Chapter 63

‘Mr Gray ring any bells, Sandie?' Daisy says, as we all gawp at her.

‘Dear Lord.' Mum flops into her chair as if she's been pushed.

‘Nan!'

‘Mum,' I cry, ‘tell her she's lying.'

‘Oh, I've heard it all now.' Zelda's face twists in repulsion. ‘Just…just get out, will you, and take your aging fake aunt with you.' The words sprout from Zelda's lips like venom.

‘Barry Gray,' Mum mutters at the carpet, then jerks her head up. Who the fuck is Barry Gray? ‘You spoke to him?' With a deep inhalation, Daisy nods. Tina confirms this, says she was there when they Facetimed. ‘What did he tell you?' she demands.

‘He said you'd had a fling, got pregnant and insisted on an abortion. In the end, he reluctantly agreed. Shortly after, he relocated to Birmingham. Ran a pub until he retired – still there with his family.'

‘Relocated, my arse,' Mum retorts, and I feel the blood drain from my face. She's not denying it. It must be true. But when? How? We'd have noticed Mum's bump if she were pregnant for a start off. ‘What else did he say?' Mum probes.

We listen in stunned silence as Daisy tells how Barry's eldest son, Mark, bought his dad an ancestry DNA kit for his birthday. ‘You can imagine how Barry reacted when he found out about me, and I was just as stunned when he emailed.' Leaning forward, Daisy picks up her mug and takes a sip of tea, no doubt stone cold by now. ‘Barry wasn't surprised when I told him my story, said you were a nasty piece of work, Sandra, with no time for children.' The hairs on my neck flare. Zelda looks at me, shakes her head.

‘Oh, Daisy, that's mean,' Georgia says, offended.

‘Hey, that's not true,' I snap, mirroring my daughter's reaction. Admittedly, she's never been mumsy, but she's not cruel. Mum always put us before her own happiness after Dad left, often going without meals to feed us.

‘Barry told me you had two other daughters, even remembered their names.' Daisy laughs lightly. ‘He warned me not to contact you, said I'd regret it. But I was adamant. I wanted to know who my mother was. I wanted to look you in the eye, Sandra, and ask you why you abandoned me.'

Mum presses her fist against her lips. ‘Vindictive lying bastard.'

‘Lying bastard?' I repeat, confused. Is she denying it?

‘You guys weren't difficult to track down with a name like Villin,' Daisy says. ‘So…' Daisy stretches her arms out wide as if we've won her in a raffle. ‘Here I am,' she trills in a singy voice. The irony in her tone is palpable, rendering us speechless.

Closing my eyes, I rub my forehead. A migraine is starting. And then I hear the sound of clapping – slow, measured, theatrical. ‘Great performance.' Zelda's on her feet. ‘But you heard what Mum said. Barry Gray is a liar. Now, will you please crawl back to whatever rock you surfaced from and leave us alone.'

Mum blinks and a single tear slides along her cheek. ‘It wasn't like that. I didn't…he…Stanley…my ex-husband.' A pause, a sniff. ‘Stanley told me you were going to be placed with a loving family who couldn't have children,' Mum confesses, and in that moment my whole existence turns on its axis.

Zelda looks as if all the blood has been drained from her body. ‘Fucking hell.'

‘Mum? How is this possible?' Did our parents drug us for nine months?

‘I am SO stoked. This is brilliant, Nan.'

Georgia's excitement sends a crash of anger and disappointment shooting through me like a missile. ‘Oh, Georgia, will you please shut up,' I snap, feeling a searing pain shoot from my temple to my eye. ‘This is serious.'

‘After Stanley took you, I changed my mind,' Mum says through thin, quivering lips speckled with stale pink lipstick. ‘I wanted you back, but it was too late. You'd already been placed with a family. I begged him to tell me where you were but he refused point blank – said it was part of the agreement. Accused me of being an unfit mother – said he'd call social services if I didn't shut up about it. Get me sectioned. Take my girls away. I was on antidepressants, couldn't cope with the loss.' Mum looks at me, eyes watery, and my anger melts away like a snowflake.

‘Oh, Mum,' I say. ‘Why didn't you tell us?'

‘We started arguing a lot more,' Mum continues, ignoring me. ‘Eventually, I persuaded him to get in contact with the family, said I'd kill myself if he refused. I watched him pick up the phone, dial the number and speak to someone. I could tell something was wrong by the tone of his voice. When he put the phone down, he turned to me and said the young couple had moved and that their adopted baby had…' Mum chokes on her words, rubs her arm. God, no, please don't let her have a stroke. ‘They said it was a cot death,' she gulps. Pins pierce my stomach repeatedly. Dad didn't make that call, did he – he fobbed Mum off to shut her up. I bet he had his finger pressed on the plunger during the entire fake conversation. ‘I'm so sorry, girls.'

Bitter saliva fills my mouth. I swallow it down and look at Daisy, who is twisting the crucifix around in her fingers, features set in confusion. ‘You thought I was dead?'

Mum nods, squeezing the damp tissue in her hand. ‘I believed him – why would he lie to me? But none of it was true, was it? He just made it all up. Dumped you outside a hospital, came home, had his tea, laughed his head off watching an episode of Morecambe and Wise and went to bed. The evil bastard. Divorcing him,' Mum says to me and Zelda, voice breaking, ‘was the best thing I ever did.'

Zelda sighs, throws me a fleeting glance. ‘To be fair, Mum, you did cheat on him and have another man's child.' Mum turns away sharply, as if she's been slapped. ‘Is that when you disappeared for almost a year,' Zelda continues. ‘When you went to look after Grandpa?' My heart crushes. Of course it was. Why didn't I make that connection? I bet Grandpa wasn't even ill.

Mum nods. ‘I stayed with him a couple of nights, then moved into a BB until I had the baby. Meanwhile, Stanley was going to put the house on the market, sell up and join me with you girls once I'd given birth. Barry could never know. We'd start afresh in the Isle of Man, where no one knew us. Those were Stanley's terms.'

‘Wow, Nan,' Georgia gasps.

‘The cross.' Mum sniffs. ‘They let you keep it.'

‘It was in the biscuit tin I found.' Daisy's voice is barely audible. Mum dips her head, shoulders shaking.

‘Oh, Nan,' Georgia rushes over to her, and I watch as my mother weeps in my daughter's arms. I feel numb. I can't believe I've got a half-sister I knew nothing about. A sibling who's been sharing my home for weeks. A mother who's been harbouring a secret for almost a lifetime. But most of all, I'm sickened that the man I'd looked up to is nothing but a selfish, ruthless, monster.

‘Mum, why didn't you tell us?' I ask again.

‘Oh, love,' she sobs. I couldn't.'

‘Well, this is all very endearing,' Zelda sniffs. I know that look. I know she's feigning indifference, ‘But you could be anyone. Mum's daughter is dead. A cot death. Our father isn't a liar. He placed Mum's baby with a loving, childless couple who were desperate – made their dream come true.'

Tina sighs loudly. ‘I suppose you'll want to see some proof.' Tina's hand disappears into the manila envelope that she's been guarding close to her chest since she got here. ‘Here,' she says, and as she hands me several A4 sheets, I catch Daisy shaking her head at Tina nervously, eyes flared, frightened. My heartbeat belts. What is she hiding now? What is it she doesn't want me to see?