After the Lie: A gripping novel about love, loss and family secrets (6 page)

‘
W
hy do
I have to come and watch Jamie? He never comes to anything I’m in.’ Izzy was standing in front of the mirror, dividing her hair into lots of little blonde plaits.

Since I’d slapped Jamie a week ago, I was frightened to get cross with either child. I’d cuddled Jamie to me the day after, apologising over and over until he’d shrugged me off with ‘Mum, it’s okay. No biggie.’ I still felt shaky when I thought about taking my temper out on him. The fact that neither child seemed to be trying very hard to keep the peace, arguing and answering back as usual, gave me hope that they wouldn’t wheel out the ‘hideous slapping incident’ to their psychologists in twenty years’ time. In fact, Izzy appeared to have sprouted more opinions than a MORI poll, delivered in such an insolent manner that if I had been a hitting sort of mother, I could have launched into a right old smackfest.

This evening, we had twenty minutes before we had to be at a school concert to watch Jamie playing the sax. Twenty minutes before I might have to face Sean if he was the kind of dad who came to concerts. Maybe Katya too. What if he’d told her? What if it all kicked off during
Fly Me to the Moon
? The little jolts of fear that coursed through me were becoming more and more frequent.

I glanced at my watch. Izzy appeared to be separating each individual hair follicle. ‘Come on, love. We really need to go.’

‘Won’t matter if we’re a bit late.’

I wanted to snatch the brush out of her hand and smash the mirror with it. I took a step towards the front door. ‘Out. Now.’ I didn’t dare make a threat in case I ended up with a mountain of sanctions piled one on top of the other à la ‘You’ve got a computer ban, TV ban, sweet ban and you’ll never go to another party until you are eighty-five years old.’

Thankfully, Izzy scuffed out to the car. We drove to school in silence. When we arrived, I got stuck behind the school parent with the biggest Land Rover and smallest parking capability, watching the minutes tick away. Half a lifetime of gear crunching later, Izzy and I slipped into the hall. The lights had already gone down and the orchestra was playing a jaunty
It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)
.

I peered round for Mark. He couldn’t have saved seats more slap-bang in the middle of the hall if he’d used a set square. I whispered to Izzy that we’d stand at the back until the interval at which point she marched to the end of the row and made everyone stand up to let her through. I had no choice but to follow, shuffling along, rolling my eyes and smiling through clenched teeth.

I didn’t bother with the smiling when I got as far as Mark. I hissed in his ear, ‘For god’s sake, I suppose it didn’t occur to you to save seats on the end?’

Yet again, he looked at me as though he couldn’t quite place who I was.

I wasn’t sure who I was.

Certainly not this person who snarled instead of spoke. Perhaps the real me would be unpalatable to everyone. Bits of anger raced around my brain, blowing about like shreds of tissue paper in the wind, leaving me unable to concentrate on the beautiful solo of
Ave Maria
that Melanie’s son, Victor, was performing. In fact, seeing Melanie sitting there, conducting with her forefinger and mouthing every word in the next row, made me feel awful that I didn’t even know what piece of music Jamie was playing.

By the time he came onto the stage, looking utterly dishevelled even though I had ironed his uniform that very morning, the vicious thumping in my brain had subsided. I caught Mark’s eye and smiled. If I’d been a Facebook sort of mother, I’d have posted photos with the hashtags:
#proudmothermoment
#sotalented
. I didn’t allow myself to notice the slightly out-of-tune toots, the curtailed notes when his breathing was out of sync.

I tried not to be that mother who could see no wrong in her kids, but secretly I thought they were slightly more wonderful than everyone else’s. Mark always laughed at me for bringing out the decorations the children had made in kindergarten, balder and less glittery, as each Christmas went by. I hadn’t thrown out a creative writing book since Izzy wrote: ‘My mum shows she cares for me because she puts my pillows just how they should be.’ If we ever moved, I’d need a Pantechnicon just to transport clumpy clay pots.

When I was Jamie’s age, I was shrinking away from adults in case they asked too many questions. I was guarded with friends, reluctant to invite them to my house with my mother’s constant monitoring of my conversations in case I told them anything too personal – such as ‘My dad’s been in prison’. She didn’t understand that to have a close friend, you needed to reveal more of yourself than a penchant for strawberry bonbons.

So when the children were little, I lost hours of my life to worrying when they were left out of parties, magnifying every conversation I’d had with other mothers in case it was something I’d done. Then Mark would put his arm round me and say, ‘They’re seven years old. They won’t die if they miss out on a bouncy castle.’

Seeing Izzy and Jamie making the most of their teenage years filled me with a peculiar delight and envy. I’d missed out on so much by keeping my head down, spending breaks in the library and weekends reading. I loved that they had a level playing field as a springboard into life. And I wasn’t about to spoil it for them.

Once Jamie left the stage, I turned my attention to examining any unfamiliar faces in the choir to see if I could spot Sean’s daughter. So odd to think of the maverick boy I’d once loved having responsibility for anything more than a goldfish. I mentally rehearsed how I would introduce Mark to Sean if we bumped into him.

When the lights came up for the interval, Mark nodded towards the adjoining hall. ‘Let’s get a drink.’

He put his hand on my waist and propelled me forward. I knew I’d been hard to live with recently. We weren’t a couple who liked to air our grievances. We tended towards quiet withdrawal, silent elephants lumbering about the room, the deafening hush of non-discussion rather than slamming out of the house in big dramatics. Mark’s natural good humour usually ended the stand-off by making me laugh.

Katya bounded over to greet us like a long-lost friend. No edge, no glare. I was safe for the moment.

‘Mark, sorry I haven’t been in touch, meant to email you to say I twisted the headmaster’s arm and he let me look at the kitchen you did for him. Looks fab, so I’ve discussed it with my husband and we definitely want to go ahead.’

Relief washed over Mark’s face. One sentence from Katya smoothed his features and relaxed his shoulders. He looked so happy, it felt traitorous to wish they’d decided to go to B&Q. Sean was going to become a feature in my life whether I liked it or not.

I felt a touch on my arm.

‘Hello again, Lydia.’ Sean, smiling away, as though our last meeting had been a jolly session of reminiscing about old school mates.

I had to concentrate on lifting my top teeth off my bottom set to squeeze out a greeting.

Katya snapped her head round. She burst out with ‘I didn’t know you two knew each other.’

Sean turned into a jovial maître d’, taking charge of the meet and greet. My stomach was clenched, braced for the ‘we go way back’ line, but he confined his description to the fundraising committee link. As people walked past, Sean was clapping various men on the back and kissing women on the cheek, with a sense of entitlement radiating from every pore.

Mark discussed kitchens with Katya. I willed him not to be too friendly, too trusting, share too much of our lives. I managed a handful of short chats with people I’d known since the kids were in nursery about an upcoming army camp and the shocking cost of the netball tour to Dubai. I could feel resentment bubbling. Sean had marched onto my turf and in the space of a few weeks was more at ease than we’d managed in a decade. I’d never been quite so delighted to hear the words, ‘The beginners’ recorder group is about to start.’ Bring on the squeaks. But before I could escape, Katya grabbed my arm.

‘Sean and I are going to invite a few people from the fundraising committee over for dinner. You’ll have to join us with Mark. Can you give us some dates in the next month or so?’

I refrained from telling her that the only weekends we were ever busy were when I had a wedding on. I’d never let anyone get close enough to be included in the dinner party circuit. I was scrabbling about for an excuse, when Mark suddenly came earwigging in. ‘We’d love to, wouldn’t we, Lydia?’

The response,
No, I’d rather take my mother shoe shopping,
was so loud in my head that I expected everyone to glance down at their feet.

The last thing I needed was Mark and the McAllisters becoming best mates.

B
y the end of September
, I’d run out of excuses to avoid dinner at the McAllisters’. Mark had been unusually forceful on the subject, seeing it as an opportunity to cement his position as their favourite tradesman. In the end, he just came home and told me that we were going that weekend. There was no way round it. The rest of the week slipped away in a snowball of dread until Saturday evening rolled around.

‘You look amazing,’ Mark said, as I came downstairs.

Clearly he spent the majority of his life thinking he was married to a badly stuffed sausage. ‘Thanks.’

‘Have you changed your hair?’

‘I’ve curled it.’ And used blusher, eyeliner, hold-your-blubber-in pants and a clever grey dress with ruching that confused the eye about whether the folds were fat or fabric. We were not going to look like a charity case on whom Sean was going to bestow his largesse by ordering a built-in coffee grinder.

Years ago, I’d vowed never to do the whole ‘You’re not going out in that’ scenario on the grounds that my poor dad couldn’t pick out a pair of socks without my mother having an opinion on them. Tonight, though, I wanted to change everything Mark was wearing. Top of my hate list were the canvas plimsolls – far too children’s PE bag. The tank top was second – only a bloke with an electric guitar and raffish hair curling round the collar could carry that off. Sean always looked so stylish in a casual, Timberlandy sort of way.

I hesitated, then grabbed the car keys. ‘I don’t want to stay late. I’m really tired.’

‘Don’t forget that the McAllisters could make a serious difference to my turnover this year. I don’t know why you’re so anti them. Anyway, you won’t even have to talk to them much. There are two other couples going, didn’t he say?’

I shrugged. Mark’s attempt at making me feel better just multiplied the possibility that someone would take an interest in my life ‘before Surrey’. Mark frowned and picked up the bottle of Brunello he’d been given by a grateful client.

I allowed Mark to direct me to Sean’s house. I couldn’t admit I’d already sat outside it, watching the shadows of his life pass back and forth behind those sterile blinds. As we walked up the drive, I found myself shuffling behind with all the gusto Jamie had demonstrated on a recent trip to the British Museum.

‘You’ll be the most gorgeous wife there,’ Mark said, as we stood on the doorstep. I didn’t care about being gorgeous half as much as I cared about being ‘there’.

Sean’s daughter opened the door. She looked so much like him that my defences locked down as though someone had pressed a panic button. She ushered us in, her dark hair gleaming with the natural shine of someone who is a stranger to the dye bottle. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

Sean bowled out of the sitting room. ‘Come in, come in. I see you’ve already met Eleanor.’ He turned to his daughter. ‘This is Jamie’s mum and dad.’

‘I’m in a lot of classes with Jamie. We’re working on a project together in Biology.’

My stomach dropped. Blood rushed to my brain and started clattering around like water driving an old mill wheel. That was
her
. The one Jamie always ‘had to speak to’ about his Biology. Jesus Christ. Flaming Sean McAllister’s daughter who looked like she could eat Jamie for breakfast, burping lightly into a napkin, no cutlery required. There was something slightly South American about her, with her dark eyes and full lips, all raunchy samba and swaying hips. She looked far older than fifteen.

‘Bet you’re streets ahead of him in class. He’s such a lazy toad,’ I said. ‘Don’t let him distract you from doing well.’ My voice was all stilted, as though I was talking to someone with a poor grasp of English.

Mark threw me a puzzled look. I ignored him.

Eleanor mirrored Mark, screwing up her face as though I’d just coughed garlic over her. ‘I don’t think he’s lazy. He’s really clever. Especially at Science and Maths. I try and get into his group when we do experiments because he always understands the instructions.’

God. How I would love to have had the confidence at fifteen to disagree with a parent about their own child.

I deliberately avoided Mark’s raised eyebrows. ‘Last I heard, he got into trouble for letting the lizards out in the Biology lab. I don’t think he’s a very good influence on the class.’

‘Did he? I didn’t know about that.’ Eleanor held out her hand for my coat.

Sean was shrugging in a ‘boys will be boys’ way, but I hoped I’d sown enough seeds of doubt to convince him that my naïve and academic, not-to-be-wasted-on-offspring-of-the-devil son spelt trouble for a teenage girl. Couldn’t see Sean letting his beloved daughter go out with a wrong ’un, having been one himself.

On the other hand, if Eleanor had a shred of Sean’s rebelliousness, I’d probably described the must-have boy on the block.

Before I could think up any more misdemeanours for Jamie, Katya emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, a tiny wisp in a pale brown sheath dress, like a spun sugar caramel decoration.

‘Hello there, come on in. What will you have to drink, Lydia?’

Still no indication that she knew I was anything other than another bog-standard mother from school.

The fear bulging in my throat subsided enough for me to produce a normal-sounding ‘A spritzer, please.’

Sean looked at the bottle of red wine Mark handed him and whistled. ‘Brunello. Very generous. I’ll open that.’

I tried telepathically to encourage Mark to wave it away and say, ‘No, you save it for a special occasion.’ I couldn’t bear the thought of Sean taking the piss afterwards. ‘Jesus, did you see his eyes light up when I said I was going to open the Brunello?’

Sean clapped his hands. ‘Right, before the others get here, shall we just have a quick run-through of the kitchen?’ Mark was immediately in his element. My earlier irritation morphed into pride as Sean nodded agreement at his suggestions. I’d expected Katya to rule the kitchen domain, but it was clear that Sean was the cook in their house.

Katya turned to me. ‘Honestly, he puts me to shame. Anything more complicated than a spag bol or fish fingers, I let Sean take over. He’s done the beef bourguignon tonight.’

I was astonished that Sean had turned out to be such a family man. Maybe I was more like my mother than I’d thought, freeze-framing everyone into the person they were thirty years ago. Sean stabbed out some notes on his iPad, threw out a few more questions about the various merits of oak over maple, then declared it ‘party time’. A candlelit vigil by an open coffin would have appealed more.

Katya handed me a drink as we moved into the sitting room. Along one wall was a collage of photographs. They were all of Katya. She reminded me of the blonde girls in the ‘in’ group at school. Staring into the camera, sultry bordering on aggressive, head thrown back, every photo exuding sexiness and confidence. I looked away without commenting. By the fireplace was a collection of smaller prints of Eleanor: on the beach, hair trailing behind her on a swing, lying in a hammock in a polka-dot bikini, running through a wood in wellies. She looked like a model out of a Gap advert. Difficult to see how Jamie wouldn’t fancy her. The thought made me want to choke on my peanuts.

Katya waved her arm at the wall. ‘Rogues’ gallery. As I’m sure you know by now, Sean loves his photography.’

I felt Sean glance over at me. I searched for a suitable comment. Instead of a nice, anodyne ‘He’s very good’, I said, ‘So it seems,’ in a tone that suggested I thought it was all crap. Katya frowned. Mark kept sending me meaningful looks. I’d seen the figures for his business. I knew how much this meant to him.

I scratched up some charm. ‘Eleanor is very beautiful.’

Katya softened. ‘Thank you. It’s always hard to judge your own children, isn’t it? I can’t take the credit for it. She looks a lot like Sean when he was young.’

I nodded, then quickly stopped. The doorbell saved me. The way Katya shot off into the hallway made me realise that she would probably rather be having a mammogram than be stuck with me.

The shrieking, laughing and ‘Oh bugger me!’ signified Terri’s arrival. She came bursting into the sitting room in a stretchy sequinned tunic that made her look like an oversized disco ball. She bowled over to me. ‘Lydia! Hello!’ and did a funny half-nelson hug/kiss, which ended up with her spilling champagne into her cleavage. ‘Oopsy. How are you, anyway? I hear Jamie’s doing fantastically well,’ she said, patting her chest dry with her hand.

I hoped Sean couldn’t hear, given I’d just made out that my studious son was a troublemaker to be avoided at all costs. I shrugged and nodded, groping about for a change of subject.

‘Christ, lucky you. You must send him round to teach Ashton a thing or two. He’s so bloody lazy, he wouldn’t get up if he sat on a scorpion. And Jamie’s got such lovely manners. I spoke to him after the swing concert about his sax playing – so polite. You should zoom straight to the top of the marvellous mother charts.’

I felt a sudden urge to cry. If only she knew that the cover-up started in my own childhood now had roots so extensive that it was threatening to burst through the tarmac of my life and bring us all toppling down.

I cleared my throat. ‘Ashton’s got so much personality though. He’s really popular. And he
is
captain of the rugby A-team. Jamie would swap academic success for that accolade any day.’

Terri waved her hand dismissively. ‘Being good at rugby isn’t going to keep him in the lifestyle he wants. He’s going to have to get working them roulette tables for that.’ She nodded over to the door where her husband, Gavin, was booming about the merits of his latest Porsche over his previous Mercedes and lowered her voice. ‘Either that, or do what I did and marry someone with money.’ She giggled, unfettered by any thoughts about how I might find that attitude a bit outdated.

It was impossible not to like Terri, though. She was so honest, teetering on the spot in ridiculously high heels and swearing about how much her feet were hurting. ‘I can never walk in my bloody shoes, but I can’t resist a pretty sandal. It’s because I’m such a short-arse. I’d be looking up people’s noses if I didn’t wear these. Gav gets proper pissed off with me, but he married the wrong woman if he wanted someone clumping about in Crocs.’

I found myself relaxing as Terri nattered on, telling Katya how Gavin had insisted on completely revamping her kitchen. ‘Think he was hoping the grub might improve but I’m a shit cook. Finding the new pantry useful for storing all my new shoes though.’ The complete contrast to Melanie, who’d launched into a ‘marinade for thirty-six hours or bust’ conversation when I’d overheard her accepting Katya’s invitation.

And a fashionable ten minutes later, Melanie glided in, her boyish figure encased in a 1950s-style dress, complete with flouncy skirt. She’d even perfected that one foot in front of the other walk that actresses do when they’re up for an Oscar. After the briefest greeting, she waved her pashmina at her husband and directed her conversation to the person she considered most important – Katya – leaving Terri and me standing around as though we were groupies at a celebrity book signing. As Melanie launched into the beginner’s guide to Eastington House etiquette, Terri gave me the tiniest wink and asked how the fundraising was going.

‘We should get Sean to take a photo of you, me and Mel to put on the school website. If the other parents see our friendly fizzogs, we might get some more volunteers. Let’s ask him before we get too piddled. Correction: before
I
get too piddled.’

‘I don’t think my face is going to encourage anyone to help out. Get him to take one of you and Melanie.’

‘Don’t be silly. You’re absolutely gorgeous. You’ll get all the dads volunteering. You can be the pin-up girl for the parents. You know, like the Calendar Girls, but with clothes on.’ Terri laughed. ‘Or maybe we could really hit a recruitment drive and take our kit off.’

I could feel the sweat starting to gather under my armpits. I didn’t dare look down in case I had two big dark circles on my dress.

Terri blundered on. ‘You’d look lovely behind a strategically placed rugby ball or two. The only thing that would cover up my fat arse would be the bloody marquee.’ She dropped her voice, though by most people’s standards it was still a bellow. ‘A javelin would do for Mel.’

I did have to laugh at that, despite myself.

Thankfully, Sean waved us through to the dining room. Katya said, ‘Boy/girl, or boys at one end and girls at the other?’ There was a chorus of boy/girl, except from me. I wanted to hide behind Terri’s all-encompassing warmth and presence. Her husband, Gavin, called women ‘me darling’, drank red wine like it was Diet Coke and described everyone who didn’t see the world from his extravagant and anarchical point of view as a ‘knobhead’. His huge personality made me feel as though whatever I said, he wouldn’t be listening, he’d just be waiting for the opportunity to broadcast his opinions again.

Katya started directing us to seats. Sean next to me. Melanie and Gavin opposite. I couldn’t find a way to sit without turning away from Sean. It was going to take more than my left shoulder to protect myself. I shrank into my chair at the prospect of Melanie finding everything I said ill-informed, parochial and unambitious, let alone Gavin mowing me down with his ‘You’re having me on, woman!’ every time I defended the school’s draconian rules about pupils’ use of the internet or their insistence on students standing up when adults walked into the room. Mark was diagonally opposite me, sending me encouraging wiggles of the eyebrows, which I suppose in long-time married speak meant ‘Cheer up and look a bit enthusiastic, this could pay for us to go on holiday next year.’

As for Mark, a group of Morris dancers flapping their handkerchiefs would have been hard pressed to look jollier.

I reined in the sourpuss. I concentrated on complimenting Sean on his cooking and Katya on her lovely home. Melanie insisted on talking Sean through the various teachers – the merits of whom appeared to depend solely on their ability to herd ninety-nine per cent of the students to an A*. His ability to feign interest in things that bored him had improved over the years.