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

much been confirmed when Daphne Blake had been mentioned in the Facebook post; and about how I’d suspected pretty much everyone I knew, even him.

‘Seriously? Bloody hell, Beth. Is that how bad things have got between us? I would never, ever—’

‘I know. I know that now. I’m sorry, but I’ve been so scared and so … so befuddled by it all. I got to the point where I didn’t trust anyone. Robin, Brenda, Barbara, Deborah … there’s a lot of stuff I still don’t understand. But now, well’—I turned to look at the bed, where Mum … No, not Mum. Where Alison Allen, Lucy’s mum, was still lying, oblivious—‘it was her, wasn’t it? All of it, somehow. Or some of it, at least. I don’t know. I can’t get my head round it. I have no idea how she did it, or why she’s waited so long to come for me. But you know what? I always knew she would, or someone would. Does that sound peculiar? My whole life I’ve been waiting for this to happen. And now it has.’

Jacob, who’d been listening with an expression that flitted between astonishment and incredulity, shook his head.

‘Who attacked her though, and why? I don’t get any of this.’

‘No idea. Unless it was just an attempted burglary gone wrong. No sign of any break-in though. I’m hoping the police come up with something on that one because I can’t explain it, Jacob. There’s so much of it I just don’t understand.’

‘You and me both. It’s like a film script,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe this has actually happened to someone I know in real life. What happened back then, I mean, it was horrendous, and what you did, well …’

‘I know,’ I whispered, but he was still talking.

‘But this is mad. What you’re saying is that she basically tracked you down after nearly thirty years to mess with your head and get revenge for what you did to her daughter? I mean, as you say, why the hell wait so long, and how did she do it? And … shit, I mean so many questions. And how did you even fall for it in the first place? Does she look like your mother?’

I shrugged.

‘I can barely remember my mother. All I have is that one photo, you know the one? She wasn’t even twenty then. She was blonde and pretty, I remember that. But her face has always just been sort of vague in my head. When she’—I gesture at the bed—‘when she came to the door, I had no idea who she was at first. I didn’t recognise her at all. It was only when she leaned forward and I saw the tattoo …’

I remembered then the way she had been trembling, clearly so nervous as she waited on my doorstep.

Not, as I assumed back then, nervous because she was about to be reunited with the daughter she abandoned. She was nervous because she wasn’t sure if her ruse was going to work, wasn’t she?

A little sob escaped me. I was grieving now, I realised. Grieving the loss of my mother all over again. The pain was almost unbearable; it was a physical ache inside me. How was I ever going to get over this?

‘The fake tattoo,’ said Jacob. ‘Jesus. She’s a clever one. Did she know your mother then? How would she know she had a tattoo like that?’

‘I don’t know. Old pictures, maybe? Maybe she knows someone who knew Mum … Your guess is as good as mine. I never actually met Lucy’s mum; I never even saw her close up really, just from a distance through her car window when she used to pick up Lucy from school. She was so bloody convincing though, wasn’t she? She must have kept track somehow; she must have known that my mother was still missing. God, she even knew when her birthday was, everything. I’ve no idea how she did it, but … it’s almost impressive, isn’t it?’

He nodded. ‘It’s amazing. And I suppose it wasn’t just you who fell for it, was it? We all did. I mean, I’d only ever seen that one photo of your mother too, and as you say, Alison here is blonde, attractive … close enough, considering how much time has passed. But we never even thought to question her, to ask for any proof of identity, did we? We’re all idiots, every one of us.’

He slapped himself hard on the forehead and I managed a small smile.

‘I’m the biggest idiot though. But I suppose I wanted to believe her, didn’t I? When she said she was my mum, it was like all my birthdays and Christmases rolled into one. It was what I’d dreamed of for thirty years. I mean, I did notice that she was much less highly-strung, much more composed, I suppose, than I remember my mother being, but that comes with age, doesn’t it? And all her yoga, and long walks, well … I just thought she’d calmed down as she got older. And as you say, she does, to be fair, look a bit like what you’d imagine Mum to look like nowadays. About the right height, I think. Blonde, West Country accent. Mum could look like that at sixty, and I wanted it to be her so much. I saw what I wanted to see, I suppose.’

‘But your dad – I mean, how did she fool him?’ he asked. Then he slapped his forehead again. ‘Oh, his eyesight. Of course.’

I nodded. I’d been thinking about that.

‘When I think back, she only agreed to come and see him after I told her he was virtually blind,’ I said. ‘And pretty much as soon as she got there she made sure he got a glimpse of her tattoo. That was enough for him. He didn’t question it either. And of course nobody else here in Cheltenham ever knew her. If I still lived in Bristol, it might have been different, with