This Much is True: How far will a mother go to protect her shocking secret?

by Jane Sanderson

‘Yes. I mean, no. I don’t mind at all.’

  ‘You?’

  Annie looked at her, confused.

  ‘Where you off to?’ Josie said.

  ‘Oh, me, I’m visiting Vince.’

  ‘Ah, your husband! Where is he?’

  Annie gripped the steering wheel tightly and tried to remember what she’d told Josie and Sandra about Vince in the short time she’d known them. Not much, more than likely, and certainly not the truth. She had fallen into the habit decades ago of smoothly telling lies about Vince: it was hard, now, to break it. The subject of his dementia, his addled existence at Glebe Hall, had simply adhered itself to the layers and layers of shame and shock and sorrow laid down during their marriage like the strata of sedimentary rock.

  ‘Hospital,’ she said now. Well, it wasn’t an out and out lie, she thought; for all she knew, he might have been moved there by now anyway.

  ‘Annie! You didn’t say.’ Josie leaned in and placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘What happened?’

  Annie’s face was an artful mask of discreet suffering. ‘A stroke,’ she said, then added, ‘a small one.’

  Josie gave a murmur of concern.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Poorly,’ Annie said. ‘Michael says …’ and then she stopped speaking, because she didn’t, in fact, mean to repeat what Michael had said.

  ‘Your son?’

  Annie stared at the road ahead.

  ‘Is he there already? Or would you like me to come with you? I mean, for company?’

  Annie pushed up the indicator, to make a right turn into the garage. ‘Here we are,’ she said, too brightly. ‘And there’s your car.’ She pulled up and stopped in front of Josie’s Citroën, which was facing them on the forecourt. Through the murky window of the office a mechanic saluted their arrival. Annie smiled briskly at Josie and said, ‘No, I don’t want you to come with me, no need for that.’

  ‘Oh right, well okay then, if you’re sure.’ Josie hesitated for a moment, as though reluctant to accept Annie’s refusal, then she opened the passenger door. ‘So, let me know if I can do anything,’ she said. ‘You know, feed Finn, or whatnot.’

  ‘Oh heavens, I’ll be home before dark,’ Annie said, and this sounded wrong, too brusque and uncaring, so she added, ‘all being well.’ She longed for Josie to shut the car door and allow her to drive away, so she looked squarely at her, locking eyes, and said, ‘Cheerio then.’

  ‘Bye,’ Josie said, a little uncertainly. She was out of the car now and seemed about to close the door, but then she ducked her head down again to speak.

  ‘I do need to get on,’ Annie said, heading off any further insistence that she might need company.

  ‘No, I know, sorry, it’s just—’

  ‘What?’

  Josie pointed at Annie’s face. ‘You’ve cream on your chin,’ she said.

  6

  At Glebe Hall there was still the throb of unusual excitement that always followed a drama and Vince had been moved to a room close to the staff office: the room they used for desperate cases. Oh yes, Annie knew the drill all right. There were degrees of sickness in this home just as there were degrees of senility, and you could gauge a person’s chances by the sprinting distance between them and the nurses. There was a black rubber wedge holding Vince’s door open, so Annie could hear the rise and fall of conversation among the staff, and an occasional swell of canned laughter from a television. The nurses could all see right into the room simply by looking across the hallway, and Annie had adopted a look of grave compassion so they wouldn’t think her heartless.

  Vince was asleep, his grey features slack against the starchy white pillow. He’d had these episodes before: Tee-Ai-Ays, Annie called them, like the nurses did. She’d forgotten what the letters stood for, but she knew they were mini strokes and that each successive one shortened his life. This time it had lasted longer, the duty matron told her.

  ‘What happens is, they increase in frequency and severity then usually end in a massive stroke,’ she said cheerfully. ‘More than likely, there’ll be a final big one that he won’t come back from. I’ve seen it many a time. He’s a poorly man.’

  She was a plain-speaking woman but Annie didn’t mind; it was only the truth. Certainly Vince looked poorly. Annie sat at his bedside and stared at his face; it had a ghastly pallor, like old putty. Why didn’t he just get on and die? This drawn-out stagger towards the end of life was such a nuisance for everyone, yet here he lay, neither knowing nor caring who anyone was, snoozing his way on to fight another day. Well he’d outstayed his welcome, thought Annie: outstayed his welcome and cost her all her savings from the sale of that big house in Coventry. She didn’t like Vince: hadn’t liked him for years. Actually, correction; she preferred him in his present state to how he was in his prime, but even so, if it wasn’t for how it’d look, she wouldn’t be sitting here at his bedside like the grieving wife, she’d be at home with her feet up, watching Cash in the Attic.

  ‘Bless him, he looks peaceful enough now.’

  This was the matron, who’d stepped in through the open door, almost soundless in her sturdy rubber-soled lace-ups. Annie flushed pink and gave a sheepish smile. Hastily she took Vince’s limp hand in hers.

  ‘I was wondering, Mrs Doyle, if you might let your other son know.’

  ‘Andrew? Know what?’

  ‘Did you say he lived in Australia?’

  ‘That’s right, he does.’ Annie smiled, but she was plainly bemused.

  ‘Well, he might want to say goodbye to his dad.’

  ‘Oh!’ Annie said, as if this was a nice thought but a ludicrous one. ‘He doesn’t come to England really. At least, not often.’

  ‘I’m just saying, it might be harder on him than either of you realise if he only gets here …’ She paused then, and lowered her voice to a whisper, sparing Vince’s feelings. ‘Y’know, afterwards.’ On his bed, Vince snored peacefully.

  This was a new idea entirely for Annie – not Vince’s likely demise, but Andrew’s possible arrival – and it immediately summoned a legion of small, practical worries, which formed a jostling queue in her head. Front of the line was making the call to Australia, a feat to which Annie had never felt equal. All those digits! So easy to muddle them up and expose yourself to the horrors of a stranger’s voice on a wrong number. Then, if you did everything right and got straight through, there was a disconcerting delay on the line, so that you didn’t know when to speak and when to listen.

  ‘I’m just saying,’ the matron said again. ‘At least if you let Andrew know, he could decide what he wants to do. I expect you’d like to see him anyway, wouldn’t you?’

  This seemed presumptuous on the matron’s part, although she was right; Annie very much would like to see Andrew, now that his name had been conjured out of thin air. Where he would stay, whether he would want to bring the boys and Bailey, how Michael might react to such a plan – all these concerns took an obliging step backwards to allow her to see her younger son in her mind’s eye, clear as day: blonde where Michael was dark, plump where Michael was thin; warm and funny where Michael … well now, she thought; it wouldn’t do if we were all the same.

  Contrary to what she told Josie, she wasn’t home before dark. A doctor had been sent for to have another look at Vince and everyone assumed that Annie would want to wait for his verdict, and so she did. Then he had to see another two patients before finally summoning Annie to the quiet room to explain Vince’s prognosis. The doctor was sixteen; at least that was how he appeared to Annie. Traces of acne lingered on his forehead and his brown hair was spiked with gel. But his badge said Dr Hewitt, and he spoke with the detached authority of a medical man, confirming what the matron had already explained. Could she pop in again tomorrow, he asked, at about four? Vince’s test results would be back; the picture would be clearer. Annie listened, nodded, asked one or two dutiful questions, but all the while she was thinking about her dog, alone in the empty house. By the time she got away it was
past seven o’clock and yet she couldn’t hurry, because the street lamps and headlights conspired to dazzle her, and so she drove anxiously, peering through the windscreen at the road ahead as if she was creeping through a blizzard.

  Finn’s joy filled the hallway when finally she let herself into the house. He crooned at her, a canine song of love, and she stooped to reward his devotion with a hug, pressing the side of her face against the golden heft of his solid head. If she ever had to leave Finn alone in the house she always left the television on for company, and many was the time she’d asked Michael to do the same, but he never did. Michael believed in saving the planet through small economies and also – doubtless more to the point – he didn’t like the dog. Annie, who only wanted for Finn what she would want for herself, couldn’t see how a bit of daytime telly could melt a polar ice cap. That this house was Annie’s own, that her wishes might overrule Michael’s – these were points she never made, although they ran through her mind now.

  The answerphone on the hall table was blinking and Annie stared at it. She wondered if it was the home; could Vince have had another turn, so soon after the last? She unbuttoned her coat and shrugged it off, then hung it on the stand. She pressed the red light, and the machine told her she had two new messages. ‘Two,’ Annie said wonderingly to Finn, who sat by her side to listen. Then a woman’s voice filled the small hall.

  ‘Hi, Annie, hope this is you, it’s just me, I wondered if you’d like to come for lunch tomorrow, nothing special, just a bit of—’ there was a pause here and a laugh, ‘—well, actually, I’ve no idea yet what we’ll eat, but do come, and if you want to bring Finn that’s fine. About half twelve? Call me back if you can’t, but just come, okay? Bye.’

  Annie looked at Finn, who smiled. ‘Who the dickens?’ she said. Anxiety rose in her breast at the thought not only of a lunch invitation, but from a person she didn’t know. She wouldn’t go, of course, but how could she call back to say no? Perhaps the message wasn’t intended for her – perhaps it was a wrong number? Except they’d called her Annie. Could there be another Annie, and she herself the wrong one? She patted her heart in consternation, and pressed the light for the second message, and the same voice piped up again.

  ‘Sorry, it’s Josie Jones. I don’t think I said. Bye then. Oh, and thanks for the lift, and I really hope your husband’s feeling better. Bye.’

  Oh, it was Josie. Now Annie felt light with relief at the mystery solved, although it still left her with the chore of ringing back to decline. If only Josie had said it the other way round: ring if you can come, don’t ring if you can’t. That was what she should’ve said. As it was, Annie would have to make up an excuse, and pull it off convincingly over the phone. She felt a little stab of annoyance and resolved to do nothing at all until she’d had something to eat; nobody could be expected to think straight on an empty stomach.

  The opening and closing of the two front doors woke her with a jolt. She’d nodded off in front of the news, which she always found soporific. It was the familiarity of it that caused her eyelids to close: politics, the economy, crime and corruption. You could swap one night’s news with another and nobody would notice. The one thing that could hold her attention was a really good weather story; that is, a bad weather story. Floods, hurricanes, unseasonal snowfall; these things were interesting. Well, and the royals, too.

  ‘Michael?’ Her voice, drawn from the depths of sleep, croaked and broke, and it sounded as if she was upset, so instead of just saying, ‘What?’ as he usually would have done, Michael came into the room. The cold had made the end of his nose berry red.

  ‘Oh, you’re not weeping,’ he said. ‘It sounded like you were crying just then. I thought the old bastard might’ve popped his clogs.’

  ‘Michael!’

  He grinned at her, showing sharp teeth, then bent double and snapped off his bicycle clips. ‘How is the old goat then?’

  ‘They want me to call Andrew,’ she said, knowing this would wipe the smile off his face, which it did.

  ‘Why? What can he do about it?’

  ‘Nothing at all, except come to say goodbye.’

  ‘Oh, how touching,’ Michael said. He dropped his cycle clips into his jacket pocket, inhaled deeply through flared nostrils – a new thing, the result of recent singing lessons; at last he knew how to breathe correctly, he said, which caused Annie to wonder how on earth he’d managed for the past fifty years – then stretched out his arms and flourished his hands until the wrists clicked. Annie looked away. She wondered why this elaborate ritual didn’t embarrass him. On the television the news had ended and a noisy panel show was starting; young men and women, laughing at each other’s jokes even before the show had properly got going. Annie tutted and switched them off.

  ‘What I fancy,’ Michael said, ‘is a cup of green tea.’ Annie got up from the sofa.

  ‘So anyway,’ she said, as she walked past him to the kitchen. ‘About Andrew.’

  ‘You’re going to ask me to call him, aren’t you?’

  Michael had followed her into the kitchen. In fact she had been about to ask exactly that, but his tone needled her so she changed tack.

  ‘As a matter of fact I’m not,’ she said. She filled the kettle with fresh water, set it on its plastic base and flicked the switch. In Coventry, she and Vince had had a range, and a flat-bottomed kettle that whistled when it boiled. The range had heavy chrome lids to cover the two hotplates, and Andrew used to like to sit on the cooler of them, cross-legged and chubby, like a little blonde Buddha.

  ‘I might ring him, when I’ve made your tea.’

  ‘Might you?’ He laughed, as if he found this idea unlikely.

  ‘It’s been a long time since they were all here.’

  ‘Oh, I see. First it’s just Andrew, now it’s the whole tribe.’

  She gave the spotless worktop a wipe. ‘I’d like to see those little boys,’ she said.

  ‘Well they won’t know you.’

  She glanced up at him. He looked a good deal like Vince, Annie thought. At fifty, Vince had had the same lean face, with those same deep grooves running from his nose to the corners of his mouth, and when he smiled, he looked cruel, not amused. It was the same with Michael.

  She dropped a tea bag into a mug and filled it up with hot water from the kettle. Green tea: what nonsense. There was a box of spearmint tea bags in the cupboard too, and some camomile. Annie viewed them all with deep suspicion, especially the camomile, which had the same stale urine smell as Vince’s mattress at Glebe Hall. Now she fished out the sodden bag and dropped it neatly into the compost tin, then slid the mug along the counter to Michael. He took it.

  ‘I’m expecting a delivery tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Some new sheet music and scores, so if you could make sure you’re in to sign for it.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Oh, no idea. They never say, do they? Does it matter?’

  She was so much smaller than Michael. He had to look down to make eye contact, and she had to look up. Perhaps, she thought now, this is why he is so … so … she searched for the word: disdainful. He treats me with disdain, she thought.

  ‘Well I won’t be in at lunchtime,’ she said, suddenly inspired and emboldened.

  He raised a sceptical eyebrow.

  ‘No, you see I’m invited out to lunch tomorrow.’

  There was a short silence and then, ‘By whom?’ he said.

  ‘A friend.’

  ‘But you have no friends.’

  ‘Yes I do,’ she said, calm in the face of his cruelty. ‘And one of them has asked me to lunch. She’s called Josie Jones.’

  He shook his head and pouted to indicate that this name meant nothing to him.

  ‘You don’t know her,’ Annie said proudly. ‘And then I’m due back at Glebe Hall at four, so you see it’s a busy day. Now, I think I’ll ring Andrew.’

  She walked back into the little square hallway and Michael stared over the rim of his mug. Finn, warm from a deep sleep in fro
nt of the fire, wandered out of the living room and appeared to wink at her, which she took as encouragement. She put on her reading glasses and found Andrew’s number in the book: the only one on the D page. Andrew Doyle it said, in Annie’s quaintly slanting cursive, and it struck her now that this made him seem like an acquaintance, not a son. He should be under A for Andrew.

  ‘There’ll be nobody in,’ Michael said, walking past her and carrying his mug of tea upstairs. Annie looked at the clock.

  ‘I should think there will be, at this time of night,’ she said.

  ‘Eleven-hour time difference, Mother,’ he said lightly. ‘Is it beyond your wit to remember that?’

  She had forgotten, he was right. Still, she went ahead and dialled the number then clutched the receiver to her ear, willing her heart to slow, willing her distant son to answer. It rang and rang, reedy and remote, all those thousands of miles away in Byron Bay, and nobody picked up because there, it was twenty to ten in the morning, Andrew and Bailey were at work and the boys were at school. Annie let it ring on until Michael’s bedroom door clicked shut, until her ear felt hot and squashed, until a long, flat tone told her the call had been ended.

  7

  Lillian Platt’s brother-in-law Bill Marshall was on the production line at the Denette Works in Peckham Rye. The company made bespoke baby carriages, so in spite of the family’s lack in almost every other material regard, the infant Edward – born quickly and easily at home on 3 December – enjoyed the comforts of a fine white and silver perambulator, which took up a great deal of space in the narrow front hall of the Edwardian terrace. He was Doreen and William’s fourth child and the others were all still under five years old. When Lillian arrived – before she’d even taken off her coat – Doreen went back to bed, with a laundry basket for the baby on the floor beside her. Bill Marshall seemed to work all hours, leaving the house each day with an air of weary heroism, as if the manufacture of baby carriages was key to the nation’s economic recovery. They had no char – Bill wouldn’t pay – and the household existed in a state of permanent and chaotic uproar. But now here was Lillian, onto whose narrow shoulders Doreen had immediately piled an intolerable burden of responsibilities. She was expected to rise with the three older children, give them breakfast, wash, clothe and entertain them throughout the long day while bringing order to the domestic disarray and getting on with a cooked meal for Bill. None of the children were old enough for school. There were two girls and now, with Edward, two boys, which was precisely the combination of offspring that Lillian had once planned for herself, although now, among this unruly crowd of children, she couldn’t imagine what she’d been thinking. Doreen’s lot were always egging each other on to mischief, and if one child settled down to some quiet activity, another one bowled up and wrecked it. Lillian, unequipped for the challenge, felt a rosy nostalgia for the long, quiet afternoons she’d spent with her own child, when neither of them knew what to say to the other. Looking back Lillian realised there was a lot to be said for silence. Not that she planned to return to Coventry, however. That page had turned; a new chapter had begun, and her grave little girl must do without her. But five days into the visit to her sister she realised, too, that she must look beyond Peckham Rye – and quickly – if this abandonment of hearth and home was to be classified as an adventure.