The Girl Behind the Lens. Tanya Farrelly

      The lights were on when Joanna returned home. She expected to find her mother in front of the television, but she wasn’t. When she climbed the stairs, she saw that her mother’s bedroom door was ajar and the light was on. She was talking in a low voice. Joanna peered through the opening from the landing, curious.

      Angela was sitting on the edge of the bed, her back to the door, talking on her mobile. ‘It’s not how … obviously, I didn’t expect that … no. But … she’s angry, what would you expect? Me?’ She laughed. ‘… well, you weren’t exactly … no, I know that. Okay, it’ll be around three. I’ll text you when I’m leaving. Don’t worry, I won’t, I have them here. Okay, I’ll see you then. Bye … bye.’

      Her mother ended the call, stood up and went to the window.

      ‘Who was that?’ Joanna asked.

      Angela spun round, hand to her chest. ‘Joanna, Jesus, you put the heart crossways in me. I didn’t hear you come in.’

      Joanna went in and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘So who was on the phone?’

      Her mother waved her hand distractedly. She’d left her mobile on the bedside table. ‘Oh, it was just Pauline,’ she said.

      ‘How is she?’

      ‘Grand, she’s grand. Are you in long?’

      ‘No, just a few minutes.’ Joanna picked up the phone. ‘Did you get a new mobile?’

      ‘What?’

      Joanna held up the phone. ‘What happened to your other phone?’

      ‘Didn’t I tell you? It drowned. I left it on the cistern and forgot about it. Then, when I was cleaning, I knocked it into the loo. Dead as a dodo when I took it out.’

      ‘You should have put it in a bag of rice.’

      Angela took the phone from Joanna and put it in her pocket. ‘Rice?’

      ‘Yeah, it absorbs the water. If you give it to me, we can try it,’ she said, following her mother from the room.

      ‘Ah, I’d say it’s too late now. Anyway, it had its day. It kept switching itself off.’

      Joanna detected something edgy about her mother, probably because she’d overheard her on the phone. No doubt she’d been telling Pauline what had happened. She wondered how much her mother’s old friend knew. They’d been friends since they were teenagers, so she would have known about Vince Arnold. Girls didn’t keep those kinds of things from each other.

      In the kitchen, Joanna watched her mother spoon cocoa powder into two mugs. It was a nightly ritual when they were both home. She was trying to decide how best to broach the subject of Rachel and the photo, and then, figuring that no time would be a good one, she simply said it. ‘I was talking to Rachel Arnold.’

      Her mother turned sharply. ‘What, did she come here again?’ she said.

      Joanna shook her head. ‘No, I went over there. I know what you’re thinking, but I wanted to find out about him. The thing is, when I was there she showed me this.’ She took the photo from her bag and held it out.

      Her mother shrugged. ‘What about it?’ she said.

      ‘Vince Arnold had it. She said you denied ever having seen it, but I know you must have given it to him, Mum. There’re half a dozen just like it in the album downstairs.’

      Angela poured hot water on the cocoa and slammed the kettle down in frustration. ‘Jesus, would that woman ever keep out of our business!’

      ‘But it is her business, Mum. And it’s mine, too. You said you had no contact with him after he discovered you were pregnant, but that’s not true, is it? You gave him that picture.’

      ‘I told you, Joanna, I haven’t seen Vince in years.’

      ‘So where did he get it then?’

      ‘I sent it to him after you’d made your confirmation. I don’t know why. I suppose I wanted him to see what he was missing – what he’d have had if he’d chosen differently, if he’d chosen us. I knew there was more between us than there’d ever been between him and her. It takes some people longer than others to see their mistakes.’

      Joanna’s mother stirred the cocoa; she wouldn’t meet her eye. It was almost as though she were talking to herself. Joanna took her mug and, cradling it in both hands, took the next step.

      ‘She said they’d wanted to adopt me.’

      Angela snorted derisively ‘She didn’t hold much back, did she?’ She raised her mug to her lips and took a sip of cocoa, then continued. ‘Rachel couldn’t have children, so she decided she’d try to take mine. I think she blamed that on Vince’s affair, the fact that she couldn’t get pregnant, but that had nothing to do with it.’

      ‘So what happened?’

      ‘He called me and said he wanted to meet. I thought when I received that call that maybe he’d changed his mind; “it’s about the baby,” he said. Would I meet him in a café to talk? When I arrived and saw her there I nearly turned and walked back out. They were curt, both of them. She couldn’t take her eyes off me. It made me glad that I’d made the effort, even if by then I knew that a reconciliation was the last thing on the cards.

      ‘“What do you intend to do?” he said. He couldn’t look at me, not with her there, but she was doing enough of that for both of them. “What about?” I said, pretending I didn’t know what he was asking. “The child … you don’t want to raise it surely?”

      ‘“And why wouldn’t I?” I said. I got mad then, told him if they expected me to get rid of it, they had another think coming, that he could run from his responsibilities if he liked, but I wasn’t going to. That’s when she started talking. “That’s not why we’re here,” she told me. “We want to help. It’s not easy bringing up a child on your own. People talk, and then there’s the bills, it’s not cheap.” She went on, listing things out as though I hadn’t thought of them. I watched her, wondering what it was this woman wanted, baffled by the fact that she said she wanted to help me – and then she said it. Six thousand pounds – she took a cheque book from her purse and showed it to me. She’d taken the trouble to write it out. I looked at my name in the swirly black ink – I’d get it as soon as I’d handed the baby over – nobody would ever have to know, she said. I could get on with my life; forget the whole thing had ever happened.

      ‘Vince sat there all the while she was talking, silent – eyes lowered to the carpet. I ignored Rachel: willed him to look at me so that I might see in his eyes what he made of this preposterous suggestion, but he continued to sit there, eyes downcast – not daring to meet mine. “What’s wrong,” I asked him, “can’t you even look at me?” “You should think about it,” he said, looking past me – “what she said is right – he’d have a good life.” He – he said. He was convinced you’d be a boy.

      ‘I stood up then, told them both that they could keep their money – I had no intention of giving up my child. If Vince wasn’t willing to leave Rachel, then he was giving up any right he had to you. Not that I had to state that – Rachel wasn’t about to let him have anything to do with a child that wasn’t hers too.’

      Angela stopped talking – she seemed exhausted by having to go over it all. Joanna tried to absorb all that her mother had told her.

      ‘And you didn’t see them again?’ she asked.

      Her mother shrugged. ‘I saw her on the bus once. I had you in the pushchair. She kept staring at you. I pretended I didn’t know her – got off the bus two stops early and walked the rest of the way home.’

      ‘Did you not feel … sorry for her?’

      ‘I suppose I did sometimes. He should have left her – it wasn’t fair – she’d have met someone else –