The Dare, page 12
‘You do look wonderful,’ she says. ‘Just a little pale, that’s all. Which is only to be expected.’
‘Did Mum tell you what’s happening this afternoon?’ Dad asks.
‘Yes, and it’s fine.’
‘It seems so rude to disappear almost as soon as you’ve arrived,’ Mum says. ‘Especially when I’ve been on at you to come down for ages. But we’ll only be gone an hour and a half. If there was any way we could have got out of it, we would have done.’
‘Stop worrying, we’ll be fine.’
‘You could even come with us if you wanted?’
I put my head on one side. ‘Hmm. Looking after Liz Metcalfe’s lighting shop for an hour and a half or lying on your sofa watching telly and eating cakes? What to do, what to do …’
I look at Ross and he joins in the game, pretends to be weighing up the options.
‘Do you know what?’ he says. ‘I think we’ll leave you to it.’
‘Right then,’ Mum says. ‘Let’s sit down and catch up. Lunch will be ready in about an hour. More than enough time for Dad to bore you with the plans for our week in New York.’
Mum and Dad have just left the house for their shop-minding stint. I go upstairs to unpack our things in the spare room, leaving Ross dozing in front of the TV. Out of habit, I wander into my old bedroom and sit on the end of the single bed. As I gaze out at the North Sea, with the dock cranes in the distance, I feel myself soften and relax like I did the first time we moved here, when all the stress and tension I’d been holding in my body since the accident began its slow retreat, as though the tide was washing it away.
Dad always says that living by the sea is good for the soul. He would walk with me sometimes, in those early days, just the two of us, out on the sand in the early mornings, collecting driftwood and shells. We didn’t go in for long conversations. Occasionally we chatted about this and that, a TV programme we’d both watched, or a book one or other of us had read, but most of the time we walked in companionable silence. I really miss those walks.
I stand up and go over to the tall chest of drawers where my clothes used to be. It’s being in this room again that’s bringing it all back, making me think of things I haven’t thought about for ages. The drawers are now full of Mum’s craft supplies: balls of wool and knitting needles; patterns and magazines; sewing tins and button boxes. I examine the rest of the room and take in all the small changes that have been made since I left: different pictures on the wall; a diary and pen on the desk; a vase of dried flowers.
I open the window and sit in the wicker chair where once I discarded the clothes I couldn’t be bothered to put away and which Mum used to tell me off about. I smile. Now here I am, about to enter a whole new phase of life by becoming a mother myself, while Mum’s leaving that phase behind and focussing on herself again. She’s even volunteering at the local hospice. She hasn’t worked since before I was born. And now she and Dad are starting to do things they’ve always wanted to do. Like visiting New York. It makes me realize how liberated they must feel now that I’m so much better and have left home, how my epilepsy limited all of our lives.
It’s then that I remember the pink shoebox. The one full of memories from when I was a baby. First lock of hair, first pair of bootees. As a young child, I’d loved it when Mum showed me these things. It made me feel special.
I open each of the drawers in the tall chest, wondering if perhaps I might find it in one of them. It seems a likely place to keep it, but it isn’t here. I’ll have to ask her about it later.
But as I drift back into the spare room to start unpacking our bits and pieces, I remember where I saw it last. At the bottom of Mum’s wardrobe. I drop Ross’s spare T-shirt on the bed and rush off to see if it’s still there.
As my fingers touch the brass doorknob of their closed bedroom door, I hesitate. That same feeling of excitement and trepidation I had as a child whenever I trespassed over this threshold takes hold of me once more. I push open the door, hearing the familiar shushing sound as it moves across the thick pile of the carpet. Back then, I was bored and nosy. I knew it was wrong to look at their things when they weren’t there to grant permission. But it’s different now. Mum won’t mind me getting the baby box out. Especially now that I’m pregnant.
The wardrobe is an art deco mahogany armoire. Solid and imposing with an internal mirror. I used to think it was ugly and old-fashioned. Now, I think it’s beautiful.
My eyes travel along the rail of Mum’s clothes and I notice that she has swapped her mismatched hangers for those satin-padded ones. She has arranged her shoes at the bottom, all paired up neatly on lining paper, and for a second or two I think she must have put the baby box somewhere else, but then I see it, tucked into the corner right at the back with a pair of old sandals on top of it.
I draw it out and kneel down on the carpet. The first thing I see when I take the lid off is the little pink book that lists all my vaccinations and developmental milestones. The section I loved the most as a child was the one that recorded things like when I first smiled and how old I was when I first used a spoon.
I turn the pages and read the sentences in Mum’s lovely neat handwriting. Then I pick up a pair of tiny bootees and marvel at how my feet must once have fitted inside. Knowing Mum’s love of knitting, she’ll probably already be planning which bootees she’s going to make for my baby.
Next to catch my eye is the ring box containing my first lock of hair. I open it up and stroke the pale, gingery-blonde curl, so delicate and fine. There’s a teething ring, too, a tiny white hat with a little bobble on top, and a big wodge of congratulation cards.
I start reading them, although I’ve no idea who most of these people are. As a child, I was only interested in the pictures on the front. Mum used to read out some of the messages to me. This one is a ‘congratulations on your bump’ card. It’s a line drawing of a heavily pregnant woman. I open it up. ‘Dear Sue,’ it says, in large scruffy handwriting at the top on the left.
Just then, a car pulls up outside. I drop the card on to the floor and go to the window. Mum won’t mind me looking in this box, I’m sure she won’t, it’s all about me as a baby, after all, but perhaps I should have asked before going through her wardrobe. In fact, I know I should have.
It’s not my parents, though. It’s the neighbour’s car. Even so, they’ll be back soon and I don’t want them to find me in their bedroom. I’ll put the box back where it was and ask Mum about it later. We’ll go through it together.
But when I pick the card up from the carpet, I can’t help noticing the name of the person who sent it. The scrawled signoff at the bottom right of the card says ‘Loads of love, Sheena.’
Sheena. I’ve only ever known one Sheena, and that was Alice’s mum. But Alice and I didn’t become friends until we started secondary school. We’d never even met each other before then. Whoever sent Mum this card must be another Sheena. Strange, though, it’s not exactly a common name.
Curious, I begin to read the message that’s written inside.
Dear Sue,
Congratulations on your pregnancy! Mick and I are thrilled for you both, we really are!
Unease trickles slowly down my spine. Mick and I? Does that mean …? It must be Mick and Sheena Dawson. Alice’s parents. But that’s impossible. They didn’t know each other then. I read on, my heart in my mouth.
You’ve been trying for so long, I bet you can hardly believe it! And Sue, you’re never going to believe this either, but we’re having another baby, too! So we’ll both have our babies at more or less the same time! Isn’t that fantastic? Catherine is over the moon. She can’t wait to be a big sister!
Loads of love,
Sheena xxx
I stare at the card, blood rushing in my ears. I read it again, letting each sentence unfold in my head. This doesn’t make sense. Why would Sheena Dawson have written to Mum, congratulating her on her pregnancy? This makes it sound like they were best friends. Besides, the Sheena that wrote this sounds so full of life. All those exclamation marks! All that happiness. Sheena’s mum was never like that. The Sheena Dawson I remember was a quiet, joyless woman, a woman prone to long episodes of debilitating depression.
I read the words one more time and rock back on my heels. Mick and I are thrilled for you both. Why haven’t Mum and Dad told me any of this? Why didn’t Alice’s mum tell her?
I clasp my hands together in front of my chin. I think of how my parents, especially Mum, tried to discourage our friendship. All those tight-lipped comments about an ‘unsuitable family’. Not to mention the awkwardness I so often felt at Alice’s house, as if I wasn’t really welcome.
I check the other cards, the ones people have sent to congratulate my actual arrival, rather than just the pregnancy itself, and skim the greetings in each one, but the Dawsons didn’t send another one.
Something peculiar happens inside my stomach. A flipping sensation that’s got nothing to do with the baby. It’s far too early for me to be able to feel any movements. ‘Catherine is over the moon. She can’t wait to be a big sister.’
I hug my arms across my chest. Catherine was nine years old when Alice was born. Old enough to know who her mum was friends with. My mind races as I tuck the card back in its envelope and put it back with the others. I put the lid on the box and return it to the back of Mum’s wardrobe, carefully placing the sandals on top. Everything exactly as it was before.
Except it isn’t. Everything is in a different place now. For whatever reason, Mum has lied to me. Dad, too. Lying by omission.
32
Ross looks confused, as well he might. I’ve just woken him from his doze on the sofa and I’m talking nineteen to the dozen.
‘Whoa,’ he says, muting the TV. ‘Slow down and start again.’
‘I’ve found a card to Mum in my baby box. It’s from Alice’s mum. From before Alice and I were even born.’
He gives me a blank look. ‘And this is important because?’
‘This is important because they didn’t know each other back then.’
He frowns. ‘Well, clearly they did.’
‘So why don’t I know about it? Why have they never told me?’ I pace to the window. ‘If Mum used to be friends with Alice’s mum, why didn’t she say anything when Alice and I became friends? Why didn’t Alice’s mum say anything to her?’
‘I dunno. Maybe they didn’t think it was important. Lizzie, should you even be looking through your mum’s things?’
‘I wasn’t looking through her things. I was looking in my baby box. I looked in it loads of times when I was little. Anyway, you’re completely missing the point here. They were good friends when they were both pregnant, with me and Alice. Something must have happened or they wouldn’t have been so against Alice and me being friends.’
Ross scratches his head. ‘You’ve never told me they were against your friendship.’
I sigh. I’m expecting too much of him, I realize that now. How is he supposed to know these things if I’ve never told him?
‘Well, they were, and I could never work out why. Neither of us could. All this time I thought they didn’t approve of Alice’s family because they weren’t churchgoers or “not the right sort of people”, or something stupid like that.’
Ross blows air through his closed mouth so that his cheeks billow out. ‘We can’t know everything about our parents’ past lives.’
Just then, I hear the sound of a key in the front door. ‘They’re back,’ I whisper. ‘What am I going to do?’
‘Hello!’ Dad calls from the hallway. ‘Only one customer the whole time. It’s a wonder Liz Metcalfe makes a living out of that shop.’
Ross throws me a warning look. He shakes his head and mouths the word ‘nothing’.
I don’t know how I manage to act normally, but somehow I do. Ross is right. I can’t just confront them about this. I can’t put them on the spot by asking them outright. What I can do, though, at some point over the weekend, is ask Mum if we can look at my baby box together and then maybe, just maybe, I can casually open the envelope and read the card out. Far better for the conversation to evolve naturally. It’s sneaky, I know, but no less sneaky than keeping me in the dark all these years.
The right moment happens a couple of hours later. Dad and Ross are having a whisky together in the back room and talking about rugby. Mum and I are watching an old film, or rather, we’re half watching it while Mum knits and I flick through old copies of her magazines. If it weren’t for the contents of that card still rampaging through my mind, it would be the perfect lazy afternoon.
‘I was thinking, do you still have my old baby box?’ I’m aware of the tremor in my voice, how awkward I sound, but Mum doesn’t seem to notice.
‘Of course I still have it,’ she says. ‘It’s one of my most treasured possessions.’
‘Can I have a look at it? It’s ages since I’ve been through it.’
Mum places her knitting on the cushion beside her and springs to her feet, smiling. ‘Good idea. I’ll go and fetch it, shall I? I’m getting fed up with this silly film, aren’t you?’
My heart beats faster while I wait for her to return. She’s taking a long while. I hope I put the box back the right way or she’ll know straightaway that I’ve already had a look.
Finally, she comes back into the room and puts the pink box on the coffee table between us, lifts the lid and pulls out the same pair of bootees I marvelled at earlier.
‘Oh, Lizzie, look at these! I remember your tiny pink feet in my hands. How they used to curl and uncurl. Your nails were soft as paper.’
For several minutes we ooh and aah over the bootees and the little hat and the teething ring, me acting as if it’s the first time I’ve seen them in years. I lift out the wodge of baby cards and open each one in turn, reading out the messages while Mum lies back in her armchair and smiles, or makes little comments about the senders.
‘Jenny’s husband died a few years ago. Did I tell you?
‘Goodness me, Sheila Haynes. I haven’t seen her in a while. I think she moved to Wales.
‘Amy Carter’s daughter is on a gap year in Thailand. The poor woman’s going out of her mind with worry.’
When I get to the last one, my chest tightens and I know for a fact what I’ve known for the past few minutes. The card from the Dawsons is no longer here. Mum must have taken it out.
It wasn’t just the kissing, although that’s how it started. It was other things, too. We couldn’t stop ourselves.
‘It isn’t wrong,’ she told me. ‘You know that, right?’ and I did. I did know that. But somehow it felt wrong. Just like that first dare had felt wrong.
But as time went by, we forgot all about it. It was just me and her. The two of us. Behind the closed door of her bedroom with the chair pushed against it and the curtains pulled tight.
It was just us, and what we did.
The rest of the time, at home with our families, at school, it was like it wasn’t happening. We talked about other people we fancied, other lives we would live. As if what happened behind that closed door was completely separate. A world in itself. Another dimension.
Sometimes, when we weren’t in that room, I wondered whether that world existed at all, or whether it was all one of my more elaborate daydreams. But at other times, it was more real than anything else I had ever experienced.
It was the only world that mattered.
33
It’s Monday morning and Ross has just driven to work. We didn’t get back from Mum and Dad’s till late last night. We talked about my discovery for almost the entire journey home. Ross thinks I need to let it go.
Ross reminds me of my dad sometimes, not wanting to go too deep into the whys and wherefores, preferring to let sleeping dogs lie. Perhaps it’s true, what psychologists say, that women are invariably attracted to men who are versions of their fathers. He thinks my parents have a right to keep aspects of their past lives to themselves, and though I agree with him in principle, I can’t let it go. I can’t. My curiosity has been fired up and I need answers.
I have to ring Mum. And I have to do it now.
‘Mum, did you hear what I said?’ My voice has started to tremble.
The silence on the other end of the phone is glacial.
‘Yes,’ she says at last.
‘I know I should have asked you first, but it isn’t as if I haven’t looked in there before.’
She still hasn’t answered my question, so I try again. ‘Why haven’t you ever told me that you and Sheena Dawson used to be friends?’
She takes a deep breath and exhales. ‘Because there was nothing to tell. We used to know each other for a little while, but we didn’t keep in touch.’
‘But, when Alice and I became friends, why didn’t you—’
‘Oh, Lizzie, if a friendship doesn’t last, there’s usually a good reason for that. You can’t just pick things up where you left off.’
‘But surely you’d have made at least some effort to—’
‘Look, we should have told you we knew the Dawsons as soon as you and Alice became friends. I realize that now. But at the time, there didn’t seem much point. We didn’t want to renew their acquaintance and we were pretty certain they wouldn’t want to renew ours. Too much water under the bridge. Besides, we had no idea how close the two of you were going to become.’
‘What sort of water?’
‘Lizzie, it was a long time ago! Your dad and I had started going to church. The Dawsons weren’t really our sort of people. I mean, we’d known them for ages, but we were growing apart. Sheena had all sorts of problems, always blowing hot and cold. It wasn’t her fault – she was ill. Catherine virtually had to bring herself up. She was only nine, but she was always roaming around the estate with a load of kids, playing out late. A bunch of noisy little urchins, your dad used to call them. And she was very … precocious. I often used to see her hanging around with the boys.’
