A Mother Like You

by Ruby Speechley

  Kate put the disc back in the purse then peeped inside the unsealed brown envelope. She was surprised to see a birth certificate: Molly Liddle; born 24th March 1939. She frowned. That was her mother’s birthday. She picked up the purse again – the initials fitted. Did her mother want to tell her that she’d had a twin sister?

  Kate picked up the papers from the carpet, shuffling them together into the box. There were several black and white photos of Elizabeth as a young woman in the late 1950s, including two of her with Ray on their wedding day in 1973, both cutting a modest-sized cake. Elizabeth’s hair, fashionably short and curled under, revealed pearl drop earrings and matching necklace. Apparently only a matter of weeks after Kate’s real dad had died. Yet not a hint of the pregnancy and no sign of grief in her mother’s eyes.

  She wondered what her real dad had looked like if part of the reason her mother was always angry with her was because she reminded her of him. She pictured Elizabeth as she was now, in the hospital bed, her body withered beneath the flimsy white gown. It was time to ask her again.

  * * *

  There were no nurses at the desk when Kate arrived on the ward, so she carried on along the corridor until she came to ‘G’ bay. It wasn’t until she’d reached halfway into the room that Kate realised her mother’s bed was empty. It had been stripped back to the plastic covering the mattress. Her ‘get well’ cards had been collected and left in a pile on the bedside cupboard. Kate clutched the brown envelope a little tighter to her body. Could they be letting her come home already? That would explain it. She gave an uneasy smile at the woman sitting in the bed opposite, but she frowned back.

  ‘Waiting for my mum,’ Kate said to her.

  The woman continued to concentrate on her elaborate set of knitting needles with three shades of blue wool.

  ‘Did they say if she’d be long?’

  But the woman didn’t look up again from the rhythm of her tapping needles.

  Kate sat in the chair next to the empty bed and gazed out of the window at the miniature rooftops below. Soon she’d be having her twelve-week scan. At last she’d be able to share the special moment of seeing the baby with James.

  A pigeon flew straight at the glass with an almighty thud, making her jump up. The bird fell away, and she pressed her face to the window, imagining it hurtling to the ground. Shaken, she hugged the envelope to her body.

  ‘Do you know if they are letting her come home today?’ Kate’s shadow fell across the woman knitting. She glanced up, but Kate couldn’t be sure if there was a slight nod or if she imagined it. The clicking needles seemed to speed up.

  ‘Mrs Marshall…’ A nurse in full stride was heading towards her, hand in the air as if hailing a cab. ‘Mrs Marshall…’ came the nurse’s insistent tone as she stopped in front of Kate, ‘could you come this way, please?’

  She followed the nurse along the corridor into a room the size of a cupboard. The nurse bowed her head and arranged her fingers so they linked in front of her.

  ‘We tried to call you this morning, but there was no answer.’ Her delivery was chillingly formal. A hundred needles pressed into Kate’s chest.

  ‘It was very sudden and unexpected.’ The downy hair on the nurse’s top lip moved in slow motion as she spoke.

  Kate blinked. She wanted the nurse to repeat herself. Sudden? Unexpected? She clutched the envelope tighter but her hot fingers were melting into the paper.

  ‘Your mother had another heart attack early this morning.’ The nurse closed her eyes for longer than a blink. ‘Like I said, we tried to call you, several times.’

  Kate dropped into a chair, hand to her forehead, black dots blotting her vision. This couldn’t happen. Not now. When they were finally starting to understand each other. Her mother still had so many things to tell her about her family and her real dad. How would she find out about any of it now? She didn’t want her mother to die.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Kate gripped the arm of the chair.

  ‘She’s stable,’ the nurse said, ‘but it was touch and go.’

  Kate tipped her head back and let out a stream of air. ‘Can I see her?’

  ‘For a moment or two, she’s sleeping.’

  Kate followed the nurse into intensive care. The sounds of the machines the patients were wired up to whirred and clicked to their own rhythms. Like all the beds, Elizabeth’s faced the wall. The nurse went off to deal with a woman crying out in the bed opposite, leaving Kate standing by her mother’s bedside.

  Elizabeth’s eyes were shut. Her face had a waxen sheen and her body a childlike form under the thin sheet. Kate moved closer. Would she even be aware of her? The skin on her mother’s arm barely covered the bones and gave a little too much under her light pressure. She crouched down so she was level with Elizabeth’s face.

  ‘Please don’t leave me,’ Kate whispered, ‘I need you, Mum.’

  Elizabeth gave no response, but Kate hoped she had heard. A few minutes later, the nurse came over and ushered her out.

  Back in the car, Kate telephoned James.

  ‘I just can’t believe this has happened. We were here only yesterday, talking to her. I thought she was getting better,’ she said.

  ‘I know, so did I. It’s such a shock,’ James said. ‘Maybe she knew more about her health than she was letting on.’

  ‘I was convinced she’d be coming home soon. You should have seen her, James, all wired up to machines.’

  ‘Shall I come and pick you up? I’m not sure you should drive in that state.’

  ‘I’ve got a coffee. I’ll sit here for a few minutes.’

  ‘Okay, but if you don’t feel up to it, call me back. Either way, I’ll wrap up here and come home.’

  Kate sipped her coffee. Her phone buzzed. A message popped up on her screen.

  You’ve got four days left to give me the rest of the money.

  She stared at the words. What did he mean? She’d given him ten thousand pounds, fifteen in total. This was the end of it as far as she was concerned. She pushed her phone into her bag and drove home.

  * * *

  Kate opened the fridge. Under a heart-shaped Post-it note James had left her a piece of baked cheesecake. She slid it onto a plate and took a dessert fork from the draining board. If she could only talk to Susie about Paul, but a pinprick of doubt penetrated Kate’s mind; this would be too big a secret for Susie to keep to herself. She wasn’t certain she could trust her. Her loyalty would be with James over her. She wished she had other close friends she could confide in, but she wasn’t very good at opening up to people. It was so hard to trust anyone completely, especially with something as big as this. Her life with James and the business took up all her time and that suited her; she felt comfortable keeping people outside of that.

  Still, she should invite Susie and Harry over, clear the air and show them that she and James were very much together, working things out.

  She put the plate down and stood with her palms flat on the table, her head stooped as a wave of nausea hit her. The cheesecake didn’t taste the same today. She scraped the remains into the pedal bin. It fell with a thud to the bottom, taking the empty liner with it. She stood there looking in, having second thoughts.

  Her phone buzzed. She dug it out of her handbag. A message was emblazoned across the screen.

  YOU’VE FUCKED UP MY LIFE, BITCH, SO I’M COMING TO GATECRASH YOURS!

  What the hell? It was from the other number again. Who was this? Paul must have told someone. Had he given them her mobile number and home address? She switched her phone to silent and turned it face down on the counter.

  She took out the newspaper they’d brought back from her mother’s house and opened it out at the article her mother had been reading.

  Ashlyns School’s history dates back to 1740 when the first children were received into the London Foundling Hospital. A retired sea captain, Thomas Coram, was concerned at how many infant bodies were being abandoned on rubbish tips. His campaign for
a hospital to accommodate the so-called foundlings was successfully granted a Royal Charter in 1739. Three years later, work started on the first permanent building at Lamb’s Conduit Fields in Bloomsbury, 1742.

  The sound of James’s car as it pulled onto the drive broke into her thoughts. When he walked in, he tossed his keys onto the table and put his arms round her.

  ‘I’m so sorry about your mum,’ he whispered into her hair.

  Kate couldn’t speak.

  ‘Hey, are you okay?’ He drew back and kissed her forehead. ‘We’ll get through this, I promise you.’

  Kate nodded, her eyes brimming with tears.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘One of the newspaper we found at Mum’s.’

  ‘What’s a foundling hospital?’ He pointed to the words in print. ‘Sounds more like a school than a hospital. Hang on, here we are,’ he read aloud: ‘“For the maintenance and education of exposed and deserted young children. In 1926 Governors of the hospital decided to realise the value of the London site (which was sold for £2 million) and to build a new hospital on the Ashlyns’ site at Berkhamsted.” It’s not far from here. Maybe your mum’s interested in the local history. “The children were sent to temporary premises in Redhill until 1935 when the Georgian-style buildings in Berkhamsted were ready for occupation.”’

  ‘I came across a birth certificate with Mum’s birthday, but for someone called Molly Liddle. I wonder if she had a twin who died when they were children or was sent to this… foundling place.’

  ‘Quite the detective, aren’t we?’ James patted her hand.

  ‘Not a very good one. I googled the name but nothing much came up except for the Twitter account of someone who’s never tweeted and a tattoo artist on Pinterest. I think it could be what Mum wanted to talk to me about. But we might not get the chance now.’

  ‘I’m sure you will.’ James picked up the newspaper and folded it. Kate’s mobile was underneath. ‘Who’s this?’ he asked, looking at the screen as another text popped up of a waving hand emoji and the words:

  Call me!

  Kate’s heart thudded. ‘Just someone I went to school with,’ she said, snatching it up.

  ‘An old boyfriend?’ He smirked.

  ‘An old friend.’ She willed her skin not to blush. ‘Actually, he wants me to go and visit him on the Isle of Wight, meet up with our old gang of friends.’ She wasn’t sure where that came from, but it wasn’t a bad idea. Confront Paul and put a stop to this.

  ‘Oh, nice.’

  ‘Do you have a problem with that?’

  ‘Not at all. Why don’t I come with you?’

  Kate clung to the door handle. ‘It would be boring for you, all our school chat.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, it would be fun talking to someone who knew you back then.’

  Kate flashed her eyes at him.

  He laughed. ‘It’s all right, I’m joking. Why don’t you try and coordinate it for when we’re in Southampton for the boat party?’

  ‘Good idea.’ Kate pretended to smile as she tried to compose herself and change the subject. ‘I was thinking of asking Susie and Harry over for lunch on Sunday. We can go and see Mum in the evening.’

  ‘OK, if you want to.’

  ‘I need to clear the air with Susie. It will be easier if you and Harry are here.’

  ‘As long as it’s not all baby talk.’

  ‘It won’t be, I promise.’ Then after a pause, ‘Do you think Harry knows about you and Susie?’

  ‘I don’t know, why?’

  ‘You’ve not mentioned it then?’ Kate took a packet of risotto rice from the cupboard.

  ‘No, why would I? It’s up to Susie.’

  ‘She says she doesn’t want him to know. He’d be shocked, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘But relieved that Susie did the sensible thing.’

  ‘Sensible?’

  ‘At the time it was – for both of us.’

  Kate took out a saucepan. James started chopping an onion.

  ‘Just as well anyway. I couldn’t see Harry playing stepdad to a twentysomething,’ he laughed.

  ‘I think he’d be very accepting.’

  ‘Not a chance. He told me he was with a woman years ago who had a couple of kids, now what was her name?’ He squeezed his forehead with his finger and thumb. ‘Janet, that’s it. She had two teenage daughters, and, in the end, he couldn’t deal with all the problems of their dad turning up then not turning up, as well as the usual roller coaster of emotions you girls…’ He grinned, teasing her.

  ‘Maybe Janet wasn’t the right woman for him. I’m sure he would do anything for Susie.’

  * * *

  It was dark when they arrived home from visiting Elizabeth again later that day. James switched off the engine, but they remained in the car. The security light in the porch drew her eye to next door’s Persian Blue slinking across the doorstep. She touched her tiny bump. It still felt strange to think of herself as pregnant and happy about it. Didn’t that prove it was possible to change?

  ‘I wish I could talk to Mum. Do you think she’ll be in intensive care for long?’

  ‘I don’t know. They said she’s making slow progress.’

  ‘I wonder if she’ll be well enough to come home for Christmas.’

  ‘Let’s wait and see.’ James kissed her cheek.

  She became aware of the confined space they were in and the heat disappearing as the car cooled down. The stubble on James’s face made him look older but more laid back than the usual clean-cut face he presented at work every day. This was her James. The James who always put her first, believed in her unconditionally. When she’d been unsure of herself, he’d helped her to knock down obstacles and not be afraid of success. She’d almost become a different person. But what kind of wife keeps secrets from her husband? Her mother did and look at the devastation that caused. What other secrets was she keeping? Who was Molly Liddle? If Elizabeth could lie about Kate’s paternity, she could lie about anything.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The rain on Sunday morning started slowly at first, undetectable, like the hushed rustle of leaves, until it grew steadily to the white noise of a downpour. Kate stood in the kitchen eating porridge, her dressing gown wrapped over her satin pyjamas. These dark mornings made it impossible to imagine how they might resurface into spring. She’d called the hospital as soon as she’d woken up. Elizabeth was still in intensive care, awake at last, her condition stable.

  The front door clicked open and shut. She knew it was James, but the sound still made her jump. She needed to pick the right time to call Paul. It was proving harder than she’d imagined. She only had three days left. The day before, she’d got as far as dialling two numbers when the postman knocked, scaring her rigid. Today, they were going to Susie and Harry’s. Susie had suggested they go there this time and Kate promised to take a homemade chocolate mousse. Somehow, before that, she had to speak to Paul, find out who else knew and put an end to these threats.

  James peeled the cycle helmet from his sweaty head. She thought he always looked ridiculous in Lycra shorts, but she wasn’t about to tell him.

  ‘I’ll grab a shower,’ he said, pecking her on the cheek before going off to the wet room.

  The radio beeped nine o’clock. The news headlines were announced as she crept into the living room. She picked up her mobile and stared at it, but she couldn’t bring herself to call him. Shit. Still a coward.

  Back in the kitchen, she opened her recipe book to a page splattered with the browny-yellow of an indistinct sauce. She always checked the recipe first, in case she missed one of the vital ingredients. Reaching up to take out a bag of sugar from the cupboard, she felt the tiniest flutter of movement. But wasn’t it too early? Her hand smoothed across her small bump. She must be imagining it. ‘There, there, little one.’ She smiled, surprised at her own soothing tone.

  James came in, rubbing his hair with a hand towel, leaving it spiky. A larger towel was wrapped round his wa
ist.

  ‘I’ve run out of eggs,’ Kate said without thinking. If she didn’t call Paul soon, he’d ring her and then James would start asking more questions. ‘We need them for the mousse,’ she lied, picturing the box of six in the cupboard as she said it. ‘You couldn’t pop out to the shops, could you?’

  James drank a glass of water in one long mouthful. He nodded, wiping his lips on the back of his hand. ‘How many do we need?’

  ‘Half a dozen.’

  Kate broke a slab of dark chocolate into pieces and dropped them in a glass bowl over a bain-marie.

  ‘Anything else while I’m there?’ James came back dressed. He picked up his wallet and keys from the table.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  When he’d gone, Kate waited a couple of minutes in case he returned then took her phone into the living room. She wanted to be able to move on without any reminders of her old life, her mistakes. Look forward to a fresh start with James and their baby. To being a mum. Her new little family. She sat on the arm of the sofa staring at the phone before pressing in Paul’s number. As soon as the dialling tone kicked in, her head began to thud from a sudden rush of blood. She’d come this far, rehearsed what she would say, but now her mind went blank. The answerphone clicked in.

  ‘Leave me a short message and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.’ Paul’s voice was softer, casual, more as she remembered him in their early days. When the silence came for Kate to speak, she was at a loss.

  ‘Paul, it’s me…’ She stopped. ‘Kate, that is.’ She wished she could start again but the silence began to swell, so she continued, ‘I’m calling like you suggested… Why don’t I come and meet you, so we can sort this out properly? Please don’t call me back, I’ll call you.’ She put the receiver down then covered her mouth. Damn, she’d put too much emphasis on the word ‘please’, making her sound needy. In her head she could hear Paul’s voice, the confident yet casual tone. It had thrown her completely. She pictured them together, curled up on a mattress on the floor of his old bedsit. She shook the image from her mind.