The Mother's Secret Read online

  CLARE SWATMAN

  the

  mother’s

  secret

  PAN BOOKS

  For Andrew, Lisa, Will and Megan

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part One Georgie

  1

  2

  3

  4

  Part Two Jan

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  Part Three Georgie

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  Part Four Kimberley

  17

  Acknowledgements

  Before You Go

  Prologue

  Something feels wrong as soon as I turn the corner. The house is in complete darkness, which is unusual. Light glows through the curtains of the other houses either side, making my home appear lonely and forlorn.

  Standing on the stone step, I slide the key into the lock. It turns effortlessly and the door opens with a click. Silence spills down the stairs and pushes past me, surrounding me as I step into the cool hallway. The radiator ticks familiarly and I shrug my coat away before hanging it on the hook. There are no other coats there, which is odd. There are no other shoes lined up along the wall either. I shake each boot off, and leave them standing guard all alone. My ears listen for familiar noise – footsteps, someone breathing, a kettle boiling. Anything. But there’s nothing but quietness.

  My footsteps are muffled on the carpeted floor as I walk towards the door of the living room, which stands ajar. I give it a little push and it opens slowly; it’s dark in there too, just a faint orange glow from the streetlight outside giving the furniture some form and shape through the heavy net curtains. The grate of the fire is completely dark, not even the smallest ember glowing to suggest someone has been there recently. I shiver as I walk down the hallway. Ahead of me, the door to the kitchen stands open but I can see as I approach that there’s no one there. I walk quietly across the tiles, my feet tapping gently with every step, and lay my hand on the kettle, the stove, the pan that sits on the side. Stone cold. There’s a single cup on the table, a rim of coffee staining the inside and a red heart shape on the outside where lipstick has marked it. Half a biscuit sits on a china plate, a small bite taken out of it, the crumbs scattered round as though the person eating it had suddenly remembered they had something more important to do and just got up and left.

  As I walk up the stairs, my breath hitches in my chest as a noise comes from the loft hatch. I stop, not daring to look up, listening for more signs of life. But there’s nothing except the quiet hum of silence pressing heavily on my eardrums. I cover my ears with my hands and move on, pushing open the door of Mum’s bedroom. The covers on her bed are neatly tucked in, hospital corners perfectly folded, a pink cushion propped up in front of the pillow. Her hairbrush with a few grey hairs caught in the bristles lies neatly in front of the mirror, next to a modest collection of make-up, face creams and pills. Mum’s always so well put together, her room is always neat and tidy, but as I run my finger slowly along the wooden top of the dressing table there’s a thick layer of dust on the end of it. Every surface is covered in thick dust. It looks as though the room’s been abandoned for years, and yet we were all here this morning, together. Weren’t we?

  My body starts to shake as I walk quickly to the next room, the bedroom I share with my sister Kate, and push the door open. I’m not sure what I expected but my heart almost stops when I look in here. Instead of the two beds pressed tightly against the walls with a tiny table squeezed in the middle, the room is almost empty, as though nobody has been in here for years. Thick dust covers this room too; there’s a pasting table in the middle with a roll of wallpaper hanging over it, the brush sitting on top, dried out. Pots of paint are piled in the corner and a cot, in pieces, is propped up against the wall. I stumble as I step towards the table and lift up the corner of the wallpaper. It’s brittle and almost snaps in my hand, but I can see that the pattern is the same as the one that’s been on my bedroom wall for as long as I can remember.

  My knees feel weak and I’m not sure they’ll be able to hold my weight for much longer so I crouch down and hold my head, pressing the palms of my hands hard into my eyes until I see stars.

  But when I look up, nothing has changed.

  I slowly walk back out of the room and tread down the stairs, clinging to the banister as I do. Each step makes my legs shake and my heart is pounding a hole in my ribcage as I try to swallow down the panic that threatens to overwhelm me. When I reach the bottom of the stairs I glance back at the kitchen and my heart stops again. I scurry closer, my eyes surely deceiving me, and stop dead in the doorway. It’s as if the house has gone back in time to the 1970s, the cupboards painted a pale blue and an ashtray on the side with a cigarette propped on the edge, a trail of smoke rising from it and dissipating into the freezing cold air.

  My heart is in my mouth and my breath comes in panicky bursts as I walk towards the back door, which is now wide open to the dark winter night, and out into the back garden. As I step out into the freezing air, I shiver. Slowly I tread forwards, each socked foot sinking into the cold, damp grass. But I don’t stop. I’m pulled almost magnetically towards the end of the garden, where the shed stands, its door open and swinging in the breeze, squeaking with every back turn. When I reach the shed and look down, there’s a patch of ground just in front of it where the earth looks disturbed, as though someone has been digging there, the soil turned over and patted down. What’s been planted there? Or buried? I turn back to the house, seeing it in darkness, its windows like black eyes staring into the night. Why is no one else here? Where have they all gone?

  What the hell is going on?

  My mouth opens and I draw in a deep breath and try to scream but nothing comes out. Here I stand in the middle of the garden screaming silently into the world, a soundless voice unheard by everyone, desperate for someone to come and save me . . .

  My sheet is tangled round my body like a straitjacket, constricting my movement, and I’m covered in sweat. My whole body pounds to the rhythm of my heart and I pull air into my lungs, waiting for it to slow down so I can breathe normally again. Pulling my arms out of the sheet, I untwist myself from its confines and drag myself into a sitting position to wait for the world to right itself again.

  Beside me Matt sleeps on, his face pressed into the pillow. The clock glowing next to me on the bedside table says 3 a.m.; it’s the middle of the night.

  My heart is pounding and I try to calm myself by drawing in deep breaths. It was only a dream. But it’s a dream I’ve had several times over the last few years and the panic had felt very real.

  Part One

  Georgie

  1

  20 October 2016

  Georgie kicks a stone and watches it roll away across the wet sand, bouncing off rocks and pebbles until it comes to a halt just out of reach of a wave. She stops and looks out to sea, the flat grey expanse interrupted only by the occasional rise of white foam, stretching on forever, or to nowhere, the horizon a smudgy, indistinct line far in the distance. She closes her eyes and lifts her face so all she can hear is the wind pushing its way across the sand. It’s whipping the sea into a frenzy, sending waves crashing as they hit the shore and shooting spray into the already-damp air. It pulls flags taut on their poles and drags empty crisp packets and dropped tissues with it indiscriminately as it races across the almost-empty beach.

  She opens her eyes again and looks down at her feet, studying the footprints she’s left in the sand, creeping up behind her like a stalker she can’t outrun. A hand slips through the crook of her
arm and she turns to find her big sister Kate next to her, smiling.

  ‘Hey, you.’

  ‘Hey.’

  They turn and walk a few steps in silence. The sun is weak behind the gathering clouds and the wind’s getting stronger, blowing their hair round their faces and making their eyes water. Georgie leans into the wind until she’s almost at a forty-five-degree angle, at tipping point, daring the wind to stop. Next to her Kate shivers in her too-thin coat.

  ‘God, it’s cold isn’t it?’ Georgie straightens up and hugs her arm in tighter to Kate’s.

  ‘It is – but if you insist on wearing those clothes what do you expect?’

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Hey nothing – that’s nothing more than a cardigan masquerading as a coat, and your tights are practically useless.’

  Georgie glances down at her outfit and grins. She loves her patterned tights; oversized cardigans and finding bargains in second-hand shops is her mishmash style. Kate prefers sensible shoes, patterned tops and boot-cut jeans and just doesn’t get Georgie’s love of the quirky.

  ‘Good point – but you can’t really talk, you’re shivering like a jellyfish too.’

  ‘This is true.’

  Without realizing it they’ve stopped again and are both staring out to sea, watching the froth on the tops of the waves gather and wane, over and over, never-ending. Kate plants her feet firmly in the sand to stop herself blowing away, and Georgie holds on tight.

  ‘I wish Dad was here.’

  The words come out of nowhere and, unsure whether she’s heard them right, Georgie leans in closer to Kate. ‘What did you say?’

  Kate brings her mouth closer to Georgie’s ear. ‘I wish Dad was here. Don’t you?’

  The words skitter and dance in the air between them, trying to find their place. Finally they settle, and Georgie frowns. ‘Where has that come from?’

  Kate keeps her eyes trained on the sea and shrugs. ‘I don’t know. Not really. I’ve just been thinking about him more and more recently.’

  Georgie follows her sister’s gaze out to sea without speaking. She thinks about her father from time to time, of course she does. Naturally she’s wondered what life would have been like if they’d grown up knowing him, if he hadn’t been taken away from them before she’d even been born. She wonders what she’d be like too, whether she’d be different. Braver, stronger, tougher. Whether she’d have been as close to her mother, and her sister, if she’d had him there to dilute the love. But this question from Kate has still come out of the blue.

  Before she gets the chance for an answer to form in her throat, Kate speaks again. ‘I know I can’t miss him exactly. I don’t even remember him, but – well, I suppose I do really. Miss him, that is. Especially now with – well, with Mum the way she is.’

  Georgie nods beside her. ‘Me too.’ Her voice is barely more than a whisper and Kate struggles to hear her. They stand in silence a moment longer, letting their thoughts fill the space where their words should be, both thinking about the man in the photo on their mother’s mantelpiece, the father they’d never known.

  ‘Do you think he’d be proud? You know, of us?’ Georgie pushes a stray hair out of her face and tucks it pointlessly behind her ear, as it blows straight back out again.

  ‘Yes. I think he would.’ Kate sighs. ‘But I don’t think we’d be us, not us as we are now, if he’d been here.’ She turns to face Georgie. ‘Do you?’

  ‘Probably not, no.’

  ‘I mean, I bet you wouldn’t have fallen in love with the first boy you kissed if you’d had Dad around—’

  ‘Hey, hang on—’

  ‘No, I don’t mean it nastily, George, I really don’t. I just mean – well, if Dad had been here he probably wouldn’t have let Matt anywhere near you, at the age of thirteen anyway.’

  ‘Mum wasn’t exactly keen.’

  ‘True. But it’s still different. You probably wouldn’t have needed Matt as much if Dad had been here.’ She stops, thinks for a minute. ‘And let’s face it, George, I probably wouldn’t have been such a saddo either.’

  ‘Oh Kate, don’t say that.’

  ‘Why not? It’s true. I didn’t have any friends at school. I never had a boyfriend. You were my only friend, really, George.’

  ‘You were mine too, Kate.’

  ‘I know.’ She shrugs, looks away. ‘Maybe it could have been different, with Dad here. But then again, maybe not. Who knows? But either way I’d like to think he’d be proud of us. Let’s face it, he’d have two pretty different daughters to be proud of.’

  Georgie smiles. ‘He definitely would.’

  They stand for a moment, their words flying away with the wind. Then Kate turns to Georgie.

  ‘Do you think things would have been any different for Mum if Dad hadn’t died?’

  Georgie feels a hard lump form in her chest and she holds her hand to it. She can feel the soft tha-thump of her heart against her palm. Beside her, Kate’s eyes are on her, willing her to look round. And, finally, she does.

  ‘I honestly don’t know.’

  The words are barely a whisper, but Kate shakes her head and turns away. ‘No, me neither. I’d like to think so, though.’ There’s a beat of silence. Then: ‘George, I’m really worried about her.’

  Georgie nods. She’d known this was coming from the moment Kate had suggested a walk on the beach this morning. Now the words have arrived and there’s no taking them back.

  ‘You know she’s been getting much worse, don’t you?’

  Georgie nods again. ‘Yes. Yes, I do. She didn’t seem to know what was going on when I saw her a few days ago. She thought she was going to meet Dad for a date that night. I kept telling her she’d got it wrong but she didn’t even seem to be too sure who I was, and couldn’t grasp what I was saying.’

  Kate nods and takes Georgie’s arm.

  ‘Come on, let’s go for a coffee.’ She points to the cafe at the top of the beach which, despite the weather, looks open, the windows steamed up. They walk in silence together, arms linked as their feet tread over sand and pebbles, until the sand gets softer and softer. There are drops of rain in the wind now and Georgie pulls her hood up and holds it tightly against her face.

  The cafe feels hot and stuffy in contrast to the cold of outside, and they strip off their layers, hanging them on the back of the chairs as they go.

  A good ten minutes pass before they’re settled at a table with coffee and hot chocolate and a slice of cake each.

  ‘It’s scaring me, Georgie, what’s happening to Mum. She’s getting so much worse, so quickly. Remember in the summer, the barbecue we had at mine?’

  Georgie nods, thinking back.

  They’d all been there – Kate and her husband Joe, Georgie, Matt and their eleven-year-old daughter Clementine, as well as Mum’s best friend Sandy. It had been Jan’s sixtieth birthday party, and they’d wanted it to be a surprise. Once Jan got over the shock, all was going well.

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this to me,’ Jan scolded as she turned on her stool to face her daughters. Then, smiling, she muttered, ‘You’re both terrible. I told you I didn’t want a fuss.’

  ‘You didn’t really think we’d let you turn sixty without doing something to celebrate, did you?’

  ‘Well yes, I did, actually, as that’s what I said I wanted. And I thought you were such good girls . . . ’

  Georgie grinned. ‘Oh shush, Mum. Look.’ She swept her arm around. ‘All these people are here for you, because they love you. So stop being a misery guts and just enjoy it.’

  Jan took a sip of her drink and set it back down on the kitchen worktop.

  ‘OK, OK, I’m sorry. It was just a shock, that’s all. Thank you, girls, this is wonderful of you.’

  Georgie gave Jan a squeeze. ‘You’re more than welcome, Mum.’

  ‘Anyway, why don’t you come out into the garden and mingle with your public?’ Kate held out her hand and helped her mother down from the stool. ‘People have t
ravelled miles to come and see you, the least you can do is grace them with your presence.’

  ‘Well, of course,’ Jan smiled, as she walked arm in arm with her daughters through the bi-fold doors and out into the garden. The hazy sun was warm on their arms, a gentle breeze keeping it from feeling stifling. Smoke rose from the barbecue, and a few people stood in groups on the decking and lawn. A small child swung back and forth on the swing, and the odd squeal drifted from the sandpit. They walked towards the barbecue, where two men in aprons were chatting behind a wall of smoke.

  One of them turned, barbecue tongs in hand, a smile spreading across his face. ‘Well hello, you.’ He wrapped his arm round Georgie’s shoulder and gave her a squeeze, then leaned across to plant a kiss on Jan’s cheek.

  ‘Happy birthday. Are you having fun?’

  ‘Thank you, Matthew, I am.’ She leaned over the barbecue. ‘Ooh, what are we having?’

  ‘Well, we’ve got sausages, steaks and grilled prawns. Oh, and some halloumi over here for Clem, of course.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Is anyone else veggie, George?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  Jan turned away towards Kate’s husband, Joe, who was sipping a beer. ‘Hello, I’m Jan. And you are?’

  ‘Er . . . ’ Joe’s face wrinkled as he tried to work out whether she was joking or not.

  Kate and Georgie glanced at each other. ‘Mum, what are you talking about? It’s Joe.’

  ‘Joe?’ Her face was a question mark.

  Kate gave a nervous laugh. ‘Ha ha, very funny. My husband Joe. You’ve known him for years!’ She tried to keep her voice light but it sounded strained.

  Jan shook her head, confused. ‘Don’t be silly, Katie, I’d remember your husband.’ She turned to Matt and rolled her eyes. ‘Honestly, these two, what are they like, trying to trick their old mum?’

  ‘Um, yes.’ Matt flicked his gaze to Georgie, who shrugged helplessly.

  ‘Come on, Mum, let’s get you another drink.’ She’d led Jan away then to talk to some other people across the other side of the garden. Leaving her mother chatting for a while, Georgie made a mental note to speak to Kate about it later, find out what on earth was going on. But she hadn’t had a chance before the next strange thing happened.