After the Lie: A gripping novel about love, loss and family secrets (27 page)

B
y the morning
of Tara’s wedding, there’d been no sign of Mark. I hadn’t phoned him. I didn’t want to hear what he was going to say. I just had to get through the wedding, avoid Michael’s questions about Mark’s absence and get home again without becoming the ‘one’ that everyone remembered for the wrong reasons. I almost refused to go, but my dad kept talking about how lovely it would be to have the whole family all together again – if we overlooked the Mark-shaped hole in the photos – and I couldn’t let him down. The kids were keen to see their cousins, even though Jamie pronounced Michael’s youngest son, William, a ‘total knob’. Izzy kept humming, ‘Here comes the bride, all fat and wide,’ wondering out loud if Tara had gone on a diet, causing me to add ‘hopeless mother on correct attitude to body image’ to my long list of failures.

Standing in front of the mirror in a beige dress that hung off me, I reflected on all the times that I’d longed for a few hours to myself, the evenings I’d been secretly glad Mark had to work, just to have one less person to think about, to cook for, to pick up after. That was the trouble with marriage. It became so comfortable that the brain attacked itself in search of novelty. Like my dress, everywhere in the house had a flapping, draughty feel as though the space around us had ballooned.

Just the night before, Izzy had scuffed into my bedroom and asked where Mark was.

I looked at her and said, ‘We’ve been under a bit of strain recently. Dad’s just taking a bit of time out to sort out his feelings.’

‘You won’t divorce though, will you?’

‘I hope not.’

Izzy’s face dropped. More proof, as if I needed it, that I could no longer fix everything for my children, though thankfully Jamie seemed to have accepted my version of the truth that Katya wouldn’t want to subject Eleanor to the ordeal of going to the police. Every time the doorbell rang, my heart still jumped in case a policeman wanting to arrest Jamie was on the other side.

I tried to feel positive about a day away from home, where the focus wouldn’t be on any of us. Hopefully, we’d be able to sail under the radar at the reception and leave before I had an urge to stand on the table with a megaphone and share the reality of ‘marriage according to Lydia’. It wouldn’t be a day for burying myself in a bottle of wine when I felt as though the tripwire of my sanity could be triggered by sneeze.

My mother had obviously reported back to my dad. He had decided that relentlessly jovial was the way forward. Jamie, on the other hand, was the human equivalent of storm clouds gathering. ‘I’m not wearing a bloody suit! Who gives a shit about Tara and her wedding?’ accompanied by plenty of random ‘Jesus Christs’ and door-banging.

I ushered Izzy out to the car.

‘Jamie, come here, love.’

I tried to grab him by his shoulders and make him look at me but he dodged out of my reach.

‘What?’

‘Don’t spoil the day, darling. It’s so long since the whole family were together and it means a lot to Granddad.’

‘Why should we have to play happy families when – duh – Dad isn’t even living with us anymore?’

I tried to imagine a crappier day to have a discussion about our problems when we were about to watch two dewy-eyed hopefuls declare ‘for better, for worse’.

‘Jamie, Dad and I have a lot going on now but we haven’t made any definitive decisions yet. Just for today, can we focus on something else?’ My voice crumbled slightly.

Jamie shook his head. ‘Isn’t that what did it in the first place? Sticking your head in the sand?’ He looked at me as if he hated me. The non-maternal bit of me wanted to point out that his girlfriend sharing her front bottom with the world hadn’t exactly enhanced our lives either.

I grappled for the high moral ground. Mark would never have let Jamie get away with talking to me like that. I manage to find a fragment of parenting ability. I held out Jamie’s jacket. ‘That is enough. Put this on, raise your game and say to yourself that sometimes people mess up – you should know that – and sometimes they can never put that right no matter how hard they try, but it doesn’t mean they should be punished for the rest of their lives.’

I didn’t have any energy left for further oratory, so I grabbed my bag and marched out of the front door. I willed Jamie to follow so that my dad could carry on sunny-side up and my mother wouldn’t have to witness a teenage tussle that would impress her – not in a good way – even after everything she’d seen lately.

Thankfully, Jamie squiggled into the back of the car next to me, taking care to keep his entire body a regimented two centimetres away from me. Dad popped on his Carpenters CD as though we were off for a day at the seaside.

Izzy whispered, ‘Can we put Capital on?’ but frankly, I thought we needed as much
Top of the World
as we could find. I wanted to put my head back and disappear into sleep but couldn’t escape the feeling that if I let a single muscle relax, my whole being might empty out all over the seat, swamping everyone in folds of fear and frustration. So I sat rigidly for an hour and a half, imagining my brother’s resigned look as he shuffled round the table settings that had been months in the planning.

As we drew into the church car park on the outskirts of Oxford, I ached all over from resisting intervening every time my mother turned round to frown at Jamie and Izzy for playing on their phones. Her newfound niceness didn’t extend to putting a sock in it over ‘breeding a generation of children with no social skills’.

The kids hopped out as soon as my dad pulled up the handbrake but I didn’t even take my seatbelt off. I’d been into so many churches because of my job – I’d even stood persuading a bride with cold feet that she really did want to hurry down the aisle before the vicar gave up on her. But now, the idea of walking through that arched door and shuffling in next to my children, breathing in musty hymn-booky emptiness in the space where Mark should be standing, floored me.

Dad opened the car door. ‘Lydia?’

My mother poked her head round him like an impatient penguin waiting for her chick to waddle down to the water. ‘Darling. Come on. You have to do this,’ she said. But her harshness had receded. It was almost as though if push came to shove, she’d let me lie on the back seat and sleep through the service rather than attempt to force her will on me.

Dad held his hand out. I grabbed onto him, surprised by his strength.

‘Let’s go. The kids need you.’

A short and simple motivator. He always found the right words.

I got out of the car and he tucked his arm through mine. My mother marched ahead with the children, who were pretending not to notice her and walking a bit faster than she could manage. Dad leaned into me and said, ‘Your mum told me what’s happened.’

My arm tensed in his. I had hoped I would never make another mistake that I’d have to explain to Dad after ‘the big one’. Disappointingly, it seemed that I wasn’t a one-screw-up wonder. I opened my mouth to speak but he shook his head.

‘I’m not judging you, Lydia. I’ve no doubt some of your behaviour is rooted in how your mum and I have handled things. It’s going to be hard but you can get through it, you’ve survived a lot worse.’

I nodded, but didn’t speak in case I cried. My mother strutted through the door and down to the front, only to be rebuffed by Michael’s wife, Olivia, and shooed back a pew or two. Dad ushered me in next to my mother, but I asked to sit on the outside. If the cauldron of unhappiness at the bottom of my stomach suddenly boiled over, I needed to be able to make a quick exit.

Unlike the kids, who were gawking around whispering about people’s clothes, I stared straight ahead. I tried to concentrate on the professional aspects of the wedding – the arrangement of the silver-sprayed teasels, the pews crammed with the groom’s friends and family versus the sparsely populated ones on our side. I didn’t even look round when the music started up and everyone’s head craned towards the back of the church.

I couldn’t stop thinking about how I’d felt the day I married Mark. I remembered how the sense of isolation I’d carried with me throughout my teens and into my twenties dissolved as he put the ring on my finger. His eyes held mine, all the way through the service, crinkled up in the corners with delight. As we made our vows, I heard the smiles in our voices and felt as though, at long last, someone was firmly on my side.

Michael walked past with Tara on his arm and I tried not to notice my mother light up and glance across the aisle to make sure that the groom’s family were paying appropriate homage to her doctor son. ‘He’s a neurologist, you know.’ Michael parked Tara next to her fiancé and stepped back, shoulders straight, head up.

Then the ceremony started. As the vicar’s voice rang out round the church, I tried to steer my thoughts away from my own wedding day. But the memories were too strong. I’d stood there with my hand in Mark’s, the registrar clipped and to the point. I’d never wavered in my belief that I’d made the right choice: I’d found a steady platform on which to build the rest of my life. Back then, I’d been absolutely certain that we’d be able to weather anything.

I wriggled my toes in my shoes. The December draughts rattling in under the door were more than a match for the church’s ancient heating.

I could feel the vows building to ‘for better, for worse’. I held my breath. Keeping absolutely still seemed the only way to stop something ripping inside me. My loneliness reached up to the rafters, threading itself through the words of
Give Me Joy in My Heart
. My mother sang with righteousness and operatic gusto. We would definitely be having the ‘At least they chose hymns we all know’ conversation on the way to the reception. The children didn’t sing at all. I did hope it was because singing, especially in church, wasn’t cool, not because their spirits were so low they couldn’t find it within themselves to participate in anything jolly.

During the prayers, there was a line about forgiveness, which acted as a Stanley knife through the last little stitch holding my heart in place. The tears that followed wouldn’t adhere to the slipping out quietly rule. I stifled one sob, and half-muffled another. I scrabbled for a tissue, but the delay between pocket and face allowed a huge, wild wail to echo round the church. The rustle of heads turning round from the pew in front, my mother’s eyebrows shooting skywards, Izzy mouthing, ‘Mum?’, the groundswell of other people becoming involved in the Rushford family fiasco was too much for me. I picked up my bag and blundered down the aisle, head bowed, avoiding all the intrigued faces lining my route.

The church door banged behind me but I didn’t care. Let everyone talk about Michael’s weird sister. It was the crap wife and mother moniker that bothered me. I shivered in my dress, my winter stole ineffectual against the wind. I realised too late that Dad had the car keys. It wouldn’t be long before everyone came out. I needed to make myself scarce or rein in the great hiccupping sobs in time to get my confetti-throwing face on. A disappearing act looked like the best option. I hurried across the graveyard.

The rain was pelting down from a leaden sky, threatening to add see-through dress to my list of my niece’s wedding day highlights. I ran as fast as I could on the uneven path towards a thatched shelter next to some of the grander tombstones. I stumbled in, swiping my soaking hair off my face, then bit back a scream as I clocked a man in the corner with his coat pulled up round his ears. Parallel thoughts flashed through my head:
Perfect hide out for a tramp. It doesn’t smell of wee in here. Mark’s got a coat like that.

Jesus Christ, that
is
Mark.

O
ddly
, the whole bursting in on a tramp/husband/graveyard scenario plus general unhappiness translated itself into shouting laced with some snotty sobs.

‘What are you doing hiding in here? Why would you do that? Leaving me to explain to Michael’s whole perfect family why you aren’t there?’

Any romantic reunion I might have dreamed of imploded right away.

Mark had his hands up. ‘Lydia. Calm down. Here, have this, you’re soaking.’ He stood up and took his coat off.

‘No. I’m fine.’ I was thankful to have a tissue so I could level the playing field just a fraction by having a clean nose.

Mark ignored me and placed his coat round my shoulders. He hesitated, then faffed about untucking my hair from the collar.

Something in his face stopped me doing the deranged wife routine. ‘What?’

He looked away. ‘I’ve been trying to get my head around leaving you.’

I couldn’t look him in the face. I stared at the empty beer can under the bench. My stomach lurched and the sick feeling I’d been fighting all morning became a real possibility.

He stepped towards me. ‘But I can’t. I just can’t imagine a life without you in it.’

Mark pulled me to him by the lapels of the coat and put his arms around me. ‘I’ve really missed you, you madwoman.’

Our cold lips touched, giving way to the warmth of our tongues. Slowly, the sensation of being wound in the opposite direction, loosening the tension in my thoughts and feelings, took over.

‘Are you sure?’ I whispered, as he slipped his arms inside the coat.

‘I’ve told myself I should leave. But every time I try and imagine it, I feel so empty. I don’t want to be without you, Lydia. I just don’t. There was so much I didn’t understand about you when we met but I still loved you.’ He tried to make a joke. ‘Now I do understand, maybe I can love you a bit more.’

I didn’t know how to respond.

He dropped his head onto my shoulder. ‘I know what people will say if they find out about, the – you know, the other guy.’ I was grateful he didn’t mention his name. ‘But I don’t care if they think I’m weak. As long as you are certain it’s over and you definitely want to be with me.’

‘I couldn’t be more sure.’

He didn’t answer. Just held me.

The church bells started ringing.

‘They’re coming out. I’d better go and find them all.’

Mark took my hand. ‘We’re not going to the reception.’

‘We have to. I can’t just not turn up. Michael’s seen me. And the kids wanted to spend time with their cousins.’

‘You have done what you should, rather than what you’ve wanted, forever. Today, Mrs Rushford, you’re not doing it. We are not going to sit there while your pompous brother pontificates on his A* daughter who’s going to live in some bloody eco-mansion in the New Forest. I’m taking you away.’

‘But what about the kids?’

‘They can stay in the hotel with your parents for one night, can’t they?’

I was shocked that Mark could even think about sneaking off. But planning something naughty
together
cheered me in a way that doing the right thing could never have done.

‘The kids are a bit all over the place. They think we’re going to get divorced. We can’t leave without telling them.’

‘I’ve no intention of disappearing without talking to them first. I’ve been desperate to see them but we just need an opportunity to talk without worrying about the flapster ears getting the wrong end of the stick. Staying together is probably the best Christmas present they can have. Though I guess for Jamie that would be a close run thing with a PlayStation 4.’

I smiled, recognising a grain of truth in his words.

Mark waved me away. ‘You go and get in the car.’

‘But it’s Christmas Eve tomorrow.’

‘We’ll be back for that. Wouldn’t miss putting out sustenance for Santa for anything.’ Mark laughed. The kids reiterated every year that they were
waaa-aay
too old to believe in Father Christmas but still wanted to leave carrots for Rudolph.

‘Where will we go? My case is in Dad’s car.’

‘I’ll fetch it. We’re going to lay a few ghosts.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’re going back to Norfolk. You’re going to talk me through the missing bits.’

I sat down on the bench. ‘I don’t know if I’m ready for that.’

‘You have to do it, Lydia. You can’t run away any more. I’ll hold your hand.’

The big rush of fright carried with it a fine thread of something else I struggled to identify. Yet again, the English language didn’t quite provide a word to describe my feelings. Hope mixed with rebellion? Equal measures of reluctance and desire? Belief in a good outcome because someone you loved was with you?

Today was not my day to call the shots. Today was my day to be beyond grateful for the husband I had and his hugeness of spirit. And if that meant I had to walk those beaches, shine a light on those dark places in my mind, I’d do it. I felt almost excited at the prospect.

‘One other thing. Sean phoned me.’

I braced myself.

‘He wants to leave Katya.’

That didn’t surprise me, but it wasn’t the thing that interested me. ‘Is she going to the police?’

Mark ran his hands through his hair. ‘I’m not sure how I feel about this.’

‘What?’ My heart was speeding up.

‘She’s promised that she won’t go to the police about Jamie if Sean doesn’t walk out on her.’

‘And is he going to stay?’ I felt as though I was shouting, but Mark was leaning in, as though he couldn’t hear me.

‘He said he owes you. His turn to live the lie.’

I’d dreamed of getting my own back on Sean McAllister for years and all I felt now was a deep sadness for someone trapped in the wrong life. And selfishly, relief. Relief that made my body loose and weak.

‘I’d already decided I wouldn’t take him down if Katya reported Jamie.’

Mark touched my cheek. ‘I never thought you would. I wouldn’t have done either, but Katya doesn’t need to know that.’

I wondered out loud whether Katya and Sean would find a way to be happy. Mark kissed me on the lips. ‘Sometimes, there isn’t a happy ending for everyone, Lyddie. We owe it to him not to squander the opportunity for ours. On that note, just hang on here a minute.’

Mark thrust the keys at me and strode off towards the church, his shirt sticking to his back in the rain. He was right. Too much toeing the line made for a crushed spirit and a wasted half-life. Anyway, I had no doubt my brother would be delighted I wasn’t there, spoiling the photos with my drowned ratness.

I peered out from my hiding place, to see Jamie smiling and shaking hands with Michael. Then I watched Izzy throw herself on Mark, my dad scoop him into a bear hug, my mother offer a cheek to be pecked.

My mother frowned. My dad looked round, puzzled, then smiled and spoke forcefully to my mother. She quickly rearranged her face into acquiescence. Jamie hugged his dad really tightly, then stepped back and listened to him with a look of concentration. A wash of relief passed over his face, his shoulders relaxing. A small darkness crept back in as he received the news of parental absence from the rest of the proceedings. Izzy obviously decided to be the grown-up. She tapped Jamie on the arm, gesticulating first to my mother and Dad, and then to Mark, followed by a wider, vaguer wave out into the graveyard, which I guessed meant, ‘That feckless mother of ours, screwing everything up. We’d better let her disappear with Dad and sort things out, otherwise we’ll be left alone with her at the rudder and we’ll all be up a gum tree.’ Jamie shrugged and nodded as Mark turned to leave.

I walked to the car, texting
Thank you
to Sean.

T
HE END