Half-truths & White Lies (18 page)

It was about that time that Nana started running away
from Aunty Faye's and finding her way home to
Westbrook Road. The first time she pretended that she
had gone shopping and forgotten her way back to the
flat, so she gave the cab driver the only address that she
could remember. But who goes out shopping with a
small suitcase fully packed? The next time she arrived
on the doorstep, pinching my cheek and saying, 'Nana's
home to take care of you now,' with the ingredients for
her famous rhubarb crumble in a carrier bag. I
humoured her and let her get on with it, unable to track
my aunt down on her mobile and unsure what to do
next. Aunty Faye arrived later, flustered and apologetic,
insisting that she had only left her mother on her own
for a few minutes.

'Stuff and nonsense!' Nana reprimanded her. 'You
always were the most awful liar. Had to get your sister to
do your dirty work for you so you didn't land yourself
in it. Out all night then creeping in at the crack of dawn.
"Of course I haven't seen your earrings? What, these? I
got them down the market." And who was it who broke
my favourite vase? "The next-door neighbour's cat must
have got in through the window." Very talented cat.
Handy with a dustpan and brush, it was. Managed to
sweep all the pieces into a neat pile behind the door.
I've heard it all before. Thinks I was born yesterday, this
one. Well, let me tell you, I'm not nearly as daft as you
think I am.'

I was beginning to suspect she was right.

'Seen your father?' Nana asked me over dinner and I
almost choked.

'For goodness' sake, Mum!' Aunty Faye scolded her.

'Dad's . . .' I faltered. It still sounded too harsh to say
that my dad was dead. But there was also the added confusion
that the person that I had always thought of as
my dad was not related to me at all. My real dad was
very much alive. In fact, here I was with my mother and
my grandmother. It was only my grandmother who
didn't need to change seats in the new arrangement. I
wondered if this was as good an opportunity as any to
talk to my aunt, while the two of them were there.

'Oh, not that one,' Nana interrupted. 'Your other
father. The one who always wears a suit. What is it we
have to call him? Your
godfather
, isn't it?'

'Uncle Pete,' Aunty Faye patronized, rolling her eyes in
my direction as if to say, 'Here we go again,' but I looked
at Nana more closely. What did she know?

'Peter Churcher.' She nodded. 'He was our paper boy,
you know. Funny thing. He kept on delivering the
dailies years after we stopped using the newsagent he
worked for. They overcharged your father once and that
was that as far as he was concerned. Peter still turned up
every day right on time. We didn't pay him a penny.
Why do you think that was, Faye?' She waved a fork in
my aunt's direction, who returned her look with
narrowed eyes. 'Nothing much wrong with my memory,
is there, sweetheart? Ah, the stories I could tell given
half the chance. Do you know, seeing the two of you
sitting there together, you could be mother and
daughter.'

'Can't you see how tactless you're being, Mum?'
Aunty Faye snapped, standing up to clear the plates
away, although no one had finished. On her way back
to the table, she touched my shoulder. It felt unfamiliar
and cold. 'It's too early to be making comments like
that. We're all still very fragile.'

Maybe that was it, I thought. Maybe she was waiting
for the right moment to talk to me.

'Too early for you, perhaps,' Nana said. 'Some of us
may want to talk about it. Some of us may be
dying
for
the chance to talk about it!' She turned to me. 'Can you
imagine having to stay in a place where you're not
allowed to talk about your own daughter? Where you
are treated as if you're mad because one minute you're
up and the next you're down. And, yes, I admit it: I can
remember what happened thirty years ago far more
clearly than I can remember what happened five
minutes ago. Sometimes I get a little lost in the past and
I'm not sure how to find my way back. And there are
times when I'd prefer not to find my way back at all.' I
found myself nodding at her. She twisted around to face
my aunt, leaning on the back of the chair with one
elbow, raising her voice more than was strictly
necessary. 'It's called grief, Faye. It's called mourning. I
can't just switch it on and off to suit you. Maybe you
should try it. You've usually got such a lot to say for
yourself.' She nudged me as if she had said something
very clever.

'Do you want me to say something, Mum?' Aunty
Faye turned back, looking pale and world-weary, straining
to keep her voice low and even. 'What would you
like me to start with? You see, you have the advantage
over me here. I can't pull out a photograph album and
say, "Look. That's how I remember my sister. On her
first day at school. In the first dress she made for herself.
On her wedding day." Because – and I'm not blaming
anyone for this, don't get me wrong – because I had to
see her afterwards. And that is the image that will stay
with me for ever. So while you might want to sit around
and have a nice, cosy chat, forgive me if I'm not quite
ready for that. I'm still stuck in that nightmare. I'm not
even ready for tears yet, let alone talking.' It was a
dignified speech and she sat down at the end of it.

I felt that I should say something. 'I'm sorry that you
had to go through that.'

'Sorry?' she snapped. 'Don't be sorry. I was glad that
they asked me. Who do you think I would have preferred
to have done it? You?' she challenged me, not
expecting a response. Every time that I began to feel
some empathy with her, to make a connection of sorts,
she batted it neatly away and we were back to square
one. 'You?' She turned to Nana, who looked pale at the
thought. 'Peter, perhaps? It would have finished him off.
No. It was much better this way. But if you think that I
can forget about it just like that, well . . .' She shook her
head.

'Good!' Nana proclaimed, bringing her hands down
on the table. 'Good! We're talking at last. As a family.'

'No!' Aunty Faye was still speaking softly, but despairingly,
knowing that the point she was making had not
sunk in. 'Aren't you listening? I'm not ready to talk yet.
And I don't think I should have to apologize for the way
that I need to deal with this. You get to be up and down.
Can I just please be allowed to be quiet?'

'But what about Andrea, all on her own here?' Nana
asked. 'Who's going to look after her if we all just hide
ourselves away?'

'I'm fine. I have people to talk to,' I insisted. I
suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility
for the two of them. Nana, who thought that she could
make everything all right with words, and Aunty Faye,
who wanted to shut herself away but couldn't. 'Anyway,
I'm such awful company that I think I'm better off on
my own half the time.'

'Like mother, like daughter.' Nana stroked my face.
'I'm always here for you, dear. Any time you need me.'

'Yes, well, I think it's time we left Andrea in peace
now.' Aunty Faye took Nana's elbow, looking around for
her handbag.

'Your bag's in the other room,' I remembered and
went to look for it. On my return I heard hushed voices.

'Enjoying yourself, are you?' my aunt asked sharply.

'Oh, I was just getting warmed up,' Nana replied, and
then noticed me. 'Ah, there you are, dear. Well, it
appears that somebody believes it's way past my
bedtime.'

'Love you, Nana. Fantastic rhubarb crumble,' I said as
I hugged her.

'There's life in the old girl yet.' She was pleased. 'Next
time, I'll make us a roast dinner. I bet you haven't had
one of those for a while.'

'And you, Aunty Faye.' I embraced her and felt her
stiffen, her arms pinned to her sides. She wasn't even
ready to hug me. How could I redraw the family tree
with Faye Albury as my mother? She didn't
feel
like my
mother. I was aware of her resistance. She was fighting it
with every bone in her body. It was not part of who she
was and it was clearly not who she wanted to be.

Be careful what you wish for. You fall in love with a
would-be rock star, you get a rock star, if you're lucky.
You try and turn him into a stay-at-home husband, you
end up with one unhappy man. Laura's mistake was
that she underestimated Tom. He was someone who
kept his promises. A man of his word – and a far better
person than I could ever hope to be.

When the band's next single didn't chart, Tom knew
that he had to make some decisions to save his
marriage. Those changes were not necessarily what
Laura expected. If she thought that Tom would be able
to slip neatly into a nine-to-five routine, she was mistaken.
He was a person who threw himself into
whatever he did, even if it wasn't what he had wanted to
do in the first place. He didn't see himself as a plumber
or a decorator or even a mechanic. He decided to study
engineering. There was no doubt that he had the
aptitude for it. This meant that he worked during
the daytime, putting his practical skills to good use and
making ends meet. At night, he went back to school.
And in the early hours, he sang Andrea to sleep when
she woke, and wrote his essays. He found a satisfaction
in it that didn't quite live up to playing the guitar, but
offered him some small compensation.

All of this meant two things. Firstly, the Fellowses did
not have to be beholden to Mrs Albury, although Laura
had been prepared to accept the olive branch that had
been begrudgingly offered. And secondly, I was still
needed. There were never more than a couple of days
that went by before I heard from Laura wanting a chat
or needing a small favour. She accepted Tom's absences
more gracefully than she had done when he was away
with the band. She seemed surer that he was working
hard for their future. I doubted that Tom could ever be
more driven than he had been fronting the Spearheads,
but I was impressed with his humility in accepting that
things had come to an end and his commitment to his
family. I didn't once hear him moan or say 'if only'. But
I missed him. While Laura had time for old friends and
her extended family, Tom had emergencies or lectures
or study to attend to. Even if he was in when I called
round, he barely had time to grab a bite to eat for himself,
let alone stop for a chat. I had reached a point in
my career where I was relatively comfortable without
having to burn the candle at both ends. Tom was burning
the midnight oil. I have to say, it impressed his
mother-in-law no end. Her good-for-nothing son-in-law
was fast becoming someone she was proud to boast
about in the queue at the post office when she went to
collect her widow's pension. Mrs Fellows, on the other
hand, had always been proud of her son, and was not
quite so thrilled to see him worked to the bone. Tom
had always been lean, but he began to look drawn and
his legendary cheekbones became even more pronounced.
He tried to laugh away her concerns, but to
keep her happy, he often popped round and let her
make him a fry-up in his lunch break.

'You're wasting away,' she would mourn. 'Just look at
you.'

'Well, now's your chance to change all that.' He would
rub his hands together. 'What have you got for me?'

There was nothing she liked more than to watch her
son eat a home-cooked meal. Ironically, when I joined
them occasionally (it was the best time to catch Tom), I
can't recall ever seeing her eat. She was the kind of
mother who wasn't happy unless your belly was full,
but would go without herself. I enjoyed eating at her
kitchen table, the lack of formality and the flow of easy
conversation between them. It was nothing like the kind
of relationship I had had with my parents and it was
everything that I felt a family should be.

She often embarrassed me with questions about
whether or not I had a young lady and if marriage was
on the cards.

'Pete can't get involved with a woman,' Tom would
say to shut her up. 'The only reason I'm still married is
because he's my stunt double.'

'You're a true friend,' Mrs Fellows would declare, but
she had even less of a clue than Tom did. He was far
closer to the truth than he could have thought possible.

Tom had been aware that I was in love with Laura
from the very beginning. He had even recognized that it
had been a possibility that Laura would prefer the so-called
sensible option to a man who couldn't offer her
financial security. What he was not very good at, and
where I had always excelled, was reading Laura Albury.
Laura, as she had always acknowledged, was not very
good at being on her own. Rule number one. Neglect
her, even with the best of intentions, and she withered.
Pamper her and she glowed. Nothing had happened
deliberately. Nothing had been planned. At least not the
first time. But Laura had found herself feeling neglected
and she had turned to me for attention, and the love
and respect that I felt for Tom was no match for the
depth of feeling that I had for her. Just as Mrs Albury
had predicted, we crossed the sacred line between
friendship and love, and once crossed there seemed to
be no way of returning. I had expected Laura to say that
it was a mistake and that it could never happen again,
but she didn't and it did.

While Tom was working so hard for the future of his
family, we spent lunchtimes and afternoons and
evenings in each other's arms. The only rule was that
their house was out of bounds. They were not snatched
moments. The snatched moments were the times that
Laura spent with Tom. But they were stolen moments.
Stolen from another lifetime where, if things had been
different, there would have been no Tom Fellows and it
would have only been the two of us.

In the time that we shared, there was an unspoken
rule that we would not make plans for the future, but
Laura talked about the past and the 'what ifs'.

'What do you think would have happened between us
if Tom hadn't come along?' She would ask as we lay
facing each other.

'The nineteen-year-old you wouldn't have been
interested in the twenty-year-old me. She was looking
for someone a bit more adventurous.'

'The twenty-five-year-old me would have been
interested in the twenty-six-year-old you.'

'But then there would be no Andrea.'

'True. But there might have been a little Pete.'

Laura definitely saw our time together as an escape
from her reality. She said that she didn't have to think
about being a housewife or a mother or a daughter or a
sister when we were together. What she liked the most
about our relationship was that she could be herself. We
had known each other for so long that there was
nothing that we needed to hide – even that faraway look
that told me she was thinking about Tom, or the
occasional guilty tears. It was all part of the deal. Forgive
me for sparing you more detail than that, but my
memories are precious and they are private. I think that
we have already established that I am hardly a gentleman,
but I would like to remain gentlemanly in some
things at least.

Tom often joked that there were three of us in his
marriage. Sometimes I thought he knew that it was
more than just a joke. But nobody wants their nose
rubbed in it.