Beneath the Surface (31 page)

Morrie leant across the table to hold my hand and squeezed it. ‘I don’t know what happened all those years ago. Kathryn didn’t tell me why you haven’t seen each other in so long. I can’t begin to understand what life you’ve led, but if only for the girls, you need to give this some more time.’

How was it possible to give it more time? I haven’t seen the girls in fourteen years, and there I was so close – close to where they live and breathe, to where Hannah is lying in hospital and where Lauren is most likely sitting by her bedside.

‘I’ll stay in touch with you,’ he continued. ‘You have my word that when I think the time is right, I’ll let you know.’

*****

I was so torn, Adam. In the end I told Morrie I’d take his advice. I said goodbye and left, hoping he would keep his end of the bargain. Then I drove out of Mull Bay and straight to the hospital.

But now I’m here, Adam, I don’t think I can go in. Inside is my daughter – my girls. If I walk through that door now, I might ruin everything. If they aren’t ready to see me I could lose them for ever all over again. And on top of all that Morrie was right about one thing: he knows them – I don’t.

So maybe if being a good mum is putting Hannah first, then I should walk away. Maybe that’s what will set me apart from Kathryn and Eleanor. Maybe I can finally break the chain of broken mothers.

Lauren was by the door. She looked blurry but then Hannah felt so tired, it could just be that her eyes weren’t focusing. Her mum still wasn’t there. If she had the strength Hannah would pull the tubes and wires out of her arms and pace the corridors until she found her. Kathryn was probably hiding somewhere, in case Hannah remembered what had happened right before the accident. Which of course she did: Hannah remembered every word of it.

Lauren looked tired. She was rubbing her face and yawning, her eyes were bloodshot and watery. Every time Hannah woke, Lauren was in the room with her. Her sister hadn’t left her side.

‘Hannah, you’re awake.’

Hannah smiled back. ‘Where’s Mum?’ she asked. Every time she thought of Kathryn as ‘Mum’ it sent a sharp stab to her stomach. She felt her eyes filling with tears but she couldn’t lift her hand to wipe them.

‘Don’t cry,’ Lauren said, rushing to her side, gently holding her arm. ‘You’ll be fine, everything’s going to be OK. The doctor was only just saying they were pleased with your progress. He says you’re strong.’

Hannah tried turning her head away but it hurt too much. She couldn’t bear to look at Lauren, who knew nothing of what their mum had done to them.

‘I said in that case it was better it was you and not me.’ Lauren gave a short laugh. ‘Because I’m not nearly as strong as you.’

‘Where’s Mum?’ Hannah asked again.

‘She’s on her way. Morrie’s just spoken to her so she’ll be here soon. I didn’t mean that, by the way,’ she added. ‘I’d swap places with you in a heartbeat.’

Hannah gave her sister a weak smile. ‘Has she been here at all?’

‘God yes, of course she has, but you know what she’s like.’ Lauren shrugged. ‘She had to go.’

‘Go where?’

But Lauren didn’t answer. They were silent for a while, each sister watching the other. There was nothing to say, yet at the same time there was everything, but Hannah couldn’t bring herself to do it. She felt tired again, her eyelids were heavy and as much as she wanted to keep them open the pressure was too much and she let them drop shut.

‘Mum.’ Lauren’s voice broke the silence and Hannah managed to flicker her lids open to see her mum at the door.

Her mum. Kathryn. Whoever.

‘You’ve come back,’ said Lauren.

Kathryn looked concerned, her eyes dark, their lids hooded, but she had a glimmer of a smile on her face when she saw Hannah’s eyes open.

She still cares about you
, Hannah told herself.
It’s all over her face
. And as much as Hannah wanted to shout at her and cry and tell Lauren the truth, it was good to see her mum still cared.

Then Hannah couldn’t stop herself from falling back into a deep sleep.

‘Lauren’s here,’ Morrie said to Kathryn gently. ‘I can wait in your kitchen if you like.’

‘Don’t go, Morrie,’ Kathryn begged. ‘Stay here, please.’

She wasn’t ready; it was ridiculous she was going through this already.

But he shook his head. ‘You must do this on your own, Kathryn. Don’t back out, will you?’

‘I don’t think I can do it.’ Her whole body trembled with fear.

‘You
have
to,’ he said calmly, backing out of the room.

Kathryn grabbed her glass of water but couldn’t keep her hands still. Water splashed over the top, wetting her skirt, and she tried to rub it away roughly with her hands.

‘Mum?’ Lauren came into the living room, looking at her with wide eyes.

Kathryn’s mouth still felt dry so she reached for another sip of water, but again it splashed, this time over her hand.

Lauren sat down on the chair opposite and leaned forward, her face a mixture of worry and anticipation. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Is it Grandma?’

‘No. No, it’s not Grandma,’ Kathryn said. ‘Well, not really. Maybe it is.’

‘Mum, you’re not making sense, just tell me what it is, please. I’m getting worried now.’

Kathryn took a deep breath, trying to look at her daughter, but she found her eyes drifting towards her lap. ‘There’s something I did, a long, long time ago,’ she said finally, ‘and it’s something I should never have done.’

‘OK, well, we all make mistakes.’

‘Yes, I suppose we do …’ Kathryn paused, shaking her head. ‘But this was big, a very big thing I did and I’ve never told anyone.’ As she lay her hands across her lap, her legs were jiggling up and down and she wished she could make them stop. Kathryn closed her eyes. It was impossible, there was no way she could tell Lauren the truth.

But what if she didn’t? Someone else would tell her. Though maybe that was preferable, maybe she could let someone else do it. Who would that be, though?

‘Mum?’ Lauren sounded impatient.

‘Kathryn?’ Morrie was now calling her, standing in the doorway, glaring at her. She hadn’t ever seen him glare. Only one day had passed since Hannah’s accident and he had been repeating himself over and over that she needed to speak to Lauren.

Fine, I’ll just come out with it then he might stop glaring.

‘I have another daughter. Her name is Abigail.’

‘Abigail?’ This was Lauren.

Don’t answer questions. Breathe. Remember what you practised. Talk again before she asks anything else.

‘I left her when you and Hannah were two, because I believed she was very out of control and was going to ruin everything for us and I was scared.’

I had believed that, hadn’t I? But was it true? Because only now I don’t actually remember what she had said and …

‘What do you mean, ruin things? What are you on about, Mum?’

Ignore her. Now I can’t think of the next line. Think, Kathryn, think.

‘Abigail had a baby at fourteen, the baby was Hannah and she couldn’t look after her, so I looked after her and brought you both up as twins. Then she said she was going to tell everyone and take her away from me and I couldn’t let that happen, and oh God, Lauren, I really don’t feel very well.’

Breathe, Kathryn, Breathe.

Kathryn grabbed a magazine from the side table and started fanning herself.

‘What the hell are you talking about? This is ridiculous! Are you making this up?’

‘No, Lauren, she isn’t.’

Kathryn heard Morrie’s voice, which was good, she thought, because she needed to lie down now. He sat down on the sofa next to Lauren and took hold of her daughter’s hand, rubbing it gently. Maybe she could lie out on the floor and Morrie could take it from there.

Kathryn shuffled forward to the edge of the sofa but Lauren’s questions came one after the other. She heard her own voice answering them, but it all sounded like it was happening very far away. She heard Morrie’s voice too; he sounded like an interpreter.

The room was swimming in and out; she felt as if she was being dragged under the surface of water. Everyone’s voices were muffled and unreal. In a way it was a pleasant feeling. But then Lauren started crying before shouting. Kathryn desperately wanted to close her eyes because there was so much noise and she couldn’t make any sense of it. Then Lauren stood up and cried out, ‘I’m going to be with my sister!’

Was that it? Was it over?

‘Do you want to know more?’ Kathryn stood up, her legs wobbling. She needed to grab hold of the chair to steady herself, but Lauren was already out of the room. Kathryn desperately wanted to do the right thing for her girls. It was just so very, very hard.

The front door slammed behind Lauren.

‘Oh, I think I’ve ruined everything,’ said Kathryn.

‘No, you haven’t. That’s the hardest part over,’ Morrie told her softly. ‘Whatever happens from now on, you’ll cope with it because you’ve told them the truth and that’s all that matters.’

She heard his words but she didn’t believe them. ‘They’ll talk about it together,’ she said, biting the corner of her thumbnail. ‘About how much they both hate me for what I did. They won’t want anything more to do with me.’ She should stop because she had reached the skin and it was hurting now.

‘That’s not true.’

‘I can’t blame them. What kind of mother am I? What kind of mother abandons one child and lies to the others their whole lives? Oh, Morrie, why did all this have to come out? Why couldn’t we have carried on as we were? And now it’s bleeding again.’ She held up her thumb.

Morrie looked down at his feet, shuffled on the spot and she knew he wanted to say something.

‘What? There’s something you’re not telling me.’

Still he said nothing.

Kathryn felt a blinding stab of pain across her forehead. ‘I’m going to lie down,’ she said. ‘I think I’m getting a migraine.’

‘OK—’ He paused. She wished he’d just say whatever was on his mind, but instead he turned his back and told her he would make them both a cup of tea.

Kathryn went up to her bedroom. The light was streaming in through the window, its glare bright. She moved to pull the curtains, stopping briefly to look out onto the lane. If she craned her neck to the right she could glimpse the sea. It had surprised her the morning after they’d arrived in Mull Bay. So different to what she was used to in London, the rows and rows of houses overlooked from every side. Mull Bay was isolated in comparison. She had always hoped they could have a happy life in the Bay, the three of them. And they had. But she had also hoped that one day Abigail would join them too. That’s what she had written in her letter to her: that once it had all blown over, Abigail could join them. Only Eleanor always said it never had.

Abigail, Kathryn mouthed her daughter’s name. Abigail. ‘Abigail,’ she gasped, peering to see the figure against the wall, further down the lane. Dark brown hair that hung poker-straight, falling onto her shoulders. White shorts showing off tanned legs, and a bright pink top. Kathryn closed her eyes and shook the image out of her head, but when she looked again the girl was still there.

‘Here’s your tea,’ Morrie said, appearing in the room. ‘Shall I leave it on your table?’

Kathryn pressed both hands against the windowpane and leant in closer.

‘Kathryn, what are you looking at?’

He joined her at the window and gazed in the direction she was staring.

‘Oh.’

‘It’s Abigail,’ she whispered. ‘It looks exactly like Abigail. I saw her the other day too, at Mother’s home.’

There was an ache in her chest. A dull pain that felt like her insides were being tugged. The girl looked so much like her daughter.

‘Yes,’ Morrie said.

‘But it can’t be her.’

‘Well … Actually, it is.’ Morrie coughed and took hold of her arm as if he thought she would fall at any moment.

Kathryn turned to him. ‘What do you mean, it’s her?’

‘I met her yesterday,’ he explained. ‘She came to the Bay looking for you and the girls.’

Kathryn tried opening her mouth to speak but every muscle in her body was too numb for movement. It couldn’t be true. Abigail was here?

‘I don’t know how she found you in Mull Bay and I don’t know why now, but she’s here, and she obviously wants to see them. I told her it wasn’t a good time,’ he added. ‘I thought she’d gone. She said she would.’

Kathryn looked back out of the window but the girl had disappeared.
Was this it?
she wondered.
Was this the point when her life crumbled into dust around her? Yet Abigail was here – she’d finally come
.

‘This will all be fine,’ Morrie was saying to her.

‘No, no, it won’t be,’ she said. ‘It isn’t fine. It won’t be fine because I’m not strong enough to deal with any of this. I never have been, Morrie, and I don’t know how to be.’

*****

There were points in Kathryn’s life when everything built up to such a crescendo she felt her whole world would explode with the pressure of it. Robert’s death was the first. Leaving the hospital without the man she had given her heart to meant her life would never be the same again. She had looked down at the little dark-haired girl clutching her hand tightly and thought, now it’s just you and me, and a cold shiver had run through her spine. Why God had chosen to take Robert and not her she could never fathom. Robert was the better parent for Abigail. He knew what to do when she cried, or when she was hurt. Not her. She relied on him to guide her through parenting, just as she relied on her mother to guide her through the rest of her life.

Once in a Religious Studies class at school, Kathryn had dabbled with the idea that God had forgotten to fill her with anything. He had put in all the necessary bits for her to operate, bones and major organs, but He had forgotten all the extras that made her human. Maybe that was why her mother was so frustrated with her all the time, she had considered. Why Eleanor was so angry when Kathryn didn’t seem to be able to do anything as well as her mother hoped. Like the time she had sat a spelling bee, even though she had pleaded with her mother that spelling wasn’t her strongest subject. Eleanor had pushed her onto the stage with all the other little girls, wearing their glasses and clips holding down the sides of their hair, every one of them looking smarter than Kathryn. Mischievous. M I S C H I E O … No, there was no ‘O’ that side of the ‘V’; she wouldn’t forget that again.