Half-truths & White Lies (23 page)

'It's not Derek you need to see. It's Laura. She's in
hospital.'

'Laura? What's wrong with her?'

I explained to her about the trip to hospital and the
uncertain prognosis. About finding Tom. I told her
about Tom's breakdown. I told her that I had left Tom
with Laura and that it would all get a lot more
complicated in the next few hours once we knew if she
was going to make it. I asked her for help. No, I begged
her for help to make things right again.

'Have a bit of sensitivity, for goodness' sake, that's my
sister you're talking about. Give me a few minutes at
least to catch up. Have you really thought this through?
Aren't you getting a bit ahead of yourself?'

'I don't think so. Believe me, I wouldn't even be considering
this if I didn't think it was necessary. You come
and see for yourself and tell me that you don't think
Tom'll walk unless I make it possible for him to stay. He
left once before. I think he'll do it again.'

'One step at a time. I'm going to get dressed and then
I'll get on a train. I'll come straight to the hospital to see
Laura, but it will be lunchtime at least, maybe later.
Keep an eye on her for me until then. And, Peter
Churcher . . .' she said.

'What's that?'

'Don't you dare screw things up before I get there.'

Tom,' I said quietly, 'I'm going to see Laura's mother and
the children now.'

'I'm staying,' he replied, not moving his gaze from her
face.

I envied him the luxury of not having to deal with
other people.

'Shall I tell your mother where you are?' I asked.

There was no reply.

'I'll go and see your mother on the way.'

I looked at Laura over his shoulder and heard myself
breathe inwards and outwards loudly. I wanted to say
something to her or to touch her hair but I felt awkward
in front of Tom. Every time I said goodbye, there was a
possibility that it was for the last time. Instead I put one
hand on his shoulder. 'There will be other people here
later,' I told him. 'I won't be able to keep Mrs Albury
away and Faye is on her way from London.'

'I'm staying,' he repeated, not taking his eyes off Laura
for one moment.

I drove to see Mrs Fellows first. Strange as it might
seem, I thought that she would be the more worried of
the two mothers. For Tom to disappear in his condition
would have alarmed her and I was concerned that she
might have called the police. I was right. She had found
that he was missing when she went to take him breakfast
and was already distressed.

'How's Laura?' she asked for the first time after I had
assured her of his safety.

'I'm sure that having Tom there will make all the
difference,' I said, only then aware that I was placing a
great deal of confidence in his ability to bring her
round. 'I'll bring him home when he's ready.'

'I must go and see her,' she said suddenly, as if she had
only just realized that she should. I was sure that what
she wanted to do was keep an eye on her own son as he
watched over his wife.

Mrs Fellows grabbed my arm as I turned to leave.
'How did he seem to you?' She was desperate for
another opinion.

'He's still Tom,' I replied, not sure what to else to say.
'He's still in there.'

Mrs Fellow seemed satisfied with this. 'Yes, he is,' she
said.

Mrs Albury, on the other hand, was less than satisfied
with my report about her daughter's condition. She
wanted facts and figures and I had none to give her.

'When will they know?' she demanded.

'They say it's too early to say more.'

'And you were happy with that?' she spat at me,
wasting no time in buttoning her coat and readying
herself to leave. 'Mark my words, I'll get more out of
them than that. You stay here with the children,' she
commanded unnecessarily. 'I'll be back later.' It was
clear that she now thought that their place was with her.
I was the babysitter rather than the father-figure. It was
only after she'd left that I realized I had not warned her
about Tom. The thought of the scene that would follow
cheered me up immensely. I put the kettle on and went
to rouse the children. After her night-time adventure,
Andrea had slept later than usual and was tearful to find
that she was not at home with her mother and all of her
things.

'I want Mummy,' she wailed.

'Me too.' I kissed her, mixing her tears with my own.
'Me too.' She suited my mood; she could express all the
injustice that I felt. I gathered her up in the bedclothes
from her makeshift bed and deposited her on the sofa
in the living room, where we sat and clung to each other
like lost souls until Derek made his presence known.

'Shall we get him up?' I asked her, her face close by.

'No.' She shook her head, pouting.

'Don't you like having a little brother?'

She shook her head again, fiercely. 'No.'

'Do you think you might get to like him?'

More shaking followed.

'Is that because you like having your mummy all to
yourself?'

'Yes!' she declared, covering her head with blankets
and grinning at last.

I left her and went to find Derek. The wailing led me
to Mrs Albury's room, where he was lying in a drawer
that had been pulled out of a chest, wrapped in
woollens.

'What has the nasty old lady done to you?' I laughed
at the sight of him fighting fiercely with the sleeve of a
cardigan. I picked him up and held him as I sat on the
bed, tears welling up in my eyes. 'It seems like nobody
wants you,' I told him. 'Shall we run away together, you
and me? Hey? Shall we go somewhere no one can find
us?' As attractive as this prospect sounded, I knew that it
was the one option I couldn't consider. So I sang to him
the only childhood song I could think of: 'Row, row,
row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily,
merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.'

'There's something I need to tell you,' Nana said busily
as she bustled past me into the hallway, looking behind
her for fear that she might have been followed. 'We
might not have much time. She's not going to stop me
this time.'

'Hello, Nana. Are you on your own?' I asked, looking
out of the door for clues: Aunty Faye's car; a waiting taxi
perhaps? Nothing.

'Shut the door, child!' she commanded, already in the
kitchen and putting the kettle on. 'Sit yourself down.'

I did as I was told. She sat too and held on to both of
my hands, looking me straight in the eyes. It was what
she used to do when I was little and she wanted me to
listen. She had tried to teach my mother the same trick.
It was her opinion that I needed to be made to sit still
and concentrate if there was something important to be
said, otherwise there was a distinct danger that it could
go straight in one ear and out of the other.

'I'm listening, Nana,' I said, trying to stifle my growing
amusement in the face of her seriousness.

'I know you are,' she said. 'I'm still trying to work out
where to begin. You see, you think that you're all alone
in the world, but you need to know that you're not. This
is going to come as a shock, but Laura and Tom weren't
your biological parents.'

'They were the only parents that were ever important
to me.' I smiled back at her, unflinching.

'You know?' She looked shocked at my lack of
surprise. 'How could you know?'

I went to a drawer in the kitchen and took out the
results of my scribblings, placing them in front of her. I
had been able to bring myself to write my name back
into the picture under an entry for Faye Albury and Peter
Churcher. The page was covered with crossings out and
arrows. It was messy, it was complicated and the result
was as confused as I felt. In that way, it was an accurate
reflection of my family. I made no apologies for it. 'I
started looking into our family tree a few weeks ago and
this is what I found. I suppose it's been staring me in the
face all these years, but I didn't see it.'

She pushed her glasses up her nose and studied the
end result, nodding, then she sat back in her chair.
'Well, if you know, why the devil haven't you done anything
about it? This is family we're talking about, for
goodness' sake! We've got to stick together. Especially at
a time like this.'

'Nana, what is there to be done?' I tried to stay calm
in the face of her outrage. 'I'm fairly sure that Uncle Pete
had absolutely no idea about it. At least not until
recently. And if that's the case, then Aunty Faye must
have had a very good reason for not telling him. Maybe
there comes a point when it's just too late to tell someone
something like that. "Peter, I've been meaning to
bring this up for the last twenty-five years, but Andrea's
your daughter.'' '

'So, you think that your Uncle Peter knows?'

'I think that he started to suspect at round about the
same time as I did, but I have no idea if he knows for
certain. When did you find out?'

'Me? I've known from the very beginning. From the
moment I first held you in my arms. You were
the spitting image of Faye as a baby. I did the maths.
And Laura just wasn't as natural with you as she should
have been. It was obvious.'

'And Uncle Pete?'

'You have his chin.' She touched my face. 'Faye wasn't
one to admit it but she always had a soft spot for him.
It seemed unfair that Laura had so many admirers when
Faye was so stylish and intelligent and downright feisty.'
She said this with some pride. 'I think she frightened
men off. Too much of a challenge by half! I always liked
Peter myself. He looked out for my girls and he never
shirked from his responsibilities. That's how I knew that
he didn't know about you. He would have married Faye
if she had told him. It's obvious that she didn't tell him
because she didn't want him to.'

'What did my parents tell you about me?'

'Tell me?' She laughed bitterly. 'Do you think they
told me anything? They took me for a fool. We did what
all good families do. We told each other nice lies and
played our parts well. Apart from Faye. She struggled. I
never asked Faye why she didn't come home for years
after you were born because I didn't have to. It was
obvious that it was just too painful for her. She
was never going to be able to slip into the role of your
aunt very easily. I waited for her to come to talk to me
about it. I waited for years. I've had to watch her punishing
herself, wasting half of her life. And for what? To
keep a secret that it seems everyone knows. I don't know
why they made the decisions they did about you. In the
end they probably chose the most difficult option. But
I'm proud of them for looking after each other. And,
unlike your brother, I'm so glad that we were able to
keep you in the family. If you had been taken in by
anyone else, I might never have got to know you. But if
the girls had asked for my advice at the time, it's not
what I would have recommended. So, there you
go. What does that tell you? Your nana's not always
right.'

I thought about the perception that Laura was Nana's
favourite daughter, the one she understood the most. It
wasn't true. Nana had been waiting to help her younger
daughter. It's hard to help someone when they don't
think they need you.

And I thought about the idea of what is right. Often,
there is no right. There is just a decision that needs to be
made and then we all have to make it work or live with
the consequences.

'So, what are you going to do about it?' she
demanded.

'I'm not going to suddenly start calling them Mum
and Dad. I had the most fantastic parents I could have
asked for. Now they're gone, and I don't want to replace
them.'

'You think you're all grown up and you won't need
parents any more? You wait until you've got a family of
your own. You'll need all the help you can get. You can't
rely on me being around then.' She shook her head and
folded her arms. 'Oh no! I'm on my last legs as it is.'

'I only said I don't want to replace them!' I raised my
voice unintentionally. 'I know I've got family around
me. And there's nothing wrong with your legs. In fact
there's not a lot wrong with you at all, is there?'

'That's the spirit!' she said.

What I couldn't tell Nana with her stiff-upper-lip, the-truth-
will-set-us-free attitude is that I had a very strong
sense that both of my parents – my biological parents –
were just about holding together the threads of their
lives. If confronted, I worried that the delicate balance
would be destroyed. I was no more ready to stop being
Andrea Fellows than I had been to stop being my
daddy's little girl. I told myself that I must learn to let
other people be who they are, to give them time and
space. I thought that Uncle Pete and I would be able to
adjust to our new relationship, but I was more worried
about my aunt. I couldn't have that conversation until I
knew if I could deal with her rejecting me for a second
time. Because that was also a possibility. I wanted to
hear my story – and theirs too – but by the same token
I worried that it would change me. I tried to convince
myself that I would be more than content to be part of
an extraordinary extended family.

'I suppose I should tell you about Uncle Pete's plan,' I
said exasperatedly. 'I'm not supposed to yet, but maybe
you'll understand why I'm not in as much of a rush
as you.'

'The little devil!' she said after I had finished, her eyes
bright. 'So I can come home?'

I nodded. 'Do you think we should agree to go ahead
before we know if Aunty Faye and Uncle Pete have had
it out? Isn't it possible that they might never speak
again?'

'Have you no faith in me?' She twinkled at me. 'I
won't let that happen. They're adults, and as adults we
all have to face difficult truths sometimes. Mark my
words, we'll find a way of making this work.'

As she was leaving she turned to me, almost as an
afterthought, and held my hands in hers once again. I
looked at her raised veins and the loose skin around her
fragile wrists, mottled with liver spots. She might not
have been on her last legs, but she was getting older. I
could understand her desire to make things right with
her family, so that they would all look after each other
when she was gone. 'And what about your little brother?
Have you managed to find anything out about him?'

It was then that her earlier words struck me.
Unlike
your brother.
Did she think that he might be alive too?

'Not yet, Nana. I'm still working on it. Is there anything
you can tell me that might help?'

'They told me he died,' she said.

'He was stillborn,' I repeated what I had been told.

'Not stillborn, no. He was premature. I was told that
he died when he was about two weeks old. I didn't see
the body. That was my choice, I admit, but I never quite
believed that he was dead. And more and more over the
years I've had this feeling that he's out there. It's probably
just the foolish thoughts of an old woman.' Nana
smiled and put her hand to my face. 'You're my beautiful
girl and you've got a good head on your shoulders.
Don't forget it. If you've inherited that much from my
two girls, you'll do well in the world.'