by Tess Stimson
Of course! Metaphorically, I clap my hand to my forehead. How did I not see this before? There’s only one thing that makes you lose weight and throw up with nerves and swing wildly from joy to misery in the space of a moment: love, the oldest drug in the world.
I remember where I saw that ring. Or rather, on whom.
‘Bella,’ I say softly. ‘Have you met someone?’
She nods.
‘Taylor,’ I say. ‘That’s what all this is about, isn’t it?’
She gulps and then nods again, and my heart aches for her. ‘Oh, Bell,’ I sigh. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I wanted to,’ she blurts. ‘But Taylor made me promise not to. Her parents are really strict, they’d totally freak. And … it’s complicated.’
How long has she been carrying this secret around? I’ve been so wrapped up in myself I haven’t been paying attention to what’s going on in her life. How could I have missed this? ‘Did you think I wouldn’t understand?’ I ask.
She shrugs, pleating the duvet cover with nervous fingers.
‘Bella, I don’t mind who or what you love, as long as it makes you happy,’ I say seriously. ‘You can bring home a polar bear, and it’d be welcome at my table.’ I pause. ‘Well, perhaps not at the table. From what I gather, polar bears aren’t particularly well mannered. But if you fall in love with a polar bear, we’ll find a way to make it work. Some sort of alfresco picnic, perhaps.’
‘Mum,’ Bella says, but she’s laughing.
‘Does Taylor know how you feel?’
She bobs her head.
‘But she doesn’t feel the same way?’
‘It’s not that. She was seeing someone else. Not anymore. But she thinks it’s too soon. She wants some space. It’s OK,’ she adds quickly. ‘I’d rather be friends than nothing.’
‘Is this why you’ve been so upset recently?’
‘Mostly. But not just that.’ She looks up at me, and then quickly away. ‘It’s Caz.’
‘You don’t need to worry about—’
‘I like her,’ she interrupts, startling me into silence. ‘I like it when she’s there at weekends and stuff! I don’t want her and Dad to split up. I don’t like it when it’s just Dad on his own. I want things to stay as they are.’
I take a moment to digest this. ‘What happens between your father and Caz has nothing to do with me.’
Bella pulls up her long legs and wraps her arms around her knees, pressing her face into them. ‘That’s not true, Mum.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I know what happened with you and Dad the other night,’ she says, threading her fingers together unhappily. ‘It’s not fair, Mum. You blame her for stealing Dad and breaking up our family, but that’s not true.’ She suddenly looks straight at me, her eyes unnaturally bright. ‘I know about Tolly. I know my dad isn’t his dad.’
The room tilts and spins. My mouth gapes stupidly. I am literally speechless, unable even to breathe.
Andrew swore he’d never tell anyone; that was our deal. He’d keep my secret, he’d never breathe a word to Bella or Tolly or anyone else, not to Caz, especially not to Caz, and in return, I agreed not to contest the divorce, and to accept the financial pittance he offered me.
‘Mum?’ Bella says. ‘It’s OK. I get it. Dad had met Caz; he was cheating on you. I don’t blame you.’
I blame me.
I cover my face with my hands, choking on a sob. I’ve been running from this moment, from this truth, for nearly five years. Memory is a tricky thing. It doesn’t just recall the past; it remakes it, as we desire it to be. You can push an unwelcome reality to the back of your mind and bury it behind a wall of wishful thinking, and in time, you’ll forget the truth is even there. And then, when you least expect it, the wall is breached and you’re forced to face a truth grown far more powerful and terrifying for its long imprisonment.
‘Did you love him?’ Bella asks quietly. ‘Tolly’s dad?’
I look away. I don’t know how to begin to answer her. When I met Tolly’s father, I’d just found out Andrew was having an affair, and I’d wanted to get back at him: to even the score. Revenge at its most basic level. And I’d also needed reassurance I was still lovable, still desirable. I’d yearned for someone to see me in a way Andrew no longer did.
But our affair was so much more than that. From the first day we’d met, we’d shared something I’d never felt with Andrew, a connection that made me feel as if I had found the piece of myself I hadn’t even known was missing. Yet I’d barely known him. We weren’t even friends. I don’t know, even now: can that be love?
For a brief while, I was certainly infatuated with him. He was all I could think about. I got butterflies in my stomach every time he walked into the room. I created opportunities to run into him even when we’d only seen each other the day before; I made too many phone calls, sent too many texts. And I frightened myself. The intensity of what I was feeling had reminded me too much of Roger. I even went to his house one day, afraid he was lying to me and that he was married after all. I saw his elderly mother through the kitchen window, and she saw me, though of course she didn’t know who I was. She waved, the way people do when they think they’re supposed to know you, and I’d had a sudden glimpse of how she’d see me if she knew I was stalking her son. Because that’s what I was doing. At that moment, even I realised that.
I ran. Literally and figuratively. I broke it off with him, and focused all my energies on repairing my marriage. Andrew was the one I really loved, I told myself firmly. The one with whom I had a life, a history, a family. We’d shared a thousand moments, from the small and insignificant, to the life-changing and dramatic: the birth of a child, the loss of a parent, lunch on Sunday, feeding the cat. This was the stuff of life, this was what was real, not a romantic novella ‘connection’ with a man whose full name I didn’t even know.
And then the impossible had happened, the miracle that was Tolly, and I’d convinced myself it had to be Andrew’s child. Anything else was unthinkable.
‘Do I know him?’ Bella asks. ‘Tolly’s dad?’
I shake my head. That much, at least, is true.
‘How … how did you find out?’ I ask.
‘We had a Bio project about blood groups, and Mrs Lockwood told us to find out about our family. You were in London so I just looked in the file in your office.’ She looks up, flushing. ‘I wasn’t prying. I didn’t know it was private. I found the tests they did after Tolly was born, when you got so sick, and they thought it was some kind of Rhesus antibody reaction.’
I should have burned them. Or at least put them under lock and key.
‘Your blood group is A, and Dad’s is O, like me,’ Bella says. ‘Tolly is group B. Which means he can’t be Dad’s. That’s how he found out, too, isn’t it?’
I nod, blinded by tears. My daughter will never forgive me for this. How can she? I can’t forgive myself. It’s one of the many reasons my anger at Caz is so bitter and unrelenting. She didn’t just take Andrew from me: she destroyed my better self. I would never have betrayed my husband if not for her. I would never have betrayed myself.
I haven’t told anyone about Tolly, not even my mother, though I think perhaps she’s guessed. As he’s grown older, he’s started to look more and more like his biological father. Secrets have a way of finding their way to the light.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say thickly, knowing how hollow it sounds. ‘I understand how angry you must be. But please, don’t tell Tolly. Your dad is the only father he’s ever—’
‘I’d never do that,’ Bella says sharply. ‘I love him. He’s my brother.’
‘If you want to go and live with your dad and Caz, I won’t fight it,’ I say bleakly.
Bella twists the silver ring on her finger. ‘Gree said something the other weekend,’ she says, staring at her lap. ‘When we were talking about Uncle Nicky. She said love is like water: if something blocks its path, it always finds another way through.’ She pa
uses for a long time, and I suppress the urge to fill the silence. ‘I figured it must’ve been like that for you, when Dad met Caz,’ she adds finally. ‘You needed somewhere for love to go, and Tolly’s dad was there.’
I stare at my wise, extraordinary daughter, overwhelmed with conflicting emotion. Relief, pride, shame, regret. She has behaved better in all of this than any of the sorry adults in this saga.
‘Caz isn’t the enemy,’ Bella says softly. ‘Please, Mum. Can you just stop hating her now?’
I nod. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’ll stop.’
BRIAN ROBERTS
PART 1 OF RECORDED INTERVIEW
Date:- 25/07/2020
Duration:- 31 Minutes
Location:- Kingsbridge Police Station
Conducted by Officers from Devon & Cornwall Police
(cont.)
POLICE
So what you’re saying is that Mrs Page – your daughter, Louise Page – wanted the other Mrs Page there?
BR
I wouldn’t say that.
POLICE
Forgive me, Mr Roberts, but you just said she called your wife two days ago and told her she wanted her ex-husband and his wife at the party.
BR
Yes.
POLICE
Are you saying now she didn’t?
BR
No, she did.
POLICE
Were you there when she called?
BR
Yes. Celia said Lou told her it was OK.
POLICE
Meaning she did want Andrew and Caroline Page to come after all?
BR
That’s right. [Pause.] She wasn’t too happy at first, mind.
POLICE
What do you mean, at first?
BR
When Celia first invited them.
POLICE
That would be back in June? [Pause.] If you could speak for the tape instead of nodding, Mr Roberts.
BR
Sorry. Yes.
POLICE
Could you expand on that a little?
BR
Well. Lou wasn’t too happy.
POLICE
So you said, Mr Roberts. [Pause.] Can you clarify that at all? Did she say anything, or do anything, to make you think she wasn’t happy?
BR
Lou isn’t one to rock the boat.
POLICE
Did she discuss it with you?
BR
I know my daughter.
POLICE
Right. Your wife and Andrew Page were on good terms, is that correct?
BR
Yes.
POLICE
Did that bother your daughter?
BR
You’d have to ask her that.
POLICE
What about you? How did you get on with your former son-in-law?
BR
Lou isn’t perfect, but she’s a good girl. He’d no need to go carrying on behind her back.
POLICE
With Caroline Page, you mean?
BR
Yes.
POLICE
Why did your wife invite her to the party, do you think?
BR
You’d have to ask Celia that.
POLICE
So, just to be clear. Your daughter wasn’t happy when she initially found out her mother had asked both Andrew Page and his second wife to the party, but she accepted it, is that right?
BR
Yes.
POLICE
But then she and Mrs Page fell out. The police were called to an altercation at Andrew and Caroline Page’s flat two weeks ago, isn’t that right?
BR
You’d have to talk to them about that.
POLICE
What I’m getting at, Mr Roberts, is that the previously civil relationship between your daughter and Caroline Page had clearly broken down in recent weeks.
BR
Yes.
POLICE
Yet you’re telling us your wife then got a phone call from your daughter saying she wanted her ex-husband and his wife to come?
BR
That’s what Celia said.
POLICE
Were you surprised?
BR
[Pause.] Celia usually gets her way.
POLICE
That’s quite a turnaround, though. Can you think of a reason your daughter changed her mind?
BR
I don’t know.
POLICE
Is it possible, do you think, that she wanted Andrew Page at the party for a particular reason?
BR
I couldn’t say.
POLICE
Might she want to get him alone?
BR
What for?
POLICE
Well, that’s what we’re trying to find out. [Pause.] The thing is, Mr Roberts. Less than forty-eight hours after that rather surprising phone call to your wife, Andrew Page was dead.
Chapter 38
Caz
If you didn’t know her, you might think my mother deserves a little joy, stuck all day in that wheelchair and parked in a miserable beige prison smelling of damp biscuits and disappointment. No friends or family to visit, except me, and we both know I don’t come to brighten her day. I don’t blame her for taking her pleasure where she can find it, spilling her guts to my worst enemy out of sheer malice and boredom. But that’s not going to stop me bursting her little revenge fantasy bubble.
‘No one’s going to believe it,’ I say, almost fondly. ‘You can tell them whatever you want. The more terrible it is, the crazier you’ll seem.’
Her black eyes are sharp as knives. ‘That so? Why d’you come rushing over here, then?’
‘I find you amusing. Tell me,’ I add conversationally, ‘how did it go with Louise?’
‘Now we get to it,’ she says, with relish.
‘She must be pretty desperate, coming to you.’
‘You must be pretty desperate, coming to me.’
I take a seat opposite her wheelchair as we both regroup, sizing each other up. I don’t fool myself my mother loves me; although perhaps, in her wizened walnut of a heart, something flickers. But I am known, and I’m constantly surprised by how much that matters. There is no pretence between us, no shame. She has seen my worst and I have seen hers.
‘Come on,’ I say after a moment. ‘Tell me about it. You know you want to. What did you think of her?’
‘Not as pretty as you, of course. Not as smart.’ She pauses, reconsidering. ‘No. She’s smart. Smarter than you. But not as cunning.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It wasn’t a compliment.’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘I can see why she’s a good journalist. She makes you want to talk to her. I liked her.’
I smile coldly. ‘You don’t like anyone.’
‘I liked her.’ She jerks her wheelchair closer. She’s like a shark, scenting blood in the water. ‘Gone back to his wife, has he?’
There’s no point lying, not to her. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ I shrug. ‘He returned to me.’
‘Ha!’ she jeers. ‘Poor Carol. Still love him, don’t you? Even though he ain’t never loved you.’
Despite myself, I flinch as the barb finds its mark. Love him, hate him, hate him, love him. I’ve never really forgiven Andy for making me love him so much more than he loves me. He’s an anchor, weighing me down. His narcissism, his neediness, his children, his baggage, his ex-wife. My life would have been so much simpler, so much cleaner, without him.
‘Ain’t why you’re here, though, is it?’ my mother says, narrowing her eyes. ‘There’s more, ain’t there? There’s worse.’
‘There’s worse,’ I acknowledge.
Her malicious gaze pins me in my seat like a butterfly beneath the glass. ‘Spit it out, girl. What’s the real reason you’re visiting a poor, senile old woman?’
We both know she’s not senile. There was a time, after her suicide attemp
t, when she chose to withdraw into a world she found more bearable, when depression and medication confined her to a twilight limbo where she was unreachable. And it suited me to keep her there. I couldn’t have Caroline’s shiny new world muddied by my vicious, over-medicated mother. So I got her committed and stuck her in a private nursing home until I met Andy and the money ran out. Now the government puts a roof over my mother’s head and food on her table. And no one cares enough to ask inconvenient questions, like whether she should even be there.
Of course she hates me. It’s my fault the world thinks she’s mad. But after what she allowed to happen to me, it’s no less than she deserves.
Her expression suddenly changes. It’s like she has a satanic sixth sense for rooting into the darkest parts of the soul. ‘He’s like your dad, ain’t he?’ she says abruptly.
I want there to be another reason for Bella’s cutting, for the pregnancy test in our bathroom bin. For twenty-four hours my mind has fought like a rabbit in a gin trap; I’d bite through my own leg to be free of the truth.
I stare at my hands. ‘He’s nothing like Dad.’
‘Don’t lie to me, girl.’ Her stringy grey hair falls across her face as she looks away, reinforcing the witchy resemblance. ‘I should’ve stopped him,’ she mutters. ‘I knew. I told myself I didn’t, but I knew. I heard him creep out of bed. I knew where he was going, what he was doing.’ She sucks her teeth. ‘But I didn’t care, because it meant he stayed. Till you got too old and he left us.’
‘Dad died,’ I say. ‘He didn’t leave me. He died.’
She jerks her chair forward suddenly and grabs my hands, gripping my fingers like steel. ‘Enough,’ she says roughly. ‘You’re not a child anymore, Carol. Your father left. He could’ve taken you with him; I wouldn’t have fought him. I was a drunk, girl. He could’ve taken you, and I wouldn’t have lifted a finger to stop him. But you got too old for him. Too old for his tastes.’ I snatch my hands back, and she laughs mirthlessly. ‘It was the only good thing he ever did for you. You’ve made a success of your life, girl. You shook the dirt off your feet, and you moved up in the world. He ain’t fit to lick your boots. Never was.’