There was something about her expression, a look in her eyes that said she wanted me to succeed; that she really cared whether or not I would finally be able to swim. I took a breath, raised my arm and launched forward, lifting my body to the surface of the water. Sweeping down with one arm, I kicked my feet and heard the splashing as I moved forward. Up with the other arm, face towards the shore, breathe, turn, face towards the horizon, breathe, kick, keep going, left, right, breathe, kick. I felt my own strength and actions pulling me forward. And I wasn’t even looking at Eve, though I could hear her clapping and shouting, ‘That’s it, Jo, you’ve got it! You’re doing it!’ And as I looked through the bubbles and saw the sun glinting off the blue-green ocean, I felt as though I could plough through the vast expanse of water with ease, that if I kept chopping through it with my arms and kicking with my legs that I would move forward, on and on until I reached the other shore. I was swimming! Wait till I told my mum! It was a millisecond before I felt the familiar surge of grief flooding through me, but then I fought it down, because I could see Eve, smiling and clapping as I swam towards her.
‘That was marvellous,’ she said, and she beamed at me as she put the towel around my shoulders. ‘I’m so, so proud of you.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
It’s very late when I get back from Hastings, but I stay up later still so that I can write my weekly letter to Hannah.
My dearest Hannah
I was at the grave today, and I saw the sunflowers. I’m so glad you’ve been down there, and I hope you like the stone and the inscription. I know you didn’t feel able to decide what should be on it, but if there’s anything you’d like to change, it can still be done so just let me know.
While I was in Hastings, I thought of something that might interest you. You may remember me telling you that I didn’t learn to swim until I was sixteen. Well, it was your mother who taught me. She was very patient, and she understood how nervous I was. One of the ways she helped me to relax was by making me laugh. Do you remember that holiday we had in Robin
Hood’s Bay when I gave you swimming lessons? You were seven or eight, I think. I taught you in the same way that Eve taught me, and I worked hard at trying to make you forget how nervous you were. I even said the same things to make you laugh. I remember telling you to pretend you’re trying to get a bottom-tan – your mother had said something like that to me. You thought that was hilarious; you went running up the beach to Duncan, shrieking ‘Bottom-tan, bottom-tan, bottom-tan.’
I’m telling you this because, in a way, it was almost as though it was your mother teaching you to swim through me. And you did it; you learned in two days – much faster than me. You were just like Eve after that – a real little mermaid.
With love always,
Mum
When I wake the next morning, the first thing I think about is the grave, and I think about it with relief, relief that it finally has a headstone, and that I’ve seen it properly in place and with her name engraved on its surface. It’s odd how readily I relinquished the name. I’ve been ‘Eve’ for thirty-four years, and I never felt uncomfortable with it until I knew where she was. Now, I’m happy it’s hers again.
I switch on my laptop and check the letter again before printing it out, ready to post. I still hope Hannah will read my letters at some point, so I type them so they’re as easy to read as possible – my handwriting is appalling these days, and I know she can become impatient with illegible handwriting. It takes up too much time, she argues, which is fair enough.
I’ve been up for a while before I remember that it’s Wednesday and my heart gives a little lift, because Wednesday is the day that Hannah usually takes Toby to the swings after his playgroup, and if I stand way back among the trees, I can watch them, unobserved. Sometimes they only stay for twenty minutes or so, but it’s all I have, and it’s better than nothing. Hannah hasn’t spoken to me since the day I told them back in March – almost seven months ago now.
*
After I’d finished speaking, Hannah stared at me for a full minute, and then she got up and walked slowly out of the house, closing the front door behind her so quietly that I didn’t even hear it click. Duncan was still looking at me incredulously. We sat in silence, I’m not sure for how long, and then he started to speak. ‘Eve, what . . .’ Then he shook his head. ‘Jesus Christ, that’s not even your fucking name, is it?’ Then he mumbled something, stood up and went out of the room. I stayed sitting there as though in a trance. I couldn’t feel my body. I’d done it; I’d told them.
I sat there, not moving, listening to Duncan walking around upstairs. I heard him speaking on the phone at one point and, when he came back in, he had his car keys in his hand. Monty climbed out of his basket and stretched, wagging his tail and looking expectantly at Duncan. ‘Come on, then, boy,’ he muttered, then he turned towards the door and said over his shoulder, ‘I’m going to stay at my brother’s for a bit. I need to think. I can’t do it here.’
I nodded. ‘When will you bring Monty back?’
He looked at me as though he didn’t know me, and I had to look away because instead of the calm, easy love and friendship I was used to seeing in his eyes, what I recognised there now was mistrust and a flicker of dislike. ‘He’s my dog, Eve.’
I opened my mouth to argue, but there was no point; he was more Duncan’s dog than mine. When Duncan first brought him home, I had very little to do with him. Hannah had just gone off to university at that point and I was missing her terribly. I was annoyed with Duncan because I thought he’d bought a puppy as some sort of substitute. It wasn’t that at all, of course. He just wanted to save the poor little creature after a policeman had found him tied up and dumped in a skip, half-starved, covered in sores and frightened of his own shadow. It was Duncan who nursed him back to health; Duncan who patiently coaxed him into the room with us and talked to him in a soothing voice while the poor thing cowered under the table. It was even Duncan who took him for walks at first, while I stayed at home, moping around because I missed Hannah. That changed, of course. I soon took over the walking and, as Monty learned to trust me, I grew to love him. And now it looked like I was losing him, too. But I didn’t have the strength, or the right, I suppose, to argue. So I watched Duncan go, Monty trotting happily behind him.
After a while, a few minutes, possibly, or a few hours – I had no concept of time whatsoever – I made my way upstairs, took off the clothes I’d been wearing all night and had a shower. Yesterday, the weather had been wet and blustery, but this morning there was sunshine streaming in through the windows, and outside, the pink cherry blossom lay like confetti on the pavements. Spring was in the air; it was supposed to be a time of new life, new beginnings, but for me, it was all about endings. I put on a thin black jumper and black trousers that were now loose around the waist and I looked at my reflection in the hall mirror: ‘Jo,’ I said aloud as I looked at myself. ‘Joanna.’ I sighed and shook my head. Would I ever really be Jo again? I put my coat on and picked up my keys. The jangling sound usually brought Monty padding into the hall, tail wagging, to look hopefully at his lead, and I felt a fresh stab of loss as I registered his absence. I locked the door behind me and set off to walk to the police station
At that point, I had absolutely no idea what would happen to me; I didn’t even know if they’d believe me – it sounded such a crazy story. But they did, eventually, and of course they had to carry out a full investigation, which took months. It was a long, tense summer as I waited to find out whether there would be a trial. The most likely charge was failure to report a death; they also talked about manslaughter by omission, but that raised the question as to whether I could have been said to have ‘a duty of care’ towards Eve. Jen, my solicitor, thought not, especially given my age at the time. What I was most afraid of was being charged with kidnapping Hannah, but as my solicitor pointed out, I didn’t kidnap her – Scott was her father and he had every right to take her.
Finally, ha
lfway through September, the case was dropped. Jen said they’d decided it ‘wasn’t in the public interest’ to prosecute, given that the circumstances were exceptional, and that so many years had passed during which I’d been ‘a good citizen and to all intents and purposes, an exemplary mother’. Jen has been great. Right from the start she was cautiously optimistic, partly because I’d been so young when it all happened, but also because she felt that I may well have saved Hannah from a failing care system. I wish that was more how Hannah saw it.
When Jen told me the charges had been dropped, it barely registered. I felt so tired that I hardly had the energy to thank her. Odd, isn’t it? Before all this came to light, I didn’t seem to have a minute to myself, what with work, shopping and cooking for Duncan and myself, walking Monty twice a day, helping Hannah with Toby; now I have so little to do and yet I’m shattered most of the time.
I hated Scott when he showed up last Christmas. Over these last few months, I’ve often wondered what my life would be like now if he’d stayed in New Zealand and never made contact. Would I have told the truth at some point anyway? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe Hannah would have shamed me into it; I’ve thought a lot about how forcefully she believes in Toby’s right to know the truth about how he came to be born. Or maybe I wouldn’t ever have owned up; maybe I’d have remained a selfish coward for the rest of my life. At least I’d still have my daughter. I don’t hate Scott any more, and it’s a shame he was never able to visit Eve’s grave because he’d have found some peace in knowing where she was, I think.
*
We tried to make a go of it after we left Hastings, Scott and I. We ended up in south-east London, living above Freeman, Hardy and Willis in Catford. Scott managed to get some evening shifts at the pub round the corner and I worked days in the shop downstairs, trudging back up three flights at the end of the day, exhausted and smelling of shoes. I think I always knew it was never going to work long-term. I could never take Eve’s place in his eyes; we were a false family. But we struggled on for eight months, until the day of the newspaper report. Body Found in Seaside House.
I was in the launderette at the time, waiting for the dryer cycle to finish and thinking about how that clean, soapy smell reminded me of wash days when I was little and my mum would have the old twin-tub bubbling away in the corner. Then I flicked through the paper and I saw the headline at the bottom of page 5. My insides contracted and I went hot and cold at the same time, as though I was going to faint. Sometimes, even now, I still get that feeling when I smell that soapy, laundry smell. I remember clearly the rising sense of anger I felt when I read the report. I was angry that it was on page 5 – this was Eve they were talking about, not some lonely old tramp who nobody cared about; it should have been on the front page. There weren’t many details, just that the body was female, five foot four, and aged between twenty and thirty years. That was it. There would be a postmortem the following week and anyone with any information should get in touch.
I hated that they’d said the house was derelict; it wasn’t derelict, just a bit run-down. It had been our home, a proper, comfortable, loving home. It turned out that the landlord, who’d lived in Sweden, had died and left the house to his nephew. The nephew had come to England to have a look at what he’d inherited and had found Eve where we’d left her eight months earlier. There was nothing in the paper about Hannah at that point.
Scott walked out that same night. He couldn’t handle it any more, he told me, partly because he feared the knock on the door at any moment, and partly because he couldn’t bear the fact that I’d taken her name. At the time, I thought it was the obvious, most sensible thing to do, but he said he would never, ever be able to call me Eve, and it would be best if we never made contact again. I reluctantly agreed. The funny thing was, although I thought I’d miss him, once he’d actually left I didn’t miss him at all. I had Hannah, and I realised that, now Eve was gone, she was all I wanted.
The missing-baby stories hit the papers a week or so later. There were a few more details about Eve, but not many. Dental records hadn’t been any use – I remember her telling me she hadn’t been to a dentist since she was about six. She had lovely teeth, incredibly healthy, and Hannah has inherited that from her, I’m happy to say. Hannah still only has one filling, whereas I had a mouthful of mercury by the age of twelve.
There were repeated appeals for information, but after a terrifying month or so, other events dominated the news; the story gradually faded into the background and I was able to get on with life without constantly looking over my shoulder.
Over the years since then, I have thought of myself so surely and completely as Hannah’s mother that in moments of half-consciousness, moments between dreams and waking, I almost fancy I could describe the sensation of giving birth to her. I heard her heartbeat and felt her movements while she was still inside Eve; I watched her enter this world and I touched her, talked to her before she even took a breath; I helped her to breathe. I even, God forgive me, put her to my empty breast that first day of her life.
I love her as Eve loved her, and she could not be more fully mine.
CHAPTER FORTY
I go out to post the letter as soon as I’ve showered and dressed, but before I have breakfast. I prefer to make a special trip. After my fingers release their grip on the envelope and I hear the satisfying ‘thwack’ as it lands on top of the other letters in the post box, I wonder, as I do every time, if she’ll read this one. At least they haven’t come back with ‘Return to sender’ scrawled over the envelope. Maybe she puts them straight in the bin, but I hold on to the fact that she hasn’t asked me to stop writing. The letters were Estelle’s idea. She’s been wonderful, Estelle has. She’s constantly reassuring me, telling me not to give up hope. Hannah will come round eventually, she says, and so will Duncan. ‘Because, deep down, they love you very much, you see. You must just allow them a little time to adjust.’
We’ve met for coffee a few times now, Duncan and I, although he’s still living at his brother’s. We’ve talked a little more in the last couple of months and we’ve a long way to go yet, but our meetings last a bit longer each time. Last Sunday, we spent the whole morning in the coffee shop like we used to. The only difference is that we used to sit in companionable silence, occasionally reading bits out of the paper to each other; but this time we spent the morning engaged in awkward, slightly anxious conversation. Hannah is much better now, he assured me, and she’s coping really well with Toby. But she’s not ready to see me yet. He looked at me. ‘The thing is— ’ I saw the slight verbal stumble as he stopped himself from calling me Eve. ‘The thing is, she understands why you did what you did – everyone does; Christ, you weren’t even seventeen years old. But what she can’t get over is the fact that you lied about it for so long, and especially that you lied to us.’ He looked down at the untouched Danish pastry on his plate. ‘And I don’t know what I can say to her to change her mind, because to be honest, that’s what I’ve struggled with most myself.’ He sighed deeply and rested his chin in his hand, his eyes still cast down.
‘Does she read my letters, do you think?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. I’d like to be able to tell you that she does, but it’s something I can’t ask her.’ He looked at me. ‘You understand, don’t you?’
I nodded. Duncan and Hannah have become even closer as a result of all this, which makes me as near to happy as I can possibly be.
Estelle says she thinks Hannah is softening; apparently she listens now when Estelle talks about me, and they even had a conversation about my plan to take an Open University course. I’m not sure what in yet, but I have become aware quite suddenly of how huge the past is, and how tiny the future. Estelle laughs at me, but not unkindly. She says I’m far too young to be thinking that way.
I don’t know what I’d have done without Estelle these past six months. Obviously Duncan had to explain why he’d moved in with John, and at first, he just told her that we’d split up and
he couldn’t say why. She was devastated, apparently, but she kept on at Duncan to tell her what had happened. He was worried about what the shock of it all might do to her, but she convinced him that not knowing was worse and that it was making her ill, so in the end, he told her. She was shocked, she told me afterwards, but, as she’d made clear to Duncan, you got rather used to shocks by the time you reached her age, and as far as she was concerned, there was no point in making more of a drama out of it than it already was.
Once I knew he’d told her, I wrote her a letter, quite a long one, as it turned out, because as I started to write, I realised I’d been longing to talk about Eve for years. I told Estelle about how kind Eve had been to me and about how much I’d loved her. I found myself explaining what had happened to her family, and then I wrote about the lovely things she used to make, what she looked like, the unusual colour of her eyes and the gypsy-style clothes she used to wear. I found myself spilling out everything I remembered about Eve, as if by conjuring up all these details I was trying to bring her back; to make her live again.
I finished by trying to explain why I persuaded Scott that we should take Hannah and flee, how I was terrified I’d never see her again, and that although I knew now that things probably wouldn’t have been as bad for us as I thought they’d be, there was no way of knowing that at the time. I added a PS asking Estelle to forgive my outpouring and saying that I hoped I could still visit her, no matter what happened between Duncan and me.
The Secrets We Left Behind Page 27