Sophie Hannah - The Wrong Mother

I run back to the lounge, pick up one of the wooden frames and start to dismantle it. Some people write dates on the back of their photos-that’s my only hope. Even as I’m prising open the little metal clasps, injuring my fingertips, I’m wondering why it matters. So what if these pictures were taken before the second of June last year? My brain is jammed; I can’t explain to myself why it’s important.

Finally, the back of the frame comes loose. I throw it on the floor, and find myself looking at a blank white rectangle. There’s no date on the back of the picture. Of course there isn’t. Geraldine Bretherick was a mother. I don’t have time to put my photographs in frames or albums any more, let alone label them with dates for posterity-they live in a box in my wardrobe. Sorting out that box has been one of my New Year’s resolutions two years running. Maybe it’ll be a case of third time lucky.

I’m about to reassemble the frame when I notice something at the bottom of the picture’s white flip-side: a very faint line going all the way across. I work the long nail of my middle finger-the only nail I haven’t yet lost on the household-chore battlefield-into the corner of the frame to dislodge the photograph.

Two pictures fall out on to the carpet. My muscles tense when I see the second one. It was tucked behind the photograph of Geraldine and is almost an exact replica. A woman is standing by the red brick wall, in front of the cherry tree and the telephone exchange. She’s dressed in faded blue jeans and a cream shirt. Unlike Geraldine, she isn’t smiling. There’s a lot that’s different. This woman has a square face with small, blunt features that make me think of twists in flesh-coloured Plasticine. She’s less attractive than Geraldine. Her hair is dark but short, unevenly cut in a deliberate way, longer on one side than the other-a fashion statement. She’s wearing high-heeled leather boots, a brown leather jacket and deep red lipstick. Her arms hang at her sides; she looks as if she’s been posed.

I stare and stare. Then I pick up the framed picture of Lucy and very slowly start to undo the clasps on the back. Crazy. Of course there won’t be.

There is.

Another replica: a young girl, about Lucy’s age, also sitting on the wall. Like Lucy, she’s waving. A girl with thin, mousy brown hair, the sort of brown that is indistinguishable from a dull grey. She’s so skinny that her knee joints look like painful swellings in her stick-like legs. And her clothes… no, they can’t be…

I gasp when I hear someone in the flat, feet running up stairs, a stampede. More than one person, definitely. I’m panicking, wondering where I’m going to hide the pictures, the open frames, and how I’m going to explain myself, when I realise it can’t be Nick and the children; I didn’t hear the front door and there are no eager voices. I rub the back of my neck, trying to smooth out the knots of tense muscle that feel like ganglia at the top of my spine. Get a grip, Sally. This happens at least twice a day, and I should know better than to let it freak me out. The sound is coming from our unique feature, our blockage. It must be somebody who lives above us going up the main stairs, the ones that both are and aren’t in the middle of our flat.

The skinny girl in the photograph is wearing Lucy Bretherick’s clothes. Same shirt, same dress. Even the same socks and shoes. Identical, right down to the lacy frill at the top of each sock.

My head throbs. This is too much. I sweep the pictures off the sofa on to the carpet and press my hand over my mouth. I have to eat something or I’ll be sick.

The phone rings. I pick it up, manage no more than a grunt.

‘Did you switch your mobile off?’ a furious voice demands.

‘Esther. Sorry,’ I say limply. I must have forgotten to switch my phone back on when I left Corn Mill House.

‘It’s lucky I never listen to you, isn’t it? If I’d followed your instructions, I’d have phoned the police and made a complete tit of myself. What happened to calling me back within two hours?’

‘I’ll ring you back,’ I tell her, and slam down the phone.

‘So, you want to know what I think about everything apart from the infidelity bit. Right?’

I shovel more sauceless spaghetti into my mouth and make a sound that I hope answers Esther’s question. It took me fifteen minutes to tell her everything, then another ten to get her to swear on her life that she wouldn’t tell anyone, no matter what.

‘Funny, the infidelity is what I want to talk about most.’

‘Esther-’

‘What the hell were you playing at? That could have been it, Sal-your marriage over, your happy home wrecked, and for what? A few fucks with a man you hardly know? Your children’s lives ruined-’

‘I’m going,’ I warn her.

‘Okay, okay. We’ll discuss it another time, but we will discuss it.’

‘If you say so.’ I know Esther’s point of view is the correct one. It’s also easy, conventional, and it bores me rigid. ‘Didn’t I always say you’re more sensible than me?’ I try to make light of my newly confessed sin. ‘Proof if proof be needed.’

‘It’s not a joke, Sal. I’m actually shocked.’

Good. ‘Do you have anything to say about the rest of what I’ve told you? Or should I leave you in peace to consolidate your moral outrage?’

There’s a pause. Then she says, ‘Could the woman and girl in the photos be William Markes’ wife and daughter?’

Her words make me feel numb and wobbly, as if I’ve stepped off a roller-coaster in the dark. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’ I listen as Esther chews her fingernails. ‘I just wondered if… I’m thinking of one family-the Markeses-trying to pass themselves off as another. I don’t know . I need two weeks on a desert island to think about it.’

‘Mark Bretherick doesn’t think his wife wrote the diary.’

‘Yeah. You said.’ She sighs. ‘Sal, isn’t it obvious? You and I can’t work it out in a phone call. You need to go to the police.’

‘The photos weren’t necessarily hidden,’ I say, stalling. ‘Haven’t you ever put a new picture in a frame and been too lazy to take out the old one? So you put the new one next to the glass and leave the old one behind it?’

‘No,’ Esther says flatly. ‘And especially not if one of the photos is of another girl wearing my child’s clothes. You’re sure they’re the same? Not just similar?’

‘All I know is they’re both wearing a dark green dress, a green and white striped blouse with a round-edged collar-’

‘Hang on. The dress is short-sleeved? If there’s a blouse underneath? ’

‘Yeah, it’s like a sort of tunic.’

‘It sounds like a school uniform,’ says Esther. ‘What colour shoes and socks? Black? Navy?’

‘Black shoes, white socks,’ I say breathlessly.

‘Hardly a casual Saturday-at-the-owl-sanctuary sort of outfit. Not that I’m an expert,’ Esther adds with distaste.

I put down my bowl of pasta, retrieve the pictures from the floor and look at them again. She’s right. What’s wrong with me? Of course it’s a uniform; it’s the green dress that put me off-it’s nowhere near as shapeless and institutional as most school tunics. Its short sleeves are fluted, the neck is shaped, and it’s got a belt with a pretty silver buckle. A uniform. It makes perfect sense. Every school in the county, like every parent in the county, takes its children on trips to Silsford Castle ’s owl sanctuary.

‘Sally? Hello?’

‘I’m here. You’re right. I don’t know how I missed it.’

‘You should still phone the police.’

‘I can’t. Nick’d find out about last year. He’d leave me. I’m not risking it.’ Please don’t say it. Please.