Half-truths & White Lies (6 page)

Her hand folded over mine. 'Are you even working at
the moment?'

'No, but they keep on paying me.' I tried the lighthearted
approach.

'And this has all been decided, has it? I could murder
your lot, you know,' she added as an aside, clawing at
fistfuls of air with her hands. 'You've agreed, have you?'

'There was no choice.' I found myself trying to pacify
this normally happy-go-lucky soul, but my bravado
failed and the tears came.

'Well, it's a proper shame, that's what it is. Ah, come
on now.' She circled me with an arm. 'It's more than one
soul should have to bear all at the same time. Don't get
me wrong, love.' She squeezed. 'I'm so proud of the way
you're coping. But it's not what your parents would have
wanted for you. I can't do much for you, but I'll have a
bed made up for you at ours any time you want it. We've
a spare room going to waste and we always like a bit of
company. Now let me get you that cup of tea, love.'

To change to subject I asked her how she had met her
husband, Bill.

'He was down "sooth" visiting for a weekend. He
came back to see me the two weekends after that, and
on the third he proposed. I didn't think twice about
upping and leaving for Sunderland.'

'That sounds like love at first sight.'

'It was love at first listen, more like. I loved the way he
spoke. He called me his bonny lass, his pet. No one had
talked to me like that before. How was I to know that
was how they all spoke up there?' She nudged me and
cackled. 'But I had no regrets. Bill was my rock, you see.

'You know that Kevin's not actually mine?' she
twittered. 'My Bill and I got along famously, don't get
me wrong, but for some reason we never really hit it off
in the bedroom department. I mean, we gave it our best
shot, as Bill would say, but nothing happened. So we
put in for a child and ended up with Kevin. Two years
old, he was. Funny little lad, all these dark curls and a
cross little face, like he thought he'd been hard done by.
Talking of love at first sight! You grow up thinking that
the big love of your life is going to be a man, so it comes
as a complete surprise that it turns out to be a child.
That you are capable of so much love for one person. I
don't give a twaddle that he's not my own, I really don't.
I couldn't love him any more than I do.

'I often wonder what he remembers of those first
couple of years before he came to us. He'd been fostered
but it hadn't worked out. Put with a man with a violent
temper on him. They were worried that it might leave
him scarred. But I said, "Give him to me and I'll sort
him out," and Bill said, "Aye, she will an' all," and they
let us take him. He hid behind the armchair in the
corner when we got him home. It was as much as I could
do to coax him out with a slice of cake. It was about two
months before I got a smile out of him and another six
months before he let himself go and had a good old belly
laugh. I hadn't really noticed that Kevin hadn't laughed
until I heard that noise for the first time.' She nudged me.
'Filthy, it was. And the first time he took my hand in his,
instead of me having to grab hold of him to cross the
road . . .' She sighed and smiled. 'That little hand wrapped
around my big, old, clumsy sausage fingers. It was one
tiny step at a time with him. He's never been much of a
talker – my Bill wasn't either. But when Bill said something,
it made you stop and listen. Like it really meant
something. I kidded myself into thinking he'd always be
there. After he was gone, nothing was right any more.
Kevin and me was out of sorts. Sunderland wasn't home
without him, so we came back here and lived with my
sister for a couple of years while we got our bearings again.
That was before we moved in down the road.'

She had been tapping my hand that was covering the
photographs. 'That's quite enough about us. What've
you got there, then?'

I had to talk to someone and there weren't too many
people who dropped in – unannounced or otherwise.
She had caught me at a moment of weakness.

'I'm not sure,' I said, taking my hand away to reveal
the photos.

'Well, let's have a butcher's.' Lydia took the pile and
looked at them one by one, starting with the pictures of
the baby on his own. 'Oh, look at the wee bairn.' Her
face widened into a smile. 'Who's this little fella? You?'
I shook my head and shrugged. 'Oh, what a poppet.
Good set of lungs on him, by the look of it and all.' I let
her continue but the comments soon subsided. 'Did
your mother have a child before she was married
to your father?' she asked.

'She was pregnant again when I was quite small.
Uncle Pete gave me a photo recently and it was obvious.
He said the child was stillborn.'

'Uncle Pete? Now, he's your godfather?'

I pointed to the man in the photos. 'Oh,' she
mouthed silently.

'I don't understand why I can't remember.'

'You wouldn't at that age, love. I bet you'll find that
you can only really remember the odd few things
until you are least five. I know I can't.'

'I have a vague memory,' I started, warming my hands
on the sides of the mug of tea. 'I thought it was a dream,
but now I'm beginning to think it actually happened. I
can't remember everything in detail, it was more the
feeling
that something was wrong. I was woken up by
my mother in the middle of the night and bundled into
the car, wrapped in a blanket. I was half asleep, so I
don't think I asked where we were going, but I did ask
if Daddy was coming with us. She said, "Not this time."
After that I only pretended to be asleep. We drove what
seemed to be a long way, before my mother pulled over.
I heard her say, "I can't do it, I can't do it," a few times
before she hit the palms of her hands against the steering
wheel and then started crying. I think she said, "I
have to do it," at that point. I asked her what was wrong
and she said it was nothing and that she would figure
everything out. Then she locked me in the car while she
went to use a phone box saying that she'd only be a
minute.

'She was long enough for me to start to panic that she
wasn't coming back for me. I thought that she meant to
leave me. I was cold and tired and soon I was crying out
for her and banging on the windows. When she came
back she told me that we were going home, and that we
would have to be very quiet because Daddy was sleeping
and we didn't want to wake him up. After she put
me to bed, I heard my dad asking where she had been.
It wasn't like he was cross. I think he just woke up when
she got back into bed. My mother told him that I hadn't
been able to sleep so she had taken me out in the car for
a drive because that always worked. I knew that my
mother had lied to my father and I didn't know why. I
can remember feeling sick to my stomach.'

'And you think that this might be the reason?'

'I don't know.' I shook my head. 'I just wonder if
everything was quite as perfect as I thought it was.'

'Oh, your parents loved each other.' Lydia dismissed
my doubts. 'That much was obvious to everyone.'

'I know.' I thought of them giggling in the car like
teenagers on that last day. 'I'm just not sure what
happened along the way.'

'Life!' Lydia said. 'It's what happens to all of us.
Throws up all sorts of nasty surprises just when you
least expect them, I'm afraid.'

My parents hadn't been religious, but the question of
whether to have a Christian funeral divided relatives
into two distinct camps. Grandma Fellows felt that my
father had been raised as a Christian and did not accept
that his decisions to marry in a register office and not to
have his daughter christened meant that he had rejected
his religion. Aunty Faye felt exactly the opposite. Nana,
given her presumed state of mind, was not consulted
but both sides insisted that she would have given them
her full support. They also found my failure to come
down for or against either option deeply frustrating.
Frankly, I thought that they were all wasting their
breath. Nothing could alter what had happened. If there
was a God, a concept that I was not very receptive to,
and he worked on the basis that how we behave in this
life affects our chances in the next, what difference did
it make how those of us left behind said our goodbyes?
Besides, if I had anything at all to say to God at that
time, it certainly wouldn't have been a prayer in the
traditional sense of the word.

A black limo collected our party from Aunty Faye's
flat, as she felt it best that Nana did not return to the
'family home'. Nana looked immaculate in a black suit,
with a pashmina around her shoulders and a pillbox
hat. She was so beautifully turned out that it was
difficult to remember that she was not quite with it.

'Now, Mum, do you remember where we're going
today?' Aunty Faye asked, adjusting the collar of Nana's
jacket.

'Tom and Laura's. We're going to Tom and Laura's.'

Aunty Faye looked at me, widening her eyes and
raising her eyebrows.

'We used to live together, you know,' Nana confided
in me as we walked to the car, showing no sign of recognition.
I tucked my hand under her elbow. 'This is my
other daughter, Faye. I never had any sons, but I had a
grandson once.' It seemed that I had been completely
wiped out. Maybe she was aware that there was a delete
button to be pressed in the recesses of her mind, but she
had hit the wrong one.

As we approached the line of limos, I halted as the
twin coffins came into view. An abundance of floral
tributes could not disguise them. Suddenly it was all too
real. I couldn't pretend this was happening to someone
else. In those coffins were the bodies of my parents. And
after today even their bodies would be gone. I felt as if I
was rolling down that bank at the side of the motorway.
I instinctively moved my hand from Nana's arm to my
throat, afraid to close my eyes in case I saw the image of
my mother that most haunted me. I jumped at the
unfamiliar touch of Aunty Faye's hand on my shoulder.
'Deep breath,' she said, her own eyes red and raw. I
could only nod.

'There're always people parked in the residents' parking
bays.' Nana was chattering. 'My daughter can never
park anywhere near her own flat. Taxi!' she called out to
the funeral director, who took off his top hat and
opened the door of the second limo, sleek and black.
'That was a stroke of luck. I'm not well, you know,' she
explained to him. 'I shouldn't be out in the cold air too
long. Tell him, Faye.'

We sat on either side of her and each took one of her
tiny, cold hands. It was those hands I tried to focus on.
The protruding veins, the loose skin, the lines. The inappropriate
nail varnish.

'Number 44, Westbrook Road,' she directed.

But as we drove in silence, through my own tears, I
saw that she too was weeping, and she didn't question
why we pulled into the grounds of the cemetery. There
was a part of her that knew what the day was about,
even if every fibre of her body was fighting it. A small
party waited for us outside the crematorium. Before I
could do anything to warn him off, Uncle Pete stepped
forward to help Aunty Faye from the car. I held my
breath, waiting for the storm, but she allowed him to
take her elbow and put his arm around her back, steering
her towards the door. I saw him whisper closely in
her ear and she leaned in towards him. They looked
comfortable with each other, intimate almost. I was
glad that some good seemed to have come of the day,
even if it only meant a temporary truce. He returned to
escort my grandmother, who held on to the crook of the
arm that he offered, bent down to her height.

'I thought I told you to bring her straight home,' I
heard Nana say crossly as I followed closely behind.

'She's home now, Brenda.' Uncle Pete patted one of
her hands. 'They've beaten us to it.' Turning to kiss the
top of my head, he asked softly how I was, but his eyes
followed Aunty Faye as she greeted the semi-circle of
guests who had gathered a short distance from the
entrance waiting for instructions.

I attempted a smile. 'I've had better days.'

'Excuse me a minute.' He squeezed my shoulder
absently.

'My beautiful girl. He was the one to take her out. He
should have brought her home,' Nana was saying. 'If
you say you're going to do something, you should do it.'

We followed the pall-bearers, Uncle Pete among
them, into the tiny chapel and were seated a few feet
away from the coffins. If I had wanted to, I could have
reached out and touched the bare wood, felt the grain,
lifted the lids. As the words of the service washed over
me, I became obsessed with this one thought, and yet
my arms were leaden. It was as if I was affected by sleep
paralysis, brain signals reaching my limbs, but my body
having forgotten how to process them. I couldn't have
moved even to save my own life.

I was not prepared for the moment when the curtain
was drawn, blocking our view of the coffins. For the
mechanical whirring sound. For the whoosh. For my
grandmother's strangely distorted wailing as she cried
for her daughter, 'Laura! My beautiful girl! Laura!
Laura!'

'Wait,' I said blindly as I felt someone take my elbow.

'It's over now.'

'I can't.'

'Say goodbye now.'

I wanted the excuse of my grandmother's dementia.
Memories tangled up in time. Shuffled, then laid out on
the card table. Incapable of looking after herself. Not
responsible for what she was saying. I wanted the excuse
of being a small child. Selfish. Self-absorbed. Not
expected to understand or to behave.

'Come on, now,' I heard a soft voice say and felt something
brush against my shoulder. I wiped my eyes to
find Kevin, Lydia's adopted son, standing beside me.
'Time ter go.'