil, Milly…’ but the words get clogged and she can’t say any more and a dark, lonely part of me thinks that’s just as well.

  24

  The next day, I’m awake at dawn, unable to sleep, while Neil snores softly beside me without a care in the world.

  Tina’s son is an adult man. A baby that was born while I was still at school. A child that was Milly’s age when Neil and I were at university and travelling in South-East Asia, free as birds. A little boy that grew up without a parent, that has never known his father. A child that was never claimed.

  Ann Lord told me it was Neil. She may be wrong, but if Tina did lie, initially, because she was afraid, why, in all those years, once she’d established an independent life, would she continue to lie?

  This is not my secret to tell.

  Neil and I have always been honest with one another. It’s the basis of everything. If he knew and I didn’t, I would expect him to tell me. Unless the truth was too terrible to speak.

  This is not my secret to keep.

  I wait until Neil is awake and let him go downstairs. I can hear Milly with Mum. She’s laughing. Mum is making an effort. She’s on my side. She’s strong. I can do this. Can I do this?

  I don’t go down
until I hear Betty and Mike in the kitchen. Neil has made a start on breakfast and Mum is showing Milly how to lay the table. She glances up as I come in, emanating concern. She hasn’t said anything to Neil. She’s respecting my choice.

  Neil asks if I’m OK. I tell him I’m just tired from yesterday, but Betty and Mike sense something. Mum remains quiet, shooting me reassuring glances. Neil keeps everyone distracted, talking about the different lanterns and the finale, determinedly upbeat.

  Neil has a son. When they’ve all gone, when we’re on our own, I will have to keep this secret alone. I will have to navigate that review meeting tomorrow. I don’t know if I can do that. I have to do it, but my fear is pooling around my feet. What if I panic, fail to convince, or cry? What if I mess it up?

  After breakfast, Milly goes to help Mike sweep out the car with a dustpan and brush while Neil carries the suitcases downstairs. I’m filling three water bottles at the sink when Mum comes into the kitchen. She pulls her cardigan tightly across her chest and moves alongside me as I screw the lids on the bottles. ‘I’m worried about you.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I wish I could believe that, but I know you, Evangeline, and you are far from fine.’

  ‘Mum, this isn’t helping.’

  ‘I can help. You need me. You need my support. You can’t do this alone, and you don’t have to, my love. Why don’t I stay? If I’m here you’ll have someone to lean on, someone to talk to if you have a wobble.’ Her voice is gentle, but strong, the voice that comforted me through fevers and playground traumas. ‘Tomorrow is a big day. There’s a lot at stake. You can’t afford to mishandle this.’

  I grip the sink. I could mess it up. The reviewing officer with her piercing stare. She reads between the lines. She will sniff out my fear.

  ‘If I’m here, you will have an ally.’

  She understands. Whatever the truth is about Neil, what matters most to me, right now, is keeping Milly and Mum has accepted this. She will do what is necessary to make that happen for me. We are a team again. I breath in long and deep, letting relief fill me up. We can do this. Together we can do this.