Michael snorted and Andrew said, ‘Oh no you don’t.’
‘Oh no I don’t what?’
‘Do your usual head-in-the-sand act. You don’t get off that easily.’
Annie didn’t feel she’d got off easily at all. Far from it. She felt trammelled, wretched, displaced, humiliated and, in spite of all this, rather proud of herself that she was hiding it so well.
‘What do you want me to say?’ she asked him.
‘Sorry might be a start.’
‘To you?’
‘No!’ he said, exasperated. ‘To Martha!’
Annie held out her hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘But it wouldn’t be true,’ she said. ‘I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry at all.’
On 23 December, Josie rang again and invited Annie and Michael to Christmas lunch. This was impossible so Annie declined and yet nevertheless there they were, come Christmas Day, Annie, Michael and Lottie the dog, in Josie’s round kitchen. How this had come about was nothing short of a miracle. Annie, hoping to please Michael, had told him she’d refused an invitation from Josie Jones to a festive meal that would almost certainly involve Christmas crackers. Michael had said if she’d like to accept, then he would go with her. Annie had stared at him in silence until it became clear that Michael was taking great offence, and then she’d said, well it would be nice to see Josie, and just wait until he saw her windmill.
She still didn’t understand why he’d agreed to something that went against every dearly held, carefully nurtured anti-social idiosyncrasy he had ever possessed. Annie could only guess – and it seemed, on past form, a wild, unlikely supposition – that he was trying to be more of a son to her, now that Andrew had … well, what had Andrew done? Apart from finding Martha and springing her on Annie like that, he’d done nothing. Hadn’t disowned her, hadn’t changed his name to Hancock, hadn’t sworn never to speak to her again.
He hadn’t rung this morning, though, as he usually did: the first Christmas Day for more than two decades that he hadn’t phoned at 7am with cheerful greetings and, in recent years, put the boys on to shout Merry Christmas at her from across the world. This absence of contact had stung her into a state of really quite miserable reflection and when Michael said, ‘Oh, let him stew,’ she’d felt sadder still.
‘Do you think I should ring him instead?’ she’d said. And Michael hadn’t answered, just implied by the straightness of his back and the tilt of his head as he left the room that no, he didn’t think she should do any such thing.
And so she hadn’t. But she’d felt uneasy with the decision, and still she was wondering, as she sat in the turkey-scented fug of Josie’s kitchen, whether she’d been very wrong. A call from her to Andrew might’ve been an olive branch, if one were needed. It would’ve told him she was thinking about him. And missed him. And loved him, more than Martha Hancock ever would. On the other hand, she thought, he might not have answered. Or, far worse, he might have answered then hung up. She couldn’t risk rejection from Andrew: and yet, in her heart, she couldn’t believe him capable of such a thing.
Oh, if only he’d let things lie instead of poking around in the past. It wasn’t as if there’d been anything missing in Andrew’s life, Annie thought; and what, now, was he meant to do with two mothers? Because Andrew and Martha would see each other again, one way or another, Annie was quite certain of that. Martha would fly to Brisbane in a heartbeat, make friends with Bailey, fall in love with Riley, and while Annie didn’t at all like the idea of any of that, what, after all, was to be done? Cat was out of the bag, as Michael said: worms were out of the can.
‘Just you and me now, Mother,’ he’d said, when they closed the door on Andrew and Martha and were watching them retreat through the wavy glass: two blonde heads together, in close conversation.
‘Oh, well …’ Annie had said. ‘Let’s see.’
‘No, look, they’re thick as thieves,’ Michael said, and it did appear so. Annie had had to turn away and just be grateful that the only thing she now had to fear was Andrew’s disapproval.
Now here they were, Annie and Michael, without crackers and paper hats as it turned out, but closeted together in the windmill’s festive warmth, and Annie still couldn’t quite credit the fact that Michael was seated opposite her at Josie’s table, sipping a glass of chilled Viognier, and seeming nearly ordinary, apart from his fringe, which covered his eyes. He peered out from under it like a nosy neighbour behind a net curtain.
Annie drank her wine and considered the future, and it came to her that, actually, she had two simple choices: she could be happy, or she could be sad, and it might just have been the effects of the wine, but she was inclined to choose the former. There was nothing more to be discovered about her, no more dark secrets to be grubbed up, no further skeletons in her closet. This, at least, was something to celebrate. She would fight heartily to stop Andrew drifting away from her and in the meantime, well, there was still Michael. He was strange, yes, and prickly: but he was here, and look at him now, around a table with her friends, almost joining in. And just as she’d lost Finn and gained Lottie, Annie decided, right here and now, to be grateful for what she had. The worst had happened, Martha had come back, and although Annie had thought it would signal the end of everything, it hadn’t been so. Martha had even spoken up for her, telling Andrew before they left that day that he shouldn’t judge his mother too harshly. ‘She was very fiercely protective,’ Martha had said. ‘She felt you were all she had,’ and Michael had said, ‘Excuse me?’ so Martha had had to quickly apologise. But anyway, that might have been why she and Michael were here now, thought Annie. Her odd older son – for she would always consider herself to be the mother of two boys, not one – was trying to be nice, and she knew full well that indirectly, she probably had Martha to thank for this.
‘So,’ Michael was saying to Josie, ‘Uzbekistan must have a fascinating folk tradition. Do you know, is their music influenced by the Persians or the Mongolians?’
‘Oh, what?’ Sandra said. She was at the table too, resting her bare feet on velvety Beverley, who was prostrate under the table. Billy was spending Christmas with Trevor and his new American wife Candy, in the Caribbean. Sandra was sour, and a little worse for drink.
‘I was asking Josie if—’
‘No, Michael, I heard you. I just couldn’t believe what you’d asked.’ Sandra had had more wine than everyone else. She drank it lustily, as if she was quenching a raging thirst.
Josie looked thoughtful. ‘Well it’s lutes, fiddles, flutes, that sort of thing,’ she said. She smiled at him and he nodded.
‘Probably Persian,’ he said.
‘Do we even have Persia anymore?’ Sandra said. ‘Isn’t it fictional, like the Arabian Nights ?’
‘Any more for any more?’ Josie asked. Everyone’s plates were empty now apart from Michael’s – he’d barely touched his food. Only Annie knew that this was because there was too much on his plate, the turkey cheek-by-jowl with its stuffing, vegetables heaped willy-nilly against each other; red cabbage bleeding into pureed parsnip, roast carrots tangling with green beans. He’d only picked at the food on the outer perimeter of the plate, but anyway, thought Annie, he ate like a penitent monk most of the time; he was probably full.
‘I couldn’t possibly,’ Annie said, patting her belly, grateful that her trousers had an elasticated waist. ‘That was delicious.’
Josie acknowledged the compliment with a gracious nod. ‘We’ll have a break before pudding,’ she said. ‘Mr Dinmoor said he might join us for some, later on.’
‘Well,’ Annie said at once, ‘we should probably get going.’ Michael looked at her, and even though his hair hid his sardonic eyebrows, she could tell they were raised in amusement at her crass transparency.
‘No!’ said Josie. ‘Don’t do that. I asked Mr Wright too; he wanted to see how Lottie’s doing.’
‘Oh,’ said Annie, feeling trapped. She drank down her wine, which was delicious. Josie topped her up.
‘Four hours behind,’ said Michael promptly.
This is one of the things he’s useful for, thought Annie.
‘Noon then,’ Sandra said. ‘Probably just ordering their first daiquiri of the day.’ She sounded unutterably gloomy, and Josie laughed.
‘Is Mr Wright a friend of yours then?’ Annie asked.
‘He is now,’ Josie said. ‘We bonded over the Lottie deal.’
‘Was his mother there when you went?’ Annie still saw Mrs Wright in the occasional bad dream; always, she was about to pull the furry skin off a litter of golden retriever puppies and it was down to Annie to stop her.
‘Poorly,’ Josie said. ‘She was in hospital with an infection on her lungs, and I didn’t like to think of him alone all day long in that dismal farmhouse.’
‘What a collection of waifs and strays we are,’ Sandra said. She picked up the empty wine bottle and waved it across the table at Josie. ‘This seems to be all gone,’ she said. ‘I do hope there’s some more.’
Drunk, thought Annie. But Josie just fetched another bottle.
Alf and Mr Wright arrived at the same time, and there was a frisson of awkwardness because neither man knew the other, and there they were on the threshold of the house, each clutching a gift for Josie. Alf had Stilton in an earthenware pot and Mr Wright had eight lamb chops, frozen and ineptly wrapped in cling film. They’d introduced themselves to each other by the time Josie answered the door but they still came into the room like five-year-olds late to a birthday party, hesitant and self-conscious. Alf wore a collar and tie and his trousers had a straight, sharp crease down the front; a policeman’s precision, Annie thought. Mr Wright was just as he had been the last time she’d seen him: dishevelled, grubby, sheep-smelling. His trousers bagged out at the knee and there was a yellow trail of egg yolk on his shirt. Michael flared his nostrils and looked at his watch and Annie thought, now you’re sorry we didn’t leave sooner. Josie made room for them at the table – easier now, since Sandra had fallen asleep, entwined with Beverley on the sofa – and kept the conversation rolling along, light and easy. Alf cast cautious glances at Annie, but she was listening earnestly to Mr Wright, who was telling her about the Jack Russell temperament. ‘They’re either diggers or runners,’ he said. ‘She’ll be one or t’other, so lets ’ope she’s a digger.’
Annie said, ‘Oh well, it’s all patio so she’ll have her work cut out,’ and he bellowed with laughter.
A new bottle of wine appeared on the table and Annie had another glass. Her third. Unprecedented, and her vision was beginning to blur at the edges. But Josie’s wine was so easy to drink! Like chilled floral honey poured from a tall thin bottle, frosted with cold. Josie called it a pudding wine, and it could pass for dessert all on its own. But there was steamed figgy pudding too, a dark, dense dome, decorated with holly and all ablaze when Josie brought it to the table. Then the holly sprig caught fire and sparks began to fly from the berries, so Alf plucked it from the top of the pudding – fearlessly, with his bare hand! – and dropped it into the jug of water on the table, where it fizzed and died. Annie wasn’t sure why she found all this so funny, but she laughed and laughed.
‘Pipe down, Mother,’ Michael said, but not unkindly.
‘I can’t!’ Annie said. ‘Try this.’ She pushed her glass of sweet wine along the table and he wrinkled his nose and pushed it back, untasted.
‘Suit yourself,’ she said, but she smiled at him, suffused with fondness at his fastidious refusal to drink from her glass. He pursed his lips in disapproval but there was the suggestion of amusement in his eyes: what she could see of them anyway.
‘I love pudding wine,’ she announced.
‘Evidently,’ Michael said.
‘Muscat de Beaumes de Venise,’ Alf said, bouncing the words out into the room, swirling the golden liquid in his pretty crystal glass and raising it to Annie. She lifted her own, and they clinked.
‘By the way, I was wrong about those bones,’ she said happily.
‘Mother,’ Michael said, and raised a warning finger to his lips.
‘I’m just saying.’
‘Good-oh,’ said Alf. He winked at her.
‘We really should be going,’ Michael said, alarmed by the dapper old man and the flush in his mother’s cheeks.
‘We should,’ Annie agreed, nodding fervently. ‘We should. But on balance I don’t think we will.’
Michael folded his arms and closed his eyes, which might just as easily have been passive acceptance as protest. The room, Annie noticed with interest, had begun to buzz with pleasure at her decision to stay a little longer: not the people in it, but the actual room itself, its curved walls of dove grey, the mellow wooden fixtures and fittings, the Middle Eastern trinkets in brass and pewter, the crockery in all the colours of the spectrum. It was mesmerising: extraordinary. The kettle on the hob whistled a message of goodwill and there were glad tidings in every creak and sigh of the furniture, but when Annie looked around the table to marvel with the others at this dazzling phenomenon, she saw from their faces that she was the only one hearing it. What a shame, she thought, and then she wondered – languidly, without any real concern – if understanding the language of a kettle meant she was, in fact, not quite right in the head. She sipped her wine and considered the question, but Mr Wright had cracked open a chocolate orange and was offering it around, so almost at once she was distracted from her purpose. Then Josie went out of the room and came back with an ancient fiddle and bow of uncertain provenance. Perhaps Baku, or possibly Tashkent, she said; she didn’t know where exactly, or when, but years and years ago, anyway. Michael opened one eye, interested.
‘Do you think you can coax it into life?’ Josie asked. She offered him the instrument and her bangles slipped musically down her arm like a temptation. Annie held her breath, waiting for him to rudely refuse, but Michael took the fiddle almost graciously, tenderly blew off the dust and caressed the strings with the old bow. He winced at the wheeze and scrape, and on the old leather sofa Sandra stirred, and Beverley raised her elegant head, pricked up her pointed ears. Betty the collie moved and stepped out of her basket. She had a tinsel bow on her collar.
‘Ooh, go on then,’ Annie said to Alf, who was proffering the muscat. He poured, and the light danced through the wine as it flowed, as if even this simple function was touched by magic. She raised her glass in a general, inclusive, encouraging way. ‘To Josie Jones,’ Annie said, ‘and the perfect roundness of her kitchen.’
Her toast echoed around the table, and Betty gave two pleasant barks, which sounded a little like ‘hear hear’. The laughter was more intoxicating than the wine and amid it all Michael threw out a few perfectly rendered bars of ‘Jingle Bells’.
Annie thought if she had the power to conjure a good dream, it might be exactly this, here and now. She felt the swell of interest around the table in her strange, clever son, felt the warm weight of the puppy in her lap. There was a woozy lightness in her head that would probably carry a price tomorrow, but oh, the sheer joy of it all! She basked in the knowledge that in this moment, on this enchanted night, she was immersed in the sort of ordinary happiness that had only ever belonged to other people, never to her. When she looked up, Alf was watching her, and he met her eyes with a smile.
Epilogue
Formby Point seemed a different place in the June sunshine. Everywhere Annie looked there were people walking dogs and loafing about on tartan rugs. Behind her, children whooped and charged about in the dunes and in front of her they dug holes and drew lines in the flat, hard sand of the beach. In the distance the sea glittered under a blue sky.
‘Shall we walk all the way to the water?’
This was Alf. He had Lottie on a lead and a cool bag over his shoulder, stuffed with picnic food. Annie smiled at him and reached down to scratch Lottie behind her ears.
‘We could have somet
hing to eat,’ she said, ‘and see if the water comes to us.’
‘I like your thinking.’
Annie scanned the beach, shielding her eyes from the sun with a hand. ‘I can’t see Dora,’ she said. ‘We probably shouldn’t start without her.’
But Alf had passed her the lead and was already kneeling in the sand, spreading out a big, threadbare beige bath towel, which was the closest thing he had to a picnic rug.
‘She’ll be here like a shot when I get this food out,’ he said. ‘Our kid can sniff out a pork pie from two miles away.’
Still, Annie stayed where she was, gazing left and right, and it wasn’t really Dora she was looking for. Finn was out there somewhere, running with the terriers.
‘We shouldn’t have agreed to meet on the beach,’ she said now. ‘It’s too busy. I was picturing it empty, like it was before.’
‘Annie, sit down,’ Alf said.
‘She’ll never see us,’ Annie said.
‘She will, we’re not thirty feet from the car park; she can’t leave this beach without falling over us.’
But anyway Annie set off away from Alf, and Lottie trotted mildly alongside her. She was a tidy little dot of a dog, with an endearing habit of treating everyone she met as her favourite person, apart from Michael, who she’d quickly realised was a lost cause. Josie and Sandra were besotted, though. They were sharing her when Annie went away next month: two weeks each. And while Annie was gone, the builders were making a start on the loft conversion, where Michael would have his own bathroom, his own small kitchen and a wide, low bedroom.
Annie had fretted, naturally. ‘What will you do, though?’ she’d said to Michael. ‘There’ll be dust and debris and no end of racket.’ But Michael had only shrugged and said, ‘I’ll steer clear by day, and I trust they won’t be working through the night?’
He had altered, by degrees, over the past six months. There was a careful cordiality about him; it smacked of effort and concentration, and no one could have mistaken him for a ray of sunshine, but still, Annie privately cherished and celebrated the small advances. When she’d told him she was flying to Brisbane, that Alf was flying with her, that she’d be gone for a month, staying with Andrew and Bailey in Byron Bay, he’d said, ‘Rather you than me,’ but he’d said it with a smile, and she’d taken that as acceptance, or the closest to it she was going to get.
This Much is True: How far will a mother go to protect her shocking secret? Page 33