The Bad Mother Read Online Free PDF Page A

usurped.
    Piecing together her scant knowledge of the past, Tessa tried to make some headway against her astonished sense of betrayal. All the years they must have guarded her so assiduously from any suspicion of the truth; all those conversations – innocent childish questions or remarks about family traits and resemblances – that had been steered so firmly away from difficult waters. How carefully her parents must have monitored themselves, how false so many of their words and gestures!
    She knew how hard it was to defy Grandma Averil: she’d been a tyrant. From the moment Averil had decreed – asPamela had just explained – that the disgraced Erin was to disappear and Pamela and Hugo should pass her baby off as their own, it would have been useless to argue against her. But why, after Erin’s banishment, had it remained so impossible to share the secret with the person most closely affected by it, to ignore a child’s right to know who she was? Had there really been no point during the past thirty-seven years when she couldn’t have been trusted with the truth?
    Tessa felt bitterly disappointed that Hugo and Pamela had failed to take charge. Their lack of certainty, of ownership , left her exposed and defenceless. No wonder she had grown up with a sense of not fully belonging, of being kept at arm’s length.
    What hurt most was that Pamela’s grief today had not been for the sacrifice of her family to this divisive and inhibiting secret, but remorse at stealing her sister’s child. Even when Tessa left the house it had been Hugo who accompanied her to the end of the driveway, who promised to call. Pamela had hung back, giving precedence to Erin, who had laid a powdered cheek next to Tessa’s and kissed her lightly goodbye.
    Had either of her parents ever really wanted her? Clearly Erin, her real mother, had not. And maybe Pamela had resented having her sister’s illegitimate baby foisted upon her. Perhaps even Hugo, always so decent and loyal, had had no choice but to support his wife and make the best of it. The horrible idea that maybe all these years theyhad merely tolerated a child who meant very little to them made her want to run away.
    As she walked, she tried to let the familiar movement of clouds and water claim her attention and untangle her emotions. The tide was flowing out in earnest now, and as she approached the metal footbridge she saw how the river’s central channel had narrowed to expose the mudbanks to the attention of wading birds. A wind blew in off the sea, whipping up the water rushing in the opposite direction, echoing her overwhelming sense that the elements surrounding her were dangerously in flux.
    She stopped on the footbridge where her thoughts reverted to Sam: did this lack of authentic connection at the very heart of her life explain why she had always feared an emptiness at the heart of her marriage too? She realised suddenly how hungry she was to talk to him, how he was the only person in the world she wanted to tell, or who could possibly comfort her.
    Tessa dialled his number on her mobile and he picked up after a couple of rings, greeting her by name. Deciding not to burden him immediately, she spoke with false optimism: ‘Sam, you’re never going to believe what I’ve just been told! Can I call in for five minutes?’
    ‘Sure,’ he agreed. ‘I’ve been wanting to speak to you about something anyway. See you soon.’
    Tessa walked on feeling a tiny bit lighter. However horrible and unsettling, perhaps Erin’s revelation would help her to understand herself better, might even add an extra dimension to her existence. After all, nothing hadactually been lost – Hugo and Pamela remained her mum and dad, and Sam was still her husband. But now maybe there could be room for her to grow, to gain new perspectives, to discover parts of herself that, busy with marriage and kids and remodelling the business, had become enmeshed and lost. Listening to the racket of the