The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler (electric book reader txt) 📕

happened. I need to speak to you, urgently. Please call me as soon as you get this message. Thanks, Liv. Call me, OK? It’s really important.’

I end the call and sit there, staring at Mum – or at what I can see of her. The sheets are tucked tightly around her and her face is almost completely obscured by the oxygen mask.

I need to speak to someone else who knows her, I think. Someone who can confirm her identity, who can help me prove that she is Alice Armstrong, my mother. That the doctor is wrong. But who? I don’t know anyone else who knows Mum, not nowadays.

And then I have a brainwave.

The gallery. The gallery she works in. They’ll have all her details, won’t they?

I think of the personnel files I have in my office at the surgery. Name, address, date of birth, education, qualifications, National Insurance number, bank account details … it’s all there for every member of staff.

They won’t be able to tell me anything confidential, but maybe if I explain, if I tell them she’s badly injured and that we need to track down her medical records … But what’s the gallery called, and where is it? She told me, I know she did. West something. West … West Bercor. Yes, that’s it!

I grab my phone again and put ‘art gallery, West Bercor’ into the search engine. There’s only one, Callingford Studios. I find the contact page and dial the number with a new sense of purpose.

Right, let’s get this sorted once and for all, eh Mum?

I give the silent figure in the bed a determined nod.

‘Hello, Callingford Studios, Eleanor speaking.’

It’s a refined voice – definitely not a Cornish native. A former Londoner maybe. I clear my throat.

‘Hi, Eleanor. Erm, this is a slightly unusual request, but my mother, Alice, works for you, and I need to …’

‘Alison, you mean? She’s away on a sabbatical at the moment, I’m afraid,’ she says abruptly. ‘But hang on, is that Liv?’

I pause, puzzled.

Alison? But she knows Liv …

‘Liv’s my sister. Well, half-sister. I’m Beth. I’m older than Liv …’

I pause again, suddenly realising that Mum may not have told Eleanor, whoever she is, anything about me.

Maybe they’re not close; maybe she kept me a secret. But what else can I do? Mum will forgive me, I’m sure she will …

But Eleanor’s speaking again, her voice sharp this time.

‘Alison doesn’t have two daughters, just Liv. Who is this? Beth, did you say?’

‘Yes. My mum … well, I’m a bit confused. Her name’s actually Alice, not Alison. Maybe she uses Alison for work for some reason? She’s Alice Armstrong. But yes, she’s Liv’s mum too. She moved away you see, when I was very young, and she’s only just found me …’

‘Alice Armstrong? I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. I don’t know anyone called Armstrong,’ snaps Eleanor.

‘But … you know Liv? I’m sorry, I’m not sure what’s going on here,’ I say.

I hear a sigh.

‘Well, I’m not sure either. Yes, I know Liv. I’ve known her since she was a schoolgirl, and her mother’s worked here for years, but her name is definitely Alison, not Alice. And Alison doesn’t have any other children. Well, she did – a poor soul called Lucy, but that was many years ago, and—’

‘What? What did you say?’

I freeze.

Did she say … Did she say … Lucy?

There’s a cold sensation suddenly creeping up my body, as if someone’s injected icy water into my veins.

‘I said Lucy. Alison’s late daughter. Look, I think we’ve got our wires crossed here somehow. Who are you again, and who did you say you’re looking for? I don’t know any Alice Armstrong. It’s Alison Allen who works here.’

‘Alison … Alison Allen?’

‘Yes. So you’ve obviously got the wrong place or something. I don’t know. I’m sorry but I’m too busy for this. I have a sculpture delivery arriving any second and I’m on my own at the moment. Goodbye.’

And then she’s gone, but I sit there, phone still jammed against my ear, listening to nothing. I can’t move. I can barely breathe.

Alison Allen. Alison Allen, who had a daughter called Lucy many years ago. It can’t be, it can’t, and yet …

Slowly, slowly, I put the phone down on the table beside me, rise to my feet and walk, step by hesitant step, across the room until I’m standing over the bed. I look down at her, at her closed eyelids which are almost translucent, at the tiny up-down, up-down movement of her chest under the sheet. And then I hear a howl, a guttural, animalistic roar, and to my surprise I realise it’s coming from me.

This is Alison Allen, isn’t it? This is not Alice Armstrong.

This is not my mother at all.

This is Lucy Allen’s mother.

Chapter 37

Twelve hours later, she wakes up.

I’ve spent the day in a state of such confusion and fear that I feel feverish, almost delirious. The only person I’ve told so far is, weirdly, Jacob, and only because he called me minutes after I’d spoken to the art gallery, to tell me that the children were worried about their grandmother and wondering whether they could visit. There was a stunned silence on the end of the phone when I relayed what I’d just discovered, and half an hour later he was there, standing in the little hospital room in his weekend sweatpants and T-shirt.

‘Crystal’s taken the kids out to the wildlife park,’ he said. ‘Keep them busy for a few hours, while we work out how to break the news. Christ, Beth, what’s going on here? Are you sure about this? She’s really not your mother? Why on earth would anyone …?’

And so I told him. I told him everything. I told him the truth about Lucy Allen, and what had happened twenty-seven years ago; about the events of the past weeks, and how I’d begun to fear that everything that had happened was, somehow, connected to Lucy; about how those fears had pretty