The Stranger In My Home: I thought she was my daughter. I was wrong.

by Parks, Adele

  We could have hosted the birthday celebration at our house, we have room, but I thought it was a better idea that we found somewhere that belonged equally to both the girls. I didn’t want it to be a case of Katherine feeling responsible for hosting, or Olivia feeling uncomfortable because her sweet-sixteen celebration was at someone else’s home. I try very hard to look at everything from both girls’ points of view when I can. Besides, Annabel pointed out that I’d have much more fun if we hired this community hall. ‘You won’t be thinking about cake being trampled into the carpet or a drunk teenager throwing up into the vase of silk roses that has pride of place on your landing.’

  ‘There will be no drinking,’ I said firmly, then, less sure of myself, I asked, ‘Will there?’ Annabel hugged me – she really is a hugger. I’m getting used to it, I’m getting to like it.

  ‘Well, maybe we could ask the parents of the kids who are already sixteen if they mind whether we serve Prosecco with the birthday cake. That way they’ll have already eaten loads and they won’t feel compelled to sneak in any hard liquor they can’t handle. Do you think that’s OK?’

  I don’t really, but I can see it’s reasonable. And I want to be reasonable. I’m working on loosening my grip. Letting go. Not letting go of Katherine, just letting go of the anxiety I attached to her. Warriors don’t think their kids are going to choke on chocolate or that they will become alcoholics if they have a glass of Prosecco on their sixteenth birthday. Besides, I realise that being part of a blended family demands extra-special care, compromise and cooperation. But it’s worth it. The Trubys and Rory have brought a great deal of joy to our home. The Three Musketeers have recruited. ‘We should have a cool name like that,’ said Amy. ‘I know, me, Olivia, Callum, Mummy and Rory can be known as the Famous Five!’ I’ve come to learn that all her cultural references are derived from Enid Blyton or Blue Peter.

  ‘What about Dad?’ Callum had asked.

  ‘And the new baby, when he comes?’ Olivia wanted to know.

  ‘OK, we’ll have to be the Secret Seven, then,’ said Amy.

  ‘No more secrets, please!’ chipped in Katherine.

  ‘We could be the Magnificent Seven,’ offered Rory. This was typically magnanimous of him. He’s a positive, easy-going man and totally in love with Annabel. He must be, to take on this mess.

  ‘I think the Magnificent Seven is pushing it,’ said Annabel, with her trademark down-to-earth, tell-it-as-it-is style. ‘Sometimes I think we’re more like the seven dwarfs. Obviously, Rory is Doc. This baby is Bashful, because he’s too shy even to come out. Bagsie I’m Happy.’

  ‘Happy is the only one that is any good. How come you get to be Happy?’ demanded Olivia.

  ‘Because I am the mother,’ replied Annabel serenely. I fully understood what she meant by that.

  The moment was cut short when Amy said, ‘And Dad is Sleepy, isn’t he? Or maybe Sneezy, because he’s poorly.’

  ‘He’s not that sort of poorly,’ Callum replied.

  ‘Well, what sort is he?’ This is the type of thing that crops up in our family. We’re breezing along one minute, giggling and talking nonsense, then we are dealing with this kind of dreadful question the next. Jeff says it’s called real life.

  ‘He has taken some very bad tablets and they’ve made him sick,’ explained Rory.

  ‘Too right,’ muttered Katherine. I discreetly slipped my hand into hers and squeezed, offering her moral support, asking for her patience and understanding, yet again.

  To Katherine, Tom is a monster. A man who lied to her then lured her away from her family, who drugged her and locked her up in a damp basement. Her counsellor really has a lot to work with now. In fact, I think Betty Lopez is in counselling herself, in order to deal with Katherine’s case.

  To Amy, Olivia and Callum, Tom is their dad. A man who, when they were younger, kissed their bumps better when they tripped up, blew on their hot food, taught them how to ride their bikes. A man who used to help them glue paper-tissue flowers on to Get Well Soon cards they were making for their mum, who cooked a particularly delicious shepherd’s pie, who dressed up as Santa at Christmas when he was putting gifts in their stockings, just in case any of them woke up and happened to spot him.

  A man who – vulnerable, stressed and grief-stricken – made some appalling choices, who reacted badly to illegal drugs and became unrecognisable.

  We now know that Tom started taking drugs not long after Annabel was diagnosed with cancer. That’s tragic, isn’t it? I think so. Sadly, a lethal cocktail of pride and shame prevented him from turning to his doctor and talking about the pressure he was under, so he was never prescribed the correct medicine or given the option of counselling. Instead, he chose to self-prescribe various uppers. He became dependent on – addicted to – drugs that increased his feelings of stress and ultimately led to debilitating bouts of paranoia. He’s been diagnosed with schizophrenia, depression and clinical anxiety.

  ‘Still, no family is complete without a nutter,’ commented Jeff.

  We’ve got through the last few months by using a lot of gallows humour. This comment demonstrates the level to which Jeff has been high-minded and forgiving, considering he wanted to kill Tom when he first arrived at the A&E department in Brighton that wet December night. I know Jeff will never be able to forget the sight of his daughter quaking with fear, stained and stinking from her ordeal; his wife bloody and weeping, demanding to know if any of his old friends from Durham were lawyers.

  I thought I might have to go on trial for what I’d done to Tom. At that point he was lying unconscious in a hospital bed and no one would tell me how bad his condition was; I thought he was going to die. I’d be responsible for taking a man’s life. However, he didn’t die and, eventually, the investigation team declared that my assault on Tom was reasonable self-defence. Most of his injuries – the concussion, the broken ribs – were sustained when he fell down the stairs, which he did when he slipped on the orange juice. The orange juice which, when tested, was revealed to have potentially lethal levels of Rohypnol in it. When Jeff first heard this, he roared, literally roared. I think if Tom had been standing in front of him he would have torn him limb from limb.

  ‘We’d never have drunk anything he served us,’ I reassured Jeff.

  ‘That’s not the point. His intentions were evil.’

  ‘We don’t know what his intentions were, or what his actions might have been. He didn’t know either. Jeff, he wasn’t in his right mind.’

  ‘He wanted to take you from me, both of you. How can you be so calm?’

  ‘I’m calm, Jeff, because I’ve seen where anger and fear lead. He started taking those horrible mind-warping drugs when he thought his wife was dying, he stole our daughter when he was so paranoid and deluded that he thought he was owed a child because his three had slipped through his fingers.’

  The outcome of Tom’s trial was a hospital order. I feel that was justice. He’s getting the help he needs. The hope is, one day, he will become again the father his children deserve.

  The party room starts to fill up. Jeff arrives with Olivia and Katherine, who insisted on getting ready together, Rory isn’t far behind, with Amy. Callum is coming later: he’s promised to bring two or three of his friends along, which will give the party the appeal girls without older male siblings struggle to achieve. The girls’ friends start to arrive. Teenagers in all their gore, in all their glory. Some, buoyant and giggly, offer up effusive praise for the decorations and hand over cards and gifts with excited squeals. Others arrive determined to be unimpressed; they are the type who won’t dance, or eat or have any fun, but they’ll go to bed tonight with a sense of satisfaction that they were, in their own eyes at least, unfalteringly cool. Some boys arrive – hunched and awkward or cocky and rowdy, they are all the same to me; they operate in packs, laughing too loudly at the same jokes, wearing the same trainers and the same self-conscious grins. It quickly becomes apparent that they are not all the same to Katherine. One b
oy walks over to her, kisses her cheek, hands over a carefully wrapped gift; black tissue paper, a lime-green bow. She beams widely, like … like it’s her birthday and it has only just become real now he’s arrived.

  I decide it’s time I made myself scarce. I retreat to the kitchen, where I find Annabel placing cupcakes on a tiered stand. ‘All alone? Where are Jeff and Rory?’

  ‘They are circling the perimeter of the hall. Apparently, Jeff is convinced that all the mischief happens outside in older boys’ cars. Is he speaking from experience?’

  ‘Yes. Mine.’

  ‘Interesting! You dark horse.’ Her eyes light up; she wants to know more.

  ‘Long story. I’ll tell you another time. So what’s their plan for stopping this deviant behaviour?’ I ask with a laugh because, right now, teenage mischief is fun and natural, not scary or objectionable.

  ‘It’s vague. I think they are going to stride about a bit and cough loudly if they spot anything untoward. And we have Amy in the hall, she’s a tell-tale, so if anyone so much as sniffs a wine gum or holds the hand of a member of the opposite sex she’ll be straight in here to let us know.’

  ‘I feel quite redundant.’

  ‘We might as well grab a seat and eat a couple of these sensational cupcakes.’

  ‘Yes, why don’t we?’

  We sit on uncomfortable plastic chairs in the grubby little Formica annexe kitchen, cramming the cupcakes into our mouths with unseemly greed. It’s glorious. ‘I’m pregnant – what’s your excuse?’ laughs Annabel.

  The music from the party pounds through the thin walls at a volume that is slightly louder than I like it to be if I’m actually in the room with the stereo. The lyrics don’t bear thinking about, so I don’t think about them.

  Annabel is bright, kind, sensitive and assured, but out of all her many attributes the thing I perhaps like the most about her is that she doesn’t have an awful compunction to witter inanely in order to fill every conversational gap. I’m no longer that person either. We can be comfortable and quiet together. We are so for a while.

  Then she asks, ‘What time of the day was Olivia born?’

  ‘Eleven fifteen in the morning.’

  ‘Oh.’ She nods, accepting this new piece of information about her daughter with tranquillity.

  ‘And Katherine?’ I ask.

  ‘Three fifteen in the afternoon,’ she replies. This is the first time Annabel has asked me anything about Olivia’s birth. Nor have I asked her about Katherine’s. These things can’t be rushed. It’s the right day to share.

  Her hand darts to her stomach. ‘He’s playing football again.’

  ‘Can I?’

  ‘Be my guest.’ I place my hand on her stomach and clearly feel a hand or foot punch out. I giggle, I can’t help myself: it’s such a wonderful, quirky experience, feeling new life, just there, waiting to burst out into this world and simply begin! I leave her stomach be and sit back in my chair, letting out a deep, contented sigh.

  ‘Did Tom ever tell you that Katherine was a twin?’ She looks me in the eye.

  ‘Yes, he did.’ So that much was true, at least. I’ve never been certain, since everything else he told us was a lie, and I never wanted to ask Annabel; it was up to her to volunteer the information as and when.

  ‘Did he tell you that I think it was probably me who was responsible for the switch?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She lets out a long breath, ‘I’m sorry, Alison, for all the confusion and chaos I brought into your life.’

  ‘I’m certainly not,’ I say firmly. ‘Why would either of us change a thing?’ I believe this absolutely. She gave me a magnificent daughter. I gave her one in return. Unorthodox, but true. We all have more to love because of the mix-up. At that moment Amy bursts through into the kitchen.

  ‘Olivia is kissing someone!’ she yells excitably. I notice she has chocolate smeared all around her face. I don’t comment but grab a napkin and wipe my own, just in case.

  ‘I think we have more to worry about than that,’ Annabel says with a playful grin. For a second I think she has turned on a tap, perhaps to wet a cloth to clean Amy’s face, because I hear water gushing.

  ‘Err, Mummy, you’ve wet yourself.’ Amy’s eyes and mouth are wide with surprise, and her cheeks flush, embarrassed for her mother.

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I’ll explain later. Right now I need you to go and find Rory.’

  ‘Do you have your hospital bag with you?’

  ‘Yes, all sorted. We’ve been travelling around with it for a month. Can you hold the fort here?’

  ‘Jeff and I will manage admirably. I honestly think your night is going to be more work than mine.’

  ‘You are kidding, right? I only have to worry about one baby, you’ll have fifty teens.’ We hug. I instigate it.

  ‘We’ll have Amy, as planned, and the other two as well, if they want to come back to ours. It will be rather fun keeping vigil together. Don’t worry about a thing.’

  Amy stumbles back into the room, breathless and eager. Rory has clearly filled in the gaps for her. ‘You’re going to have the baby,’ she squeals with a new level of exhilaration.

  ‘Yes, darling, it seems that way.’

  Jeff and Rory tumble through the door. Their excitement is tempered in comparison to Amy’s; indeed, Jeff’s shortness of breath might have more to do with the fact he doesn’t do enough exercise, and Rory’s elation can probably more accurately be described as sheer panic.

  ‘You are going to have the baby on Olivia’s birthday – she is going to be sooooo annoyed!’ yells Amy. She seems deliriously thrilled; I’m not sure if the thought of the imminent arrival of the baby or annoying Olivia is delighting her most.

  ‘It might take a while.’ Annabel glances at the clock. ‘I have never managed to do this in under nine hours, and she only has three left of her birthday.’

  ‘There speaks a determined woman,’ says Jeff.

  ‘Perhaps you should go out the back door,’ I suggest with a smile.

  ‘You think Olivia might object to her mum dashing through her party dripping amniotic fluid?’

  I giggle. ‘It might be classed as embarrassing or upstaging.’ Annabel nods and waddles to the back door with all the calmness of a woman who has given birth three times before. We all follow. We kiss Annabel and Rory, wish them the best of luck and make them repeatedly promise that they’ll call us the moment there is news.

  ‘Don’t forget, I’m naming him!’ yells Amy; she seems incapable of speaking at a normal volume, hostage to giddiness. I scoop up this wriggling girl and hug her so her mum can actually get into the car unhindered. She does so and rolls down the window to blow kisses, while counting the minutes between her twinges. ‘Don’t forget to bring home the right baby this time,’ Amy adds as an afterthought. ‘Although, really, it didn’t turn out too badly even when she did get them muddled, did it?’ she asks me, turning her happy, almond-shaped eyes my way. She snuggles her head into the crook of my neck and I feel infinitely grateful.

  ‘No, darling. It really didn’t,’ I agree.

  Acknowledgements

  Once again, I want to give an enormous thank you to the wonderful team at Headline. I’m so very lucky to be working with such incredible people. It’s a joy and privilege to be edited by the force that is Jane Morpeth. Thank you, Jane – you manage to challenge and cherish me at once, which is exactly what I need. Thank you, Kate Byrne, for your perceptive and thoughtful editing; it’s such a pleasure working with you.

  Thank you, universe, for reuniting me with the incredible Mari Bad Ass Evans! Thank you, Mari, for bringing your incredible flair and tenacity to publishing this novel.

  Thank you, Georgina Moore, who I have every confidence will be literally and metaphorically shouting about this novel from the (rather splendid) roof top of Carmelite House. You rock! Also, thanks and welcome to new chap on the team, Joe Yule, for his work to create excitin
g cut-through marketing and Yeti Lambregts for the cover design.

  Thank you, Jonny Geller, guru, genius, giver of Ted Talks. Here’s to eighteen years of friendship and support and counting …

  Thank you to Luke Speed, the awesome book-to-film agent at Curtis Brown. You are undoubtedly a superstar, I’m a big fan of your work. Indeed, thank you to all the team at Curtis Brown who promote my work at home and abroad.

  Thank you, Deborah Schneider, for your continued care and enthusiasm in the US. You are wise and wonderful, I’m lucky to have you.

  Writing a book is a great big production and involves a varied cast and crew! Thank you, as ever, to my marvellous readers, friends, family, fellow authors, book sellers, book festival organisers, bloggers, reviewers, magazine editors and librarians who continue to generously champion my work. A special shout out to Kevin and Jen Knight who kindly introduced me to the thrill and elation of ice hockey and patiently explained the rules.

  Jimmy and Conrad, remember I am an entire menagerie. Always you. Always yours.

  Finally, I’d like to warmly acknowledge Philip Barleggs for his very generous support of Cancer Research UK. He provided the name Miriam Davis for the wonderful Inspector to honour the memory of his dear mother.

  Have you read Adele’s other enthralling novels?

  Heroes can break your heart …