The Happy Family

by Jackie Kabler

  ‘Alison … Alison Allen?’

  ‘Yes. So you’ve obviously got the wrong place or something. I don’t know. I’m sorry but I’m too busy for this. I have a sculpture delivery arriving any second and I’m on my own at the moment. Goodbye.’

  And then she’s gone, but I sit there, phone still jammed against my ear, listening to nothing. I can’t move. I can barely breathe.

  Alison Allen. Alison Allen, who had a daughter called Lucy many years ago. It can’t be, it can’t, and yet …

  Slowly, slowly, I put the phone down on the table beside me, rise to my feet and walk, step by hesitant step, across the room until I’m standing over the bed. I look down at her, at her closed eyelids which are almost translucent, at the tiny up-down, up-down movement of her chest under the sheet. And then I hear a howl, a guttural, animalistic roar, and to my surprise I realise it’s coming from me.

  This is Alison Allen, isn’t it? This is not Alice Armstrong.

  This is not my mother at all.

  This is Lucy Allen’s mother.

  Chapter 37

  Twelve hours later, she wakes up.

  I’ve spent the day in a state of such confusion and fear that I feel feverish, almost delirious. The only person I’ve told so far is, weirdly, Jacob, and only because he called me minutes after I’d spoken to the art gallery, to tell me that the children were worried about their grandmother and wondering whether they could visit. There was a stunned silence on the end of the phone when I relayed what I’d just discovered, and half an hour later he was there, standing in the little hospital room in his weekend sweatpants and T-shirt.

  ‘Crystal’s taken the kids out to the wildlife park,’ he said. ‘Keep them busy for a few hours, while we work out how to break the news. Christ, Beth, what’s going on here? Are you sure about this? She’s really not your mother? Why on earth would anyone …?’

  And so I told him. I told him everything. I told him the truth about Lucy Allen, and what had happened twenty-seven years ago; about the events of the past weeks, and how I’d begun to fear that everything that had happened was, somehow, connected to Lucy; about how those fears had pretty much been confirmed when Daphne Blake had been mentioned in the Facebook post; and about how I’d suspected pretty much everyone I knew, even him.

  ‘Seriously? Bloody hell, Beth. Is that how bad things have got between us? I would never, ever—’

  ‘I know. I know that now. I’m sorry, but I’ve been so scared and so … so befuddled by it all. I got to the point where I didn’t trust anyone. Robin, Brenda, Barbara, Deborah … there’s a lot of stuff I still don’t understand. But now, well’—I turned to look at the bed, where Mum … No, not Mum. Where Alison Allen, Lucy’s mum, was still lying, oblivious—‘it was her, wasn’t it? All of it, somehow. Or some of it, at least. I don’t know. I can’t get my head round it. I have no idea how she did it, or why she’s waited so long to come for me. But you know what? I always knew she would, or someone would. Does that sound peculiar? My whole life I’ve been waiting for this to happen. And now it has.’

  Jacob, who’d been listening with an expression that flitted between astonishment and incredulity, shook his head.

  ‘Who attacked her though, and why? I don’t get any of this.’

  ‘No idea. Unless it was just an attempted burglary gone wrong. No sign of any break-in though. I’m hoping the police come up with something on that one because I can’t explain it, Jacob. There’s so much of it I just don’t understand.’

  ‘You and me both. It’s like a film script,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe this has actually happened to someone I know in real life. What happened back then, I mean, it was horrendous, and what you did, well …’

  ‘I know,’ I whispered, but he was still talking.

  ‘But this is mad. What you’re saying is that she basically tracked you down after nearly thirty years to mess with your head and get revenge for what you did to her daughter? I mean, as you say, why the hell wait so long, and how did she do it? And … shit, I mean so many questions. And how did you even fall for it in the first place? Does she look like your mother?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘I can barely remember my mother. All I have is that one photo, you know the one? She wasn’t even twenty then. She was blonde and pretty, I remember that. But her face has always just been sort of vague in my head. When she’—I gesture at the bed—‘when she came to the door, I had no idea who she was at first. I didn’t recognise her at all. It was only when she leaned forward and I saw the tattoo …’

  I remembered then the way she had been trembling, clearly so nervous as she waited on my doorstep.

  Not, as I assumed back then, nervous because she was about to be reunited with the daughter she abandoned. She was nervous because she wasn’t sure if her ruse was going to work, wasn’t she?

  A little sob escaped me. I was grieving now, I realised. Grieving the loss of my mother all over again. The pain was almost unbearable; it was a physical ache inside me. How was I ever going to get over this?

  ‘The fake tattoo,’ said Jacob. ‘Jesus. She’s a clever one. Did she know your mother then? How would she know she had a tattoo like that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Old pictures, maybe? Maybe she knows someone who knew Mum … Your guess is as good as mine. I never actually met Lucy’s mum; I never even saw her close up really, just from a distance through her car window when she used to pick up Lucy from school. She was so bloody convincing though, wasn’t she? She must have kept track somehow; she must have known that my mother was still missing. God, she even knew when her birthday was, everything. I’ve no idea how she did it, but … it’s almost impressive, isn’t it?’

  He nodded. ‘It’s amazing. And I suppose it wasn’t just you who fell for it, was it? We all did. I mean, I’d only ever seen that one photo of your mother too, and as you say, Alison here is blonde, attractive … close enough, considering how much time has passed. But we never even thought to question her, to ask for any proof of identity, did we? We’re all idiots, every one of us.’

  He slapped himself hard on the forehead and I managed a small smile.

  ‘I’m the biggest idiot though. But I suppose I wanted to believe her, didn’t I? When she said she was my mum, it was like all my birthdays and Christmases rolled into one. It was what I’d dreamed of for thirty years. I mean, I did notice that she was much less highly-strung, much more composed, I suppose, than I remember my mother being, but that comes with age, doesn’t it? And all her yoga, and long walks, well … I just thought she’d calmed down as she got older. And as you say, she does, to be fair, look a bit like what you’d imagine Mum to look like nowadays. About the right height, I think. Blonde, West Country accent. Mum could look like that at sixty, and I wanted it to be her so much. I saw what I wanted to see, I suppose.’

  ‘But your dad – I mean, how did she fool him?’ he asked. Then he slapped his forehead again. ‘Oh, his eyesight. Of course.’

  I nodded. I’d been thinking about that.

  ‘When I think back, she only agreed to come and see him after I told her he was virtually blind,’ I said. ‘And pretty much as soon as she got there she made sure he got a glimpse of her tattoo. That was enough for him. He didn’t question it either. And of course nobody else here in Cheltenham ever knew her. If I still lived in Bristol, it might have been different, with old friends around and so on. But here she was able to get away with it.’

  We talked about Liv then, and how she fits in to all this. She’s Lucy’s sister, if what Eleanor at the art gallery said was true, and my grief intensified, because of course now I don’t have my longed-for sibling either. I am an only child again. We talked for two hours, me and my ex, longer than we’ve talked for a very long time, trying to work it all out and failing. When Jacob finally left, agreeing to keep the news to himself for now but telling me I needed to tell the doctors and the police, I nodded, promising I would. But since then I’ve just sat here, still numb with the sho
ck of it all, paralysed with sadness.

  My mother is still out there, somewhere. And she’s never coming back, is she? My life is in ruins; it was in ruins yesterday too, but at least then I thought I had my mother by my side, helping me through it all. Today, everything’s changed. This woman is not my ally, not my support. She’s the architect of my demise, and I was so stupid, so gullible, so desperate for her to be who she said she was that I just opened the door to my life and let her in. I let her do it. I made it easy for her to do it. And yet, how angry am I allowed to be about this? Jacob’s told me I must report her, that what she’s done must be a crime of some sort – fraud, harassment, identity theft, something – but the problem is, she had every right to do what she’s done. Finally, she’s made me pay. Can I really blame her for that? And now that she’s done it, and I know she’s done it, what next? What happens now?

  What actually happens now, right now, is that a sudden, tiny movement across the room catches my eye. Her arm, thin and bare, has, while I’ve been sitting here lost in thought somehow snaked out from under the covers; her hand is twitching on the thin white sheet, jerking as if someone is pricking her with a needle. I gasp.

  And then she opens her eyes.

  Chapter 38

  ‘Hello, Alison. Mrs Allen,’ I say.

  I’m standing over her, watching, waiting. A strange calm has come over me now, and I feel oddly composed. My tears have dried and my legs are feeling strong and solid beneath me.

  It’s over, isn’t it? She’s done what she came to do and somehow I’ve survived it. She can’t hurt me anymore.

  She blinks once, twice. Her eyelids are crusty and her face is as pale as the bandage that’s tightly wrapped around her head, and to my surprise I feel a wave of sympathy. This woman lost her little girl when she was just a few years older than Eloise is now, and when I try to imagine what that must have felt like, the agony she must have gone through, I just want to wrap my arms around her and sob. She must have hated me so much, for so long. What a way to live, with so much anguish and anger burning away inside you.

  She’s moving her hand slowly to her face, pushing the oxygen mask aside, and now I vaguely remember a doctor popping in hours ago saying they’d reduced her sedation, and asking me to push the call button if she showed any signs of waking. I will, but not just yet, I think. We need to talk first.

  ‘Ahh. You’ve worked it out, then,’ she rasps.

  She swallows and clears her throat feebly, and I nod.

  ‘I have,’ I say. ‘So. Want to talk about it?’

  She blinks again.

  ‘What happened to me?’ she asks. Her voice is stronger now, her gaze more direct.

  ‘I don’t know. I came back to find all our guests standing in the driveway and you out cold on the floor inside. Don’t you remember anything?’

  There’s a tiny shake of her head, and a wince.

  ‘Only vaguely. Last thing I really remember is you going out to get the wine. I assume from the way my head feels that somebody hit me?’

  ‘Hit you with my pelican lamp, apparently. Hope it’s not broken. I love that lamp.’

  Good Lord, I’m so calm I’m even making little jokes now.

  But there’s a flicker of a smile on her face too. We look at each other for a moment and then I turn away and walk across the room to pick up one of the plastic chairs. I put it down by the bed and take a seat.

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘I’m sitting comfortably. Shall we begin? Because I think you have rather a lot to tell me, don’t you?’

  She hesitates, but only for a moment.

  ‘I suppose I do,’ she says.

  And so she begins. She’s clearly in pain and her voice wavers from time to time, her face contorting with pain, but at the same time I feel she’s revelling in her story. I find myself gripped, fascinated by the skill with which she wove the intricate web in which she trapped me, and then toyed with me, like a spider with a fly.

  She didn’t know my mother; I’d been right about that. But they did, it seems, have one mutual acquaintance in Bristol, and that acquaintance – a woman called Saffy – had become an unwitting source of vital information for Alison.

  ‘I had this idea for years, to track you down. And then I remembered about your mother, and I wondered. I didn’t know Saffy well, but I knew she’d known your mum. As time went by, I thought about her and wondered if she could give me a way in. And then, as if by fate, I went to a party back in Bristol a year or so ago, and there she was. I just brought it up in conversation, casually. “Did that friend of yours who went missing back in the late 80s or early 90s ever come back? Anyone ever hear anything from her?” When she told me your mother had never been heard from again, well, that was a gift. And when I told her I was fascinated by old missing-persons cases, that I fancied myself as a bit of an amateur detective and asked her if she had any more information, she was happy to tell me everything she could remember: Alice’s birthday, bits and pieces about you and your dad, loads of stuff. Enough to make it work. When I asked for photos, and she emailed me one of your mother in a summer dress with her tattoo clearly visible, well, that was another gift. And it struck me then that actually we looked a bit alike as young women, me and her. And that was when I thought it might actually work. That I might be able to pretend to be her.’

  She coughs, and I ask her if she needs some water. I hold the cup while she takes a sip, all the time marvelling at how we’re sitting here discussing this so calmly, as if it’s something that’s happened to someone else.

  ‘I still had to find you though,’ she says.

  ‘And that was where Mike came in,’ I reply. ‘Why now though? Why wait so long?’

  There are a few seconds of silence. Her eyes close briefly, then she says, ‘I’m dying. I’ve got cancer, but you probably know that too now. It’s not curable. I should have started treatment a while ago. I went to the hospital last week – that’s actually why I went back to Cornwall, but, well, I’d thought about this for so long, you know? About finding you and making you pay. You got to live your life, Beth. My child died, and you got to live. And yes, I know you were only a child too, and a messed-up child. But that’s no excuse, you know? I tried to find forgiveness. I couldn’t. And then I got cancer, and I knew time was running out. So, what did I have to lose? It was worth a try. And my God, did it work out. Better than I could ever have hoped for.’

  She practically spits the words at me, a spark back in her eyes and venom in her voice. A little shiver runs through me.

  She really does hate me, doesn’t she?

  ‘I guessed quite soon after I arrived that you hadn’t told anyone about Lucy,’ she says. ‘The fact that nobody ever mentioned it, and that you didn’t tell me, your mother, during any of our lovely long chats. Your dad obviously moved you away for a fresh start, but I couldn’t let that go on anymore, Beth. I wanted everyone to know what you’d done. I could have got somebody else to do it, you know? I could have done it a different way. But I wanted to be there myself. I wanted to watch as I slowly destroyed you, Beth. As you slowly destroyed yourself, like you destroyed me.’

  I say nothing. There’s nothing to say. She waits for a few moments, then inhales, exhales, and starts talking again.

  ‘How good was my Liv though, playing your long-lost sister? With her blonde hair, I knew she’d get away with it. It’s close enough in colour to yours, and you didn’t even question it, did you? And of course, we both love acting. We both did a bit of amateur dramatics over the years; we were both good too, but that was nothing compared to this. Best performance of our lives.’

  She smiles a satisfied smile and I remember the conversation Liv had with Eloise about her school play, how she told her being good at drama must run in the family.

  ‘Bravo,’ I say.

  ‘I was going to confess all at the party – did you work that out?’ she asks. ‘I was going to tell everyone who I was, and what you did. Scuppered before the final act. That’s
annoying. Never mind. Can’t have it all, I suppose.’

  So that was your big special announcement, I think, and wonder again what happened in my house last night. Who attacked her? Who stopped her? But I haven’t got time to dwell on that now because she’s still talking.

  ‘If you’ve been trying to get hold of Liv, she won’t be picking up,’ she says. ‘I told her not to speak to you until I rang her and told her the deed was done. She’ll be disappointed. She’s the light of my life, Liv. I split up with Lucy’s dad a year or so after we lost her. Our marriage just fell apart; our whole lives did. I moved away, travelled a bit, and ended up in Cornwall. When Liv came along … I don’t know. It was like I’d been given a second chance. It was true what I told you about her dad. He was an artist and he did scarper when he found out I was pregnant. It’s just been the two of us since then, and when she was old enough, I told her all about Lucy, and about you. She’s been on board with this from the very beginning. Yes, she’ll be a bit disappointed the end of it didn’t quite pan out, but still … the rest worked rather well, didn’t it?’

  I shrug.

  ‘It did.’

  ‘Seeing your dad was a bit scary. That could have been the end of it,’ she says, with a little laugh. ‘Lucky he’s almost blind. Took the risk when you told me that. Could hardly believe it when he fell for it too. Thank heavens for my stash of temporary tattoos. Got them designed specially – online place that copies real tats. Sent them the old photo. Worked like a dream. It all did.’

  She coughs again, then recovers herself and looks at me steadily.

  ‘Want to hear more?’ she says.

  I nod.

  ‘Go on. Tell me everything. I’m intrigued.’

  There’s a hint of sarcasm in my voice now, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

  ‘With pleasure,’ she says.

  And so she does. She’s on a roll suddenly, the words spilling out of her. There’d been rumours locally at the time apparently, gossip about the big age gap between my parents, about them falling out of love, about Mum being unhappy for a long time, according to Saffy. She’d been happy to share everything she’d heard, giving Alison what she needed to make the story she came to me with as convincing as possible. She had to invent certain things of course because nobody knows where my mother went when she left, but she stuck mainly to the truth about her own life and her work, knowing that the fewer lies she told, the easier it would be not to slip up. She’d been hugely relieved, she said, when she heard that Dad had never really looked for Mum after she’d gone.