The Truth About My Mother

by Jemma Wallace

Genres: Family Life; Romantic Comedy; General Fiction

Synopsis

For fans of Harriet Evans, Lucinda Riley and Rowan Coleman. The Truth About My Mother is a sweeping family drama about secrets, sacrifice and love, spanning from the 1950s to present day.

All families have secrets, don’t they?

89-year-old Jeannette never meant to keep the truth from her family. But when a near fatal fall sends her to live with her granddaughter Amy, she finds herself revisiting a past that’s been hidden for too many years.

Amy, however, has always been good at keeping secrets. When ex-partner Nick shows up, she’s forced to admit that some things just can’t stay hidden forever.

Judith is starting from scratch – again. The master of reinvention, Amy’s mother has been seeking happiness in all the wrong places. This time though, she might just find it a lot closer to home than she ever believed she would…

As Jeannette’s 90th birthday party approaches, all three women discover they have more in common than they first thought, and the secrets from the past may be the key to unlocking the future.

Three women. Three generations. One legacy they all share…

From the winner of the Gingerbread and Trapeze New Writer Award.

Release date: February 20, 2020

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 336

Sample

We are the 1 in 4!

One weekend, single mum Emma took her young daughter to the local cinema. When requesting a family ticket, the assistant responded “but you’re not a real family”. Upset and angry, Emma left the cinema and contacted Gingerbread, the national charity for single parent families. Together we went on national TV to highlight Emma’s experiences and the stigma still attached to single parent families today.

Inspired by Emma, Gingerbread launched a new campaign, We are the 1 in 4, to challenge the discrimination often faced by the UK’s one in four families headed by single parents. We asked supporters to share examples on social media to demonstrate how widespread this problem is; but also to challenge those perceptions and show real, positive images of life in a single parent family.

We had an overwhelming response, especially on Twitter. It was clear we’d started a really important conversation, with lots of followers sharing their experiences. Within a month of launching, we reached over 105K impressions on Twitter. The campaign caught the attention of Sam Eades, Publishing Director of Trapeze Books, an imprint of Orion Publishing Group. Touched by the campaign’s message, Sam contacted Gingerbread to learn more about the organisation and understand how we could work together to raise the voices of single parent families.

We launched the “One in Four new writer competition” in September 2017 to find a debut writer with first-hand experience of life in a single parent family. Whether they had grown up in a single parent household or were a single parent themselves, we wanted to find a new talent to write a novel celebrating the brilliance of single parent families. Too often, diverse families are under-represented in storytelling or portrayed negatively – we wanted to change this. We wanted to shine a light on the brilliant work single parents do.

A publishing contract with Trapeze was on offer to the winner! The prize was to be awarded to the most original and exciting proposal for a contemporary novel. We promoted the competition far and wide, calling on aspiring writers to submit the first 5,000 words of a novel, a 500-word synopsis, plus a short bio about their experience of single parent family life.

We received a whopping 250 entries. Eight individuals were shortlisted and, in early 2018, joined Trapeze Books at a mentoring session to take part in writing workshops and seminars supporting them to learn new writing skills and techniques. This was a fantastic runner up prize.

Following the mentoring session, Gingerbread worked alongside author Tilly Bagshawe, journalist Marisa Bates, agent Rowan Lawton, and Sam Eades, Mireille Harper and Katie Brown from Trapeze to judge the eight shortlisted entrants. The standard of writing and storytelling was fantastic, but we knew there was one clear winner.

Single mum Jemma’s submission The Truth About My Mother was brilliant. A multi-generational novel following two women from the same family as they each embark on their own journeys through single parenthood in 1958 and 2012, Jemma’s story explored changing perceptions of single parenthood. It was inspired by Jemma’s own family experiences of her grandmother raising her mother alone in the 1950s. We knew we had an outstanding writer and inspirational story – we were delighted to give Jemma the opportunity to develop her book and awarded her the prize.

In 2018, Gingerbread celebrated 100 years of delivering change for single parent families. Today, our mission is to champion and enable single parent families to live secure, happy and fulfilling lives. One way we achieve this is to challenge the stigma that still remains for the close to two million single parent families in the UK today, and to celebrate the value that diverse families bring to our society. We are immensely excited that Jemma’s novel will play an important part in helping us to achieve that. As with all single parents, there is a unique and inspiring story to tell, and it’s time those one in four voices are heard. Well done, Jemma!

Victoria BensonChief Executive Officer, Gingerbread

Silly old fool. Jeannette stares up at the kitchen ceiling and through slightly blurred vision notices a long deep crack running from one spotlight to another. From where she is lying she cannot see the clock on the wall and the loud tick-tock of time passing is becoming increasingly muffled. The sound has been joined in her ears by the steady beat of her pulse, as her heart continues trying to push the blood around her body, perhaps unaware that there is a leak; a slowly seeping wound that trickles through the back of her hair. Every bone and muscle in her body is protesting, aching against the cold granite tiles and her head throbs in rhythm with the other beats, from the spot where it hit the floor with a sickening thud.

In her mind she had fallen in slow motion; one foot whipping up, caught unawares by an invisible spillage, the other foot following closely behind, her hand trying to reach out for something to grab hold of. Lying here now, it occurs to Jeannette that this could be the beginning of her end. Eighty-nine-year-olds don’t fall like this and survive. And if the fall doesn’t finish her off soon, then the hospital diseases surely will. Another tear trickles down the side of her head.

Her granddaughter Amy had warned her to take it easy, to stop trying to do everything for herself and to wait for the home help, Shona, who popped in once a day to scuttle around, tidying sporadically while heating up some god-awful frozen ready meal. Amy also insisted she keep the damn mobile phone in her cardigan pocket, so that if anything did happen, she could call for help.

The phone is ringing loudly now and vibrating, rattling its way across the small table beside her armchair in the next room, merrily singing out the tune her great-grandson Brodie helped her select. What was it called again? Something beginning with an ‘s’ … silver, solarium … she can’t quite remember. She supposes it doesn’t matter now anyway and buoys her hopes by the thought that if she isn’t answering her phone, whoever is calling will start to worry. Unless it’s just those PPI buggers again.

Jeannette closes her eyes, trying desperately to take her mind somewhere else, somewhere far away. She is on the beach in North Berwick, sitting on a woollen rug next to her best friend Morag, their shoulders touching as they watch the children play near the water. Her daughter Judith, only three years old, is kneeling next to one of Morag’s older girls, who fills a bucket with wet sand before turning it over and patting it sharply. The wind whips at all the children’s hair, obscuring their faces from view. Jeannette’s heart tugs as the memory pulls away, twisting into another. She is in the registry office watching Judith stand at the front of the room, holding hands with Tony. Her daughter is smiling euphorically, gazing at her soon-to-be husband, her hand placed protectively on the small bump swelling underneath the makeshift wedding dress. Jeannette feels herself trying to stand, she wants to get up, to tell her daughter that she’s being foolish, that she has her whole life ahead of her; that this man, this boy standing next to her, doesn’t deserve her love.

When she opens her eyes again slowly, the crack is still there, deep and black against the bright white of the kitchen ceiling. Jeannette knows, as she has for years, that there was not one person in the world that could have stopped Judith walking into that registry office on a Friday in the spring of 1975. Seventeen years old and swept along by a handsome young man; the brooding type that seemed to have all the girls craving a boy who would treat them badly.

Jeannette’s dislike for Tony began the moment they met. He couldn’t look her in the eye. Her own mother had been adamant; if someone couldn’t look you in the eye, they were not to be trusted. Seventeen years of protecting, nurturing and loving Judith, stolen away by the boy who lacked the ability to cherish even himself. Judith lost that first baby at twenty-one weeks. She called him Jonathan and let the hospital keep his remains for medical science. Jeannette suggested they have some kind of memorial service for the lost baby, but Judith said she didn’t want to think about it ever again, that she was sure Jeannette was happy Tony’s baby was dead, and despite Jeannette’s protestations, the void between them widened. When her great-grandson Brodie was born, they had shared a moment of reconciliation; the event bringing out an unexpected sentimentality in them both. They had even held hands outside the delivery room while they waited for Amy to be checked over. If only they could have made it last.

Jeannette groans loudly as another sharp pain shoots up through her left leg and hip and more tears spill down the side of her face, the liquid collecting in her ear, deafening her further. She’d thought about her life decisions so many times and been certain she had made the right ones, but suddenly the image of her own childhood projects in her mind, starkly contrasted against her memories of Morag’s family home; bustling and full of happiness and life. Something splits. A door to a room she has never wanted to explore creaks open and Jeannette begins to understand why Judith felt as though she had missed out on something growing up. They only ever had each other, just the two of them. She understands now because she had felt it too as a child, she was feeling it now; the loneliness was overwhelming.

There had been suggestions made throughout Jeannette’s pregnancy of adoption; it was the only option available to so many unmarried mothers, but one she had vied strongly against, despite the difficulties she would inevitably face. But lying here, Jeannette begins to wonder for the first time if Judith would have been happier being adopted into a big family; if she would have thrived among brothers and sisters and family pets and, most importantly, if she would have been happier to grow up in a home where there was a mother and a father. They would never know now. The long-ago decision weighed more heavily than it ever had. If she died here today, she wouldn’t be able to apologise to her daughter; to let her know that she thought she had done the right thing at the time, but that she might have been wrong.

Jeannette feels something trembling and thinks the mobile phone might be vibrating in the next room again. Perhaps it is Amy or Ben. Thinking of her grandchildren lifts her spirits a little. If Judith had been adopted, then Amy and Ben may never have existed and she couldn’t imagine the world without them, or Brodie, all of whom fill her home and her heart with love and laughter whenever they visit.

A fresh wave of tiredness crashes over her, bringing with it the strongest desire to close her heavy eyelids, even just for a few seconds. At least she doesn’t feel as cold anymore, in fact she doesn’t feel anything much at all, which is a relief from the pain. Her body is light, as though she might float away like one of those helium balloons all the children get for their birthdays these days, and she thinks that perhaps she will try to move in a minute. Just a little rest and then she will have the energy to push herself over and maybe even crawl to the phone. It might still be ringing for all she knows; she can’t hear a thing except the sound of water in her ears ebbing in and out, swooshing back and forth, and then she is back on the beach in North Berwick again and Judith is running towards her, smiling, her face visible, with her arms outstretched …

Ben Aitken was finishing his third gruelling nightshift when the trolley trundled by, carrying another unfortunate victim of mishap towards one of the curtained cubicles. He briefly wondered if he should lend a hand before heading home, they were short-staffed as always, but one of his colleagues slapped him lightly on the arm.

‘I’ve got this,’ he said. ‘You get off.’

Relieved, Ben was about to turn away, his thoughts drifting to the heavy feather quilt at home; he would get a few hours of blissful rest beneath its cocooning warmth, then eat dinner with his pregnant wife, before showering and returning for his fourth and final nightshift that week. It was only by chance, one last backwards glance, that he spotted the familiar slippers: dark-blue velvet embroidered with a thistle on the front of each. A vague memory of his grandmother sitting in her favourite armchair, peeling back the Christmas wrapping paper, exclaiming at how lovely they were, pushed to the front of his tired mind. He hadn’t chosen the gift, but knew the minute he saw them, that when his gaze travelled up the trolley past the white blankets and thick black straps keeping the patient secure, it would be his grandmother’s face he would see.

He had rubbed his eyes, exhaustion causing him to doubt his own mind, but as he listened the paramedic confirmed the worst to his colleague. ‘This is Jeannette Aitken, eighty-nine years old; slipped at home; blunt force trauma to the back of the head; possible fracture to the right elbow; consciousness inconsistent …’

‘That’s my grandmother,’ he announced to no one in particular, and his colleague pointed him in the direction of the staffroom with an instruction to try and get some rest, he would come and find him as soon as there was any news.

Ben lay on one of the nightshift beds and dialled his sister’s number over and over, listening each time to the voicemail for a moment before hanging up and trying again. He didn’t want to leave a message but she would be at work by now. He knew her boss had a strict rule about mobile phones, but he kept on dialling, kept on trying, his eyelids growing heavier and sleep within reach despite the knot of anxiety twisting in his gut.

She should’ve been dead.

Her brother’s words echoed through Amy’s mind as she abandoned the car on the grass verge of the overcrowded hospital car park. She’d missed eleven calls that morning before managing to sneak off to the toilet at work.

‘It’s an absolute miracle she’s still alive.’ Ben had yawned loudly at the other end of the line.

‘But will she be OK, is she awake?’ Amy was locked in one of the cubicles, her voice low in case her boss, Christine, had followed her from the office. It wasn’t unknown.

‘She’s been conscious but she’s sleeping again now. When can you get here?’

Amy held on to her son’s sticky little hand as they searched the maze of hospital corridors, following the signs according to Ben’s instructions. Brodie spotted his uncle first, yanking his hand from his mother’s and racing ahead.

‘Hey, big guy.’ Ben grabbed the little boy, swinging him up towards the ceiling before pulling him in for a hug. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘Good,’ Brodie replied. ‘I’ve just had chocolate for my tea. In the car.’

‘Lucky you.’ Brodie slid down to the floor. ‘Can you see that machine over there?’ Ben pointed and Brodie turned; his gaze following the direction of his uncle’s finger.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, it sells chocolate. And I quite fancy having some for my dinner too.’ He reached into his trouser pocket and took out some change. ‘Could you do me a favour and go choose some for me please? At least three things, I haven’t eaten all day.’

Brodie nodded quickly and ran over, his fingers and nose pressed against the glass as he studied the vending machine’s contents closely.

Amy pulled Ben into a quick hug. ‘How is she?’

Her brother scratched at the light stubble forming on his jawline; he looked far more tired than she’d ever seen him, the dark circles weighing heavily under his eyes.

‘I can’t believe I’m saying this, but they’ve just sat her up in bed.’ He gave a gentle laugh and shook his head. ‘She was complaining about the view of the ceiling. Apparently she had enough of that this morning.’

Amy smiled. ‘Sounds like Grandma. Do you know what happened?’

‘She just slipped. Shona found her. She must’ve been down there a while though.’

‘How long?’ The thought caused Amy to shudder.

‘They think a couple of hours at least. Shona feels terrible. She was running later than usual. The guy she visits before had some kind of faecal incident she had to clean up.’

Amy wrinkled her nose. ‘But will she be OK? There’s no lasting damage?’

‘They’re still running a few more tests but nothing bad has shown up so far. Euan thinks she should stay with someone for a while when she does get out though, or have someone stay with her.’ Ben indicated another doctor standing at the reception desk, laughing with one of the nurses. ‘I’d offer but Natalie’s having a hard time sleeping and I think it might be too much for her just now.’

‘No, you can’t ask her to do that, not with the baby about to arrive. It’s OK, Grandma can stay with us. Brodie will just have to bunk in with me for a while.’

Ben looked sceptical. ‘You sure? I thought you had enough on your plate at the moment?’

‘Well, Mum’s isn’t an option.’ Amy sighed. ‘Do you know she’s actually living in that studio place now? I honestly think she’s gone mad this time. Anyway, I’m assuming we can still get Shona to pop in and help out at mine, and I’m only in the office three days a week, so I should be around enough to make sure she’s OK.’

‘As long as you think you can manage.’ Ben looked at his watch. ‘I’ll help out as much as I can, but I’ve been in this place for over forty hours this week already. It’s been non-stop.’

Amy touched her brother’s arm gently.

‘I hate to break it to you, but it’s not going to be any better at home soon. Babies don’t tend to let you have much sleep for the first wee while.’

Ben yawned widely. ‘Oh God, Amy, what have I let myself in for?’

They were laughing as Brodie reappeared at Ben’s side.

‘I got you Maltesers,’ he announced, holding up three identical packets.

‘Just Maltesers?’ Ben raised an eyebrow. ‘Was there nothing else to choose?’

Brodie grinned, revealing the dark gap where his latest tooth had fallen out.

‘I like Maltesers,’ he said, holding the packets tightly to his chest.

‘Oh, I see. So, I’m not getting any, am I?’

‘No silly-billy. It’s one for you, one for Mummy and one for me.’

‘What about Great-Grandma?’ Amy asked. Brodie blinked slowly.

‘Does she like chocolate?’ He squeezed the packets more tightly, the paper crinkling in protest.

‘Yes, she does. And she’s here because she’s fallen over and bumped her head, so some chocolate might really cheer her up.’

Amy watched this information seep into her son’s mind. A deep conflict played across his features before he looked up, glancing between them both.

‘I suppose, because she’s not feeling well, she could have mine.’ Brodie closed his eyes, his hand shooting out, offering the packets to either one of them as though they should remove them from his possession immediately, before he changed his mind.

‘How about you give them to her yourself, big guy?’ Ben took Brodie’s other hand in his own. ‘Come on, let’s see how she’s doing.’

‘Oh no.’ Jeannette wagged her index finger at Amy. ‘No, no,’ she said again, shaking her head. ‘I am not being a burden to any of you. I will go home, to my own house, and I will just stop making myself cups of tea.’

Amy wished Ben hadn’t left to get on with his next nightshift. Their grandmother would be far more amenable to any suggestions he made.

Jeannette set her mouth in a firm line and nodded once, resolutely. She was sitting up in the hospital bed, her tiny frame sunken into the giant white pillows behind. On the tray table in front of her was a rapidly cooling cup of tea and some toast, which she’d reported was ‘very dry’ but would eat anyway because she didn’t want to make a fuss.

‘You’ve been incredibly lucky, Mrs Aitken.’ A male nurse stood at the bottom of the bed, scribbling notes on Jeannette’s chart and flipping between pages. ‘But the doctor really would prefer you to stay with someone for a while. Just so you can get a wee bit extra help with things.’ He flashed Amy a smile. The blush began rising from her neck upwards almost immediately. She turned away and perched on the edge of the bed, taking hold of her grandmother’s hand. There didn’t seem to be any flesh between the papery layer of liver-spotted skin and the bones beneath.

‘I want you to stay with us, Grandma. Please? Brodie will love having you there, won’t you, Brodie?’ Her son looked up from the mobile phone she’d used as a sit-down-and-stop-touching-everything bribe.

Jeannette tutted loudly. ‘I don’t want to be a bother to the wee fella, or to you, dear. I wish I’d just waited for Shona to arrive and then none of this would be happening.’

‘Look, how about you come and stay with us for a couple of days and see how you get on. I’m not going to hold you prisoner, I promise.’ Amy crossed her heart and smiled. ‘Just for a while, until you’re better.’ She squeezed Jeannette’s hand lightly.

‘Sounds like a good idea, Mrs Aitken.’ The nurse unclicked the top of his pen and slid it into his pocket. ‘A day or two more in here first though. We need to keep an eye on you for a bit and then we’ll get you home.’

Jeannette gave another loud tut and bit heavily down on a piece of the dry toast. It didn’t look as though she had much choice.

‘Hey kiddo.’

Amy let Brodie clamber up and wrap himself around her in their morning ritual hug. She’d noticed recently that he was getting heavier, almost too big to lift, which only made her more determined to keep these habits going while they still could, even if it did run the risk of back injury. She had watched Brodie blow out the six candles on his birthday cake the month before and experienced a flash of realisation that her baby was morphing into a boy all too rapidly.

She placed her son’s usual breakfast cereal down on the kitchen table and gave his back a light rub as he clambered up onto his favourite chair. He crunched happily away for a few seconds before the first request of the day came in.

‘Mummy. Can I have an iPad?’

Amy was beginning to realise that parenting was a series of negotiations and that six-year-olds were just obsessed with getting ‘stuff’. Admittedly in the last year the type of ‘stuff’ had gone from pocket-money toys (plastic dinosaurs and small Lego sets) to much pricier items, such as Xboxes and PlayStations. She supposed it had only been a matter of time until it was the turn of the iPad.

‘I thought you’d gone off the idea of having an iPad?’ Diversion into a conversation rather than a straight answer was becoming her preferred evasion method.

Brodie looked thoughtful for a moment, batting his long, fair eyelashes.

‘Nope. I still want one,’ he said finally, before stuffing another spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

‘Let’s talk about it when we get home this evening, shall we? I’m just going to check on Grandma. Eat your cereal and watch a cartoon.’

She flicked on the small television set on the corner of the kitchen worktop; a guilty pleasure and sometimes all too necessary distraction tool.

The door brushed against the carpet making a low swooshing sound as she pushed it open and popped her head around into Brodie’s bedroom. They had tried to clear as many of Brodie’s things out as possible so her grandmother would feel comfortable, but there was nothing she could do about the dinosaur wallpaper and matching curtains. Jeannette didn’t seem to mind. Ben had been to her house and picked up a few things to make her feel more at home: a lamp, her quilt, the jewellery box that Amy had been allowed to riffle through as a child to try on the various necklaces and bracelets she kept for special occasions. Jeannette was still sound asleep on Brodie’s single bed and looked peaceful enough; lying on her back, eyes closed, her breathing only just perceptible by the slight rise and fall of the quilt. Amy closed the door again softly.

She hadn’t realised how much she would enjoy having her grandmother come to stay with them. In the four weeks since she’d arrived, they’d fallen easily into a routine; Jeannette preferring to sleep late into the morning so she would have the energy to stay awake a little longer in the evenings.

‘I spent my whole working life getting up at the crack of dawn. I think I deserve a lie-in these days,’ she’d argued.

Originally this was so she could watch her programmes; the soaps, the dramas, sometimes the news, which she would inevitably grumble at, declaring the state of the world a terrible thing. More recently though, Amy and Jeannette would spend their evenings talking. Amy suspected she was enjoying the company more than her grandmother was, who was perfectly used to spending the evening by herself and had often expressed her contentment at living alone. It was something that Amy missed, however, being a single parent; not having someone to come home to, someone to talk to in the evening. Especially once Brodie was in bed.

The thing about their evening conversations Amy was enjoying the most, apart from the lessening guilt now she had someone to share a bottle of wine with occasionally, was hearing the stories about her mother, Judith.

Judith wasn’t the type of person that shared information generally and certainly not stories about her relationship with her own mother. Amy had witnessed the rift between them over the years, but as Jeannette told tales of her daughter, her eyes would fill with so much love and happiness that Amy couldn’t understand how things had gone so wrong between them or how they seemed to have reached a point of no return.

‘OK, clothes and shoes on – they’re on the couch.’ Brodie, still at the kitchen table, had found his mother’s phone, his eyes glued to the screen. He didn’t respond.

‘Brodie,’ Amy said again, more loudly this time, gently removing the phone from his grasp. ‘Clothes and shoes on now, please.’ She pointed in the direction of the living room. The little boy muttered something inaudible but slid down off the chair and went to do as he was told.

By the time they got in the car that morning, Brodie had apparentl. . .