‘Priya got married? To that nice lesbian girl?’
‘Yes, to Laurel. The nice lesbian girl. And Priya is a lesbian too, you know, Mum. That’s how lesbianism works. Priya—’
Annabelle made a throat-clearing noise.
‘Anyway,’ I said, nodding to Annabelle. ‘When I was in Cape Town I saw Dad.’
I waited for Mum’s reaction but she just looked at me as if she was waiting for the real nugget of information.
‘With a woman,’ I continued. ‘A younger woman. Who had a really big diamond and nice clothes and—’
Annabelle made a ‘get back on track’ little cough.
I glanced at her and nodded. ‘And it’s true, it’s all true, because there was this dog hotel/restaurant/gallery-type place doing an exhibition. Of vaginas. And they were really—’
Annabelle coughed again.
‘Anyway, they told me the paintings were by someone who was away in Mozambique “with his family”. And then when I went in there to get my phone from this guy Jimmy, who I met and hung out with because Pete was up the Cederbergs with some bitch called—’
‘Jess,’ Annabelle said.
‘Sorry.’ I looked at Mum, her eyes flitting back and forth between her two daughters, a look of non-comprehension on her face and really, who could blame her.
‘Mum,’ I said, getting my thoughts in order. ‘The thing is . . .’ I paused. I just had to say it. ‘Dad has a whole second family in South Africa. A young wife and two children. I saw them. I saw them with my own eyes.’ Tears welled and I sniffed back a sob.
Mum sat very still. She blinked and breathed and burnt calories at her resting metabolic rate, but that was about it.
‘Mum?’ I said, searching her face for horror, hurt and/or anger.
She fiddled with her tiger’s eye pendant, her eyes glassy and unfocused. Annabelle and I looked at each other. I ran my hand under my dripping nose.
‘Mum?’ Annabelle said. ‘Did you hear Jess?’
Our tiny mother sat still, her knees pressed neatly together, encased in brown wool slacks. She seemed to take up no space at all on Annabelle’s sofa.
‘They drugged her on that course! I knew it!’ I shuffled along the sofa and grabbed hold of Mum’s hands. ‘Did you leave your sherry unattended at any point?’
Annabelle shook her head. ‘They weren’t drinking.’
‘Oh,’ I said, nodding. I sniffed back my burgeoning tears and turned back to my spaced-out mother. ‘Did you leave your lentils unattended?’
‘What?’ Mum said, clicking back to attention. ‘Lentils? Yes, Plum, I think I could probably get you the recipe . . .’ Her eyes lost focus again and fell on a point somewhere between the floor and La La Land.
‘They’ve brainwashed her!’ I said. ‘I knew it was some kind of cult.’
‘She’s in shock.’ Annabelle said gently. ‘Mum?’
Mum looked up. ‘Yes?’
‘Did you understand what Jess just said?’
Mum’s eyes darted from me to Annabelle. ‘Yes.’
‘Then you ought to be reacting to this news a little differently than you currently are!’ I cried.
Mum blinked at me. Then turned and blinked at Annabelle. ‘I suppose I should ring your father,’ she said.
‘That’s a good idea.’ I shot into the kitchen, retrieved Mum’s phone from where Annabelle had it charging and raced back to the living room.
It took her a few moments to get her passcode right, during which time I’d bitten nearly all my fingernails off and had starting chewing the edge of my sleeve. Once the phone was unlocked, Mum hesitated a moment before dialling. The room was silent while we waited for the call to connect. This was it. There would be tears. There would be anger. There would be accusations and denials and our family might never be the same again.
‘Hello dear,’ Mum said into the phone. ‘We have a slight problem . . .’
I frowned. Understatement!
‘No, she’s fine, no need to panic.’
What?! Oh, I think there was a very real need to panic. In fact I’d been doing it for weeks, and was hoping the rest of the family would join me. I spun to see Annabelle’s expression. She had her eyes narrowed on Mum.
‘Yes . . . yes, I’m afraid so . . . I’m awfully sorry . . .’ Mum twirled a finger round her necklace, her brows in the shape of concern, not utter fury like they ought to have been.
What the fuck was happening? I looked to Annabelle, whose face had hardened.
‘OK, I will, love. I know . . . Yes we did, we did . . . Bye dear.’ Mum got off the phone, placed it purposefully on the coffee table in front of her and after what felt like an age, lifted her gaze.
‘What the fuck was that about?!’ I squawked.
‘Well, girls,’ Mum straightened her already straight slacks, played with her pendant, pinched at her turtleneck collar. ‘That was your father.’
I made a ‘duh’ face.
‘And he . . . well, I . . . you see, your father and I . . .’ Mum turned to me. ‘Plum, the people you saw with your father . . .’
‘Yes?’ I said.
‘Well . . . it’s not what you think.’ Mum shook her head, her neat grey hair bobbing back and forth. ‘Those children are . . .’
‘Are . . .?’ I pressed.
‘And that woman, Maryna is her name—’
‘You know her?!’
‘Not personally, but I . . . well, she’s—’
‘SPIT IT OUT, MUM!’
Mum jumped at the volume of my voice then blurted her explanation. ‘Dein vater ist verheiratet! Die frau die du gesehen hast, ist seine tochter und die kinder sind seine enkel! Die wahrheit ist, ich bin die geliebte und wir sind familie nummer zwei! So, das war’s!’
‘In English,’ I said through gritted teeth.
‘Of course.’ Mum looked from me to Annabelle again. ‘The thing is . . . The thing is . . .’
‘What’s the friggin’ thing?!’ I roared, making Mum jump again.
‘Plum, it’s very complicated but your father and I . . . well, more to the point you two girls and I, we’re . . .’
‘We’re the second family,’ Annabelle said, her voice quiet and loaded with realisation.
Mum’s eyes widened behind her glasses. With her turtleneck jumper it gave her the impression of a startled tortoise. Her stunned gaze flitted between Annabelle and me. Then her face dropped.
‘Yes,’ she said to her lap.
All the blood rushed from my head. I felt faint.
Mum’s hands worried her pendant again. She looked from Annabelle, still and expressionless, to me, fighting back a panic attack. ‘Schiessen,’ she muttered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The whole room was silent save for the chink-chink-chink of Mum fidgeting with a new and unsightly beaded bracelet.
‘That lady Jess saw with Dad is his daughter?’ Annabelle said, stony-faced, leading Mum through the confession while I sat reeling and mentally scanning myself for signs of a stroke.
‘. . . Yes,’ Mum said.
‘And those children . . .?’
Mum flicked her eyes around the room before settling them on her lap. ‘Are his grandchildren.’ Mum lowered her voice. ‘Scarlett and Renzo.’
The fact that they had names shocked me. Scarlett and Renzo. Who were they to me? My half-niece and nephew?
After a long stretch of quiet Mum turned in my direction. ‘It’s not a young wife and young children, you see. It’s not as bad as you thought, Plum.’
I glared back at her, feeling really quite unhinged. ‘It’s not great, Mum!’
‘No . . .’
I fell back against the sofa.
Annabelle sat opposite in her armchair, her inner thoughts indecipherable on her blank face.
Mum looked up from her lap, affecting a problem-solving kind of tone. ‘You know, I have a book at home I bought for such an occasion as this. Shall I pop back and get it?’
She tried to stand and Annabelle f
ixed her with a glare. Mum sat back down.
‘I think you need to go back to that “work through your guilt” retreat for the next forty years, Mum,’ I said. ‘How . . . how did this even happen?’
‘Well, that’s a rather complicated story.’
‘Then I’ll need food,’ I said, starting to feel a little peaky.
‘That’s a good idea. I’ve hardly eaten since the retreat. You know, I think they use starvation as some kind of mind control thing. I’m not sure I agree—’
‘Mum!’
She flinched. ‘Yes, sorry Plum. Not the right time. I’ll tell you about it later. And you must tell me about your trip.’
I glared at her.
‘At a more appropriate time,’ she conceded.
‘Yes.’
With a plate of lettuce for Mum and seeded loaf toast spread with almond butter for Annabelle and me, Mum began her confession.
‘I met your father when my parents and I came to England for my last year of school. I guess you could say Teddy and I were high school sweethearts.’ She turned to me, her eyes shining. ‘Like you and Pete.’
I swallowed down a tacky mouthful of toast. I’d tell Mum about that calamity after we got to the bottom of the current one.
‘I went back to Bavaria for university and your father stayed here. We spent all our money on train rides visiting each other,’ Mum said, her expression wistful. ‘Then, after university I moved back to London and we lived in a little studio flat in Angel. It was perfect. I had a research job at the local radio station and your father started with a small international real estate company that seemed to be going places. Then the company offered him a promotion but it came with a one-year placement in South Africa.’ Mum’s face dropped. She played with her pendant, seemingly lost in that particular moment of sorrow then continued her story, Annabelle and I listening attentively.
‘I’d just gone back to university to get my master’s so couldn’t go with him. We planned to keep in touch as much as possible, but communications from South Africa were difficult back then. We didn’t have all this chat on the facebooktime or the internets that your lot have, we had to rely on letters or costly phone calls.’ She shook her head at us like our generation were somehow to blame for not coming up with Facebook Messenger earlier. Her jaw tightened and she continued. ‘Teddy’s one-year placement became two, and then three and before we knew it he was based in South Africa permanently and his once-a-year trips home were not enough.’ Mum sniffed and dragged a sad-looking hanky out from her sleeve. ‘I didn’t hear from Teddy for over a year. I finished my master’s, I got a job on the radio, I dated Patrick for a while—’
‘Patrick?! Patrick from your radio show?’ I spluttered. I looked over to Annabelle, checking she was as shocked by this additional bit of information as I was, but she remained, as she had been throughout this entire process, guarded and pensive. ‘Patrick, your producer Patrick?’
Mum looked at me like I ought to have known that information. ‘Yes, Plum.’ She frowned. ‘Oh, but Patrick was a nice enough man and very ethical and, of course, very dear to me, but it wasn’t fair. I’d given my heart to one man and it wasn’t ever coming back.’
My eyes flicked to Annabelle again. She sat very still, waiting for the rest of Mum’s explanation.
‘Then one year, I was at an old school friend’s birthday party and Teddy walked in. I hadn’t seen him for four years.’ Mum blew her nose into her hanky. ‘It was then I learnt that Teddy had married and was expecting his first child.’ Her eyes watered and her face crumpled like she was experiencing the hurt all over again. ‘I was brokenhearted,’ she wept. ‘I left the party immediately.’ She paused to blow her nose again, then composed herself and continued.
‘Your father phoned the next day but I hung up on him. Then he turned up at my flat, calling to me from the street below. It was very romantic. He wanted to remain friends but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t!’ She sniffed copiously. ‘He told me he’d never stopped loving me. But I told him to go and leave me alone and never speak to me again! It was horrible! Horrible. I was a mess. I baked and ate two chocolate fudge cakes and then fell asleep for a day and half.’ Mum sniffed and caught her breath. ‘I didn’t see him for perhaps another couple of years but then his father died and I went to the funeral.’ She rested her gaze somewhere in the past. ‘His wife and his two-year-old daughter stayed in Cape Town because they didn’t have the money to all come out. It was very expensive in those days, you see.’
A lump formed in my throat. How awful it must have been for Mum.
She took in a shaky breath and continued. ‘At the wake I went over to offer my condolences. He looked so sad and yet so happy to see me and we realised none of the feelings had gone. If anything . . .’ Mum’s eyes began watering again. ‘If anything the time and the distance had made our halted love more intoxicating.’
‘Your father stayed in London for two weeks while he moved his mother into a home,’ Mum said, casting her eyes downwards. ‘He spent every night with me.’ She twisted the ratty hanky in her wrinkled fingers. ‘I am ashamed.’ She looked up and wiped away a tear. ‘But I have loved your father from the moment I saw him in his school uniform with his incompetently knotted tie and his text books falling out of his satchel.’ She blew her nose. ‘He was my first and only love.’
‘But . . . but what about us?’ I said, feeling both terrible pity for my mother and also a growing sense of injustice. Annabelle and I were unknowingly made a part of an appalling, hurtful lie.
‘Well, by that stage your father had been made a partner in the company and was spending many weeks travelling with clients. He’d move between the London and Cape Town offices so we saw each other regularly. When he was here he was with me. And we lived life like a normal couple. When he was there he was with . . . with her.’ She had the decency to look embarrassed. ‘Then we had you, Annabelle.’ Mum smiled mistily in Annabelle’s direction. ‘And you, Jess,’ she said, turning to me with wet, adoring eyes. ‘And it’s been going on so long there never seemed the right time to . . . to stop, I guess.’ Mum sniffed, sat back on the sofa and gave a tiny shrug of her tiny shoulders. ‘There, you have it,’ she said, weeping openly. ‘My most wonderful love affair is also a most terrible act of deception.’ She dissolved into tiny hiccuping sobs.
I looked over at Annabelle in the armchair. She was pale and appeared to have gone inside herself, processing everything we’d just heard.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Mum squeaked from behind her hanky. ‘I’m so very, very sorry.’
I edged along the sofa, sat next to my mother and put my arm around her shoulders. I had so many questions: did the other family know about us? Did Dad ever think about leaving us? Did he love both Mum and his wife equally? And if he did, how was that possible? But my main question was, WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?!
CHAPTER THIRTY
We paused the most shocking, life-flipping conversation I’d ever been involved in while we went through the process of getting Hunter and Katie fed, bathed and into bed. Annabelle seemed to have perfected the routine in the two weeks we’d been gone, and the kids had helped to set the dinner table and then eaten their meal agreeably. Hunter had organised himself in and out of the shower and even remembered to hang up the bath mat. Something my flatmate Dave didn’t even bother to put down in the first place, and he was twenty-eight. Once the kids were in bed we got stuck into the wine (and by ‘we’, I mean I drank enough for the three of us) and I asked Mum question after question with her getting more and more defensive while Annabelle listened quietly. Mum attempted to raise various diverting topics, asking about the South African weather, if I was going to cure my own biltong, if I’d seen a shark, the South African’s stance on plastic bag usage, if I’d ever consider mono-mealing, seeing as I couldn’t cook to save myself; but I disregarded her off-theme enquiries and continued to demand more information. Mum, it turned out, had gone back to Patrick at some point during her fo
rty-year ‘affair’ with Dad.
‘So you had an affair on your affair?’ I said, stunned. ‘Who are you?’
‘Mum, you’re worse than me,’ Annabelle said, and we all fell apart with inappropriate giggles. I blamed the bottle and a half of wine I’d mainlined, the ‘tea’ with a cannabis tinge to it that Annabelle had had in place of dinner and the fact that Mum was delirious from her mono-mealing.
‘Well, I guess technically that is what it was,’ Mum said. ‘But again, my heart wasn’t in it and again I had to push Patrick away.’ She shook her head. ‘I was not fair to him. I did help him companion-sow his allotment, though.’
I sat at the dining table picking the label off the second wine bottle. As the facts became solid truths in my head, my feelings, which before had been stunned into immobility, started to mould around them. I felt shame, fear, anger, loss, sadness, grief and betrayal. But also in there was a tiny, teeny, almost undetectable sense of relief. I’d always wondered why I was such an anxious child, and now adult. We’d all put it down to Annabelle being so unruly but perhaps my subconscious knew something was up. It made me feel like there was a reason for my anxiety and I wasn’t just ‘a bit mental’ as Pete had called me a handful of times. Usually with fondness.
‘Didn’t you feel hurt that Dad kept going back to his wife?’ I said, as Mum sat at the other end of the table polishing glasses that didn’t need polishing because they were from Asda. ‘Weren’t you mad he never properly broke up with you in the first place?’
Mum frowned but kept her eyes on the stubby tumbler.
‘I can’t believe he married someone else . . .’ I said, picking at the wine label with intensity. ‘Dad’s been so . . . so . . .’ I searched for the right word. ‘So unfair!’
‘Plum, calm down,’ Mum said, still polishing. ‘I knew what I was getting into. This is no more your father’s fault than mine.’
I looked over to Annabelle. She gave a small yet sad smile that said ‘I know, this sucks’ while she prepared carrot sticks and other kid-healthy snack stuff at the kitchen bench. I turned back to my wine bottle.
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