The Secrets of Strangers

by Charity Norman

  ‘Why’s the court taking so long?’

  ‘We had to go to mediation, which took ages to set up and got us nowhere. Nicola wouldn’t even be in a room with me. She said Julia has a recurring nightmare about how Daddy tried to drag Mummy out of the car, and it would be child abuse to make her see me. I think it’s child abuse to stop her seeing me. So I was going through the court process and then … well, then I had the call from Mum. I was really happy for the first few seconds, pleased she was speaking to me, but then she said she was phoning to let me know she’d had a diagnosis. A cancer diagnosis.’

  ‘That must have been an awful moment.’

  ‘I couldn’t take it in. I really couldn’t. I asked her, But it’s not serious, is it? You’re not worried? I hoped she’d put my mind to rest. I expected to hear, No, I’m not worried! It’ll be fine, they got it early. But what she said was: Sam, I’ve never been so scared in my life. Poor Mum. I wanted to drive up to London that minute but she asked me please to stay away. She said she couldn’t face another fight. She was tired, I think. Just tired.’

  ‘Poor lady.’

  ‘I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t sleep all that night, and next day I turned up on their doorstep and leaned on the bell. I never saw her. Robert threatened to call the police on me. I mean why? Why keep Mum and me apart? I don’t get it. Actually—yeah, I do. Like everything else, her illness was all about him. He had to be the centre of attention. He was the loyal husband, keeping the barking-mad foaming-at-the-mouth son at bay. She probably died thinking I didn’t love her.’

  ‘But you did love her.’

  ‘Which is why I wasn’t going to put her through a court battle while she was fighting cancer. I had no solicitor, remember. I was making decisions as best I could. Meanwhile, I still had a farm to manage. I’ve had to sell up all the equipment and stock and get ready to hand over everything to the new owners. I felt as though I was drowning. So I let Nicola have all her adjournments.’

  Eliza is trying to imagine how it would feel, to be so young and lose so much.

  ‘And all this time your mum was having treatment?’ she asks.

  ‘I think so. They wouldn’t tell me. I kidded myself she’d be okay. I thought we had plenty of time to make things right, plenty of time … she’d have chemo or whatever and go into remission. People do, don’t they? Stupid, I had my head buried in the sand. Nobody told me the oncologist had given her about three months. Six if she was lucky. Which she wasn’t.’

  ‘She wasn’t lucky?’

  ‘She wasn’t lucky.’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Sam

  No, she wasn’t lucky.

  It’s choking him. He can’t get any more words out.

  When was it? Friday. Three days ago now. He’d just come in from seeing the old mower being removed by a haulage contractor. Dad’s mower, which he’d fixed in the hours before he died. The stock was gone from the fields, the machinery had been auctioned. Nicola, Julia, even Toby—all gone. Tyndale felt like a ghost farm.

  It was already dark at five o’clock. He wandered into the house, poured half a tumbler of whisky, knocked it straight back, poured another one. That was when the phone rang.

  It was a man’s voice. Very precise, very polite. He asked if he was speaking to Sam Ballard and then introduced himself as David May, solicitor to Harriet Lacey.

  ‘That’s my mother,’ said Sam. ‘Harriet Ballard.’

  ‘Yes. Is this a good moment? I’ve just a few loose ends to tidy up, since Mrs Lacey has sadly passed.’

  ‘Sadly … what? No. You’ve made a mistake. You’ve got the wrong file. Perhaps you mean my grandmother, Patricia Ballard. She died in India a few years ago.’

  ‘Harriet Lacey,’ the solicitor repeated. ‘The lady who recently passed away at St Columba’s Hospice in South London.’

  ‘You’ve definitely got the wrong Mrs Lacey.’

  But David May insisted that he had the right person. Sam could hear him sounding more and more embarrassed as it dawned on him that he’d put his foot right in the middle of a landmine.

  ‘When?’ Sam croaked.

  Ten days ago, the solicitor said. He’d understood that her close family was with her at the time.

  ‘They weren’t,’ whispered Sam. ‘I wasn’t.’

  The poor guy was obviously mortified. He stammered something about how this perhaps wasn’t a good time, and how sorry he was, and rang off sharpish.

  Sam walked around and around the kitchen table, trying to think how this mistake could have been made. Perhaps it was Robert’s mother who’d died? Mrs Sheila Lacey? In the end he looked online, found St Columba’s Hospice and dialled the number. The receptionist said they’d call him back, which they did half an hour later. By that time he was sitting with his head in his hands and another glass of whisky in his stomach. The world was spinning and swinging, spinning and swinging.

  His caller was a woman with a gentle Irish voice. She introduced herself as Kathleen, the nurse who’d primarily looked after Harriet, both at home and in the five final days when she’d been in the hospice itself.

  ‘I came to know Harriet very well,’ she said. ‘It was my privilege.’

  ‘She’s really dead?’ asked Sam. He was digging his nails into the back of his hand, trying to wake up. This must be a dream.

  ‘You didn’t know?’

  No, he said, he didn’t know. Why did nobody tell him?

  At this stage Kathleen began to sound wary. She beat around the bush, talking about what a lady Mum was, how the staff had all come to love her. Sam listened through a haze as she explained what the oncologist had said about Harriet’s prognosis. The hospice had been involved since then. Apparently his mother had been lucid until the last day or so, and had never been in great pain. That was something, he supposed. Kathleen talked about Nicola and Julia, who were frequent visitors.

  ‘Your Julia’s a darling,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘I wish I had half her energy! Your mum’s face would light up whenever she came into the room. And she behaved like an angel at the funeral, carrying a wreath almost as big as herself.’

  ‘Funeral?’

  ‘A lovely, very simple service at the crematorium. I always go if I can. It’s a part of the journey for me too.’

  ‘When was my mum’s funeral?’

  ‘Um, Monday I think. Let me just double-check the calendar. Yes, Monday. I had the morning off to go.’

  Sam imagined a row of people in some faceless chapel: Julia, Nicola, Robert. Probably Oma and the dreaded Aunt Monique. Nurse Kathleen. Perhaps other friends of Robert’s. But not Sam, not her only child.

  Monday. Where was I on Monday? Selling up my home.

  ‘Was she cremated?’ he asked.

  ‘Cremated, yes. That was her wish. She told me her ashes were going to be scattered on a farm where she lived for all the happiest years of her life. Does that ring any bells? It was a comfort to her, the notion of ending up on the farm with her first husband. She mentioned it several times in her last days.’

  ‘Is Robert going to respect her wishes?’

  Kathleen assumed so, because Robert was utterly devoted to Harriet. Nothing was too much trouble. He used to bring her a gift every day. A CD he’d made with a medley of her favourite music, so she could just lie and listen. Lip salve for her dry mouth. Flowers. At the end he sat by her bedside for thirty hours straight, holding her hand and talking to her even when she couldn’t respond. The staff were all very touched by his devotion.

  ‘Actually, though …’ She hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision. ‘Well, look, tell you the truth, I’m quite happy you’ve called,’ she confided, with a conspiratorial lowering of her voice. ‘Harriet had you on her mind. She wanted to know when you would be coming. It was quite a theme.’

  ‘Nobody told me. I didn’t know.’

  He couldn’t think of anything else. Just that. I didn’t know.

  ‘Robert explained that you and Harriet were estranged,
that the last time you saw anyone in the family you were threatening to kill people, that the courts had been involved. He felt he couldn’t risk a visit from you. He was afraid there would be a terrible scene and Harriet would be devastated. Robert was always very—’ she searches for the word ‘—protective. And, you know, we have rules. He was her husband. He had the final say. Family disagreements are very common here, sadly enough, and we can’t have loud conflict in the hospice. We do our best, but we have to stick to the rules.’

  She sounded uneasy. Sam had obviously been on her conscience.

  ‘She died on the Tuesday night,’ she said. ‘On the Sunday before, when I was bathing her, she only wanted to talk about you. My Sammy. She was a little bit confused by then, she kept drifting off to sleep. I think she was getting ready for her journey. She told me you were the greatest joy of her life.’

  ‘Is that what she said?’

  ‘Her exact words. Greatest joy of my life. She looked so happy when she talked about you. She told me that when you were a small boy, you had a dog named Bouncer. You and Bouncer grew up together.’

  ‘We did,’ he whispered.

  ‘She said you used to be your Dad’s shadow. Wherever he went, you were trotting beside him. If your dad wore overalls, you wanted your own pair. If he wore gloves, you ran to put on your mittens. You loved an old, lame horse called Sundance. You hated school but you lived and breathed the farm.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You were in your mum’s heart, Sam. Right up to the end. She hadn’t forgotten you. She hadn’t forgotten you for a single moment.’

  He thanked Kathleen, and she said she was so sorry, so sorry, losing a mother was a terrible thing. Then she went back to her work. Other families, other lives. Other deaths.

  He dropped the phone as his world caved in. Mum was asking when he’d be coming! She must have been bewildered. She must have thought he’d turned his back. Now she was gone and there was nothing he could do for her, ever again. He couldn’t tell her how much he loved her. He couldn’t tell her she was the best mother in the world. He would never hug her again.

  He has a vivid, nightmarish memory of staggering into the December night, his breath freezing into pale plumes, and smashing his forehead into the crumbling bricks of his home. The pain made him do it more. Once. Twice. Again and again, trying to escape the darkness.

  Kathleen was his last human contact until he walked into Tuckbox three days later. His mangled forehead throbbed for a while before blending into all the other pain. He hasn’t slept since. How could he sleep? What is the point of sleep, really? For those three days he didn’t eat. He didn’t wash. He didn’t do anything normal. He disintegrated. The act of squeezing toothpaste onto the brush seemed mundane and ludicrous, and there was Julia’s special baby toilet seat and her shampoo and her towel and her bath toys. There was Nicola’s make-up bag, her bathrobe on the back of the door. He chucked brush and paste over his shoulder and walked away. The kitchen tap was dripping—he began to fix it out of habit but gave up when the pointlessness of the exercise overwhelmed him.

  His mind chattered and screamed all day and all night, but he didn’t hear another voice. Not a real one, anyway. He didn’t see any living human being except the occasional car rumbling down the lane. The tap dripped, mice scurried in the kitchen, the Rayburn went out, the temperature plummeted. Sometimes he tried to find comfort by lying on Julia’s bed, on the dinosaur duvet that still smelled of her, just a little bit. The Tiger Who Came to Tea lay on top of the pile of books on her chest of drawers. But there was no comfort for him. Within minutes he’d be up again, roaming outside, clutching at memories with numb fingers. The grain dryer was silent, the barns and kennels and stable were cold and empty. He wept at the sight of Julia’s tricycle, her miniature wellies still parked side by side at the kitchen door. One night he climbed onto the stable roof and stood, precarious on the icy tiles, shouting for Mum. His cries will have carried on the crystalline air, probably as far as Holdsworth. People will have hoped it was just a dog howling, pulled pillows over their ears and gone back to sleep.

  During those days the outside air temperature never rose above freezing. The air was like smoky glass. Frost grew on the drooping brown remnants of Mum’s roses, on Julia’s swing, on every strand of the washing line. Drifts of leaves turned to crackling layers of ice. He pictured a curly-headed toddler skipping beside him, rugged up in her jacket and mittens and bright blue hat. He felt the warmth of her hand tugging him along. He heard her giggle as she slid along the ice. He actually—physically—heard Julia’s laughter, several times. Logic tells him this was hallucination, but he clearly heard her, as clear as the chirruping of the robin that kept flitting around his head. Funny thing: that robin even followed him into the house, perched on a lampshade and watched him with beady eyes. It wasn’t until the crazy bird started flying right through walls like a ghost that Sam began to suspect he wasn’t real. That’s when he began taking the Ritalin. Insanely, he thought it might keep him sane.

  Last night he’d found himself in Sundance’s field. No horses anymore. When he got to the spot where they scattered Dad, he stretched himself out on the ground, facing the starless sky. After all these years of struggle, the darkness had finally beaten him. He’d come to the end. He hadn’t bothered to put on a jacket or even a jersey. He had no intention of ever getting up again. He heard the church clock striking midnight down in Holdsworth, but it wasn’t striking for him. Time was for other people.

  He heard his own voice, calling out: Mum? Dad? You here? Hello?

  They weren’t. Of course they weren’t. The cold rose up from the earth and wrapped itself around his body. He might as well have been lying in a freezer. His fingers and feet ached until they disappeared. This was emptier than loneliness. This was nothingness. He wishes now he’d never moved again. Hypothermia should have got him.

  Hours later, one of the owls hooted in the dark mass of the spinney. He opened his eyes and saw that the sky had cleared, and so had his mind. Stars blazed from one horizon to another. The clock was striking again. One, two, three strikes and you’re out.

  In the final echo of the last of the chimes, he heard Dad’s voice. It was perfectly clear and coming from very close by. He sounded just like his old self. Sam wasn’t even surprised. He’d lost touch with any kind of reality by then.

  Bring her home, Sam. Bring her back to me.

  Just those words, then silence again.

  Sam lay and looked up at the stars, and it all made perfect sense. There was something he could do—something for both his parents! Together, Mum and he would stand up to Robert for the first and last time. It would be their rebellion.

  The creak of the Land Rover’s rusted door was like a screech of agony. He used a credit card to scrape ice from the windscreen. The poplar tree lowered over him as he laid his shotgun on the back seat. What the hell do you think you’re doing with that?

  He stood for a final moment outside his home, feeling the solidity of the land under his boots, inhaling the brilliance of the stars. This was where he was born. This was where everything happened. The next moment he’d swung into the driver’s seat, shattering the night with the cough of the old engine. He was rocking through the potholes in the yard, turning out of the gate. Turning into nothing.

  •

  They’re all listening as he tries to describe those last three days. Mutesi hasn’t moved from her armchair. Buddy has crawled half onto Neil’s lap, rumbling and crooning with pleasure, and Neil’s arms are wrapped around his beloved friend. Abi is still the restless one. She’s been prowling around the place, turning the radio on and off, stretching, messing with things.

  Down the phone, he hears the negotiator sigh.

  ‘I see,’ she murmurs. ‘I see. I see. So when you said to Robert, I’ve come to get her, and, What have you done with her? you were asking for …?’

  ‘Mum. Well, her ashes. They were the only thing left of her. Maybe it seems like
a mad obsession to you, but all the way to London I was promising her—promising her—I’d bring her home to be with Dad in Sundance’s field, like she wanted. I’ve failed as a son. I wasn’t there for her when she was dying. But there was this one thing left I could do for her and for my dad. It was all that mattered.’

  ‘You took a gun with you, Sam. Why?’

  ‘Stupid, I know. At four o’clock this morning I imagined threatening Robert if he wouldn’t give me Mum’s ashes. By the time I’d got to London I’d thought better of it. I left it in the truck when I first came in. I honestly never intended to get it out at all.’

  ‘And you confronted Robert?’

  ‘I asked him why he didn’t tell me she was dying.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said I’d have destroyed her peace. He told me to stop making a fool of myself. I’d just seen Nicola running to avoid me, and there he was, being a twat. I tried to stand up to him. I said I’d come for her ashes. He said—fuck, he was pleased with himself—he said, Whoops, you’re a bit too late! He delighted in telling me what he’d done with her … what they’d done with her. It was both of them. Nicola was in on it too.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘They’d chucked her into the Thames.’

  ‘The Thames?’

  ‘Yep, just lobbed the whole urn into the water at high tide, somewhere near Battersea. They didn’t even bother taking the lid off. That was the last thing Mum would have wanted. She was never a townie; she was a gardener, a country woman. She had a real horror of deep water. She didn’t even like swimming, so the idea of her being shut in an urn, sinking into that muddy river … and Robert was grinning from ear to ear—fuck, he was pleased with himself. Good luck getting your mum back from Old Father Thames. I looked into his face, and you know what I saw? I saw the devil puppet grinning back at me. He’d done it to hurt me and hurt her and hurt Dad. That’s the only reason! And everything hit me at once. All the years of Robert World. They all came together in those few seconds. I remember these pulses of something … I don’t know how to describe it … um, a bit like electricity, like holding on to an electric fence. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, no coordination, no proper thoughts, just this jolting. It took me over, it switched off my … I stopped thinking. I couldn’t even see properly; I was looking down a tunnel. People talk about being out of their mind, and now I know what that means.’