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

by Jane Sanderson

  He’d gone out now, off to one of his schools, his face a picture of fragile suffering, as if these present travails might be the end of him, but everyone just ignored him, and even Annie was learning to take no notice. She thought she might be picking up some of Bailey’s insouciance; she found herself thinking, ‘Oh, stuff him,’ when Michael left the house without saying goodbye.

  She still didn’t know what to do about Finn, though. He hadn’t been further than the back garden since last Wednesday, and because she hadn’t told Andrew – or anyone, really – about the dead sheep when he first arrived, she found she hadn’t been able to tell him at all. The words just wouldn’t form, she didn’t know why. Instinct, she supposed; a reflex desire to protect Finn’s reputation, or perhaps her own. She’d got an invoice today from the farmer; it was sitting on the doormat when she came down, and it gave her quite a start, because although she certainly hadn’t forgotten what Finn had done, she’d managed to somehow shelve it behind the greater problem of Vince and his last-ditch attempt at mischief-making. Anyway, the farmer had tried to be kind, billing her in the form of a polite note, apologetic in tone but clumsily put. Dear Mrs Doyle, it said, begging your pardon but for the loss of livestock it’ll have to be two hundred and forty pounds. He’d written the numbers out like that; it gave the letter a look of antiquity, like the old church tithe records at St Peter’s. I’m sorry for the amount, which more than likely seems a bit steep, but it’s because them ewes were in lamb. Cash would be much appreciated. Yours sincerely, Edward Wright.

  He’d dropped the letter round by hand first thing, before any of them had even stirred. There was a big dirty thumbprint on the back of the envelope, which was smeared as if he’d tried to wipe it clean. Annie was deeply grateful that he came so early. Bad enough having Mr Dinmoor pop in unannounced without having to explain away a visit from a sheep farmer.

  His note was in the pocket of her trousers; it crinkled when she sat down, reminding her of her duty. She planned to call at the farmhouse later, when she’d withdrawn the money from the Halifax. Now, though, she was trying to get the house straight without anyone noticing what she was up to. She’d been sliding suitcases – again – under beds upstairs, and wiping around the sink where rogue blobs of toothpaste seemed to spring up each morning and evening like fungi. In the shower tray, six large rubber dinosaurs were now lined up against the tiled wall in height order, and a fat blue squeaky lobster hung by his claws from the soap basket. Blake and Riley took showers together; they sat either side of the plughole and re-enacted some great tumultuous dinosaur battle during which Riley inevitably ended up in tears. Why they couldn’t just have a lick and a promise at the sink, Annie didn’t know.

  In the spare bedroom she found Blake, sitting on the floor, playing a game on his gadget. He didn’t budge or look up when Annie bustled through, hiding suitcases wherever there was a gap large enough. Blake wanted to go home; she’d heard him telling Bailey earlier. It was boring here, he’d said, and when Bailey reminded him that it was important to visit Gram, he’d said, ‘Says who?’ and Annie wished she hadn’t been listening at the door.

  Now, she put the cases down and said, ‘Hello, Blake love, what’re you up to there?’

  ‘Candy Crush,’ he said, his eyes on the screen.

  She watched him for a moment and thought that if these little hand-held computer doobries had been around when Michael was eight, he’d have used one with the same introverted intensity as Blake.

  ‘Do you think you could look at me when you speak?’ she said.

  There was a silent pause.

  ‘Blake?’

  ‘Yeah?’ he said, all his attention on the game.

  ‘Could you look at me, please?’

  He sighed deeply and finished what he was doing before he looked up and said, ‘What?’ But now she had his attention she didn’t know what to do with it so she just said, ‘Where’s Riley?’

  He shrugged to show he hadn’t a clue then immediately returned to crushing candy. She regarded him with narrow eyes, but his expression was rapt as he stared at the little screen, so she just left him to it.

  She went downstairs and because Andrew and Bailey were busy in the kitchen, she took herself into the living room. There she found Riley, on the sofa, balancing a bowl of cornflakes on his lap. He smiled at her and waggled his spoon.

  ‘Hello, Grandma,’ he said. ‘I’m eating cornflakes.’

  ‘So I see. Don’t spill milk on my settee.’

  ‘What’s your settee?’ he said.

  ‘The thing you’re sitting on. Shall I open the curtains?’

  ‘Will it be sunny?’

  She laughed. ‘I doubt it, pet, but let’s see.’ She pulled the cord and the curtains swept open to reveal Sandra and Josie, sitting in Sandra’s car on Beech Street, directly outside Annie’s house. She saw them before they saw her and she briefly entertained the thought of drawing the curtains again, or bobbing down below the sill and crawling out of the room on all fours.

  ‘What’s wrong, Grandma? Who’s there?’

  Really, thought Annie, was the child a mind reader? Josie waved and Annie gave her a wan smile. She turned round to look at Riley.

  ‘It’s my friends,’ she said. ‘We walk the dogs together.’

  ‘Oh, your friends. I have friends too, at home. What do they want?’

  ‘Not sure. A walk, I expect.’ She glanced back through the window. ‘I shan’t go, though.’

  But she did, because Andrew urged her to – he might make a start on the loft, he said, while she was out – and anyway as usual there was no resisting Josie’s insistent warmth, even though Annie assumed Finn was for ever barred from the society of Betty and Fritz: even though it wasn’t even a Wednesday. Riley came, too. Josie and Sandra waited in the car while Riley scrambled out of his pyjamas and into jeans and a jumper and Annie, feeling simultaneously terribly anxious and wildly impetuous, changed her shoes and put on her fleece. Finn, fetched from exile on the back patio, went crazy with excitement, knocking the telephone clean off its table in the hall and filling the small space with great resonant woofs. What with that, and Bailey and Andrew hooting with laughter at the pandemonium, it was a relief to get the dog in the car and set off. Riley, who was deemed too slight to be safe on the front seat, sat in the back and Finn, squashed into the boot, panted wetly into his ear. Blake was asked but wouldn’t come and Annie wasn’t sorry. It was wrong, she knew, to make a favourite of one grandson over another but actually, how could it be helped? She looked at Riley through the rear-view mirror and smiled at his innocent profile. He was watching the world go by through the car window, waving with touching optimism at everyone they passed and adding up his conquests, the ones who waved back.

  They followed Josie and Sandra to the reservoir and when Annie came to a careful halt in the car park Riley sprang forward and managed to let himself out of the car before she’d even unclipped her own seat belt. By the time she’d swung her legs out, planted both feet on the ground and unfolded herself in the crisp morning air, Riley was already chatting to Josie about Byron Bay. Sandra stood next to them, checking her phone for messages and only half listening.

  ‘No, I can already do it,’ he said. ‘Daddy taught me.’

  ‘Amazing!’ Josie said. ‘Standing up, and everything?’

  ‘Sometimes. It’s quite hard though, so it’s okay to ride on your belly.’

  ‘Well that sounds fun, too.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Annie left Finn in the car for the time being; he watched her humbly, taking nothing for granted.

  ‘Surfing,’ Riley said, and he bobbed about, arms out, riding an imaginary wave. ‘Daddy’s awesome.’

  This was news to Annie. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘He never had much balance as a boy.’

  ‘He can balance now,’ said Riley, with pride. ‘We all can in our family.’

  Annie laughed. ‘I hope you’re not including me, pet. You won’t catch me on a surfboard.’
r />   ‘No, you live too far from the ocean,’ said Riley.

  ‘That’ll be why,’ Josie said. ‘Now let’s get poor old Fritzy out of the car. He can’t manage on his own anymore.’

  Riley peered with interest through the dusty back window of Sandra’s Volvo estate. ‘There are two dogs in there,’ he said.

  ‘Well thank you, Sherlock,’ said Sandra, because she spared no one, not even children.

  ‘I’m not Sherlock,’ he said, ‘I’m Riley.’ Then he stepped back to allow her to swing the boot open. In a trice Betty sprang to the ground, precise and feather light, to sit politely at Josie’s feet. Fritz heaved a sigh, and closed his eyes.

  ‘Doesn’t he want a walk?’ Riley said. He reached in and patted Fritz on the head.

  ‘He always thinks he doesn’t,’ said Sandra. ‘But he likes it once he’s out.’ She shovelled her arms underneath the dog’s belly and braced herself against the car, then heaved him up and out. ‘Good God,’ she said, and she blew out through puffed cheeks like a weightlifter while Fritz dangled limp and passive in her arms. Sandra lowered him to the ground. He looked incapable of supporting his own weight but after a small stagger he locked his joints and stood blinking in the breeze, swaybacked and grey-faced.

  ‘He looks like an old, old man,’ Riley said.

  ‘If he was human, he’d be nearly ninety-eight,’ said Sandra.

  ‘Whoah!’ He spun round to Annie. ‘Even older than you!’ Then he blushed red, afraid that he’d been rude.

  ‘Only by a whisker,’ Annie said, and everyone laughed. Riley grinned and nudged against Annie in a comfortable, proprietorial way, and she felt herself grow an inch or two taller. She turned to her car and opened the boot for Finn, and then they all crunched across the car park to the footpath, Finn pulling and pulling on his lead, trying to get to the water.

  Sandra walked slightly ahead, Josie linked an arm through Annie’s and asked all about Andrew; Riley held on tight to Finn’s lead with two clenched hands and got his trainers wet at the water’s edge while Finn, happy to have his paws in water, slowed temporarily to a manageable pace. Betty danced along beside Josie, and Fritz, poor old thing, was taking his time at the back. Everything was almost perfect; and yet, thought Annie, there was something hanging in the air, something waiting to be said. After all, it was Monday, not Wednesday. This was not meant to be a Dog Day. And Finn had killed the sheep, and Mr Dinmoor had been all but thrown out of her house, and she was as sure as she could be that all this cosy chat about Andrew was merely a prelude to some awkward questions from Josie.

  So Annie filled every small silence with conversation. Oh, she could be crafty when she needed to be! On every dangerous in-breath, when Josie seemed poised on the very edge of the dread topic, Annie was ready with questions and comments of her own, and when all else failed, there was Riley to talk about. She felt dizzy with the effort, though; it was a strain, warding off the inevitable. Because it was inevitable, she realised that. It was inevitable, too, that it was Sandra, not Josie, who suddenly and brutally, and within earshot of Riley, said, ‘What’s the deal with Finn then?’ She stopped walking to speak, and because she was ahead of everyone, they all stopped too. Annie didn’t answer, only glanced evasively at the water, where a mallard drake and his harem were eyeing her back, trying to assess the possibility of bread.

  ‘Have you had to pay up?’

  Annie turned to her. ‘It’s two hundred and forty pounds,’ she said quietly, trying to be discreet, and Sandra whistled through her teeth.

  ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘That was an expensive dog walk. So what next?’

  ‘Why did we stop?’ Riley said, to Annie. His cheeks were a vivid, mottled pink from the cold. He stood on one leg like a stork and looked up at her, and his eyes were as bright and dark as a robin’s. Annie marvelled that he was hers alone in this small group; that if he needed a hand to hold, he’d choose hers; that when he wondered something, he spoke directly to her, in full confidence that she’d know the answer. His faith warmed and emboldened her.

  ‘We stopped,’ she said, ‘because Sandra here wanted to know if I’ve paid the farmer. I owe him some money, because Finn attacked his sheep and two of them died, you see.’ There. It was out. The first time she’d said it aloud. She took a deep, fortifying breath of fresh air and swallowed hard.

  ‘Oh,’ Riley said. He looked sideways at Sandra. ‘But why did you stop? Can’t you walk and talk at the same time?’

  He didn’t mean to be rude; innocent curiosity shone from his face.

  Sandra regarded him. ‘I can,’ she said, ‘but I sometimes stop walking to say something that I think is important.’

  ‘Oh,’ Riley said again. He showed not the remotest interest in the news about Finn, but instead dropped onto his haunches and clucked encouragingly at Fritz, who was still catching up. Riley held out his arms to the old dog, who trod a slow, meandering path to the boy then sat down stiffly in front of him. Riley leaned in and hugged him then touched his nose against Fritz’s, and for a short while they stared at each other, cross-eyed.

  ‘Shall we stop here anyway?’ Josie said. She slung the rucksack from her shoulder and patted it. ‘I have coffee.’

  So they sat on a fallen tree and Annie had to submit finally to Josie’s gentle interrogation about Finn, the farmer, the future, but mostly about Mr Dinmoor, who had gone back to Wentford hurt by his hasty dismissal. He had come to Annie with a suggestion, Josie said: a practical solution. He was a lovely person, big-hearted and wise. Why hadn’t she been able to let him speak?

  ‘Because,’ Sandra said, guessing correctly, ‘she hadn’t told anyone.’ She spoke as if Annie wasn’t right there on the tree trunk with them.

  ‘Well, I’d told the farmer,’ Annie said, quite hotly, all at once rattled by Sandra’s tone and her own predicament. ‘Although not before you’d stuck your nose in.’

  Sandra was unruffled. ‘Well, somebody had to,’ she said. ‘You can’t let these things lie for a day or two, Annie. He could’ve set the cops on the case. Thought I’d spare you that at least.’

  ‘Mr Wright wouldn’t be so hasty. He’s a very nice man, as it turns out.’

  ‘Yeah, he was all right. A fellow of few words, mind you.’

  ‘He was chatty enough when I went.’ Annie thought about the farmhouse kitchen and the toasted teacakes. He hadn’t been chatty, exactly, but he had been kind.

  ‘Well anyway,’ Josie said. ‘Mr Dinmoor has a sister; she lives on the coast in Formby.’

  Annie looked at her. ‘Formby?’ she said, faintly. Why ever, she thought, might she be interested in Mr Dinmoor’s family members?

  ‘She takes in dogs,’ Josie said.

  ‘Rescues ’em,’ Sandra added. ‘Saves them from themselves.’

  Josie shot her a look and Sandra held up a hand and mouthed ‘sorry’, although she smirked.

  ‘Grandma?’ Riley shouted, from the water. ‘Can I let Finn off the leash?’

  Annie hesitated and looked towards the distant fields beyond, dotted – for all she knew - with grazing sheep, but Josie said, ‘Oh surely? Just for five minutes?’ and it was true that right here, by this flat man-made expanse of water, there were only birds and fishermen, no sheep. ‘Go on then,’ Annie said. ‘But stay right there, no running. And don’t take your eyes off him.’

  ‘Her name’s Dora,’ said Josie, ‘and she has a big house near the pinewoods in Formby, up near Liverpool. She takes in dogs, as I said. Provides a permanent home when they can’t stay with their owner for whatever reason.’

  Annie stared, then the penny dropped. ‘And Mr Dinmoor thinks I should give Finn to his sister?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Josie said.

  ‘I see.’

  Annie hadn’t seen this coming: not at all. She gazed ahead bleakly and waited for her scattered thoughts to settle. Finn was playing with Riley, and this gave her something to look at, the two of them making a fast, crazy circle on the narrow path. The farmer had said so
mething similar, she remembered now: send Finn away, to a place without sheep. But Finn! However would she go on without him?

  Josie was unwrapping china cups from a tea towel. ‘So,’ she said. ‘What do you think?’

  Annie hardly knew what she thought. ‘Oh, well …’ she said, ‘I mean …’

  ‘Think about it, at least.’

  ‘Formby,’ Annie said.

  ‘Yes. Pine trees, sweeping dunes, big skies.’

  ‘And no sheep?’

  ‘It’s a coastal town, Annie,’ Sandra said. ‘There are red squirrels, mind you, but unless he can climb trees …’

  ‘I expect you think I’m silly,’ Annie said – there was a moment’s quiet while no one disagreed – ‘but,’ she went on, ‘I don’t think I can let him go.’ She knew, as they didn’t, precisely what her life was: precisely how narrow, precisely how limited. Yes, all right, so once every blue moon Andrew brought his family to visit and her days were briefly filled with noise and activity and purpose, but otherwise it was simply her and Finn, versus Michael and Vince. She knew – had always known – that it didn’t do to depend only on a dog for happiness, but nevertheless, there it was. ‘I don’t think,’ she said now, ‘you can possibly understand how hard it would be for me to say goodbye.’

  ‘Actually,’ Sandra said, ‘I might be able to.’

  There was a beat of silence, then Josie said, ‘Oh.’

  Sandra nodded. ‘It’s just a matter of when, the vet says. We get to decide. Well me, I do, because Fritz is mine.’ She glanced down at the dog, then away again, then all three of them looked at the old Alsatian, who was prostrate on the path, resting his bones. For once his eyes were open, and he stared back at them over his front paws with glazed indifference. He looked entirely compliant with his fate: quite resigned, thought Annie. But still she found her cheeks were suddenly wet with tears. Oh dear, the world could be a strange, sad place! So little to rejoice in, so much to lament. Then from the reservoir’s edge, where the water lapped the muddied path, there came the unmistakable sound of happiness. Annie let her damp eyes move away from Fritz and across to Finn. Magnificently alive, lit by a bolt of winter sun, he stood in the shallows shaking water from his golden coat while Riley danced in the shower of droplets, squealing with laughter.