Tangled Lives

by Hilary Boyd

Genres: Family Life; Siblings; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

From the author of bestseller Thursdays in the Park, Tangled Lives examines the fractures and repercussions one buried secret can cause Annie Delancey is happily married with three grown children. But she guards a secret. Aged eighteen she had a baby boy, and gave him up for adoption. Out of the blue, she learns that her son wants to make contact. As the son she has never known comes back into her life, his presence begins to expose the cracks in the family that Annie now has to try, desperately, to hold together.

Release date: August 30, 2012

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 352

Sample

‘It’s time.’

Nurse Julie stood beside the bed, but she didn’t look up at her. She just continued to stare at the baby, asleep, cuddled in the crook of her arms. He was already washed, and dressed in a brushed cotton nightie, knitted blue matinee jacket, matching booties and hat. The clothes seemed to swamp his tiny form and make him seem heart-breakingly separate from her.

‘Do you want any help?’

Annie shook her head and eased herself off the bed, turning to place the baby in the waiting wicker carrycot. He stirred as she laid him on the cool sheet and flung his arms outwards in a small spasm. She gently tucked the soft, white, wool blanket close around him, knowing how he hated being put down. Who would understand him now? Who would give him the minute-by-minute attention that she, despite reminding herself there was no future in it, could not resist providing?

The ten difficult days of new motherhood had gone by agonisingly quickly, as if she were careering towards a cliff edge with her baby son. And as each day had brought her closer to this one, the shadow presence of his father grew ever more insistent. She should have told him; she knew it. But every time she thought about the conversation, she imagined the shock, the distaste, the embarrassment on his face. It would be the same expression her mother’s had worn since she’d heard the news. She couldn’t bear it. If only he’d been in touch after that night. Why …? Why hadn’t he called? But it was too late for all that now. She’d made her decision.

The rest of the morning was a blur. Formalities, kindly smiles, pity; she saw the pity. But it was businesslike and left no room for protest, as if she were no longer important in this drama about her baby son’s life, played out in front of her by these competent professionals. Which she wasn’t, of course.

And then she was in her mother’s car, being driven through the glorious spring day towards London.

‘I’ve had your bedroom painted while you’ve been away,’ her mother told her, in a crisp voice which seemed to Annie like a wall, a barrier that protected her mother from knowing – or wanting to know – what her life had been like over the past four months.

‘It’s still cream, but it looks terribly smart,’ her mother was saying.

‘Thank you. I can’t wait to see it,’ she replied, surprised by her own enthusiasm about the fresh paint on her bedroom walls.

Annie Delancey stood in the warm, quiet kitchen and slowly peeled apart the last two pieces of streaky bacon. As she fitted them into the large skillet where the other rashers were already buckling and sizzling on the heat, she felt an overwhelming sense of happiness. It was Saturday. Her family was here for the weekend. She would do pancakes.

She glanced round at the neatly laid table, smiling with pleasure at the vibrant golden daffodils lighting up the centre, competing with the glass jug of freshly squeezed orange juice and the square of yellow butter on its white china dish.

Her son Ed, now twenty-six, worked unholy hours as the manager of a restaurant/bar in Islington, and she hardly saw him, so having him home was a treat for her. But this visit, she knew, was not so much to hang out with his dear old mum as to avoid his freezing Stroud Green flat, where the heating was on the blink. When she’d heard he was bringing his girlfriend, Emma, she’d asked Marsha – her second child and barely a year younger than Ed – to come over for a late breakfast.

She took the maple syrup from the cupboard and set it on the table, then moved to the window and gazed out at the well-kept, mature garden with satisfaction. It was beautiful the way the pale spring sun lit up the frosty landscape. She and Richard had planted out the garden, mostly from guesswork, when they’d first moved into the house just before Ed was born. And it had worked, despite the inevitable restrictions of a long, narrow London garden. They had tweaked and improved over the years – mostly Richard’s doing – adding the inevitable wooden decking a few months ago. This was now bordered with earthenware pots of various sizes, planted up with herbs, ivy, narcissus, and some dark purple and yellow gold-laced primulas – all slow to bloom because of the late frost.

‘Mmm, great smell.’

Annie hadn’t heard her husband come in. Richard was leaning his tall frame close to the pan, sniffing appreciatively.

‘Shouldn’t these go over?’ he asked a little anxiously, prodding the rashers with the metal tongs.

Indeed, the bacon was already crisp and on the verge of being burnt. Annie grabbed the tongs from her husband and began to salvage the contents of the pan, decanting the rashers onto a plate lined with kitchen towel before putting them in the warm oven.

‘Shall I tell them it’s nearly ready?’ he asked, pointing to the ceiling.

‘Leave them,’ she said with a smile. ‘They’ll smell the bacon if they’re even halfway conscious.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Mash should be here in a moment.’

And sure enough, on cue, the front door banged and she heard footsteps on the stairs leading down to the kitchen.

‘Hi, darling … you look frozen.’ Annie put the oven gloves down and turned to embrace her daughter. Marsha’s cheeks were pink from the cold, her blue eyes bright in her oval face, her long pale-blonde hair drawn back into an untidy ponytail. She shivered, slinging the post she’d retrieved from the doormat onto the kitchen table before rubbing her gloved hands together. She eyed the breakfast preparations hungrily.

‘Maple syrup … I know what that means!’ She gave her father a hug and took off her black coat, unwinding her red wool scarf before thinking again and wrapping it back round her neck.

‘Shall I wake them now?’ Richard asked again. And this time Annie nodded.

Lucy was first down. Annie saw her wince as her bare feet hit the chilly terracotta floor tiles, tugging over her hands the sleeves of a navy jumper that covered her tartan pyjamas. Rounder than her sister, with wavy auburn hair and soft brown eyes, Annie always marvelled that they had produced two such different daughters; different in looks as well as personality.

‘It’s freezing,’ Lucy complained.

Her father smiled. ‘My sweater not keeping you warm enough then?’

She glanced down and looked a little sheepish.

‘Just borrowing it, Dad. None of mine are big enough.’

‘It’s only my best cashmere. I don’t want syrup down it.’

Annie rubbed buttered paper round a clean pan, and removed the saucer she had put over the jug of pancake batter. She loved the whole process of cooking. The careful preparation, the smells and the warmth and her pleasure in feeding her family. Ladling a small amount of batter out of the jug, she waited till the pan was smoking before pouring the mixture carefully onto the hot surface to form a number of creamy-yellow rounds.

The four of them settled at the large oak table, a steaming pile of pancakes between them. Richard slowly pressed the plunger down on the cafetière. ‘We’re not waiting for Ed and Emma?’

Marsha shook her head vehemently. ‘No way!’

‘How was the party?’ Annie asked her elder daughter.

Marsha shrugged as she loaded her pancakes with maple syrup.

‘OK, the usual media mob. But yeah … I met an interesting guy. He had things to say beyond who you know and your latest project. Makes a change – you wouldn’t believe the morons out there.’

Annie looked at Richard and raised an eyebrow. This was more information than Marsha usually divulged about her evenings out. A grunt or two, a mind-your-own-business look, a vague ‘got smashed’, was all they had learnt to expect from the twenty-five-year-old.

‘Cute?’ Richard ventured, to receive a scornful roll of his daughter’s eyes.

‘Sorry, who’s cute?’ Lucy, still half asleep, asked. She had a habit of zoning out of family conversations.

‘Nobody,’ Marsha muttered, then grinned. ‘You should see your faces! Every time I mention a man, you all seem to hold your breath.’

‘Tell me about him, Mash, I missed it,’ Lucy insisted.

‘Nothing to tell. I liked him, but he wasn’t my type.’

Lucy groaned. ‘Always the case, eh? They’re either fascinating but look like a geography teacher, or drop dead gorgeous and brainless pillocks.’

‘No way did he look like a geography teacher.’

‘So are you going to see him again?’

Marsha shook her head. ‘It wasn’t like that. We didn’t swap numbers or anything, just sat and talked for ages. He’s bound to have a girlfriend somewhere.’

Annie noticed a certain wistfulness in her daughter’s tone. Marsha hadn’t been serious about anyone since Ben, her college boyfriend, who’d gone to Japan to teach English for three months and fallen for a Japanese girl, breaking her daughter’s heart.

Richard was checking through the pile of mail. ‘All for you.’ He pushed it towards his wife. She found a credit card statement, a promotional letter from the gym, next week’s copy of The Economist in its plastic wrapper. ‘You said you’d cancelled this,’ she said, waving the magazine at her husband. ‘They just pile up and we never read them.’

‘I do – occasionally,’ he insisted.

The last letter was a brown envelope with a red stamp saying, very indistinctly, Kent Social Services. She turned it over, puzzled. Her name and address were handwritten in blue biro.

‘Morning … morning, all!’ Ed jumped down the last three stairs, coming into the kitchen with a fanfare. Emma trailed sleepily behind him. Despite the chill, he was dressed only in a pair of patterned boxers and an old grey sweatshirt. Emma, luscious and big-breasted with permanently tousled dark hair, huge, soulful brown eyes and a porcelain skin, was almost swamped in the folds of Ed’s navy towelling dressing gown.

‘Hope you haven’t eaten everything.’ Ed looked anxiously at the ravaged breakfast table.

‘Serve you right if we had,’ Marsha retorted.

Annie was surprised at the sharpness in her tone. She had worried from the start about Ed going out with his sister’s lifelong best friend and now flatmate. But her worry had been for her son – Emma’s reputation as a player when it came to men had been established as far back as her teens. She hadn’t thought of the toll the relationship might take on Marsha. Her eldest children had been almost like twins growing up – Lucy a bit of an outsider. Was Marsha feeling left out now that the two people closest to her were so wrapped up in each other?

‘How was last night?’ Emma was asking Marsha.

‘She met a cute guy!’ Lucy answered for her.

‘Shut up! I didn’t. He was cute, beautiful in fact, but I told you, he wasn’t my type.’

Emma shook her head at her friend. ‘Nothing new there then! Can’t remember the last time you had the hots for someone … well, I can, but …’

‘Just because you fancy everything that moves,’ Marsha interrupted.

Emma laughed. ‘Yeah, it’s easier that way.’

‘Thanks, I’m flattered,’ Ed said, frowning.

Emma leant forward and planted a sloppy kiss on his cheek. ‘And so you should be.’

Annie saw her elder daughter turn away, and knew she had been right.

‘I’ll make some more pancakes in a sec,’ she said as she turned the letter over and pulled at the brown flap.

‘Oh, Mummeee … you spoil us.’ Ed bounced round the table and draped his arms round his mother in a tight hug. She returned his embrace, so happy to have him home. But he wasn’t looking well, she thought. He’d never had much colour, inheriting her own blonde hair and the same grey-blue eyes, but now he looked almost pallid. No sunlight with all those ridiculous hours he puts in, she thought, noticing the padding that had recently appeared round his waist. He wasn’t tall like herself and his father, more stocky, but he was too young to start putting on weight.

She returned her attention to the letter, drawing a single piece of paper from the envelope.

‘What’ve you got there?’ Ed peered over her shoulder. But after a cursory glance, she instinctively closed the letter and pushed it under the pile. What she had glimpsed was almost incomprehensible. Like an automaton she got up and went to the frying pan, stirring the batter, reaching for the ladle, heating the butter. Only when Ed and Emma had their own pile of pancakes, and she had retrieved the remaining bacon from the oven, did she find an excuse to leave the room, knowing that if she didn’t have a moment alone, she would explode.

‘Anyone seen my phone?’ she asked, casting a vague glance around the kitchen.

The others all shook their heads.

‘Probably in the bedroom,’ Richard suggested.

‘I just need to check the deliveries went out alright. I’ll be back in a minute.’

She headed quickly for the stairs, the letter stuffed in the pocket of her grey tracksuit bottoms. Once clear of the basement, she ran up the two storeys to her bedroom and shut the door with exaggerated care. She sat on her bed, her hands cold and shaking as she opened the letter again. This can’t be true, she told herself.

She took a few measured breaths and reached for her mobile, which lay on the bedside table.

‘Jamie, it’s me. Are you around for a coffee? … I can’t get away right now, everyone’s here for brunch, but what about later? … Three’s fine. The usual? … Brilliant … No, I’m OK, honestly … I’ll tell you when I see you. Bye … bye.’

Her voice sounded hoarse, but she was surprised any words came out at all.

The phone call seemed to have drained all her strength, and she lay back silently on the bed, clutching the letter in one hand, her mobile in the other. She felt almost ill, her heart clattering dangerously in her chest, but after a few moments she forced herself upright. Checking in the bedroom mirror, she saw that she looked deathly pale. They can’t see me like this. She rubbed her cheeks, took a few deep breaths, brushed her fair hair vigorously, then made her way downstairs. Ed and the girls were deep in conversation; only Richard glanced up.

‘Everything OK?’ She must have looked blank because he added, ‘With the deliveries?’

‘Oh, Carol wasn’t answering. I might drop round later, just to check.’

Richard smiled. He had long ago accepted her passion for her work. When Lucy started school, Annie had set up a small business making celebration cakes. It followed on from the job she’d taken, aged nineteen, cooking director’s lunches. This was in the days when company directors still had nicely brought-up girls come in to prepare meals for themselves and their clients. It had been her mother’s idea, and she did as she was told – at that stage in her life she hadn’t felt she had many options. And it was at one such company, an accountancy firm, that she had met Richard Delancey.

Much later, Delancey Bakes had started in the kitchen of their Dartmouth Park house, but moved to small premises in Gospel Oak when orders began to flood in and the hot, sweet smell of baking took over the family home. In those days, she did much of the baking and decorating herself; Richard’s accountancy firm in Tottenham Court Road did the books. Latterly she employed four people and a delivery man, but all the cake designs were exclusively hers. Her elegant creations had become famous in London and the South, a Delancey cake a must-have for any credible wedding, party, christening or anniversary. But even now, she kept a keen eye on every detail of the business, and prompt, efficient deliveries were crucial.

She went to fill the kettle. ‘Who wants more coffee?’ She needed to keep herself busy and calm the panic bursting inside her head.

The cafe was full of weekend families, the atmosphere steamy, and thick with the noise from the large coffee machine and crying children. The walk had done her no good. Normally, exercise was Annie’s panacea; she believed almost every ill could be cured by a brisk walk over the heath, fifty lengths of the gym pool, a vigorous game of tennis with Richard. But today she could hardly contain herself for the ten minutes it took to reach the cafe. The east wind made the air bitter, but she didn’t care as she ran along the slippery streets, the letter burning a hole in her pocket.

Her friend – dark, neat, handsome, and tanned from a hiking holiday in Crete – was already there, guarding a cramped corner table by the window, texting furiously on his mobile. She had known Jamie since she was a child. He had lived in the same London square as she, and they had played together in the communal gardens, although her mother had never approved. ‘That Walsh boy’ was how she referred to Jamie, as if he were some tubercular street urchin, when in fact his parents were mild-mannered professionals (his father a respected osteopath) who just happened to fall outside her mother’s snobbish and exacting social boundaries.

She edged her way past a toddler spitting croissant onto the flap of his high chair, peeled off her hat and coat and crammed them by the window.

‘Whoa …’ Jamie searched her face. ‘You look manic. What’s up?’ He rose to embrace her across the table.

She returned his kiss, then dithered for a minute, trying to find the words but failing. So she just unfolded the crumpled letter from Kent Social Services and smoothed it out on the cafe table in front of him.

‘Wow! That’s wonderful!’ he said when he’d read it. He glanced up at her, and she saw his smile become uncertain. ‘Isn’t it?’

Annie found she was cold, even in the over-heated cafe. ‘I never thought …’

‘What is it? Thirty years? No, more. Thirty-five.’

She nodded. ‘I’d given up thinking I’d ever see him … I just never imagined … after all this time …’

‘Nor me. The children must be a tad surprised.’

She winced at his understatement.

‘They don’t know. Nor does Richard. It just came this morning when we were all having breakfast. I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. It was hell, pretending everything was normal.’

Jamie raised his eyebrows. ‘I must admit I never thought he’d pitch up. But you’ll see him at last. That’s brilliant, darling.’ Despite Jamie’s words, his eyes were bright with concern.

She dropped her face into her hands, the background noise fading as she tried to make sense of her emotions. A pulse thudded in her head.

‘I want to see what he’s like, of course, but …’

Jamie looked puzzled. ‘But what? Isn’t this exactly what you’ve wanted all these years? To meet Tom again, to know what happened to him?’ He glanced down at the letter again. ‘Well, Daniel now.’

‘Daniel … Daniel Gray,’ Annie whispered, turning the name over on her tongue. Strange to think he’ll never have known the name I gave him. It had been Tom from the moment he was born. She had dreaded the birth, longed for it at the same time. She’d just wanted it over, to forget the whole thing had ever happened and get back to her life. But by the time they came to take him away, she knew every inch of him by heart. She counted his breaths, marvelled at the perfection of his newborn skin, the velvety cap of strawberry-blonde hair, gazed into his dark eyes, felt the squeeze of his starfish fingers, pressed her nose to his body to inhale the warm, milky scent. Never, not for a moment, did she imagine that her nineteen-year-old self would fall in love with that tiny, scrumpled form. She could still feel the softness of his skin beneath her fingers as she sat in the crowded cafe today.

‘How on earth did they trace you?’

Annie shrugged. ‘No idea.’ She paused. ‘Mother? But she’s moved since then.’

‘Anyway, she wouldn’t do that without telling you, would she? Pass on your details like that.’

Such faith! Jamie’s forgotten what she’s like, she thought, even though he’s borne the brunt of her spitefulness for years. He had, in the end, won her mother’s grudging respect with his charm and good manners, despite the fact that he’d declared himself gay at the age of twenty-one and gone on to train as a nurse – a series of events that had made her mother’s eyes widen in horror. ‘I did warn you,’ Eleanor had declared self-righteously, ‘there was always something not quite right about that boy.’ Jamie, however, despite Eleanor Westbury’s caveat, had been very successful. He was currently in charge of the ICU at a busy north-London hospital.

Jamie tried to get the attention of the frenetic waitress.

‘What can I get you?’ the Russian girl snapped, daring them to hesitate for even a second before making their choice.

‘Cappuccino, extra hot, double strength, no chocolate, please.’ She spoke fast, eager to get back to the subject of Tom. Jamie asked for English breakfast tea.

‘You want milk with that?’

‘Please.’

‘You don’t sound very keen to see him,’ Jamie commented after the waitress had gone.

‘No, I am. Of course I am.’

‘So what is it? What’s bothering you? I mean I know this is a big moment, but …’

‘I suppose it’s telling the children,’ she interrupted. ‘Richard knows, of course. But having to admit to the others that I haven’t been exactly truthful all their lives.’

Jamie raised his eyebrows. ‘Why would they care? They’ll probably be gripped to meet their brother.’

‘You think so?’

‘Well, it’s intriguing, isn’t it? Meeting a rel you didn’t know you had? I’d be excited.’

She smiled at her friend’s enthusiasm. Was it that simple? Wouldn’t they be upset she hadn’t told them? It was such a huge secret. And what about Ed? Maybe the girls wouldn’t mind having a brother, but how would he react to not being her only son?

‘Anyway, darling, you can’t not see him, you’d go mental knowing he was out there. You know you would.’

This was true. She had wanted this, as Jamie said, since the day they took Tom away. But it was the baby Tom she yearned for. This Daniel person, although just as much her son, obviously, was now a thirty-five-year-old man. All previous imaginings would be meaningless.

She took a deep breath. ‘Won’t he hate me for what I did to him?’

Jamie didn’t reply for a moment. ‘Depends what happened to him, but he can’t be wanting to see you just to say how much he hates you. That’d be perverse. Unless he’s … well, I’m sure he’s not.’

‘Not what?’

‘I was going to say unless he’s a nutter.’ Jamie shot her an apologetic grin, but she wasn’t really paying attention.

‘They’ll think it was a terrible thing I did … giving my baby away.’

‘No, they won’t. You can explain why. It’s not as if you were the first teenager ever to have an illegitimate child in the sixties. I’m sure I’d have had one myself if it was possible.’

When Annie didn’t respond, he went on, ‘Come on, Annie, buck up. It’s a bit of a shock, I’ll grant you, but it’s basically good news. Your long-lost son is back!’

She suddenly realised what he was saying. ‘No, you’re totally right,’ she said slowly. ‘I’m being pathetic. Of course I’ll meet him … and finally see how he turned out.’

Jamie patted her hand approvingly. ‘Atta girl! Feel the fear. Live the dream!’

She laughed. ‘Shut up, will you? You’re making me sound like some half-witted reality-TV contestant.’

‘Hmmm … now there’s an idea. Has it been done?’ He paused, head on one side, then spread his palms in the air, gazing, dewy-eyed, into the middle-distance. ‘I can see it now: mothers reunited with their long-lost children, lots of sobbing and regret, bit of stagey rage, but mainly LURV. We could call it Mum Swap, or Family Makeover … what about This Is Your Mum?’

‘Giving your baby up for adoption isn’t funny, Jamie.’

Jamie looked contrite. ‘No. No, sorry, of course it’s not. But I genuinely think it’d be marvellous to be reunited with a child you gave up. This has been hanging over you for thirty-odd years, Annie, even though you never, ever mention it. Well, now you can finally lay your past to rest and be, well, free.’

I’ll only be free, she thought, if Tom forgives me. As Jamie said, she didn’t talk about it, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t felt guilt, a lasting regret, since that day. Her life had been good, she had three other beautiful children, but that didn’t negate her feelings about her firstborn.

As they left the restaurant and walked arm in arm alon. . .