Elisabeth Carpenter - Only a Mother

‘Guess what happened today,’ Luke says.

He’s been dying to tell her all day. He even contemplated ringing her at work, but she’s never happy about that these days. Far too busy.

Helen takes off her coat, hanging it on the back of a chair.

‘Give me a second,’ she says, sighing. ‘I’ve had a shit day today.’

After pouring the drinks, she flops on to a chair. Her hair’s scraped back off her face in a ponytail. Luke likes it better when it’s down, but he doesn’t say things like that to her any more. She’s liable to assume he’s criticising her.

‘Go on then,’ she says. ‘What is it?’

She doesn’t sound as interested as her question suggests.

‘I think I met Craig Wright’s father today. I’ve been trying to check the birth certificate online, to see if he’s named on there, but you have to order—’

She rolls her eyes. ‘Craig Wright again? Sorry to burst your bubble, but there’s no way you can confirm who his father is unless you have DNA samples.’

‘There was talk that Erica might have had an affair with Denise’s husband.’ Luke pauses, rubbing his chin. ‘Actually, until today, I’ve always thought that made sense. If Denise had suddenly found out, that would explain why she gave me the story about Craig. Revenge.’

Helen stifles a yawn. ‘I’ve no idea who these people are.’

‘The kids from Sunningdales recognised Craig from his mugshot as the same man who kidnapped Leanne.’

‘You’re talking in riddles, love. Craig’s paternity, now random kids you’ve been talking to.’

‘Pamela Valentine must’ve rubbed off on me.’

‘Now that sounds more interesting.’

‘Glad you’re secure enough in our relationship not to be jealous.’

‘Hah! You don’t half talk some bollocks when you’re pissed.’ She laughs.

He hadn’t meant it to be funny. He’s slightly stung by her implication that other women wouldn’t find him attractive. OK, the woman in question was in her eighties, but still.

‘Are you going to be on there all night?’ she says, pointing to his laptop with her glass.

‘Give me half an hour, then I’m all yours.’

She doesn’t reply but gets up, grabs a massive packet of crisps from behind the tins and goes into the lounge. He says nothing about her choice of snack.

They used to watch television together every night when Helen wasn’t working a shift. Most nights, she would get into her pyjamas as soon as she came home, then they’d settle down with a box set and a buffet of snacks. No wonder they’d got into the mess they’re in now. He doesn’t know if it’s his own physical shape or the state of their marriage that he’s most concerned about.

It’s been years since he was this interested in a story, and his wife is already pissed off. She’s been telling him for months that he should get more involved with life. He can’t win.

He turns back to his laptop, frustrated. He shouldn’t really message people when he’s had a bit to drink, but he clicks on Denise Bamber’s Facebook profile and fires off a quick note. She might give him more information about Alan Lucas, her son, Jenna… Denise spoke to him last time – with a bit of luck she’ll do it again.

Denise is long gone, but I can’t bring myself to go to bed yet, not while Craig is still out there, and not while Leanne Livesey isn’t home safe. I’ve been lying on the settee for what feels like hours. I keep thinking I’m about to vomit, but I’ve managed to hold it down. I try to lift my head to get a better view of the telly, but it feels like too much of an effort.

They’d announce it on the news straight away, wouldn’t they – if they’d found her? The news report an hour ago said that she lived in a home for Looked After Children. What must that be like? Denise told me, when we were about fifteen, that a friend of a friend of her cousin, or something equally questionable, gave birth at one of those mother-and-baby homes. It was the early seventies and she was unmarried. Denise said that the girl cried for three whole weeks after they took the baby from her. She’d been with the baby for a fortnight before that. It sounded horrific, barbaric. She said the child would be six now and the woman was counting the days, the years, till that child reached eighteen and might contact her.

When Craig was growing inside me, that story preyed on my mind. I began to feel so close to him – that I was placed on this earth to be his mother.

It might not even be true about that distant acquaintance giving away her child. Denise said her mum told her to tell me, too. It might’ve been to encourage us to keep our legs closed, hem down, and knickers up. Didn’t work, though, did it?

The loneliest time of my life wasn’t when Craig was in prison, it was when I was pregnant with him. After my mother died, I worried about how I was going to cope as a single mother in a community that was less than forgiving (which was rather short-sighted of them, considering most of them went to church on a Sunday). It overtook my grief for my mother. Denise suggested lying to everyone – I could say I’d had a shotgun wedding and he’d scarpered. ‘People would believe that,’ she said, ‘because it happens all the time.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ I said. ‘Not enough times for it to be normal.’

I kept thinking about Mrs Delaney who lived near the chippy. She had four kids to bring up on her own. She was always working somewhere (the post office, the local pub). Her kids were looked after at various neighbours’ houses. She always seemed so exhausted; that was my future.

Perhaps it was because my mother had not long died – and her being so well known in our town – but no one said anything to my face about my situation. If Denise heard anything, she didn’t let on.

The kids at Craig’s school years later were different. They had no filter from the brain to the mouth and usually accepted what their parents told them as gospel.

‘What’s a bastard?’ Craig asked me one day after school. ‘Someone said I was one of those.’

‘Who called you that?’ I said, shocked at the word that came out of his mouth. I stopped in the street, the rage building inside me but wanting to hide it from my little boy. He was only four then, so I couldn’t tell him off for swearing; I didn’t know what to say. I thought times were changing, but there was still that stigma in some people’s minds about children born out of wedlock. I wanted to run back to the school and find the little brat.

‘Kelly Winters.’

I took several breaths and forced a smile.

‘I think you must have heard her wrong, love.’

Denise was right earlier today, though – about mothers and their children. It’s what we’re here to do: shield them. She’d told a lie to protect her son, years ago, and I had done the same.

It had come so easily, the lie.

The third of January 2000: six days after his twentieth birthday and Jenna was still missing.

‘Craig says he was with you on the first of January for the whole day, but on the thirtieth of December, you were working. Is that right?’

‘I was only in work for a few hours – did the early shift. But he was definitely with me on the first. He was hungover from the night before.’

‘Did you leave the house? Were there any other witnesses to this?’

‘Next door… she came in for a cup of tea… was here a few hours.’

‘Name.’

‘Mrs Eckersall.’

I said that even though Mrs Eckersall was only sixty-five, she was a bit hard of hearing and often got her days mixed up. Made her sound a bit senile and eccentric.

The fact was, she hadn’t dropped by at all. Yet my lie came so quickly, so easily.