I wander through the house trying to imprint it on my memory. I touch the daisy-shaped lights that are wound around the banister, run my hand along the tastefully painted walls, enjoy the warmth from the underfloor heating through the limestone tiles under my feet, lounge on the squashy velvet sofa in the drawing room, stand on the terrace overlooking the garden below, swing my legs over the arm of the tatty antique armchair in the kitchen, as Beatrice and Cass did the first morning after I moved in. I bask in its beauty. I will miss this house, I think. Because for a while I was happy here, for a while the house held within its walls the promise of a life I was desperate to be part of. A life that was so different, so much more glamorous than the one I had been trying to escape from.
One morning two days later, I’m sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop, ostensibly typing up an interview for Miranda, but really surfing the net for places that Ben and I can rent together. The house is eerily quiet apart from the clunking sound of the old school radiators as the boiler cools down. Ben is at work, and the others have gone to see a friend of Beatrice’s who is opening an artists’ studio in Frome. I wasn’t invited to join them.
I’m scrolling through the details of a flat in Walcot Street when a loud ding dong reverberates around the quiet house, causing me to jump. It’s someone at the front door, I tell myself as my heart begins its familiar war dance and I tear myself away from the computer, and the fashionable flat in Walcot Street, to answer it. A crumpled-looking woman with short, greying hair and ruddy cheeks hovers on the step. She’s older, perhaps in her late fifties, early sixties at a push. ‘Hello,’ she says in a thick Scottish accent. Her eyes crinkle as she smiles. She’s barely five foot tall and plump, wearing a faded blue mackintosh and sturdy brown boots under a long skirt. She’s holding a large handbag in the crook of her arm. Behind her the street is quiet, the sun balloons in the china blue sky. The air smells fresh after a recent shower. ‘I’m looking for Ben.’ Her eyes dart hopefully behind me into the hallway.
‘Ben?’ Why is she looking for Ben? ‘He’s at work, he won’t be home until tonight.’
‘Oh,’ her face falls in disappointment. ‘Of course he is, I didn’t think about that. I’ll come back later.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, apologizing because she looks so crestfallen. ‘Can I tell him who called?’ I can’t let this woman walk away without knowing who she is. She glances about her, as if she expects he will walk down the street at any moment.
‘I’m his mum, lovey. Don’t worry, I’ll catch him later. I’m staying with his brother in Bristol for the week, so there will be other opportunities. I tried to ring him, but he never answers his phone and I’m worried, you see. After his father’s death …’ She pauses, her chin wobbling, then she makes an effort to compose herself. ‘… I saw Ben only last week. There was an argument … I want …’ She stops and her eyes widen in panic, as if she’s said too much. ‘Never mind, I’ll come over again tonight – will you tell him that, lovey? Will you tell him I’ll come back this evening, around eight?’
I’m gawping at her in astonishment. Blood pounds in my ears. ‘His mum?’ I can hardly believe what I’ve heard. ‘You’re Ben’s mum?’ I repeat, in case I’ve thought those words rather than said them out loud.
Her face clouds over and I can see the confusion in her watery blue eyes. She doesn’t resemble Ben, or Beatrice. ‘Yes, I’m his mother. Who are you?’
‘I’m his girlfriend. Abi.’
‘Ah,’ her face lights up and she looks at me properly now, as if seeing me for the first time. ‘Yes, he mentioned you when he came to visit me last week. Ah, and what a bonny lass you are.’
‘You saw him last week?’ I hold on to the doorframe for support. ‘In Scotland?’
She laughs. ‘I know I’ve still got the accent, but no. We don’t live in Scotland any more, we’ve lived in London for the past ten years. Streatham. He came to stay with me there.’ She lowers her voice. ‘I expect he told you about his dad dying. He’d been ill for a long time, but still, it was a shock.’ Her eyes glisten. ‘I think Ben has taken it hard, no matter what Paul says.’ A beep of a horn makes her turn around, and that’s when I notice the red Mondeo purring alongside the kerb further down the street. ‘That’s Martin, my other son. I better go. I’ll see you later, lovey.’ She rubs my upper arm affectionately. ‘I’m Morag, by the way. It’s so lovely to meet you.’ Then she’s out of the gate and scurrying towards the waiting car, and I watch, in shock, as she folds herself into the passenger seat, handbag on her lap, and as the car moves off I sink on to the cold stone step, my head reeling. How can that be Ben’s mum when his parents were killed in a car crash over thirty years ago?
I pour myself a glass of wine from the half-empty bottle in the fridge, even though it’s only eleven o’clock. Edgy and unnerved, I down it in one gulp. Then I ring Ben. He picks up the phone straight away, an edge of panic to his voice. I never usually phone him when he’s working. I blurt out everything while doing laps around the kitchen table, hoping he can explain it away, but already knowing that’s impossible. What other explanation could there be?
He’s silent for too long, before spluttering, ‘What did she look like?’
‘She’s in her late fifties I think, she has a Scottish accent, similar to yours, Ben. And she said she saw you last week, in London. You said you were in Scotland last week so I don’t understand.’
‘I was in Scotland last week.’
His impatient tone doesn’t deter me as it might once have done. ‘And she also mentioned a brother of yours, living in Bristol. What’s going on? Do you and Beatrice have a brother?’
‘Of course we don’t,’ he snaps. ‘Look, Abi, I’m at work, I can’t talk about this here. I’m coming home.’
‘You can’t leave. What will your boss say?’ My voice is shrill and echoey in the quiet kitchen. He sounds so angry, so shocked that I’m beginning to think this must be a trick, that whoever wrote on Lucy’s Facebook page and sent me the flowers on my birthday, has also sent me a middle-aged woman pretending to be Ben’s mum. Am I losing my grip on reality, just as Beatrice said? Are the messages from my dead sister and visits from Ben’s dead mum all in my imagination? The woman, Morag, looks nothing like Ben, Beatrice or the young mother called Daisy in the photograph in the drawing room. And if Morag is their mum, who the hell is the woman in the picture? And why would they lie about her? ‘She said she will come back tonight. She mentioned a Martin waiting in the car. She said her name was Morag. That’s an unusual name, Ben.’
‘I don’t know her, for fuck’s sake,’ he hisses. ‘Don’t you believe me?’
‘I don’t know what to think …’ But he’s already hung up. I throw my mobile on to the antique armchair and pour myself another glass of wine, but after one sip I gag and rush over to the Belfast sink. I take gulps of air and lean over the sink until the nausea passes, then I slump on to the armchair, my legs shaking. My phone vibrates under my bottom and I pull it out from underneath me, hoping that it’s Ben ringing to apologize, to explain away this woman who claims she’s his mum. But it’s Nia. I quickly recount what has happened and promise that I will call her back tonight. I can’t face talking to anyone other than Ben at the moment.
Less than an hour later I hear Ben’s Fiat pull up outside the house. I’m sitting at the bottom of the stairs as he rushes in, his face pale, his tie askew. He jolts when he sees me, and his eyes soften. ‘Oh, Abi.’ He joins me on the step and wraps his arms around me, hugging me to him,