My Mother's Choice: An utterly heartbreaking and emotional page-turner Read online

  My Mother's Choice

  An utterly heartbreaking and emotional page-turner

  Ali Mercer

  Books by Ali Mercer

  My Mother’s Choice

  His Secret Family

  Lost Daughter

  Available in Audio

  His Secret Family (Available in the UK and the US)

  Lost Daughter (Available in the UK and the US)

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  His Secret Family

  Hear More from Ali

  A Letter from Ali

  Books by Ali Mercer

  Lost Daughter

  Acknowledgements

  *

  For David

  Prologue

  Laura’s Diary

  Since leaving him I’ve found myself doing all kinds of other things I wouldn’t normally do. Coming here, for a start. I didn’t even think twice about the drive – all those hours on the M4 with Dani in the back, the rain sheeting down when we got to the West Country, the tangle of lanes and bad signposts at the end.

  But we made it. And Dani was so good. It was almost as if she knew how badly I needed her to be calm and patient. It was like having a mini adult with me, who had decided to be kind and supportive and help me to follow through on what I’d started. It was not at all like having a real adult with me – at least, not if that adult had been my husband.

  If Jon had been with me – under other circumstances, at a more ordinary time – he’d have been impatient with my driving, and I would have had to turn a blind eye to his.

  But Dani said, Don’t worry, Mummy, when I took yet another wrong turn, when it was long after dark and she should have been bathed and in bed. We’ll get there.

  And then we did, and I drew up outside the dark little cottage and the key was under the pot of lavender in the front garden, just as I’d been told it would be. When I went in and flicked the switch the lights came on and I saw the cottage for what it was: a small, plain, sparsely furnished lifesaver. A place where Dani and I could live simply from day to day, lying low, eating and sleeping and making trips to the beach. A chance for me to rest and recover, and regain my strength to face what would come next.

  We slept well in our unfamiliar beds – we were too worn out by the long drive for either of us to have trouble sleeping – and this morning we walked down the lane to the corner shop to buy eggs and tea and juice and milk for breakfast. I’d come away in such a rush, I’d only packed enough snacks to see us through the journey.

  I’d forgotten to pack sunhats, too. Luckily they had a rack of them in the shop. I chose a straw Stetson, and Dani picked out a bright yellow cloth hat.

  ‘There’ll be no losing you in that,’ I said to her, though the truth is there’s no losing Dani anywhere; her bright red curls make her stand out in any crowd.

  They sold stationery next to the till. I picked up a packet of felt tips and some paper for Dani to draw on. Then, on impulse, I added a couple of ballpoint pens and a pad of lined A4 paper, with a spiral-bound spine so it opened up like a book.

  I said to the lady behind the till, ‘You’re quiet this morning.’

  ‘Oh, it comes and goes,’ she said, ringing up my purchases. She had a Scottish accent. I suppose Cornwall is full of people who have come from somewhere else, drawn by the warmer weather and the sea and the desire to get away.

  ‘We’re at Curlew Cottage, at the top of the lane,’ I told her. ‘Are you Mandy?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me, the one who put the key out for you last night. It was an impulse thing, then, you coming here? They said it was a last-minute booking.’

  ‘Yes, it was. Thanks for your help.’

  Did I look like a runaway? She looked us over and took in my rings, the solitaire diamond and the gold band, which I’ve carried on wearing because in spite of everything, I’m a long way from being ready to give them up. Her own wedding ring was stuck on her chubby finger as if it hadn’t come off for years.

  It was obvious she wanted to ask more, but she restrained herself and just said, ‘Well, looks like you’ve got good weather. Might as well make the most of it.’

  ‘We will,’ I said.

  Dani wanted us to wear our hats straight away, so Mandy snipped the tags out for us and we walked back up the lane to the cottage with them on. It felt almost as if we were on holiday. Or it might have done if I knew where home is going to be when we leave.

  And now here I am, sitting at the garden table in the sunshine with one of my new pens in my hand and the A4 notebook open in front of me, and Dani next to me, drawing.

  I thought I could make to-do lists, map out my next move. I could note down what I want, figure out all the problems I’ll have to solve to get there.

  But instead the pen and paper just make me want to write… write for its own sake, to make a record, though I have no idea who for. Like sticking a flag in the ground to say I was here.

  If only I could swim back through time to the beginning, when nothing had gone wrong, when none of the mistakes had been made. But there is no going back. There is only the present, and my whole future rests on what I choose to do next. Dani’s, too. Because Dani is my future. But she is also his, and that’s what makes it so hard to know what to do for the best. It’s not just about feelings – betrayal and love and guilt. It’s about blood and earth, the ties that bind us to people and places we only think we can leave behind.

  Everything that happens here seems important and unreal at the same time, weighted with possible consequences even if it’s nothing out of the ordinary in itself. Like a dream that seems to be trying to tell you something, maybe even to warn you, but you have no way of knowing what it means.

  I have a decision to make, and I am putting it off. I don’t want to face it. Not yet.

  In the meantime, I have to protect Dani. She needs to know that none of this is her fault.

  And most of all, I have to make sure she never finds out what he has done.

  One

  Dani

  Ten years later

  On the morning of my fourteenth birthday Aunt Carrie looked knackered, which was nothing new. Birthdays weren’t all that easy for me either, but I figured the best way to deal with it was not to think about it too much, whereas Aunt Carrie was the brooding sort. She thought about all of it a lot – much more than was good for her – and it kept her awake at night. You only had to look at her face to know: pale, beaky, with deep little lines round the mouth and eyes and the expression of someone who suffered from a near-permanent headache.

  Still, at least she’d remembered. There was a card and a parcel waiting for me on the dining-room table when I came down for breakfast. I assumed Dad had forgotten – not for the first time.

  ‘Happy birthday,’ Aunt Carrie said, and carried on eating her toast.
br />   ‘Yeah, well, it’s not really that different to any other day, is it? I mean, I’ve still got school and stuff.’

  Aunt Carrie looked wounded. I ignored her and put down my bowl of cornflakes and set about opening my present. I already knew she hadn’t got me any of the things I wanted. OK, maybe a PlayStation was a big ask, but a phone that wasn’t two years old would have done nicely, or the new Sims game. But no, it was obvious from the shape of the package that she’d got me books, something called I Capture the Castle with a girl in a drippy white dress holding some flowers on the cover, and Rebecca, which had spooky-looking writing and an old house.

  ‘I hope you’ll enjoy them,’ Aunt Carrie said. She was always on at me to read.

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure I will.’

  I pretended to take in the blurbs on the back, then put the books down. I knew I’d probably never get round to tackling them. There were quite a few books about the place, but the only ones I ever looked at were the romantic ones Aunt Carrie kept in her bedroom, which I sometimes peeked at for a laugh when she was out. None of the men I’d ever met were at all like the heroes Aunt Carrie liked, putting themselves in harm’s way to save helpless girls, or turning from mean to soppy because of a single kiss.

  I knew it made her sad that I preferred playing on the computer to reading. But then, lots of things made Aunt Carrie sad. I didn’t hug her or anything – we didn’t go in for a whole lot of that. In fact, we spent most of our time together in the house as physically far apart as possible, whether we were watching telly or eating or doing weekend chores. I wasn’t mad keen on having my personal space invaded – not by anybody, including Aunt Carrie. It didn’t help that my hair was so curly, which meant people often wanted to touch it, but I’d developed a pretty good glare that meant they usually got the message and backed off fast.

  ‘I’ve put some money in your savings account,’ she said. She was always on at me to save, too.

  ‘Thanks.’

  I opened my birthday card. It had a picture of an elegant, long-haired lady lying in a hammock, writing in a notebook. If that was her idea of who I was going to turn into when I grew up, I figured she had another think coming.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said again, and set about eating my cornflakes. Aunt Carrie didn’t say anything, just nodded and tightened her lips. She carried on sitting there at the round dining table, looking out through the French windows that she was always so careful to lock in case of burglars, staring at the birds splashing and playing in the birdbath.

  Poor old Aunt Carrie. You had to feel sorry for her, in a way – or at least I might have done if I hadn’t found her so annoying. She never could have expected to find herself lumbered with bringing up her little sister’s kid more or less single-handed. But as it turned out, she was stuck with a cuckoo in the nest – a curly-haired, freckly, stroppy cuckoo, who had refused ballet lessons and wasn’t always polite to grown-ups and got into trouble at school. And didn’t read. Worse still, the nest was empty apart from us. I was a cuckoo without any siblings, and she was a mama bird without a partner. It was a recipe for resentment on both sides.

  I had a pretty shrewd idea what was on her mind, and I had at least as much right as her to sit round feeling sad about it. But actually, I just wanted to get away from her. So I finished as fast as I could and said, ‘Right-o, I’d better get going.’

  She didn’t actually answer, but let out a gurgling kind of noise that probably meant she was crying, or trying not to. I decided the best thing was to ignore her and went to wash up my bowl. There were times when chores were actually quite useful.

  If there was anything I’d learned in my fourteen years on the planet, that was it – to keep my feelings to myself and out of sight, like the dirty laundry we put in a wicker basket with a lid, and that Aunt Carrie sorted through and turned into neatly folded and ironed things that she reproached me for not putting away properly.

  The other thing that was helpful was to discourage anybody and everybody from asking questions. People who knew a little bit about me were sometimes curious. They wanted to know what was it like having a dead mum, did I remember her, did I look like her, did I remind my dad of her and was that why he didn’t want to see me very much and so on and so forth. They wanted to know how sorry they ought to feel for me.

  But my answer – the only one I was prepared to give them – was that they shouldn’t feel sorry for me at all. I didn’t want hugs and pats and sympathy, and if anybody tried all that with me, I was more likely to want to punch them on the nose than anything else. And that went for Aunt Carrie, too.

  I wasn’t in the greatest of moods when I rocked up at school, and the day didn’t improve.

  Nobody really knew it was my birthday, so there wasn’t a lot of fuss. I should have been relieved, but I just found myself getting more and more fed up. By the time I got to French, which was the first lesson after lunch, people were pretty much avoiding me. They didn’t know me that well, but on the whole, they knew me well enough to keep their distance when I got angry.

  French was boring at the best of times, but was almost unbearable on a warm afternoon. Mr Matthews, our teacher, seemed to feel the same way. He set us some work to do and got on with his marking, and his head bowed so low over his desk at the front that once or twice I thought he’d actually managed to doze off.

  The task he’d set us was to write a paragraph describing our families. We were allowed to make stuff up for this kind of task: it didn’t have to be strictly accurate. Maybe Mr Matthews appreciated that some of us didn’t go on holiday or do anything much at the weekend or feel like describing where we lived. Or maybe he felt that if there was any chance of being entertained by our efforts, he should take it.

  But I didn’t feel much like being entertaining. Instead I decided to write something that might wake Mr Matthews up.

  J’habite avec ma tante. Mon père habite dans le meme ville. Je le vois quelquefois.

  I live with my aunt. My dad lives in the same town. I see him sometimes.

  J’ai une photo de ma mère dans ma salle de chambre. Elle etait très belle. Je suis dans le photo aussi. J’avais quatre ans. Aujourd’hui j’ai quatorze ans. Mon père a oublié mon anniversaire.

  On ne parle pas de ma mère.

  I have a photo of my mum in my bedroom. She was very pretty. I’m in the photo too. I was four. Today I’m fourteen. My dad forgot my birthday.

  We don’t talk about my mum.

  There! Hopefully that would give Mr Matthews something to pay attention to. I’d pressed so hard as I was writing that I’d poked little holes in the paper. I had no idea if the French was right or wrong, and I didn’t care.

  The next lesson was science. I sat next to Josie Pye, who was skinny and little and always got picked on. She was there before me – she was that kind of kid, always on time, always trying her hardest, never realising that didn’t really get you anywhere. As I settled down next to her and got my pencil case out of my bag she muttered something I didn’t hear, then slid a card in a bright pink envelope across the desk.

  She’d gone bright red. I said, ‘Is that for me?’

  ‘Yeah. It is your birthday, right? Happy birthday.’

  There was a packet of sweets stuck to the envelope. I took them off and tore it open. Inside was a card with a Cocker Spaniel on the front. The dog had big dopey love-me eyes, a bit like Josie – the kind of look that brings out either the soft side in people or the nasty side, depending.

  ‘Sorry it’s a bit cheesy,’ Josie said. ‘It was either that or one with teddy bears and flowers on it.’

  ‘It was nice of you. Thanks. I like dogs, but my aunt won’t let me have one,’ I said.

  Gemma Case, who was sitting in front of us and who was one of the people who especially liked to make Josie’s life a misery, turned round and stared at us. I glared at Gemma and she turned away.

  Mr Hodge, the science teacher, started droning on about what happens when an unstoppable force meets a
n immovable object. I opened the sweets Josie had given me and offered Josie one.

  She hesitated – she wasn’t one for breaking rules and eating sweets in class was one of many things we weren’t supposed to do. But she took one, and I took one too and pocketed the rest. We sat there discreetly sucking our sweets and the teacher didn’t notice, and I thought that perhaps school wasn’t quite so bad after all.

  When I got home there was another, much bigger surprise waiting for me.

  I spotted it as soon as I came out of the alleyway that led from the bridge over the stream to our road. It was leaning against the front of the house with a big pink totally over-the-top bow tied round the crossbar and a helmet dangling from the handlebars by its straps.

  It was a bike. A beautiful gleaming silver bike. I knew at once who’d left it there. There was only one person in the world who would get me something like that and then not stick around to see my reaction to it.

  He’d at least taken the precaution of locking it – though knowing Dad, he would have been confident of his ability to get it back if anybody had nicked it. He seemed to have pretty good connections with Kettlebridge’s small semi-criminal underworld. Once, when Aunt Carrie’s elderly neighbour had her new terracotta window-boxes nicked, Dad had intervened and the stolen goods had been returned within twenty-four hours, left on the neighbour’s lawn with an extra potted geranium by way of apology. Aunt Carrie hadn’t even seemed to find this particularly remarkable. ‘Your dad has his ways,’ was all she had said.