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

by Jane Sanderson

  He looked at her, surprised. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘How the devil did you guess that?’

  ‘I just knew. I was there too, then.’ Coincidence wasn’t the word, she thought; fate was nearer the mark, and while coincidence could be marvelled at then forgotten, fate might have to be obeyed. She wasn’t sure.

  ‘Get away,’ Alf said. ‘Small world.’

  ‘The girl’s remains, in the river,’ she said gnomically, but he knew at once what she meant.

  ‘Oh aye, that’s right,’ he said, remembering. ‘A bad business.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That case was cold from the start.’

  ‘You never found the killer.’ It was a statement of fact, not a question.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we didn’t know the victim, either. We had nowt to go on, except a long list of missing girls. You remember it then? I suppose we were all over the local news for a while.’

  ‘You were, yes,’ she said. ‘Hoping someone might know something, I expect.’

  ‘Oh somebody would’ve done, of that I have no doubt,’ he said. ‘Somebody always knows something.’ She could hear he’d been a policeman now; it was creeping back into his voice. ‘But it’s hard to make progress when you don’t even know who you’ve found.’

  Martha Hancock’s young, forthright voice said, ‘It was me,’ so clearly in Annie’s head that she was sure Alf must have heard but he just shook his head. ‘Young female remains, many years dead, apparently missed by nob’dy.’

  Vince missed her, thought Annie.

  ‘Anyway,’ Alf said. ‘One day, you never know. New evidence comes along, and suddenly …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Justice is done, wrongs are righted.’

  ‘Maybe a wrong was righted,’ Annie said.

  She knew that Alf had turned his head to stare at her, but she wouldn’t look at him. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I’m just saying.’

  They walked on, towards the glass doors of the service station, which slid open to admit them into the food court. It teemed with fellow travellers although Alf and Annie were only aware of each other. He was preparing to say something; Annie could tell this from the quality of his silence, which was full of consternation. She had an overwhelming desire to sit down and rest her head on a table.

  ‘So, what about 1970?’ he said.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You said summat about 1970, the worst thing you ever did.’

  She looked at him as if she was assessing his suitability as confidante.

  ‘Did you know her, Annie?’

  They were in the cafeteria now, both of them holding trays, and it seemed so incongruous, this possibility of grand confession set against the banal activity of queuing for food. She studied the menu to avoid his eyes and bide her time, but just beneath the surface of her unremarkable skin lay the rush and roll of the past, the headiness of knowing she might reveal her darkest truth and wrest from Alf his complacent certainties, show him the infinite forms that wickedness could take.

  ‘Annie, did you know that person?’ he asked again. ‘You should tell me, if you did.’

  She turned to him and she was about to say it, about to draw him into her past in an orgy of truth telling, but an obstruction, hard and hot, seemed to rise in her throat before the words formed and made her heave and gasp and clutch at Alf ’s arm as if she was choking. He whacked her on the back, but there was nothing stuck, only the confession that’d gone unsaid for too many years. She didn’t know this could happen to words, that they could clump and clot together, mutate into something solid that crowded the throat so that they wouldn’t be, couldn’t be uttered.

  He led her to a table and sat her down, and she pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and gathered her wits. When Alf came back with a packet of paracetamol and a tray of food, she apologised again and again, took two capsules with a glass of water, then gratefully ate her breakfast: scrambled egg, grilled tomatoes, soft white toast, hot, strong tea. Slowly it restored her to the person they both recognised – tearful, a little fearful, tired, ordinary. Alf was patently relieved. He had a bacon sandwich, which dripped with brown sauce, and he talked for both of them. He’d tried Dora, just now on the way to Boots for the tablets, but she hadn’t answered and he’d realised she’d be on the beach with the dogs now so best wait until later, when they were back. Annie listened, and nodded. He said he wasn’t surprised she’d had a funny turn, she was poorly and on top of that she’d left Finn behind in Formby and some sort of delayed reaction was inevitable. No, she said, it wasn’t only that, but when he asked what was it then that ailed her, she only said it’s fine, it’s fine, it doesn’t matter any more. He let it rest, but when they were back on the road a strange silence settled between them: Alf, wondering what she’d told him; Annie, wondering what she’d said.

  The body in the river was yet to be identified, but it was days now since it had been found and the story had slipped down the running order of even the local television news. It was on, though, in the Doyles’ sitting room and in Coventry in 1979 Annie was watching it with her newfound vigilance. The police were extending their investigation beyond Coventry, trying to match their own scant evidence with young women reported missing by their families over the past decade. An officer appeared on camera, a Detective Inspector Dinmoor from the special investigations unit, and said he hoped someone might come forward; they had very little to go on, he said, but someone, somewhere, must have information about a daughter, a sister, a niece who’d slipped out of their lives, never to return. Annie took against him at once; his eyes were a piercing blue; they looked as if they might see the truth no matter where it was hidden. She wondered if he already knew more than he was letting on. She wondered, too, if she should move house, or would that instantly cast her in a suspicious light?

  She didn’t need to be in Coventry at all. Michael was going to the Guildhall next September, Andrew could change schools, Vince would live where he was put – he had no choice. But the palaver! She shook her head at her own nonsense. The television showed a shot of the river again, but there was nothing to see besides the police tape and the sluggish water. It wasn’t the part of the river where she’d left Martha, by the looks of things: not even close. But then, it’d been nearly ten years; she’d be bound to drift.

  ‘If I never came home, would you bother trying to find me?’

  This was Michael, nearly seventeen years old, lank-haired and spotty, as uncomfortable in his own skin as he had been as a baby. He didn’t seem to love anybody, and therefore didn’t expect to be loved.

  ‘Oh Michael,’ Annie said. ‘What a thing to ask.’

  ‘I’d leave no stone unturned,’ Andrew said flatly, without looking up from Shoot. His own face was unblemished, rosy with youth and easy good health, and his blonde hair was like a mane, lustrous and abundant. He was letting it grow to look like Roger Daltry.

  ‘Fuck off,’ Michael said.

  ‘Michael.’ Annie’s protests always lacked conviction, never meant anything, had no discernible effect. In any case she didn’t want to goad him because he’d turn on her again, demanding to know why after decades of indifference she now put the news on every night and watched it with unwavering attention. Michael never missed a change in anyone’s behaviour, however small, however harmless, and he was cross with her because she’d fobbed him off with nonsense. Michael always knew when he was being silenced with an untruth, just as he knew instantly when an answer had a ring of authenticity. She’d be glad when he went away to college. She blessed the day she’d bought him a violin because otherwise she doubted she would ever have any peace from his ceaseless questioning of every tiny discrepancy in her life.

  Vince, occupying the whole of the sofa, opened his eyes and gazed around the room to establish his whereabouts.

  ‘Evening, Mr Doyle, welcome to the seventh circle of hell,’ Michael said. Vince blinked at him.

  ‘Where’s she gone?’ he said.

  �
�Who?’ Annie glanced away from the television to look at him.

  ‘She only went out for a loaf.’

  Annie stood up, filled with fear. Michael laughed.

  ‘What’s he on about now?’

  ‘She only went out for a loaf,’ Vince said again. His eyes brimmed with tears. ‘What’s her name? Beautiful girl, classy girl.’

  The boys gawped. Only Annie knew that he was thinking of Martha, searching the morass of his mind for a name. Unlikely though it was, she believed the BBC news might have filtered through the complex webbing of his dementia to make some connection between his lost love and the found bones. In a trice she’d reached over and switched off the television and this one small action was enough to distract her husband, who snarled at her and said, ‘I was watching that,’ although he wasn’t. She ignored him. Michael watched her from under his hair. Andrew skimmed the pages of his football magazine. Annie sat and waited for her heartbeat to slow and thought this won’t do, this won’t do at all.

  33

  Annie and Alf managed to remain carefully neutral for the rest of their journey – easy enough, since Annie was quite legitimately able to take refuge in her developing cold, turning her face to the window and half-closing her aching eyes, keeping conversation to a minimum. He dropped her off with a get-well-soon and a jaunty goodbye that she knew disguised a certain amount of relief, then she hurried inside, grateful beyond measure to be back. She’d decided, in the thoughtful quiet of the car, that she wouldn’t worry any further about Alf and their strange, dangerous conversation, so the minute she was inside she busied herself with mundanities, unpacking her meagre quantity of washing as the kettle boiled and the tea brewed. Then she took her mug into the living room, sank into an armchair, and reminded herself, as she shucked off her shoes and wriggled her stockinged toes in the pile of the rug, how very unwise it was ever to stray too far from hearth and home.

  Now, at last, she let herself dwell on Finn, or rather, the lack of him. She’d braced herself for sadness, prepared herself for the impact of an empty house, even considered the flimsiest of flimsy silver linings: that no longer would Michael find tumbleweed drifts of golden hair in the corners of the rooms.

  But she hadn’t banked on the solid depth and breadth of the silence: hadn’t fully understood how dense it could feel. Without Finn, the house was preternaturally still, with the strange and sterile quiet of a mausoleum. Well: there was the ticking of the wall clock, and the hidden gurgling of the water pipes. But aside from these domestic sound effects, there was nothing at all. And it wasn’t as if Finn was a noisy dog; no, he rarely barked, preferring instead to communicate telepathically, willing Annie to meet his needs by the power of thought. Still though, she realised now that she’d lost a life force in Finn and she imagined her homecoming again, as it might have been: Finn’s skittering welcome dance, his unbridled pleasure in her arrival, his smile, the way he would be barely able to contain his joy, his satisfied ‘humph’ as he dropped down beside her to warm her feet while she drank her tea.

  ‘Oh,’ Annie said, with a sort of bleak astonishment. Then she bowed her head and wept, and once she started she couldn’t stop. Indeed, the tears brought some relief to her bruised soul and she cried and cried, abandoning herself to grief. She sobbed and streamed, and tilted her head to howl at the ceiling. I’m alone in the world, she thought, letting dramatic hyperbole fuel her distress: alone in the world, and Finn, my Finn, will learn to love Dora.

  Then the telephone rang, and she abruptly stemmed the tears and stood up. Dora, she thought wildly; this’ll be Dora, who’s decided Finn is too big, too boisterous, and she, Annie, must fetch him back. She wiped her face on her sleeve as she went to the hallway to answer, although her voice wobbled when she picked up the receiver and said, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Annie?’ a woman’s voice said.

  ‘Yes,’ Annie said, shakily hopeful.

  ‘Oh, it didn’t sound like you.’

  ‘Dora?’ Annie said.

  ‘No, Sandra.’

  ‘Oh,’ Annie said, and all hope evaporated.

  ‘I wondered … well, are you all right?’

  This was so unlike Sandra that Annie didn’t answer immediately, just held the receiver and looked blankly at the wall.

  ‘Annie? Are you there?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  Annie tried to speak, but faltered. Then she swallowed, and prepared to lie. ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she said, as steadily as she could manage.

  ‘It’s just, I wasn’t, when Fritz went,’ Sandra said.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘No, I cried so much in the car on the way home from the vet’s that I had to pull over.’

  ‘Did you?’ Annie’s voice quaked, and she held her breath, closed her eyes and pressed her lips together in a tight white line. Her head ached, her throat hurt, her nose dripped like a tap, and Finn was gone.

  ‘Annie?’

  It was no good. She began to sniff, then whimper, then, even as she registered horror at her own lack of restraint, the dam broke and the tears poured forth once more.

  ‘I’m coming over,’ Sandra said, and hung up.

  She was there in ten minutes, and though she had none of Josie’s tenderness, she knew just what it felt like to lose a dog.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know. It’s horribly quiet, like the world just stopped turning.’

  Annie nodded fervently. She felt calmer now; Sandra had brought her back from the brink with her own brand of grief therapy: a sort of sardonic realism mixed with stern sympathy.

  ‘But look, nobody’s died,’ she said. ‘I bet he’s on the sands right now having a blast.’

  ‘I expect so,’ Annie said.

  ‘But he’s not here, right? So it’s hard on you?’

  Annie nodded again.

  ‘Still, there’s no need to cry yourself into a coma, Annie. You have to get a grip and consider things from Finn’s point of view. I bet you have a right old headache, don’t you?’

  ‘I do,’ Annie said. ‘But then, I already did, even before I started crying. I picked up a cold in Blackpool.’

  Sandra pulled a face. ‘You got off lightly I reckon. You can pick up worse things than a cold in Blackpool.’

  ‘Mr Dinmoor likes it.’

  ‘Nowt so queer as folk,’ Sandra said, and Annie laughed feebly.

  Sandra made her a Lemsip and then stood with her back to the kitchen sink and spent ten minutes asking practical questions about Dora and Formby, so that through her own answers Annie, who sat at the table looking at Sandra through the restorative steam of her hot, bitter drink, found she was growing reconciled once again to the very thing that only half an hour ago had seemed unbearable. She associated this blessedly peaceful feeling not with any inner strength of her own, but with Sandra’s steady presence, so when the younger woman looked at her watch and said, ‘Right-oh, better make tracks,’ Annie wanted to say, ‘No, don’t go!’

  ‘Oh,’ she said instead. ‘Of course, yes.’ She stood up.

  ‘No more waterworks,’ Sandra said warningly. ‘Chin up, onwards and upwards.’

  Annie gave a non-committal nod and they walked to the front door, then just as they got there Michael’s lanky frame loomed up the garden path, pushing his bicycle. Annie said, ‘Oh dear,’ and Sandra laughed. She opened the door but Michael didn’t even glance in their direction. Instead he busied himself with his Raleigh, slotting it into the narrow wooden bike store and clipping shut the padlock. The two women watched him. When he could avoid it no longer he looked at his mother, not at Sandra.

  ‘You’re back then,’ he said, as if her not returning had been a possibility.

  ‘Of course I am,’ Annie said.

  There were a few beats of silence when Michael might have asked about the journey, or the dog, or her feelings, and then Sandra said, ‘Right, bye, Annie,’ and walked past Michael to her car. Annie dolefully watched her go.

  M
ichael stepped inside the house, all arms and legs on account of the Lycra he favoured for his longer rides. He looked like a lanky black spider, Annie thought. His normal clothes, she knew, would be folded up snug inside his backpack along with music manuscripts, reading glasses and a fountain pen. She watched him unclip his yellow helmet and release his hair, which dropped around and about the edges of his face in limp, stringy curls.

  ‘Has everything been okay?’ she asked him, since he was showing no interest in her.

  ‘It has,’ he said.

  He was peeling off an outer layer and she waited, but he only glanced at her as if he was surprised she was still there. ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘Well, I’ve been away, and I left Finn at his new home, and it’d be nice to be asked how I got on.’

  He widened his eyes at the rebuke. Usually she allowed him to be as indifferent as he liked.

  ‘How did you get on, Mother?’

  His voice was wreathed in sarcasm, so Annie just sighed and Michael started to unpack his bag, sliding out the corduroy trousers and white cotton shirt on the palm of his hand. Crisply folded with corners sharp as an envelope, they could have been new out of the box.

  ‘You were very rude just then,’ she said. He looked at her.

  ‘To Sandra,’ Annie said. ‘It’s usual to say hello in that sort of situation.’

  ‘I don’t know her,’ Michael said. ‘She has nothing to do with me.’

  He shook out his shirt and draped it fastidiously on the bannister but to Annie his absorption seemed affected, self-conscious.

  ‘Alf Dinmoor thinks you’re autistic,’ she said.

  He looked up, and his pale face had an unusual dash of colour, like a dab of rouge, high on each sharp cheekbone.

  ‘Why did you talk about me with him?’ he said.

  ‘I had to apologise to him for your rudeness, and he said you weren’t being rude, or at least, you weren’t being intentionally rude, because you’re almost certainly autistic.’