Joanne Sefton - The Mother’s Lies

That was how she knew the cancer was for real, not the blurry shots from the mammogram or Eklund’s careful explanations, but the numbing, bone-aching, deadening tiredness that had her in its embrace, sucking her down like quicksand. She had prepared for this finale well enough. If it was ever going to play out, the curtain was going to have to come up pretty damn quickly.

Helen

They agreed that Neil would take Barbara into hospital by himself when she was to be admitted for the operation. That way, Helen could stay at the house with the kids and not have to worry about bothering Chris and Adam again. Chris had frowned when Helen told her, saying: ‘I thought you’d want to be with your mum,’ but the look in her mother-in-law’s eyes told Helen there was more to it than that. She didn’t want to give Chris the chance to start pleading Darren’s case about seeing the children.

It was afterwards that Barbara would need the support, anyway, once the doctors were ready to say exactly what it was that they had found in there. And later on, when she came home, and would need care that Neil might struggle to provide. Helen had already made a couple of discreet calls to social services, just to check what would be available for them, but Neil had started talking darkly about the indignity of having strangers poking around when you’re at your lowest ebb, and Helen knew she wouldn’t be able to bring herself to walk away.

So, instead of following up with the council, she had called her boss. It came down to an ultimatum – give me a sabbatical or I’ll walk . The managers weren’t happy, but there wasn’t much they could say. Helen told herself that keeping up the mortgage payments was the least she could expect from shit-rat Darren and prayed to God that her bravado wouldn’t come unstuck.

Now, the day had come and she was helping Barbara to pack. The master bedroom had barely changed in twenty years and Helen still felt odd going in there. They had never been one of those families who all piled into the double bed on a Sunday morning – like she and Darren used to do with the kids. Whilst she hadn’t exactly been forbidden from going into her parents’ bedroom, it certainly wasn’t encouraged, and it brought back stiff memories of having her hair done on school-photo day or before a birthday party.

‘Thank you again for the nightie you got, Helen,’ said Barbara, rather formally. ‘It is lovely.’

‘Let me get it out. Did you put it in the drawer here?’

Helen opened the drawer as she spoke, but had got confused. Barbara kept her nightwear in the fourth one down, and she’d opened the third, full of tights.

‘Sorry!’

‘Next one down, Helen, perhaps I should just …’

A couple of minutes later, once Helen had managed to pick up the wrong toilet bag and then folded Barbara’s spare jumper incorrectly, Barbara insisted on swapping places.

‘I’m not an invalid, not yet at any rate.’

‘I know … I just want to help.’

‘Don’t worry, love, it’s nice just to have you here.’

Helen couldn’t help but notice that her mother was avoiding her eyes as she said it.

She tried desperately to think of some way to start a real conversation. The notes on their sickly green paper swam in her mind’s eye. Her thoughts flicked back to a time, aged twelve or so, when she’d sat in this same chair and Barbara had outlined the facts of life in her brisk, hearty journalist’s manner. Neil had practically had to push Helen in through the door to have the conversation, and, looking back, she reckoned he’d probably had to do the same for Barbara. Beyond that she struggled to remember any meaningful conversation the two of them had had alone.

‘Have you got the list the nurse gave you?’ she asked, stalling for time.

Barbara just waved a hand towards a scrap of paper on the bedside table and carried on folding the nightie.

‘What books are you taking?’

‘I picked a couple up at the library.’ She nodded towards a couple of paperbacks on the bed. Helen nearly picked one up to ask about it, but decided she had to do better than that.

‘Mum? Are you scared?’

Barbara didn’t answer, just carried on arranging the same few bits of clothing in her bag. For a moment, Helen wondered if she’d not really said it out loud, but she noticed Barbara’s hands were trembling. Eventually, she sat down heavily on the bed and looked Helen in the eye for the first time since they’d come into the bedroom.

‘What sort of question is that?’

Her gaze was hard, almost contemptuous.

‘I didn’t mean to—’

‘Yes, I’m scared.’ Her voice was flat.

‘I want you to know you can talk to me, Mum, if it helps – that’s all.’

‘Talking doesn’t help, Helen. I’m afraid that’s one thing that your dad and I disagree on.’ Her smile looked thin and forced. ‘If you’re trying to tell me you care, don’t worry – I know that. I know that I’ve not always made it easy for you and I know that you care anyway. You’ve got that much of Neil in you and we can both be grateful for that.’

Helen nodded. For a weird moment, she felt almost jealous of whoever had written the notes. Barbara was so self-possessed, so isolated, it was hard to imagine how she’d ever got close enough to anyone to wreak the harm the author of the note seemed to blame her for.

Helen took a deep breath.

‘I found the note, Mum.’

‘What note?’ Barbara looked up only for an instant. She was winding the cable on a phone charger, ready to add it to her bag.

‘You know what note: the green one, the awful poison pen thing.’

‘So that’s what you’ve got your knickers in a twist over! And I thought the idea of me at death’s door was enough.’ Barbara raised her eyebrows.

‘Well? What’s it all about then?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s sad really, a young girl in town – well, not so young any more, I suppose – her shoplifting conviction was reported in the paper and I was the one who wrote up the report. She lost her job – I think that’s right. I’m not sure of the details. Anyway, she fixated on me, blamed me for making her life fall apart, and started sending notes, threatening to get me sacked or to expose me as a liar.’

‘So how long’s it been going on?’

‘Well, it started about ten years ago. I got the police involved first time around, but once you unmask a stalker they tend to be a lot less scary than you imagined. When I found out it was her, I felt sorry for her more than anything else. She’s tried it on two or three times since, dropping little poisonous notes into work, or here. There were one or two phone calls too. Then years with nothing in between. She’s never gone any further. The best thing is just to ignore it.’

‘Does Dad know?’

Barbara’s lightness of manner lifted, leaving her tense and rigid once again.

‘He doesn’t,’ she confirmed, with a shake of the head. ‘I should have told him first time around – I wish that I had – but I didn’t want to worry him. If I tell him now, with all this … all this other stuff, I don’t know what he’ll do. That’s why I was so cagey about it when you brought it up before.’

She looked up at Helen, assessing. ‘And that’s what’s worrying me. If another one arrives here, when I’m in hospital, and he finds it … it’ll all be so much worse than it needs to be. Would you keep an eye open?’

Helen nodded. ‘I don’t understand why you don’t just put them in the bin, though, Mum?’

‘I probably should have, but I threw them out when it happened before. The police told me off – very nicely of course. They said I should keep anything else. I remember a woman officer wagging her finger at me and saying, “You never know”. I don’t know what she meant by it. I doubt she did, to be honest.’ She sighed, wearily. ‘So there should be one or two from last time – about three years ago. I could probably put my hands on them if I had to, but I think we’ve all got bigger things to worry about, don’t you?’