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

by Jane Sanderson

  When she arrived at the reservoir Josie was already there, leaning against her car, watching Betty sniff about in the long grass, and then before Annie had finished squaring up the Nissan – back and forth she went, back and forth, making small adjustments to her angle – Sandra swept into the car park like a getaway driver, thudding to a halt, all skew-whiff. She seemed to leap out of the car in one seamless bound and Annie was wondering what the emergency was, but then she noticed Sandra’s face, and it was stricken. Sandra went straight to Josie.

  ‘It’s today,’ she said in a sort of stifled wail, and Josie said, ‘Oh love, come here,’ and wrapped Sandra in a tight embrace. Annie, watching, felt like an intruder. She was thinking she might just creep away unnoticed, when Sandra pulled away from Josie’s arms and gave a mighty sniff then noticed Annie for the first time, so Annie climbed out of her car and released Finn, who bounced over to greet Betty. Sandra looked at Annie bleakly.

  ‘It’s Fritz,’ she said. ‘He couldn’t move at all this morning. The vet said it’s time.’

  Her voice cracked, and she was undone: hard-headed, sharp-tongued Sandra. Her distress was noisy and shocking, and Josie was crying too, although with more restraint. Annie swallowed hard and turned her head so that she could just see the old Alsatian lying in the boot of Sandra’s car. She moved over to the rear window and peered in at him. He was staring at her, his eyes damp and glassy.

  ‘Can I open the boot?’ she asked, and Sandra nodded, so Annie clicked the latch and raised the door. Fritz looked ancient, the oldest dog in the world. Annie leaned in and placed her hand on his head, feeling the tired bone of his skull beneath the grey-brown hair. ‘There there, Fritzy,’ she said. ‘Night night, darling dog,’ and he closed his eyes as if all he needed was permission. Annie drew back and turned around and Sandra, quieter now, was staring at Annie as if she didn’t know who she was.

  ‘Well he’s ready to go, bless his heart,’ Annie said.

  Sandra nodded dumbly.

  ‘He knows how much you love him, you know, and really that’s the main thing, the only thing.’

  ‘Annie,’ Sandra said. ‘Thank you.’ She was calmer now, but she still looked traumatised, her face so colourless it was almost translucent and her eyes teary pools of the palest green. ‘I think maybe I’ll go now,’ she said.

  ‘Should we come too?’ Josie asked, but Sandra shook her head and said she’d be okay now, and that they should walk without her, so Annie and Josie stood back and watched her reverse the big dusty Volvo. Josie blew a kiss and Annie held up a hand, half-wave, half-salute. Betty and Finn, scenting sorrow on the breeze, sat beside their owners with a solemn canine dignity and as the car moved away they watched it go as if they knew, and were sad, that poor old Fritz was leaving the car park for the last time.

  Josie was too tactful to ask directly about Andrew, but Annie told her anyway about the moment when little Riley saw a picture of Martha Hancock and took her for his daddy in a dress. There was comedy in the retelling, although at the time she’d felt only horror. How extraordinary, thought Annie, that in the course of a day and a night, a family crisis could turn into something almost harmless. It was as if people discovered all the time that they weren’t who they thought they were. So they talked for a while about Andrew but soon their conversation drifted back to Fritz, and from there to Finn. He was off the lead, but only so that he could paddle, and the two women stood watching him. Josie wanted Annie to talk to Mr Dinmoor about his sister, in Formby. He’d already mentioned Finn to Dora.

  ‘She’ll take him,’ Josie said. ‘She’s happy to.’

  Annie felt instantly queasy, but then she thought about the dead sheep, and Mr Wright’s kindness in the matter, and even poor old Fritz, for whom all options were now closed, who was perhaps already gone, and she resolved to be strong, or at least as close to strong as she could manage. ‘Well then,’ she said. ‘Should I give him a ring?’

  ‘Sure, I’ll let you have his number. Or if you like, drop in later. He’s coming for tea.’

  On balance this sounded like the lesser of two evils, so Annie agreed; three o’clock at Josie’s. Then Finn chose just this moment to trot back towards her from the water with his generous smile and his feathery tail held high like the Royal Standard, and she rubbed his ears, feeling like Judas Iscariot bestowing the fateful kiss.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Annie said. ‘I do feel awful.’

  ‘Don’t. He’ll have a wonderful time on Formby sands.’

  ‘This Dora lady, is she old?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. She’s younger than Mr Dinmoor, if that’s what you’re worrying about. He calls her his baby sister.’

  ‘Where’s Formby again?’

  ‘Near Blackpool, up there by the sea, north-west coast,’ Josie said. ‘We could all go, when you take him. It’d be a road trip, like Thelma and Louise, but we won’t shoot anyone or drive off the Grand Canyon.’

  Annie had no idea what Josie was talking about and anyway was hardly listening. ‘Whatever will I do without Finn,’ she said, and it wasn’t really a question so Josie didn’t reply and for a while they walked silently in single file along the reservoir path. Then Josie said, ‘You were so lovely back there, to Fritz.’

  ‘Poor old thing,’ Annie said.

  ‘You helped Sandra a lot, you know, just by being kind.’

  ‘Did I?’

  Josie nodded. They walked on. There was nothing to see on the dark winter water, no birds or fishermen. Even on the brightest of summer days this reservoir never sparkled with turquoise light, but today it was black as treacle. Annie thought about the cormorant they had seen a few weeks ago, wondered if it was an omen of bad luck. She thought about the contents of the shoebox and how very much she’d like them back, but Andrew wanted them, he’d already told her, and what could she say but yes to such a reasonable request? Still though, if there were some way of setting those photographs alight, turning them to ash one by one, she would do it, wicked though it might be. Until that blasted box emerged from the loft, Martha Hancock had been eradicated from everything but Vince’s addled memories. And just at this point, just as Vince entered her head for the very first time today, Josie said brightly, ‘So, how’s Vince doing?’

  Annie stopped in her tracks so that Josie walked right into the back of her. ‘Oh!’ Annie said, turning to face her friend and knowing that what she had to say was going to appear absolutely unforgivable. ‘Vince died. He’s dead.’

  To walk and chat for all this while and forget to mention – forget to even remember! – that Vince had passed away; well it was disgraceful, really. How must it look? Covered in shame she raised her eyes to Josie to gauge the depth of her disapproval, but saw she was trying not to laugh.

  ‘Annie Doyle,’ Josie said. ‘You really are the limit.’

  24

  Michael had always told Annie that she ought to read more, by which he meant books, not magazines. Not any old books either, but difficult novels, the kind with stark monochrome covers and a foreword and a lengthy section of explanatory notes at the back. Annie didn’t mind a bit of Dickens, but it turned out he didn’t cut the mustard with Michael. Sentimental, florid and two-dimensional, apparently, so Annie supposed he must be right. She once tried Tess of the d’Urbervilles but didn’t get far. She’d read everything by Agatha Christie, twice, and she loved trashy romances of the type sold by her local newsagent, but she didn’t often read these either, usually choosing nothing at all over Michael’s searing derision. But now here she was at Josie Jones’s windmill, buttering a scone and listening anxiously to Mr Dinmoor, who’d seen a list of the nation’s favourite books and thought it was rubbish. To prove it, he wanted to know what her favourite ever book was and oh, how she was wishing now that she’d paid attention to her son’s challenging reading list. Josie had already said hers was To Kill a Mockingbird – which turned out to have been number six on the list – so Mr Dinmoor was looking expectantly at Annie to back up his theory and sav
e his face.

  ‘Well now, let me think,’ she said, playing for time, her mind entirely blank of anything other than The Disgraceful Duke by Barbara Cartland and she couldn’t, she wouldn’t, say that. Before the silence became awkward, Mr Dinmoor said, ‘For me it’s The Dogs of War but you’ll never find Frederick Forsyth on a favourite books list.’

  Josie was enjoying herself. ‘Because?’ she asked.

  ‘Because nob’dy tells the truth when you ask ’em,’ he said. ‘They think if it’s going on a list, they’d best think up summat clever.’

  Annie found herself nodding in agreement with Mr Dinmoor. She was encouraged, and being encouraged, she relaxed enough to remember Death on the Nile, which she blurted out triumphantly.

  ‘Yes!’ said Mr Dinmoor. ‘Exactly. Marvellous book. Any of them Poirot stories, for that matter. But are they on that list? Are they heckers like. Instead, we’ve got The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Madame Bovary, because all folk do when they’re asked is try to remember what they were forced to read at school.’

  ‘Well I’m sticking with Harper Lee, and I make no apologies for it,’ Josie said. She broke open a scone with her two thumbs, no knife, and paused for a moment to admire the soft interior, studded with sultanas. ‘Aren’t scones the best thing?’ she said. ‘But they have to have fruit in them, and never, ever cheese. Have another, Mr Dinmoor.’

  ‘Alf,’ he said, as he always did, although there was no expectation in his voice that she’d oblige him. He reached for the plate and helped himself.

  Annie took a good bite of her scone, happy to have joined in. She found she actually liked Mr Dinmoor; he paid her attention, but gently, not in a forceful way; also his shirt, which was clean and pressed, smelled comfortingly of Persil. In spite of her rudeness to him at their last encounter – bundling him out of the door, denying him the chance to speak – he’d shown nothing but kindness to her since she arrived. She peeped shyly at him now and again; even his tattoo had taken on a sort of piratical, rakish charm. Did he say he was a mapmaker, last time they met? Herself, she felt like the opposite of a mapmaker, if such a thing were possible; her own orbit had been so very limited. Mind you, she could have drawn a map of Coventry from memory: every street, every ginnel, every dark dead end. Still could; its geography was drawn indelibly in her mind.

  She rose from her reverie and was startled to find he was addressing her. Josie must have briefed him, because he already knew Vince was dead, but rather than piling sympathy upon her, he seemed to be saying that death was just as likely to bring relief as sorrow.

  ‘My Alice passed away twenty years ago,’ he said, ‘and I loved her, but I couldn’t stand to watch her suffer, do you follow me?’

  Annie nodded her head, her mouth being too full to risk opening it.

  ‘She once asked me to suffocate her, y’know, wi’ a pillow.’

  ‘Oh God, really?’ Josie said.

  ‘Aye, but I dint,’ he said. ‘She passed away natural, like. But not peaceful, no, nowt like peaceful. It were agony, for me and for her.’

  Annie, free at last to speak, said, ‘And there’s Fritz, put quietly to sleep to end his suffering.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mr Dinmoor said, pointing at Annie across the table. ‘Exactly, Annie. We accord more rights to a dog than we do to a human being.’

  ‘Well, but hang on …’ said Josie.

  ‘We do,’ said Annie. ‘Vince lived thirty years longer than he should have. Thirty years when he didn’t know up from down.’

  ‘Yes, but we can’t go putting people down willy-nilly,’ Josie said, but Annie and Mr Dinmoor weren’t really paying attention to her.

  ‘My Alice never lost her mind. She died too young for that.’

  ‘My Vince lost his mind when he was still in his thirties,’ Annie said. ‘Started to, anyway.’ Privately she wondered, my Vince: when was he ever that?

  ‘In his thirties!’ said Mr Dinmoor, and he whistled through his teeth. ‘Well I never. I didn’t think that were possible.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Annie. ‘Dementia can strike at any age, although it’s much more common in older folk, of course.’ She felt like the resident expert and she was pleased with Vince for affording her this small moment of importance in Josie’s kitchen. So on they went, sharing stories from the past, and Josie just watched and listened and topped up their tea until Betty trotted past the table and they remembered they were meant to be discussing Finn.

  ‘She has four other dogs at the moment,’ Mr Dinmoor said, ‘and she’s got room for six.’ He was talking about his sister, Dora. ‘She doesn’t take strays, she leaves them to the corporation kennels. But she takes dogs from people she knows, or from people who know people she knows, are you with me?’

  ‘Just about,’ said Josie.

  ‘Four other dogs, though!’ Annie said. ‘What are they?’ In truth, she didn’t really care; she was already thinking this wouldn’t do at all.

  ‘Little ’uns,’ Mr Dinmoor said. ‘Nice little Westie, a couple o’ Jacks and a Yorkie. But she’s pleased as punch about your Finn.’

  ‘Is she?’ Annie, bridling at Dora’s presumption, tried to keep the edge out of her voice.

  ‘Oh aye, she likes a golden retriever,’ he said. ‘We had one when we were bairns. Beautiful dogs.’

  ‘Well yes, they are,’ Annie said, susceptible, as always, to retriever flattery. ‘He is handsome. Finn, I mean.’

  ‘Best thing is if we take ’im up there, see what’s what,’ Mr Dinmoor said.

  ‘You make it sound very easy, Mr Dinmoor,’ Annie said.

  He pinned her with his blue eyes. ‘Alf,’ he said. ‘Alf.’

  ‘Alf,’ Annie said, and he grinned at her so warmly that she had to look anywhere but at him until her blush subsided.

  The funeral took place at the crematorium, which was far too big for the purpose. There were a hundred pale oak chairs set in rows on either side of a central aisle, but only ten of them were filled today. Annie sat front left, flanked by Michael on one side and Andrew on the other, then Bailey, Blake and Riley next to him. Front right there was Moira and Brenda from Glebe Hall. Josie and Sandra had come, and were on the same side of the aisle as Annie, but three empty rows behind, because after all they’d never met Vince, and some unspoken protocol prevented them from putting themselves further forwards. Ten people, thought Annie, gazing ahead to what she could only think of as the stage, where Vince’s coffin would be placed; ten people after a lifetime on earth. It wasn’t much of a send-off, but then how many more would attend her own funeral? Mr Dinmoor might come, perhaps. Alf. That’d be eleven. But then, of course there’d be no Moira, no Brenda, unless – God forbid – Annie ended up in Glebe Hall herself. She shook her head at this dreadful thought and forced her mind to dwell on other things.

  Next to her Andrew and Bailey were chatting quietly and the boys were playing an almost-silent game of jacks, which Annie didn’t mind though she hoped they’d stop when the coffin came in. On her other side Michael was picking his nails. She’d suggested he might play something on the violin, but this was really for the sake of Marjorie Bevin, the unenviable funeral celebrant who’d come to the house to discuss the order of service. Marjorie was a youngish woman, plumply pretty, sweet smelling and soft voiced, and she’d utterly failed to hide her shock when Michael point-blank refused.

  ‘Come off it,’ he’d said, and snorted contemptuously. ‘When did Father ever show an interest in my music?’

  ‘Well he’s dead anyway, isn’t he?’ Annie had said. ‘But you could play for me, and for the other mourners.’

  ‘There won’t be any mourners,’ Michael said, ‘because none of us are that fussed he’s gone. Unless Andrew’s managed to track down the mysterious Martha.’

  So Annie had dropped it and apologised to Marjorie, and Marjorie had managed to collect herself enough to suggest simply the standard order of service, with a few words from her about Vince’s life. And now here they were, in the blandly taste
ful chapel, listening to piano music chosen by Marjorie and waiting for Vince.

  ‘Here he comes,’ Michael muttered. He hadn’t turned round, but he was right; the music had changed from piano to strings and the pall bearers supplied by the funeral director were slow-stepping in with an oak veneer coffin supported on their shoulders. Blake and Riley dropped the jacks and twisted in their seats to stare. Bailey and Andrew held hands, and Annie and Michael kept their gaze straight ahead as if they were waiting for a film to start. Nobody stood. Moira sniffed and dabbed at her nose with a paper tissue. Marjorie waited for Vince to be set down, and for the coffin bearers to retreat, then she stepped forwards and offered Annie a sad smile, which Annie politely returned.

  ‘We are here to remember and celebrate the life of Vincent William Doyle,’ said Marjorie and Michael said, ‘William?’ a little too loudly. Annie dug him sharply with her elbow. Marjorie continued.

  ‘Vince, husband to Annie, father to Michael and Andrew and grandfather to little Blake and Riley here, passed away last week in the Glebe Hall nursing home. But in many ways his family feel they lost him a long time ago to the dementia that afflicted him at such a terribly young age. So I understand that it’s with relief as well as sorrow that we say farewell to him today.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ muttered Michael.

  ‘Relief, that is, at a long-awaited end to his suffering,’ Marjorie intoned. ‘But we must remember, too, the life he lived before his cruel illness took hold; a life that was filled with laughter and love.’

  Michael cast a sideways glance at Annie. She narrowed her eyes at him and pursed her lips then looked steadfastly ahead again. She was dreading the next ten minutes. She’d made up a pack of lies for Marjorie, who knew no better, and she was just hoping they could complete the service and commit the body to the flames without anyone laughing out loud.

  ‘Vincent loved nothing more than to be in the bosom of his family,’ Marjorie said. ‘He was proud of Michael and Andrew, and although his work as a salesman kept him away from Coventry for long periods at a time, he always stayed in touch, sending gifts and sweets through the post, and writing long letters to the boys describing where he was and what he was up to.’