All the Little Lies

There was a third picture entitled Maggie and Me and this was lovely. Two young women, both very slender, one with a mass of brown hair and the other with a tumble of russet curls. They stood in a woodland glade. Trees heavy with leaves surrounded them. Their long skirts, one green, one dark blue, floated in the breeze. Strands of hair trailed across their faces.

At the bottom of the page she found a photograph. Not very clear, but Eve saw enough to make her catch her breath. This was what Stella Carr had really looked like. She was the one with the red hair, although here it was more ginger than russet and there was a scattering of freckles across the pale skin that the painting had omitted. She seemed to be not only slim, but small. And Eve could understand why Suzanne had sent the link now.

Stella Carr was extraordinarily similar to Eve herself. Not that Suzanne could have understood the significance – she knew nothing about Eve’s origins.

But the photograph, the link with the gallery, and that tantalizing hint of memory were enough to tell Eve one thing.

This woman, Stella Carr, had to be her own birth mother.

At 4.30 it was still light outside. They’d been having an Indian summer, but as evening drew closer a chill wind had sprung up off the sea sending a few dead leaves rattling along the footpath. Eve pulled her jacket close to her throat, trying to control her breathing. She needed to deal with this as calmly as she could.

Her parents lived only a short distance away, down the hill in the Old Town of Hastings. She always used to walk there, but although it was tarmac or solid steps all the way, it was steep going. She had to agree with Alex that at seven months pregnant it wasn’t worth the risk. And the climb back would be impossible.

When she was sitting in the car she took out her mobile to text Alex. He had been coming home earlier and earlier recently and he would panic if she wasn’t there.

Just popping over to see Mum and Dad. Love you XXX.

After she’d sent it she shook her head at how different it sounded from the way she was feeling.

As she drove down towards the sea she shivered at the sight of the foam-topped waves speeding towards the beach and the bank of grey cloud on the horizon. Winter was coming. And her baby girl was due in the dead of winter. She had been looking forward to it so much. But now she wasso disturbed she could hardly think let alone formulate the words she would need when she confronted her mum and dad.

They had lied to her.

All these years they had told her they knew nothing about her birth mother except that she was young and alone and couldn’t look after a child.

Eve was in no doubt that Stella Carr was her mother. They were so alike that seeing the photograph was like looking in a mirror, but what clinched it was the mention of the Houghton Gallery, where Stella’s only exhibition during her lifetime had been held. Eve’s father, David, was a partner in the gallery throughout the 1980s. It didn’t belong to him: his friend, Ben Houghton, was the money man. But it was David who knew about art and had the eye as he always said. He was the one who organized the exhibitions. So if Stella Carr had been part of one he must have known her.

Her parents moved to Hastings when they decided to start a family and bought a tiny gallery just off the seafront. Eve had never seen Houghton’s, which had closed when she was very young, though she imagined it had been a lot more swish than the little Hastings shop. But her parents were happy with the move. Except they found they couldn’t have children and so they adopted Eve. When she left home to go to university they had sold the family house and now lived above the shop (her dad hated her calling it that: ‘It’s a gallery not a shop, Eve,’) in a cosy little flat.

The cobbled street outside the gallery was pedestrianized, so Eve had to park a few hundred yards away. As she came close to the shop her steps slowed and she hugged her jacket to her, dreading the next few minutes. She loved her parents so much, but this seemed to change everything. How could they have deceived her all her life?

Her dad was alone wrapping a picture on the small desk at the back of the gallery. He beamed at her. ‘Eve, what a lovely surprise. Alex not with you?’

‘No.’ She couldn’t even pretend to act normally.

‘Everything all right, lovely?’

‘I need to speak to you and Mum.’

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes in the way he always did when he was worried, and she bit back on the temptation to say everything was all right.

Because it wasn’t.

One long look and he said, ‘Your mum’s upstairs. Ask her to put the kettle on and I’ll be with you in a minute.’

He seemed about to reach for her, but she walked past him and through the door at the back that led to the stairs.

She couldn’t avoid her mum’s arms as she came out into the warm kitchen at the top. It was the same soft hug with a little squeeze at the end that Eve knew so well, but today it felt different. Counterfeit somehow. The way it had sometimes seemed to her when she was a teenager and she and Jill argued endlessly.

‘Are you all right, darling? You look pale.’

Eve sat at the pine table. It had stood in the kitchen of their old house for as long as she could remember. ‘I’m OK. I just need to speak to you and Dad. Together.’

Her mother thumped down opposite. ‘What is it?’ Her voice wavered. ‘Not the baby?’

‘No. It’s fine. I’m fine.’

Jill moved to touch her hands across the table, but Eve sat back arms crossed.

‘And there’s nothing wrong between me and Alex either.’

She had printed out the article, and she pulled it from her bag to put in front of her mother. Jill looked down at the paper, her fingers plucking at one corner. Long after Eve knew she must have finished reading she stayed staring down, saying nothing.

Finally Eve could stand it no longer. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she said.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs and Jill turned as Eve’s father came through the door. He looked from Eve to her mother. The silence felt heavy, but Eve didn’t speak. Instead she pulled the article from Jill’s fingers. Her mum gave a tiny cry as if it had hurt.

Eve thrust the paper at her dad. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she repeated.

It seemed to take only a glance for him to see what it was. A sigh. ‘Let’s have a cup of tea and talk this through properly, shall we?’

Before he’d finished Eve’s mum stood and began to fill the kettle. Eve wanted to shout at them that she didn’t need tea, she needed the truth. But when her dad sat next to her, turned his chair towards her and took her hands, she felt like throwing herself into his arms and asking him to tell her it was all a mistake. That nothing had changed.

As Jill took milk from the fridge, Eve watched her familiar figure. She was small and dumpy with a round face that still showed only a few wrinkles. Her curly hair was coloured the same soft brown it had always been, with just a hint of grey at the roots. But since her heart attack a few years ago she had begun to walk with a slight stoop. When she came to sit with them at the table again she lowered herself carefully.

Eve felt a twang of guilt for upsetting her, but she had to know. Eventually her mother met her eyes.

‘We didn’t mean to deceive you. Please believe that.’ It was almost a whisper. She reached for her husband’s hand and his fingers tightened on hers as he began to nod in time with her words. ‘You always knew you were adopted. When you were tiny, we told you we loved being your parents and that you were the most wonderful gift we’d ever been given. That’s the only truth that matters.’

Eve bit her lip so hard it hurt, fighting to keep the anger from her voice. ‘You said you knew virtually nothing about my birth mother.’ She felt the baby kick under her ribcage and rubbed her hand over the hard mound of her belly. It’s all right, my darling. She had to keep calm.

Jill sighed and ran her fingers through her curls, and David said, ‘We told you she was very young and couldn’t look after a child. That she wanted you to have a family, the kind of life she could never give you. The only thing we didn’t tell you was her name.’

Eve couldn’t hold back a bitter laugh. ‘You didn’t think to mention you knew her?’

‘What good would that have done? She was dead.’

‘And you didn’t tell me that either.’ This was unbelievable.

Her mother’s fingers were pressed to her mouth, muffling her words. ‘When you were little it would only have upset you. And as you grew older you didn’t seem interested in knowing anything more.’

Eve stood, pushing the chair back. Her dad stopped it from falling over. ‘Of course I was interested, but you always made me feel you would be hurt if I tried to find my real parents.’

‘Oh, Eve, don’t say that.’ Her mother’s voice cracked and she pulled a tissue from the box on the table.

David’s expression, when he looked at Eve, was one she remembered from when she misbehaved as a kid. ‘Please, Eve. You’re upsetting your mother and in your condition you mustn’t get stressed.’

She felt suddenly exhausted, her knees so weak she could no longer stand. She dropped back onto her seat and her words came out on a huge sigh. ‘Just tell me everything.’