The Mother’s Lies. Joanne Sefton

apart since they started having families – literally as well as metaphorically, as they had moved out in different directions to various London suburbs. She missed the gossip and the laughter, but Darren had always been her emotional anchor. In her twenties, she’d provided the shoulder to cry on as her friends went through dating disasters and relationship break-ups. Now, finally, she was the one in need and the only confidant she’d ever needed was the one whose betrayal was ripping her to shreds.

      Eventually, after a snack with the kids and about four cups of tea, and after he’d taken off his socks because he always preferred bare feet, and after Helen had finished one box of Kleenex and, shamefully, got him to refill the screen wash on her car, he said he should go.

      They agreed he’d have the kids on Thursday, assuming Barbara’s operation the day before had gone okay, and take them somewhere for the day. Both Barney and Alys had been very forbearing whilst their parents sat alone upstairs and that pricked at her – between her and Darren they were turning them into diplomats. On the doorstep, Darren paused awkwardly and she let him falter, but he turned away without a kiss, or a handshake, or any touch at all. She thought about the way they’d been in the bedroom and wondered if different rules applied there. Barney and Alys waved the Astra off quite happily, without asking any questions.

      ‘Was it nice to see Daddy?’ she asked.

      They both nodded and ‘yes-yessed’ enthusiastically.

      ‘Daddy smelt happy,’ said Barney, quietly.

      ‘Really? What do you mean?’

      But he just shrugged and tried to grab a piece of jigsaw from Alys’s hand.

      It killed her that even Barney could see Darren was happier now. Happier having abandoned his family. Happier without her. Happier with carefree, bright-eyed, not-yet-thirty Lauren.

      *

      Neil went back to the hospital at seven the next morning. It was Wednesday already; tomorrow they’d have been away from home for a week and she had no idea when they’d be going back. She tried to occupy herself with washing the kids’ clothes and making a list of extras she should pick up for them from the supermarket, whilst waiting for news from the hospital. Neil sent a text when Barbara was going into theatre and then one when she came out; another when she’d started to come round from the anaesthetic and another when they’d let him in to see her in the recovery room. It had all gone ‘by the book’ he said, though Helen guessed those were Mr Eklund’s words, or someone else at the hospital. They’d get the first proper update on what they had found on the Thursday ward round, by which point it was expected that Barbara would be well enough to take it in.

      It was early evening by the time Neil was able to report that Barbara was back on the ward. They’d planned for him to come home then, but when it came to it, he didn’t want to leave her alone. Eventually, Helen persuaded him that he should drive back around the kids’ bedtime and that she would go in and sit with Barbara through the night. When he came back and she saw him in the flesh, she was glad she’d insisted. He looked wearier than she remembered ever seeing him. The day had clearly taken everything he had to give.

      As soon as she’d kissed the kids – both sleeping soundly, thank God – he was gently hurrying her out. She insisted on delaying long enough to make sure he ate the pasta bake she’d left for him, and wondered bleakly whether anyone would get so concerned about her by the time she was Barbara’s age.

      It was going dark by the time Helen arrived, and the strange, unnatural half-light of the hospital corridors made her feel suddenly weary. Barbara was in a half-private cubicle set back from the main ward. The young nurse on night duty explained that visitors were allowed in tonight because she was just out of surgery. Soon she’d be moved into the ward itself and visiting hours would have to be observed.

      The heels of Helen’s ankle boots clipped loudly on the few steps between the ward door and Barbara’s cubicle, and she peered anxiously into the gloom, hoping she’d not woken up any of the other patients. The nurse left as soon as Helen was settled in the chair, closing the ward door carefully behind her and slipping off, rubber-soled, into the shadows. Helen had no chance to ask her anything.

      Barbara lay there like a storybook invalid, her head back against the semi-propped pillows, eyelids lowered and hands folded on the blanket. Her skin had an oniony look, translucent, papery, unhealthy. It was as if the operation had somehow removed a layer of her. Helen was shocked by the difference from the previous day, when she’d looked whole and wholesome – give or take the odd liver spot and the dark circles under her eyes.

      She sat down in the plastic armchair and laid her hand over her mother’s. She couldn’t decide if Barbara was too cold or if she herself was too hot. Barbara’s eyelids didn’t flicker. By now, Helen had tuned in to the shallow sound of her breathing. She let herself fall into its rhythm.

       June 1963

       Katy

      The honeysuckle made no difference; Katy couldn’t tell them anything.

      The builders and their machines had changed the very shape of the earth. It had been moulded and flattened and moulded again, like the sandpits in the infant school.

      ‘Well, did you come in to the left of the oak, or the right of the oak? The damn tree’s not moved!’ The sergeant with the moustache was making no effort to hide his annoyance.

      Katy could remember there being trees; she didn’t know if the one he was waving at had been one of them. She wanted to tell him that she’d been terrified and panicking. That she’d barely slept and it was the furthest she’d ever gone from home on her own. When she thought about that day, it was through a fog of guilt, the horror of what she’d done weighing down on her with each day she got older, each day she spent at Ashdown. Mr Robertson might understand, but she knew this man never would.

      ‘I only remember there being a road sweeping up ahead of me,’ she said, and the muscles round her mouth twitched oddly as she fought back tears. ‘There was a bank of loose earth and stones. That’s where … that’s where …’

      ‘It’s okay.’ Miss Silver stepped closer, patting her arm.

      ‘It’s bloody well not okay,’ interjected the policeman. ‘How far from the site perimeter was this road? How far did you have to walk to get to it?’

      Katy shook her head. She couldn’t answer.

      ‘How was the road orientated? Which direction did it go in?’

      ‘I don’t know.’ Her lips formed the words, but there was no voice.

      The man’s face was in hers now. She could see the smattering of ginger hairs in his brown moustache, and the spittle catching at the corners of his lips.

      ‘There were signs bloody everywhere; what did the signs say? How high was this banking? How far were you from the building itself?’

      Eventually it was over. The little group picked its way across the field and back to the car park, the policeman muttering darkly about not having any more of this sort of little jolly. Katy managed to keep her silence, though a few tears escaped down her cheeks. They didn’t sting like they had in the cold of January. The inspector went ahead to where Etta Gardiner stood, the same constable still by her side. Katy couldn’t hear what he said, but she heard Etta’s loud gasp and saw the inspector’s white handkerchief flutter as he pulled it out to comfort her. Although they kept a good distance away, Katy’s cheeks burned as they walked past, feeling Etta’s gaze track her all the way to the Austin.

      That was it. They wouldn’t be back in time for dinner and would have to get something on the road, Mr Robertson noted with a strained cheerfulness. For a moment, Katy imagined running. Never having to go back to Ashdown with its menace and melancholy and stink of boiled cabbage. She could bury her face in the smell of the wet earth and go to sleep cradled in the scent of