Half-truths & White Lies (13 page)

'That's another fine mess you've got me into, Stanley,'
my mother keeps repeating endlessly. 'That's another
fine mess you've got me into, Stanley.' I haven't got a
clue whom she's talking to today, or who she thinks she
is for that matter, but, God Almighty, I know how
she feels. I just don't know her any more. I have
absolutely no idea who she is. 'Let's talk,' she says. 'Why
can't we talk about it?' Talk, I ask you! You can't solve all
the problems in the world with words.

I never wanted to be a mother. You might think that's
selfish, but I think it's realistic. It's such an enormous
responsibility and one that I never felt ready for. But
suddenly I have a child on my hands. She just happens
to be my mother. I know some people don't think I have
the capacity to love a child – or anyone else for that
matter. Peter Churcher once said to me, 'You don't know
what it's like to love someone.' 'That's a terrible thing to
say,' I said. But I know how I come across. If only they
knew that I've had to shut those feelings off. It's hard for
me to admit, but there's a very real part of me that feels
as if I don't deserve a child. I seem to push away anyone
who tries to get close to me. Maybe it goes deeper and I
just don't think I deserve to be loved at all. It's always
been easier to say that I don't want children than to
think about it. I tell them that I value my independence.
And I do. On a good day, I'm very content with my lot.
I've got to a place where I'm comfortable with my own
company. Except that I now seem to be a full-time carer.
And there isn't any financial help, you know. Suddenly,
you find that you can't work because your mother
needs you and Social Services wash their hands. Just like
that! If I hadn't volunteered, they would have had to do
something, but now it seems that it's all down to me.
Well, it's not on.

'Hang on in there,' her knee-patting social worker
says. Don't you just hate the knee-patting do-gooders?
When I want someone invading my personal space, I'll
let them know, thank you very much. I'm just trying to
stay busy and keep out of Mum's way, to be honest, as
harsh as that sounds. She's in her own world and I'll
keep to mine. In the meanwhile I'm going stir crazy. I'm
a prisoner in my own home. I haven't done a yoga class
for weeks and even a sighting of a Starbucks would feel
like a mirage. Laura would know what to do. But if she
was here now, I wouldn't be in this mess. So, in a roundabout
way, if there's anyone to blame, it's her. Figure
that one out if you can. God, there's so much I want to
say to her. I can't believe we ran out of time so soon. I
didn't see that one coming. I suppose the whole point
is that you never do.

I adored my sister as a child. I wanted to be just like
Laura. I wanted white-blonde hair curled into ringlets. I
wanted perfect white teeth and an infectious giggle.
I wanted puffed sleeves and skirts that fell into neat
pleats. I wanted white ankle socks with frills around the
tops. But most of all, I craved my parents' attention.
What I got was the mousy, frizzy hair, teeth that needed
braces, the ill-fitting hand-me-downs and the 'Darling,
can't you see your father's tired?' I wasn't cross with
them. I thought that it was obvious that they would love
her more. Who wouldn't?

'You're our beautiful girl,' they would tell her, while to
me it was always, 'Why can't you be more like Laura?
Laura's such a good girl.' She was just more lovable than
I was. I always knew I would have to try a lot harder.

I thought that I could make them notice me in other
ways so I worked really hard at school – to begin with.
For some reason, on their bizarre system of brownie
points, good grades didn't really count for anything if
you were thought of as being 'naturally clever'. If you
consistently got As but had an off-day and dropped to a
B a full enquiry was launched. If, like Laura, you
occasionally scraped a C, a cake was baked in your
honour. I was in a no-win situation.

Laura wasn't blind to what was going on. She tried to
sing my praises to our parents, but they would usually
turn my successes into a compliment about her. 'You're
so good to support your sister. She wouldn't have been
able to get that grade if you hadn't spent last night
testing her.' I got to rely on Laura for attention and she
was just about as kind an older sister as I could have
hoped for. That was enough for the first few years before
I learned the phrase 'it's not fair'. Then it got a whole
load more complicated.

Even early on, Laura got me out of scrapes. She knew
that my parents would never be as hard on her as they
would with me, so she owned up to everything that
went wrong, especially if she knew I'd done it. Only
Laura could admit to breaking one of my mother's precious
ornaments and be rewarded with a pat on the
head and an 'Honesty is the best policy', even if it was
said through gritted teeth. Throughout my teens, I
tested her loyalty. I came home drunk. I left a momentous
cigarette burn in the living-room carpet. I stayed
out all night. Her lies got less and less believable,
especially for someone who looked like butter wouldn't
melt. I actually thought they fell for them. But that old
battleaxe in the other room now claims that she knew
all along.

'Why didn't you say anything if you knew?' I asked
when she let it slip. There's no way that she would have
let me get away with it.

'Sisters are precious things,' she said to me. 'You
shouldn't disturb that without good reason.' Maybe it
was her way of redressing the balance. Laura was her
favourite and there was nothing that she could do about
it. You can't help the people you love the most, children
included, I suppose.

Sometimes, I'm afraid of what I'd say if I really started
to talk to my mother. I'm not sure I could resist asking
the question, 'Would you have preferred it to have been
me?' Horrible, isn't it? Hugely unfair. But she pushes me
and pushes me, and it's the one question I would like to
see how she reacts to. Would she avoid answering and
accuse me of being cruel? Would she deny it and tell me
how much she loves me? Do we feel the need to ask the
hardest questions because that's what we really want to
hear? And how can I still feel jealous of my sister now
that she's gone?

It seemed inevitable that Laura thought she could get
me out of any scrape, but I said to her, 'No, that's going
too far. I can sort this one out on my own.'

'But you don't understand,' she said to me. 'I need this
baby. We can't have any of our own.' She was on the
point of begging. Turns out that Tom was not quite
the stud that we thought he was after all. I had been
planning to have the baby adopted. The difference was
that I had never intended to see the baby at all, let alone
watch her grow up. I meant to make things as easy as
possible for myself. I told her I would think about it.
'OK,' she said. Just 'OK', but she stuck around for a
couple of weeks. Made herself useful. 'Promise you
won't tell them,' I said to her. I insisted that Mum and
Peter could not know that I was pregnant. That was the
deal. When she came back with Tom, I said to her, 'You
can never tell the child or anyone else who its mother
and father are. Especially Peter. As far as everyone is concerned,
this is your baby.'

'What if it looks like him?' she said to me. None of us
was worried that the child would take after me. We all
knew cousins who looked more alike than brothers and
sisters and we all knew children who didn't look like
their parents at all, no matter how much other people
insisted they did.

I told them, 'People are pretty blind to things that are
right in front of their noses.'

'Whatever you want,' they said.

I was right. For the first ten years of her life, nearly
everyone who met her told her how much she looked
like Tom, and she couldn't have been happier about it.
What they really meant, of course, was that there wasn't
an ounce of Laura in her.

I think she knows. I think that my mother has guessed
the truth and will think that she can mend everything
with her words. Get it all out in the open, with no
thought of the effect that it will have. 'Let's have a nice
chat,' she'll say, 'with everyone round the table.' I can see
it all now. She just can't see that it's far too late for the
truth. We have all become what we have become.

We set up house for the duration in a flat that I was
house-sitting for old college friends in south London
while they were travelling. Last Tube stop on the
Northern Line. Funny place, but one where I wasn't
recognized every time I stepped outside and could be a
no one – or I could just be myself, depending which
way you look at it. Laura had sold everyone a story
about a possible tour for the band that fell through, but
the truth was that Tom took full advantage of his time
here and made some good contacts. Before long, he had
found himself a job in a recording studio. He started the
day as a delivery boy, took an interest in the address on
a parcel, asked if he could stick around for a while,
made a few useful suggestions, and found himself helping
out. By the end of the day, he had job number two.
You had to give him his due, he worked his socks off.
'Got to save some money for the baby,' he said to me.
We had this joke: 'This one's free, but I'm going to have
to charge you for the next one.'

It was Laura who nursed me through the morning
sickness, made sure I was eating properly, came to the
hospital appointments, cried when she heard the baby's
heartbeat, read all the baby books. Talk about obsessive,
I swear the girl almost thought
she
was pregnant. I drew
the line when she wanted to sing the baby to sleep every
night. 'Give me some space, for God's sake!' I had to say
to her at times. But I knew full well that I would have had
a horrible pregnancy in a flat on my own. Even though I
was miserable about being pregnant, it was good to have
people around me who were positive about it. I had a
reason to go through with it. I don't think that, once I got
my head around it, I ever had a doubt about letting Laura
and Tom take the baby. No one else was going to love her
more, that much was obvious.

I don't know why they were surprised that I couldn't
go home with them. They must have thought about
what it would mean for me. To give a child up for
adoption and get the occasional photograph is one
thing. To see her every time you pop round for a coffee
is another. Laura cried when I spelled it out for her. 'But
you'll come home after a while?' she asked.

'I've got no plans at all,' I said to them. 'I might try to
get a job here.'

I needed them to leave as soon as the baby could
travel. I knew that I wouldn't change my mind, but it
was too confusing for all of us. Throughout the
pregnancy and birth, I hadn't felt the least bit maternal.
When they looked at me and asked me what I wanted
to call her, I told them it was customary for the parents
to name the child. For one horrible moment I thought
that they might try to sneak Faye in there as a middle
name. I was relieved when she was named after Tom's
grandmother, Andrea. She was the one who made the
legendary shortbread.

Laura had deliberately put on a little weight over the
last couple of months. With a padded bra and a loose
fitting dress she looked the part of the young mother.
Instant family. Just add water. I refused to hold the baby
while they packed. I couldn't bring myself to wave them
off in the van and stayed inside reading a book. I
watched with mixed feelings from behind the net
curtains as it moved slowly off down the road. Unable
to decide whether to dance round the living room or
weep, I turned the stereo up loud and let myself cry,
then I washed my face in cold water and removed every
remaining trace of baby from the flat. I had to be hard
with myself. It was the only way to get through it.

It was clear to me that I could never go back home.
My plan was to earn some money for a while and then
travel. Later, when Andrea was old enough to know that
she had an aunt, I thought that it was wrong that I never
saw her. I didn't allow myself to feel any emotional
attachment, but the poor girl looked just like me at the
same age. It brought back memories of myself as a child
and in my early teens, feelings of insecurity that I
thought I had got over. I only ever allowed myself to be
an occasional visitor to my old life, bringing presents
from wherever I had been, sending postcards, but I
could never bring myself to be physical with her.
I envied how easily Peter threw her up in the air and
swung her round by the arms, sending her into spasms
of giggles. He could only afford to be that close because
he didn't know. It was obvious that Laura and Tom had
kept their side of the bargain. I never imagined that it
would be so hard for me to keep mine.

It was the first time that I had left the house other than
for the funeral and I had accepted an invitation from
Lydia to join her and Kevin for tea.

'Nothing stuffy,' she said, 'just a fish-and-chip supper
in front of the telly. You won't even have to talk if you
don't want to.'

I had never been inside Lydia's house before and it
amused me that it was so familiar and yet so different.
It was a little like being Alice in Wonderland. Nothing
seemed to fit.

'That just about sums us up, doesn't it, Kevin?' Lydia
joked, the cough only a short way behind. 'I always
knew we lived in topsy-turvy land.'

The house was littered with Kevin's 'inventions', half-built
projects and gadgets for everything you could
think of and a lot more besides. Dad would have loved
it. In fact, it was right up his street.

'I never even knew I needed my reacher-upper until
he made it for me.' Lydia showed me a claw-like contraption
for reaching things in the tall kitchen
cupboards. 'But I was forever standing on chairs to get
things. Then one day I came home and he said, "I've
made this for you, Ma," and I thought, Well, he's
noticed that all on his own without me asking. He's not
as daft as he looks. So now and then I drop hints, "I
could do with something to help me get lids off jam
jars," or something, and I can almost hear his brain
working. A couple of days later, he'll have come up with
some gadget or other. Shall we go through?'

We joined Kevin in the front room where he was
already in front of the television.

'There you go, love.' Lydia handed him a plate with
the fish and chips still in the newspaper on top. 'Nice
bit of haddock for you. Want any ketchup with that?'

He unwrapped the parcel as carefully as if he thought
that the fish was still alive, sniffed the contents and said,
'Salt and vinegar?'

She beamed at him. 'Just how you like it.'

'Thanks, Ma.'

'What are you watching, love?'

''S'about kids bein' brought up by men who aren't
their fathers.'

'Adopted, like?'

'No.' He swallowed a mouthful of chips. 'Where the
woman's done the dirty.'

'Oh, I see.' She nudged me. 'I don't mind a bit of
scandal.'

'It's not scandal, Ma, it's science!'

'Silly me! I thought it was sex,' she chortled. 'That all
right for you, Andrea? You comfortable?'

'Shush, Ma!' Kevin frowned. 'Ah'm watchin'.'

The presenter, a man with glasses, a high forehead
and curly hair, was explaining how women are attracted
to different men at different times of the month. They
had carried out tests by showing pictures of various men
to the same women and had asked which they found
the most attractive at different times in their cycle.
Those who were normally attracted to the bespectacled,
artistic or intelligent-looking men for most of the
month suddenly found themselves drawn to the square-jawed
Adonises when they were ovulating. He
concluded that women could detect which men were
the most fertile firstly by looks and secondly by the
exchange of saliva.

'Ooh, I know exactly what he means,' Lydia told me in
a loud whisper. 'Sometimes I feel like De Niro, other
days it's Pacino, but then I'm quite partial to the one
who did all them Nescafé adverts and all.'

'Anthony Head?' I asked.

'I'm not that bothered what his name is.' She winked.
'I wouldn't even mind if he forgot all about the coffee.'

'Get over you!' Kevin laughed with her.

I was envious of their obvious affection for each
other, feeling so alone in the world. 'Do you ever
wonder about your parents?' I asked him.

He looked at Lydia, who nodded at him to go ahead.

'What for?' He dismissed the idea.

'I just thought that you might have wanted to know
who they were.'

'That's my ma sitting next to you,' he said, and turned
back to the television. We watched for a few minutes
and I assumed that he had finished. Lydia looked
approvingly at him. Then he went on: 'What's important
is the person who tucks you in at night.'

'That's right, love,' Lydia said. 'But you did ask a lot of
questions in your teens, didn't you? And we looked into
it for you. And that nice lady said you should think
about it and that you could make up your mind if you
wanted to know when you were eighteen.'

'And did you?' I asked.

Kevin shrugged. 'Thought about it,'

'But you didn't take it any further?'

'Like I say, that's my ma sat over there.'

'We've got his birth certificate in an envelope upstairs,
but we've never opened it, have we?'

Kevin shook his head. 'Nope.'

'And we had your da with us until you were twelve,
didn't we?' Lydia prompted. 'We miss him, don't we?'

'Yup,' Kevin said with an intake of breath.

'Every day, we miss him.'

'I don't think I've ever seen my birth certificate,' I said
with sudden realization.

'Not found it clearing out all that stuff?' Lydia asked.
'You'll have to get yourself a copy. You might need it for
all the legal stuff at some point.'

'Maybe I will.' But my thoughts were on that other
child and what his birth certificate might say.

'You finished with those?' Kevin asked, eyeing my
chips.

'Help yourself.' I offered him my plate. 'I'm full.'

'Put them on the newspaper for him, there's a love,'
said Lydia, dipping a chip into some tomato ketchup.
'That's how you like them, isn't it?'

Later in the kitchen, Lydia insisted that I sat down
while she washed up and made a brew. 'What do you
think of that, then? Licence for every woman in the
country to throw themselves at some weightlifter and
say, "I just can't help myself. It's science." I think they
were after the weightlifters all along, but settled for the
blokes with the money, then as soon as they had a drink
or two inside them . . . wallop.'

'I don't know. I'd settle for one bloke, forget the two.'

'Been a while, has it?' she asked, laughing at my
shocked face. 'It's all right, I'm not your mother.'

I joined her. 'You?'

'About fifteen years, I'd say. So don't you go feeling
sorry for yourself! I'm glad you asked him that question,
you know.'

I raised my eyebrows at her. 'Have you talked about
it?'

'Not for a long time.' She looked content. 'It was nice
to hear Kevin say it to someone else. That I'm his mum
and that what went before doesn't matter. You know,
every day, there's something that makes me thank my
lucky stars that we found each other, but that was quite
something.'

'I thought for one minute I'd put my foot in it.'

'Oh, no,' she said happily, 'not one bit, love. You
ready for that tea now?'