Where the Truth Lies Read online

‘You were out for the count,’ he says. ‘I didn’t have the heart to disturb you.’

  ‘Thank you for looking after her.’

  ‘That’s what big brothers are for,’ he says, winking at her.

  ‘And look, Mummy!’ She holds up strands of her hair. A whole section is shorter than the rest. ‘We had to cut it.’

  ‘It was the only way,’ Charlie says.

  ‘The only way,’ Bea echoes, nodding her head wisely.

  ‘Well, never mind.’ I walk behind her to put the kettle on. ‘These things happen.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do these things happen?’ I say.

  She nods again.

  ‘Because chewing gum is meant for mouths, not hair. And anyway, you’re too young for it.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Jack eats chew gum.’

  Charlie tickles her knees. ‘Jack is sixteen and you’re only four.’

  ‘Next time I have a birthday, I’ll be five.’ She looks down at her fingers, then holds up two hands and six fingers. ‘See?’

  Charlie takes her hands in his and counts her fingers with her. His head is bent close to hers, his mop of curly black hair, grown long around his ears and neck, contrasting with her blonde one. As he speaks, she looks up at him with wide-open eyes. I lean against the worktop and watch them. I’m smiling; I can’t help it. They are such opposites, an almost grown man and a small girl, and yet they have a deep connection. The age gap between them is over fifteen years but still they are devoted to one another.

  I always wanted to have a large family and would have had half a dozen children if I could, but in spite of the fact that we never used contraception, I only fell pregnant three times. I had the two boys three years apart and then a twelve-year gap before Bea came along, a gift for the whole family and just at a time when we needed it most. My father had died unexpectedly of a heart attack and a year later Bea was born, a reason to celebrate and get back on with living. I feel proud to be their mother.

  As if on cue, my mobile rings. It’s Jack. My signal is weak in the kitchen, so I go out into the hallway.

  ‘Morning, love. Sorry we didn’t ring you back yesterday afternoon. Dad went off to the airport and then time ran away from us. Bea was so tired she was in bed by seven.’

  ‘Dad sounded a bit weird when he hung up.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ I say. ‘What are you up to today?’

  ‘Revision. Sport . . . and stuff.’

  He sounds subdued. He hasn’t been particularly reliable lately and I wonder whether he’s in trouble with his housemaster again or if it’s something to do with a girl. I decide not to push for details. It will only cause bad feeling, and I know the school will be in touch if there’s cause for concern. Still, I can’t help myself saying, ‘You are behaving, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah!’ He gives a derisory snort. ‘You always jump to the worst conclusions.’

  ‘I wonder why,’ I say, my tone as light-hearted as I can manage. ‘Your last term report wasn’t exactly glowing.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ He doesn’t even try to keep the boredom from his voice. ‘I just called to wish Bea happy birthday for yesterday.’

  ‘I’ll get her for you.’

  I call to Bea and she sits on the bottom stair, clutching my mobile to her ear, as she starts telling Jack all about her party. I go back into the kitchen, where Charlie is rinsing the breakfast dishes.

  ‘Jack?’ he asks me.

  I nod.

  ‘What’s he up to?’

  ‘Revising, I think . . . I hope.’ I pour myself some coffee. ‘I’ve a feeling there’s more trouble on the horizon.’

  ‘I was too easy,’ Charlie says. ‘Makes Jack seem worse than he is.’

  ‘So it’s normal for teenage boys to lie to their parents, get cautioned by the police for carrying false ID and get spectacularly drunk on the contents of their friend’s parents’ drinks cabinet?’

  ‘You wait and see,’ Charlie says, handing me the milk. ‘By the time he’s twenty, he’ll be through with the dark side. He’ll be wearing cardigans and reading The Times.’

  I laugh. ‘He doesn’t need to go that far. He just—’ I stop short of saying, He just needs to be a bit more like you, because I know it isn’t a fair comment. Charlie has always been straightforward. He is Julian all over again. He has the same sense of fun and fair play and a solid core of common sense. He doesn’t need to rebel. He has an easy relationship with the world around him.

  And much as I find it hard to admit, Jack is like I was. A bit too impulsive. A bit too loud when he needs to be quiet, a bit too forceful when he needs to back off. I remember comparisons were always being made between Lisa and me: ‘If only Claire could be more like her sister’; ‘If only she was content to listen and accept instead of always arguing every point.’ Comparisons between children are never fair and I, of all people, should know better.

  ‘You’re right,’ I say to Charlie. ‘He’ll come round.’

  ‘Second-child syndrome. They push harder against the boundaries. It’s natural.’

  ‘And how did you become so wise?’

  He shrugs. ‘Ask my mum and dad.’

  I smile.

  ‘Talking of Dad . . . is he OK now?’

  ‘I think so. I haven’t spoken to him since he left. I’ll call him this evening. See how his meetings are going.’

  ‘He really went off on one,’ Charlie says. ‘He’s normally Mr Cool and he was acting like disaster had struck.’

  ‘We all behave against type occasionally.’

  ‘Yeah, but not Dad.’

  ‘He’s only human, Charlie,’ I say. ‘He has a lot going on with the case.’

  ‘He’ll get Georgiev this time, though, won’t he?’

  ‘The odds are definitely in the prosecution’s favour, but Georgiev’s crafty. I wouldn’t be surprised if the defence have something up their sleeve.’ I take a bite of a leftover crust of toast. ‘Amy still asleep?’

  ‘She’ll be down in a minute. She’s meeting one of her tutors in the library.’

  Suddenly the kitchen door flies open and Bea comes running back in, a look of concentration on her face. She pulls the heavy fridge door open and stands on tiptoes to reach last night’s leftover chicken. I expect her to put some in her mouth, but instead she crams pieces into the pocket in her pinafore.

  ‘What are you doing, Bea?’ Charlie and I say at the same time.

  ‘Douglas likes chicken. Miss Percival says I can give him a treat if he sits nicely.’

  ‘Ah!’ Charlie hunkers down beside her. ‘Miss Percival’s little West Highland terrier?’

  ‘He comes on Weds-days and we take him for a walk.’

  ‘Why don’t we put the chicken into a plastic bag?’ I say.

  ‘Miss Percival says plastic bags are bad for the ’vironment.’ She gives me a you-should-know-better look. ‘The birds are sick because it stays in their neck.’ She makes a coughing noise and then puts her right hand over her throat. ‘Like that.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ I retrieve a piece of chicken meat from her right Wellington boot and put it in the bin.

  ‘Why do birds try to eat bags?’ she says, the question creasing her forehead.

  ‘They don’t mean to. They’re nosing around for food and they eat the bag by mistake.’ I open a cupboard and find a small plastic box. ‘Look!’ I hold it out to her. ‘We can put the chicken in this.’

  Her face lights up. ‘It can be Douglas’s treat box!’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Charlie helps her transfer the chicken from her pocket into the box.

  ‘Douglas is having puppies,’ she tells him.

  ‘I thought Douglas was a boy,’ he says.

  ‘He made friends with a lady dog and she is having puppies.’ She looks up at me. ‘Miss Percival says I can have one.’

  ‘Does she now?’

  ‘Well, she didn’t say, but she says . . . she says . . .’ she jumps in the air a couple of times as
she thinks ‘. . . I’m good with animals.’

  ‘And she’s right – you are.’ I kiss the top of her head. ‘And we need to get going otherwise we’ll be late.’

  She follows me into the hallway. ‘So can I have a puppy?’

  ‘Let’s ask Daddy when he comes home, shall we?’ In fact Julian and I have already talked it through with each other and with Miss Percival and have decided that we will buy one of the pups. Although Bea isn’t old enough to completely care for an animal, she is old enough to help and she has been asking for her own dog for as long as she’s been able to talk.

  I look through the window out on to the street. The morning began with a summer rain shower, but this is now long gone and the sun is warming the pavements, steam rising lazily upwards. ‘Do you want to wear your sandals?’

  She points down at her feet. ‘My Nemo boots.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I have to bring Bertie.’ She runs back into the kitchen to get him. In recent months there are two things Bea won’t be parted from: her boots and Bertie. She wears her boots everywhere and can only just be persuaded to take them off at night, when she puts them neatly by the bed ready to wear first thing in the morning. And then there’s Bertie. Wherever Bea goes Bertie goes too. He is a brown, furry, bedraggled creature with one ear beginning to fray and the stitching at his foot coming away, but she won’t let me fix him. He doesn’t like needles, she told me. They make him cry.

  I slide my feet into a pair of sturdy, comfortable sandals and open the door into the porch.

  ‘Are you going out like that?’ Amy has come down the stairs and is staring at me.

  ‘Yes.’ I glance down at myself. The velour tracksuit is a bit worn, the grey faded with frequent washing, but it’s one of my favourites. ‘I’m only walking to nursery.’

  ‘Just looks a bit . . .’ she hesitates as her eyes make a final critical appraisal ‘. . . tired.’

  ‘Well, I suppose—’

  ‘You should make more of yourself.’ She walks past me and heads towards the kitchen. ‘While you still have a figure.’

  Charming. Perhaps I should be flattered that she thinks there’s still hope for me, but, as is often the case when conversing with Amy, I’m left feeling that unless I’m willing to tackle her head on, I’m unlikely to get my point across.

  I help Bea slide on her backpack, Bertie’s head poking out of the top, and we set off down the steps. She skips along beside me, interested in everything around her, and we haven’t even left the street when she veers off the pavement to peer at a dead frog in the gutter. The innards fan out from its squashed body like the trailing tentacles of a jellyfish.

  She pokes it with the toe of her boot. ‘Is it dead, Mummy?’

  ‘Yes, it’s dead.’

  We are standing between parked cars and the one directly in front of us has two men inside. One is on his mobile and is looking through the side window towards the park. The other man is watching us and gives me a polite smile. I smile too and try to persuade Bea back on to the pavement. She is still soaking in the macabre sight of the frog: legs splayed, one eye popped from its socket on to the road and what was once a stomach now an empty sack.

  ‘Poor frog.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Now let’s get going. Douglas will be waiting.’

  After a few more seconds she drags her eyes away and we walk to nursery. Miss Percival is standing at the door of the classroom waiting to welcome in the children. Bea and I are the first to arrive. Wednesday is a special day because it’s the day Douglas comes along. When he sees Bea, his tail starts to wag and he strains on his lead to reach her. She runs to greet him, crouching down beside him to stroke his head.

  ‘Look, Mummy!’ She is giggling. ‘His tail is polishing the floor.’

  Douglas is sitting down, his tail swishing from side to side on the wooden floorboards.

  ‘So it is!’

  ‘He wants some chicken.’ She stands up and swings her backpack off her shoulders.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ I say, looking at Miss Percival. ‘She has a treat box for Douglas.’

  ‘Not at all. But, Bea, perhaps you might fill up his water dish first? He’s thirsty after the walk over here.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Percival.’ She wends her way across the floor, around tables and chairs until she gets to the big sink.

  ‘Did your husband get away OK yesterday?’ Miss Percival asks me.

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ I’m watching Bea as she climbs up on to a little wooden stool so that she can reach the taps.

  ‘There’s a lot going on for you and your family at the moment,’ Miss Percival says, and then she clears her throat. ‘Bea has mentioned the trial.’

  ‘Has she?’ I stare at her, surprised. ‘In what context?’

  ‘Children talk as they play. About their lives and what’s going on at home.’ She manages to make this sound both sinister and secretive, and then she adds, ‘Parents don’t always realise quite how much their children pick up on.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ In fact I’m well aware that Bea is in the habit of listening in on adults, absorbing snippets of information here and there. She often tells me about conversations she’s overheard and I’m not surprised to know that some of it spills out when she’s at nursery. But both Julian and I try hard to prevent her from hearing anything that might upset her, especially if it relates to his work or to Lisa’s illness. ‘What has she said?’

  ‘That her daddy was putting a bad man in prison.’

  I raise my eyebrows. ‘That’s the nub of it, I suppose.’ I pick Bea’s backpack up off the floor and hang it on her peg. ‘But she didn’t seem worried by it, did she?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Not exactly?’ I repeat. I’m frowning with concern and she blushes, looks down and moves back a step.

  ‘I was just anxious about the effect her father’s job and her aunt’s illness might be having on her,’ she says stiffly.

  ‘That’s kind,’ I say, ‘but I think we’re managing to shield her from the worst of both those things.’ I turn and look along the corridor, mindful that other mothers are arriving and are beginning to form a queue, waiting to hand their children over. ‘But if you have any specific concerns, then please tell me.’

  ‘Of course.’

  She gives me a tight smile and turns away. I feel like a child who’s been dismissed and I almost leave there and then, but Bea is walking towards me, her face solid with concentration. She has filled the water dish to the brim and is taking small steps to ensure it doesn’t spill on to the floor. I give her a careful kiss goodbye, then turn to go. Miss Percival has already been cornered by another mother and I smile at her and at everyone in general, then walk towards the door.

  My skin prickles. I know how much Bea loves coming to nursery. More than that, I know that Miss Percival is especially fond of Bea. In fact Adam told Jem that Bea was Miss Percival’s favourite. Nevertheless, whenever I talk to Miss Percival, I’m often left feeling that there’s a subtext I’m not tuning in to. This isn’t helped by the fact that we haven’t yet made it to first-name terms. She’s younger than I am by a good ten years and several times I have asked her to call me Claire, but she persists in being formal with me. And yet I hear her call most of the other mums by their first names and they call her Mary. I’ve trawled my memory for a moment when I might have rubbed her up the wrong way, but I’ve never been able to come up with anything. It feels like she wants to keep her distance from me, but then she breaks this by asking me quite specific questions about Julian and Lisa. Only last week she was asking me about Lisa’s treatment and whether she would soon be out of hospital. And the week before that she asked me how I’d met Julian and how long we’d been married. It’s like she’s on a seesaw, a push and pull of wanting to know my family and yet not.

  I walk away shaking my head. I don’t know what to make of her and I don’t see any point in dwelling on it.

  3

  We mov
ed to Brighton from London just over five years ago and it took me a while to appreciate the flavour of the city. Just as the Thames adds colour and history to London’s identity, the sea brings a similar sense of power and timelessness to Brighton’s. It looms large across the southern edge of the city. Devoid of curves and twists, the coastline stretches in one long, uninterrupted line, a clear delineation between land and sea. The beach isn’t sandy; it’s covered in pebbles large and small, and Bea and I have spent many a happy afternoon pottering along the shoreline collecting shells, then spreading a towel on the pebbles to eat a picnic and watch the boats go by. I was brought up further inland, so I’m not someone who was used to living by the sea, but the longer I live in Brighton, the more I enjoy it. Today, as I walk back from nursery, the sea is slate grey and calm, its glassy expanse spreading as far as the eye can see. I stand and watch the waves break gently on the shore. Sunlight glints off the fire-damaged remains of the west pier, gradually being eroded by weather and water. The closest section, already collapsed, is half submerged in the waves, the twisted metal all that’s left of better times.

  Leaving the prom behind, I walk home along Western Road, stopping at the wholefood shop to buy some provisions. For the last month I’ve employed a cook, a young Turkish woman called Sezen Serbest. I’m not used to having help in the house – not since the boys were young and I worked full-time – but Sezen has been a godsend. When Lisa was diagnosed with cancer, our lives changed. Just like Wendy, Lisa had been an almost daily visitor to our home, a much-welcomed aunt, sister and sister-in-law. But the last year has seen her spending more and more time in hospital, for chemotherapy treatment and for a series of complications that have led to weeks of in-patient care. It didn’t take us long to realise that the hospital food was at best palatable and at worst downright inedible. Just at the time when she needed food that was as nutritious and health-affirming as possible, Lisa was eating the worst diet she had ever had. At first I cooked for her, taking food in at lunchtimes. This worked well for a while, but I soon realised that although I knew the principles of good nutrition, if Lisa was to be given the best possible chance of survival, I needed to up my game. After looking on the Internet, I found out about macrobiotics. At that point I knew nothing about this type of diet, apart from what I’d picked up in a few articles I’d read in glossy magazines that mentioned it was a favourite with the Hollywood A-listers. With an emphasis on whole grains and vegetables, macrobiotic cooking was shown not just to encourage good health but to have therapeutic benefits. That was enough for me. I found Sezen, an experienced macrobiotic cook, through an agency and she comes in for four hours every day. At first she prepared food solely for Lisa, but gradually she has been teaching me dishes to make for the whole family.