Lessons in Laughing Out Loud (45 page)

“Your mummy and aunty were angels in their school nativity,” Imogene said, her face lit by the memory. “It was their first Christmas at school, so they were about five and they had all
these golden curls, just like you two. So lovely they were. I had to make their costumes out of bedsheets. Not old ones, we didn’t have any old ones. We just had one set of bedsheets, so I cut them up and made tunics and we slept on the mattress until the January sales.” Imogene chuckled. “I made halos out of coat hangers and a bit of old tinsel my neighbor gave us. Luckily they were the most beautiful girls anyone had ever seen, so it didn’t matter their costumes were so shoddy.”

“What does shoddy mean?” Jem asked.

“Will you make us our outfits, Grandma?” Jo-Jo asked.

“As long as my peepers are working by then, of course I will.” Willow watched the little tableau. Her mum looked so happy, even with the pain and stress of her disease. Having her grandchildren with her transformed her totally. The love she felt for them, the joy they brought her, was palpable. Willow fingered the letter, still folded in her hands. It hadn’t escaped her that her mother wouldn’t actually be able to read it herself, that either she or Sam would have to read it to her. And that would be the first time Willow would know what was inside. On the night that Ian had left it for her, folded just as it was on her pillow, she had sat on the edge of her bed looking at it for a long time. Ian was away, on some bank business. He’d whispered to her that afternoon that he would miss her, his forefinger tickling the nape of her neck, concealed beneath the weight of her hair. He said he’d left her something in her room to keep her company. Willow had been full of fear as she had finally gone up to bed that night after hours of procrastination, finding reasons to stay up for five minutes longer, creeping into bed with Holly until Imogene came upstairs and separated them.

“Mum,” Willow had said, digging her heels in just outside her bedroom door.

“What?” Imogene asked. “Honestly, no more
Dr. Who
for you.”

“It’s not that,” Willow said. “It’s . . . Mum, I think there is someone in there. Waiting for me.” Imogene frowned and tutted, flinging open the door and flicking on the light.

“Nothing behind the door, nothing in the wardrobe, nothing under the bed, except yesterday’s pants, my girl.” Imogene had sat on the edge of the bed and held her arms out to Willow, who had hesitated for a moment and then went to sit on her mother’s lap, burying her face in her hair and inhaling her scent.

“You’re getting too big to be sitting on laps really,” Imogene said, kissing her ear. “Your trouble is, Willow, you have too much of a vivid imagination. You’re safe, you’re at home in your own room and nothing bad can get you. Is it because Ian’s away? Do you feel safer when he’s here?”

Willow did not say anything for a long time, unable to make sense of the jumble of emotions churning in her chest: the joy and comfort of being in her mother’s arms, the terrible dread of answering that question, the relief of knowing Ian wasn’t there, the fear of discovering what he had left her, because he had left her something, somewhere. That was one thing she could always be certain of with Ian; he always did what he said he would. She drew back, looking into her mother’s eyes.

“I liked it better when it was just us three,” she said. “I wish it was just us three again, Mummy.”

“Nonsense,” Imogene said, tipping Willow off her lap as she stood up. “I despair of you, Willow, I do. Why don’t you want me to be happy?”

It was a question that obviously did not require an answer, because Imogene had walked out of the room and shut the door behind her, snapping, “Now stop being ridiculous and go to bed,” over her shoulder as she went.

It was when she turned back her quilt that Willow saw the note waiting for her. And she’d sat on the edge of the bed looking
at it out of the corner of her eye for a long time. After a while she remembered the crack in the skirtboard next to the fireplace, and, gingerly picking the letter up, Will scrambled under her bed and stuffed the note as far into the crevice as it would go before diving under the covers and pulling them above her head. She didn’t know how long she stared into the darkness before sleep finally overtook her.

For thirty years this letter had been the one part of Ian’s abuse that she had been able to resist, to defeat. And now the only way she could get her mother to see the truth was also to submit to him once more.

“Hello, Mum,” Willow said, advancing into the room.

“Hello, dear,” Imogene replied cheerfully, as if nothing had happened between them. “I wondered how long you were going to be loitering by the door.”

“Hello, Imogene,” Sam said. “It’s Sam, do you remember?”

“Sam! Of course I remember.” Imogene glowed. “Holly has been telling me all about you and Chloe. A baby on the way, I hear.” Imogene paused. “Don’t be too hard on her, Sam. I was not so much older than her when I fell pregnant with these two. My parents wouldn’t have anything to do with me. I almost left the babies on the hospital steps. Perhaps I would have, but the two of them, even when they first came out all bright red and squalling, they were like two peas in a pod. Anyway, I made the walk there, but I think I would have died on the way home, so I went in, let them take care of us. Oh, I was a terrible scandal, I can tell you, but I got through. Me and my twins, we got through.” Imogene turned her head toward where she could make out Sam’s shadow. “It would have been easier with my mum behind me, though.”

Willow turned away, the painful irony shooting through her. “Shall I make tea?” she said.

“Magda’s making it,” Imogene said.

“Mum, I need to show you something,” Willow said. “Can we talk? Alone?”

“Alone?” Imogene said, surprised. “Are you going to take my little songstresses away from me?”

“Just for a minute,” Willow said, apologetically. “I have to do this.”

Holly stared at the piece of paper in Willow’s hand. “Are you sure that you have to?” she all but begged, as if sensing the horror it held for Willow pulsating in the room. Grimly, Willow nodded.

“Come on, girls,” Holly said. “Let’s help Magda find some biscuits and if you’re good you can have a go on Grandma’s piano.” The cheers draining out of the sitting room left only tension and foreboding in their wake.

“I’ll stay,” Sam offered, and Willow did not protest.

“Mum.” Willow sat down on the leather footstool, meeting her mother’s eyes. Her vision had improved enough for her to be able to focus on her daughter. “You know what I want to talk about . . .”

Imogene physically recoiled. “Not this again! Willow, you are a grown woman. When will you stop needing to make things up to get attention?”

Willow’s hand clenched on the letter, its thick fold biting into the palm of her hand. From across the hall came the disjointed sound of the out-of-tune piano being bashed indiscriminately.

“The thing is, I know how hard this is for you, but . . . Mum, the way you talked about me, me and Holly then. When you made our angel costumes?”

“What about it?” Imogene asked stiffly.

“Do you remember the little girl I was then?” Willow asked. “Do you remember how I used you make you laugh, always be
into everything, always in trouble but never naughty? Because I remember how loved you used to make us feel, Mum, that as long as we had each other we didn’t need anything else in the world.”

Imogene was silent for a long time, looking into the crackling fire.

“Of course,” she said. “I always did my best for you, always.”

“I know, I know you did. And I know that you were so happy when you married Ian. We were happy too. Everything seemed perfect.”

“It was perfect,” Imogene persisted. “It was.”

“Mum, when did she go?” Willow asked.

“Who? What do you mean?” Imogene shifted in her chair, the crashing of the piano keys growing louder and more ebullient.

“The little girl I used to be—when did the happy, funny, mischievous little girl you knew go and the sullen, shy, quiet one appear? Do you remember that happening, did you notice?”

“Of course I noticed. Ian said . . .” Imogene stopped herself.

“What did Ian say?” Willow forced her mouth to form the question, even though saying his name in this house seemed dangerous, as if it might somehow evoke him.

“You were nine. Ian said you were jealous, he said you weren’t used to me having someone in my life and that you’d get used to it eventually. He said it was best to let you get on with it.”

“Is that what you thought?” Willow asked her.

“Yes, because it was the truth!” Imogene’s voice was high, brittle.

Willow pinched her nose between her thumb and forefinger, desperate not to have to say what she was about to, not to have to unfold the letter and read it out loud.

“When I was in his office, when he called me up there to look at something, do you know what he was doing, Mum?”

“It wasn’t like that,
he
wasn’t like that,” Imogene persisted. “I was his wife. Don’t you think I would have
known
? If what you said was true, I would have known.”

“He was. He was like that and he did those things to me. Under your roof, when you were in bed or in the kitchen, or in the garden with Holly. He did them to me, to the little girl that you loved.”

“No, no, don’t.” Imogene pressed her hands over her head. “Don’t say that.”

Willow glanced up at Sam, standing taut by the door. Her resolve wavered. He nodded once, and Willow understood his meaning: “Go on.”

“I have something that proves it, something I haven’t looked at in decades, something I tried really hard to forget.” Willow began to unfold the letter. “I don’t want to read this, Mum. I don’t want to say out loud the words that he wrote here, but I have to. I have to do something to make you see—”

“Stop it!” Imogene cried out. “Stop it, stop it, stop it! Get out of here, get away from me!”

“No, I can’t, I have to do this. . . .” Willow’s fingers trembled, the piece of paper slipping from her hand and wafting to the floor. Sam reached it before she could stoop down to pick it up. Holding it between two clenched fists as if at any second he might rip it in two.

“Mrs. Briars,” Sam said calmly, reasonably, “I’m looking at this letter, and I can see what it says. It is proof that Willow has always been telling the truth. So I’m asking you now, before I read this out aloud and give this monster a voice again after all these years, can you really, really go on denying what must have been obvious to you for so long?”

“Holly! Magda!” Imogene called, so desperately that Willow went to her, putting her arms around Imogene’s spiky shoulders.

“Don’t,” Willow said. “Don’t, Sam. I thought . . . I hoped that maybe . . . but she’s too old, she’s too sick, this isn’t fair. I don’t want her to have to hear what’s in that letter. I don’t want to have to hear it myself. Burn it, burn it now.”

Sam did not move, rooted to the spot, so Willow stepped over and snatched the letter from his hand, scrunched it into a ball and tossed it into the fire.

“Will, wait . . . That was the only proof.”

“Nothing’s worth this,” Willow said, gesturing at her mother cowering in her chair, her fingers entwined in an anxious knot. “I’m sorry, Mum. I’m sorry. Look, let’s forget about it, okay. I promise I won’t ever talk about it again. Let’s just be friends again, like we used to be—do you remember? How you used to make us laugh and laugh? Can’t we just pretend to be like that again and I promise I will never bring up Ian ever again.”

Imogene reached out, her hand searching for Willow’s, who went to her, kneeling at her side, resting her head on her mother’s lap.

“Don’t,” Imogene said.

“Don’t?”

“You don’t have to pretend for me.”

Willow lifted her head and stared at her mother, whose expression was unreadable. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“I can’t go on like this,” Imogene said. “I wanted to die without having to ever face this, but how can I go on knowing how hurt you are? And how much more hurt you will be, never having heard me say I am so sorry for what you have gone through for all these years without me?”

“Sorry?” Willow drew her hand away from her mother’s and sat back on her heels.

“I know about Ian,” Imogene said. “Not long, just since this latest attack came on. Perhaps that’s not true; perhaps I knew long ago, in my heart. I’ve been a wicked, wicked woman. I had hoped . . . I thought perhaps I could make it up to you without having to talk about it, but that’s not possible. Of course it’s not.”

“Look, let’s just leave it,” Willow said suddenly very keen not to hear her mother’s confession, just in case she proved impossible to forgive. “Let’s just put it behind us.”

“I honestly thought he was telling the truth,” Imogene said after a moment, so quietly Willow almost didn’t hear her, afraid to speak or breathe or move.

“Do you honestly think I’d have let him go on hurting you, if I’d known?” Imogene shook her head. “I didn’t know, Willow. It wasn’t something you looked for, or really understood then. It was a joke, the dirty old man in a raincoat hiding in the bushes. It wasn’t a bank manager, it wasn’t a husband. It never crossed my mind . . . I swear to you I didn’t know what he was doing.”