by Emma Davies
‘Thea… I hope it will come as no surprise to you to learn that this is something which has occupied a great deal of my thoughts over the years. And I don’t intend to “chat” about this in the kitchen, it’s rather too important for that. Besides which, you’ve driven a long way, and no doubt need a wee and something to eat and drink. Once we’ve addressed those things, I think we should take a walk and I will tell you everything you want to know. But not before.’
I nod, chastened. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘You’re right. And thank you, I’d like that.’
Mum smiles and I suddenly feel time slip away from me. Despite my age and my own motherhood, I’m still her child.
‘I hope that the manner in which you found out was at least… kind?’ she says. ‘That perhaps Drew was able to pick a good time, and break the news gently…’
‘Hardly…’ I heave a sigh. ‘I found an article about Georgia that someone had hidden in the house, and Drew said nothing… I thought it might have had something to do with the previous owners of Pevensey so I started asking questions, and still Drew said nothing. The whole village has been talking about us, Mum. I practically got thrown out of a shop by someone who I now realise must have been Georgia’s mum, and the whole time Drew still said nothing. It wasn’t until I’d had the truth of it all actually shoved in my face that he finally admitted he knew about it. So no, it wasn’t kind, or gentle, and I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to forgive him for that.’
‘Harsh words, Thea. I hope you don’t mean them.’
I stare at her back as she turns to take down a couple of mugs from a cupboard. ‘Well, how do you think I feel? When my own husband keeps secrets from me. He should have told me right at the beginning when he had the chance. But no, he let it get so much worse. He didn’t even tell me about the ridiculous farce of an alibi straight away. But instead, he let me find out about it in the worst possible way. I’m furious with him, Mum. Angry. Upset. But most of all I feel betrayed. He’s taken any trust I had and smashed it to smithereens.’
She is silent for a moment, digesting my words. And I know that these are conversations she must have had with herself over so many years. Her reply is dispassionate.
‘Yes, I feared as much. Unfortunate, but not a surprise. If you want my opinion, Drew should never have been informed either.’ She frowns. ‘Had I known that his parents were going to tell him I would have argued strenuously against it. But people always feel that they should do something when they hold information like this. As if it’s the proverbial hot potato that will burn a hole in their pocket unless they pass it on. But of course the option always remains to do nothing. To merely set it down and let it cool. It’s a pity more people don’t use it.’ She searches my face for a moment. ‘And I can see how it’s made things difficult between you and Drew.’
My silence is all the confirmation she needs.
She sighs. ‘He’ll be hurting too, Thea. It wasn’t fair to tell him, it’s a burden he should never have had to carry.’ She shakes her head. ‘But I cannot change that either, more’s the pity.’
She waters the teabags and her face rearranges itself into a bright expression. ‘Now, while we have our tea, tell me what else has been happening. How are the girls?’
We spend the next half hour talking about the trivia of our lives. How Chloe and Lauren are liking their new school, how my work is coming along, how Mum is enjoying the new life she has carved out for herself. But it’s necessary. It gives us time to adjust to being with one another, space to settle our nerves.
‘Did you bring a coat with you?’ Mum asks as I finish my drink. ‘It’s a bit blowy out there today.’
‘No, I didn’t think to, I…’
‘You can borrow one of mine.’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘That’s if you can bear to be seen in one of my old lady coats.’
I smile. There’s nothing old lady about my mum.
She fetches two jackets from the cupboard under the stairs and I slip on the bright floral raincoat, quite similar to the one I have at home. She changes her shoes and there’s a moment when we stand, face to face, contemplating each other in the hallway. Her hand reaches out to tuck my hair behind my ears and she leaves it there for a second, her thumb resting on my cheek.
‘Come on,’ she says brightly, and I trail after her, my eyes unexpectedly filled with tears. ‘We’ll head down to the harbour, I think. I find the coming and going of everyone’s lives there most conducive to thinking about one’s own.’
We walk in silence for most of the way. It’s turned into a beautiful day here – the cloud lifted just as I arrived and now the fresh wind has chased away the last remnants of it. I’m happy to simply drink in the views, so different from those at home, and the peace, but I also have no idea how to start the conversation we need to have. The progress of my visit is already straying far from how I imagined it would be.
As we turn into the harbour itself, Mum heads straight for a bench, where she sits, not looking at me, but straight out past the sea wall to open water. I take a seat beside her.
‘I’m not sure how you wanted me to be, Thea,’ she begins. ‘But I always knew that I was such a huge disappointment to you while you were growing up.’ She turns to me, her gaze frank and oddly accepting.
I swallow, a deep shame beginning to stir.
‘But I fear I was as much to blame for causing that as you were in thinking it. So perhaps I should explain and maybe now you might see why I behaved the way I did. You see, if I have any regrets at all, it’s that, as you grew older, you and I never quite managed the relationship I wanted us to have. It’s something which has brought me its fair share of heartache over the years, but when the thing with your father happened, I took a decision, and I’ve stuck by that for all these years.’ She smiles wistfully. ‘But perhaps, if there’s any good to come of all of this, it’s that maybe the time has come for things to change. I hope so.’ She slides her hand across the bench, laying her fingers over my own. They’re freezing.
‘I really don’t remember much about the night that Georgia was attacked. In that it was a perfectly ordinary evening, but the next day was the single worst day I have ever lived through, with the exception of the day your father died. My entire life, everything I believed in and valued, was thrown up in the air and then came crashing down around me. And at first I refused to believe it, that it was even happening at all; it all seemed so ridiculous. But then I realised that it wasn’t going to go away and that my life had been irrevocably changed. And I had to decide how I was going to live with that.’
Her voice is steady, but her face betrays the deep sadness she still feels. I nod, curling my fingers around hers.
‘It was one of the bleakest times of my life and it would have been so easy to have slobbed about in bed all day, to let my hair grow lank and greasy, to wear clothes I hadn’t changed in days. I would have welcomed it, would have loved to wallow in my self-pity. I almost felt as if I deserved it. But then, there you were, and you were too important to let down. I didn’t want you to have those sorts of memories, or be the kind of mother who seemingly didn’t care when, in fact, the very opposite was true. And so I put aside my feelings, forbade myself to cry when you were around, tidied my hair and put on my make-up and, one by one, I got through the days, although the pretence took every ounce of my strength. In fact, I almost didn’t make it… and had it not been for one single fact I don’t think I would have.’
I tip my head at her. ‘And what was that?’
‘Your dad,’ she said simply. ‘Because I truly loved him. And one day I realised that the only way I would get through any of it was to decide what I felt, for good or bad, and act accordingly. And so I sat, one day when you were at school, and I thought about your dad. About all the things he’d ever said and done, our life together, and I examined it all. And when I’d done that I realised I couldn’t conceive of your father being guilty of what he’d been suspected of. Your dad had said he was innocen
t and I had to make up my own mind whether I believed him or not, to listen to my own judgement and no one else’s. After that it became easier and I was able to dismiss the doubts I had, and the fears.’
I think about her words for a moment, but there’s something I still don’t understand.
‘But why was that ever in question?’ I ask. ‘I know that Drew’s parents gave Dad a false alibi because they were at the hospital, but if Dad was at home with you that night, what was there to even consider?’
As soon as I say it I realise there can be only one response. I don’t think I can bear any more.
‘Oh, Thea… I thought you knew…’ Her eyes fill with tears. She seems to struggle to marshal her thoughts before taking a deep breath. ‘You’d gone for a sleepover at Millie’s house the night Drew broke his arm, do you remember? And so I don’t think you ever really heard the story of what had happened – not surprising under the circumstances. Your dad had seen Drew climbing the tree just as he turned into the driveway as he came home from work. That big horse chestnut just inside the gate to the churchyard.’
‘It’s still there,’ I remark.
‘Well, of course, what he should have done was warn Drew that it probably wasn’t a good idea to climb it, whereas in fact what he did was just wave at him, grinning. An easy thing to do when he was tired from work, and simply looking forward to his dinner and a Friday night at home. Of course when Sarah came running round later to tell us that Drew had fallen from the tree, your dad was distraught, saying it was his fault, that he could have prevented it. You can imagine how he felt. And so Alex and Sarah carted Drew off to the hospital and, a bit later on, not being able to settle, we popped round to theirs to let their dog out for a wee and then your dad went off to get a bit of fresh air…’
I can see where this is leading now.
‘And so you see, he was out for a little while, only half an hour or so but…’
‘Long enough to sow seeds of doubt,’ I reply.
‘Yes,’ says Mum quietly.
‘And so you don’t actually know if Dad was innocent.’
‘Thea, in the absence of any absolute proof, how can anything be certain when it’s one person’s word against another? But in here…’ She taps her chest. ‘In here, in the only place it matters, I know. Your father said he was innocent, and I believed him.’
‘So why was it necessary for Alex and Sarah to give him an alibi? That just makes it worse, surely?’
She pauses, her memories reminding her of what she’d been through, the struggles against things beyond her control.
‘It wasn’t something we planned,’ she replies. ‘So please don’t think that. I can see how this makes it sound sinister, but it really was quite innocent. I think what happened simply was that Alex panicked. When the police asked him about your dad he told them that we’d had dinner with them the previous evening. You have to understand, Thea, that when things like this happen, things with… children, that people don’t think straight. From that moment it became something we had to go along with. Otherwise we’d have been in really deep water.’
I raise my eyebrows. ‘Oh, and that didn’t sound suspicious? Christ, it’s a wonder they didn’t lock up Dad straight away and throw away the key.’ But I can see how it happened. People aren’t thinking straight today, let alone twenty-odd years ago.
‘There was talk at the time of a man who had been seen a few times driving very slowly through the village. No one recognised the car, or knew who he was, and I think he became the focus of the police enquiries, but of course we never heard what happened.’
I nod, staring across at a small fishing boat that has just entered the harbour. I watch it make its way to the quayside, safe now, homeward bound.
‘But no one knows about Drew’s broken arm? Or rather the timing of it?’
She shakes her head. ‘We just told everyone it had happened a day later, on the Saturday.’
I think of the photograph I ripped to shreds and threw at Drew. How could our parents have all been so stupid? The outcome could have been very different indeed if it had come to light. I’m still holding my mum’s hand and I move a little closer.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘I have no idea how you coped with all of that, any of it actually. To even contemplate that Dad could be involved in something like that is bad enough, but to have everyone talking about you as well.’
She smiled sadly. ‘In many ways it was the worst thing. We’d lived in the village for years and yet people who I thought were my friends crossed the street rather than talk to me. But I couldn’t be responsible for what everyone else thought, Thea, only myself. And as long as I was able to stay true to what I believed in then nothing else mattered.’
‘But we still moved away…’
‘Yes… In my naivety I thought things would get better after a while, but they didn’t, and so we chose to move away. Not because I was scared of people, or ashamed – I would have fought them all day long to protect your father’s good name – but because when they could see that I didn’t care what they said, they decided that you were a much easier target. And you weren’t capable of standing up for yourself, or arguing back, and I couldn’t bear to have your childhood ruined. So I did what every parent should do and I protected you.’
My tears are flowing freely now. I’d had no idea that my mum had done this for me and I’m forced to examine my own feelings. Have I gone through my whole life blaming Mum for taking us away from Pevensey? Is that why we’ve never quite had the relationship we both wanted, or even why I’d been so adamant to return back there, to the house I’d always felt torn from?
‘Oh, sweetheart…’ She loosens her fingers to turn and take me in her arms. ‘I’m sorry too.’ Her lips rest against my head. ‘I can see now that trying to keep all this from you was stupid but, at the time, I truly thought it was for the best.’
My speech is fragmented. ‘You did everything you could have for me… and I never even knew… That’s what hurts, that I blamed you when I shouldn’t have.’
She strokes my hair, pulling back slightly to look at me. ‘And I should have told you when you were older, when you could have understood, but your father begged me not to. It was the only thing we disagreed on in the end. He couldn’t bear the risk of you not believing him. And, as daughters often gravitate towards their fathers, I took a step back, when I could, so that your relationship with him became even deeper. Showing him how much I believed in him was the only way to heal the tear that doubt had ripped in the fabric of our family.’
‘You must miss him so much.’
‘Oh yes,’ she says, ‘every minute of every day.’ Her voice is warmed by her love. ‘But I get by,’ she adds. ‘I do things. I talk to people, I go out, pretend I’m having fun, and it helps. Sometimes I even fool myself.’ Her smile is sad. ‘Your father was the most remarkable man I ever met, Thea. Being without him is completely unacceptable.’
There’s nothing I can add to that except to pull her close once more. There’s a painful nuance to my grief now, weighted with the understanding of Mum’s devotion, not just to my dad, but to me as well. I never once gave her credit for the sacrifices she made for us. Sacrifices she made over and over and which I never noticed, seeing instead only what I wanted to and not the truth. It feels as if a lifetime passes in the next few minutes as the images and memories of my childhood shift and readjust.
‘So now you also have a decision to make,’ she says eventually. She smooths my hair, tucking it back behind my ears before her thumbs gently wipe away the tears from my eyes. ‘You have to decide what you believe, Thea. You, and no one else. And once you have decided then you hold that belief close to you and you don’t let anyone change your mind. Not ever.’
‘I’m so sorry, Mum,’ I reply, looking up at her through my lashes. ‘I’ve behaved appallingly. At a time when you really needed my help. And not much better now… I’ve been an awful daughter to you.’
But she s
hakes her head and rises from the bench, holding out her hand. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she says. ‘How could I love you so much if you were?’
Twenty
Lauren’s hand is cool against my forehead. ‘Are you still feeling poorly, Mummy?’
I can hardly lift my head from the pillow, and the look of gentle concern in her eyes sends another wave of guilt sliding over me.
‘Do you know, I think I feel a bit better now,’ I reply. ‘It must be seeing you. Have you got everything ready for school?’
She nods, an uncertain smile on her face.
‘Well, you have a lovely day, and I’ll see you later, sweetheart. In fact, I’ll probably be up and about by then.’
‘Will you?’ Her eyes light up.
I don’t want to lie, but she doesn’t deserve this. ‘Blow me a kiss because that will definitely make me feel better.’
I smile as she reaches the doorway, giving a little wave before she puts her hand to her lips in reply.
‘Bye darling.’
I lay my head back on the pillow and close my eyes.
Nearly a week has passed since Drew and I argued. After I returned from Mum’s my mood morphed into a melancholia that left me listless and de-energised. The slight croakiness in my throat intensified into raw agony, accompanied by a high fever, and it’s left me wiped out. Allowing grief to hit me like a wall. It’s as if I’ve lost my father all over again – the all-pervading pain that I will never be able to talk to him again is the very worst thing. Would he have thought about all of this in the last few hours before he died? Would he have wanted to tell me? To reassure me that, even though he would no longer be with me, I could remember him always the way he was. Because, despite what Mum said, even though I know her words make sense, there is the knowledge that no one has ever been caught for the crimes committed against Georgia. And that means there is still doubt.
I must have drifted back off to sleep again after Lauren left but I’m suddenly awake as the creak of a floorboard cuts into my consciousness.