All her hostility towards Ellis had been caused by her constantly comparing him to the man who had meant the world to her. At the time it had been inconceivable to her that her mother could be so disloyal to Dad. Yet gradually she had begun to warm to Ellis, and that was before Mum’s awful revelations. In recent weeks he had been an enormous support to them all, especially Willow, giving her the keys to Waterside Cottage for as long as she wanted to live there.She planned to move in with the baby at the start of the new year, another sign that she was putting the past behind her and making a fresh start. Martha had nothing but admiration for Willow, something she’d never thought she would say. And far from being unable to cope as a new mother as she had feared, Willow took it in her stride. But then Serenity was such a sweet, placid little thing. Martha just hoped her own daughter would have the same easy-going temperament.
Her official due date was six weeks away, but both Martha and Tom were convinced, based purely on how gigantic she was, that the baby would come sooner than that, if only by a week or so. Everyone said the final weeks of pregnancy dragged, that each day felt like a week in itself, and they were right. Being on maternity leave didn’t help in that respect, but Martha had taken the decision to finish work before Christmas rather than go back for just a few weeks.
On her last day in the office they had thrown a surprise baby shower party for her, complete with cake and Champagne. Except she had to make do with fizzy water while everybody else guzzled their way through several bottles of Moet. Ironically, her farewell gift was a very generous Topolino voucher, which Jason took great pleasure in presenting to her.
‘Nice touch,’ she said to him.
‘Well, now I know you’ve turned down their offer to go and work for them, I can afford to be magnanimous.’
In the end it hadn’t been a difficult decision to say ‘thanks, but no thanks’ to Charlotte at Topolino. Martha’s loyalty, as she’d discovered after that day of being stuck in the lift at work, lay with BND and when her maternity leave was over, she would happily return.In a bid to encourage her to stay, Jason, as he’d previously hinted at, had promised her a special bonus package to welcome her back.
With Rick’s coffin now disappearing behind the curtains, and clearly in no hurry to drag things out any longer than was necessary, both Mum and Ellis rose from their seats to indicate that they had done their duty, they could all go home now. The ashes, according to Willow’s instructions, would be scattered in the crematorium garden at a later date.
Ellis was helping Mum with her coat, when Martha noticed a woman on her own at the back of the chapel. Had she attended the wrong service by mistake? If so, she must have thought it a very lacklustre affair.
Pushing the pram, with Serenity still sleeping peacefully in it, Willow led the way along the aisle of empty seats, but just as she neared the last row, the solitary woman hitched a handbag over her shoulder and stood up. She had a timid, worn-down appearance, as though life had not treated her well. Martha put her in her late sixties, possibly older. Her short, wiry grey hair was unflatteringly cut and from her washed-out face, a pair of watery grey eyes stared at them nervously.
‘I’m sorry to intrude,’ she said in a breathy voice, her gaze darting towards the inside of the pram, ‘but is that Rich … I mean, Rick’s child?’
Martha took a step forwards, ready to shield Willow from any unwarranted questions, but Mum was ahead of her.
‘Why do you want to know?’ she asked. Her tone wasn’t exactly rude, but it certainly wasn’t overly friendly.
Fiddling with the gloves in her hands, the woman said, ‘I’m Rick’s mother.’
Once they had recovered from their shock, they found a quiet sheltered area outside where they could sit down, and the obvious questions flowed.
How could she be Rick’s mother when he’d told Willow that she had committed suicide?
Why had Rick lied?
And what else was there that might now come to light?
In essence it was an unremarkable tale of a boy growing up with a father who drank too much. A father who, after leaving his wife, was replaced by a stepfather who had little interest in Rick, other than making him toe the line.
‘I tried my best with him,’ the woman said, whose name they now knew was Eileen, ‘but he was always so difficult. He was ashamed of me. He said I was weak because I wasn’t a better mother, that I didn’t put him first. And then the trouble started.’
‘What kind of trouble?’ asked Martha. She couldn’t help but feel suspicious of this woman who had shown up out of nowhere. Why was she here? Was she going to start demanding grandparent rights? Or was she here to challenge the will Rick had made, leaving everything to his child? Did she think she was entitled to a share?
‘A neighbour’s cat disappeared and a week later it was found hanging from a tree.’
Willow let out a small gasp. She was on her feet now, rocking the pram to keep Serenity asleep, even though she didn’t appear to be stirring.
‘And when it happened twice more and he said how funny it was that cats kept disappearing and then showing up dead,I just knew in my bones that he had something to do with it. He hated cats, he said they were sly and you could never trust them.’
An uneasy hush fell on the group as they all looked at each other. It was broken by Eileen blithely continuing.
‘Which was ironic because he lied and cheated as easily as breathing. In the end, and after he turned eighteen and finished his A-levels, my husband insisted that he move out. It sounds terrible, but it was a relief when he did leave us; the arguments were escalating, and he frightened me when he lost his temper. He seemed so angry with life.’
‘Did he go to university?’ asked Willow. ‘He told me he did.’
The woman shook her head. ‘I doubt it. Unless he talked his way in somehow.’
‘So where did he go?’ This was from Mum.
‘I know what you’re thinking, that as his mother I let him down, but he was so difficult. It really was better for him to go. I never knew for sure where he went, but I assumed it was London. The last words he said to me were to swear he would never speak to me again, that he was going to change his name and reinvent himself.’ She paused as if to catch her breath. ‘He would often say that, that he was going to besomeone,not a pathetic nobody like me or his stepfather. I suppose by telling you his parents were dead, that was how he felt about us. It was his way of cutting all ties with his past.’
‘Was Rick Falconer actually his name?’ probed Martha. ‘You called him Rich when you first approached us.’
