Chapter 16
16
ALICE
Val’s yellow Jeep was barely picking up speed on the road home, when she turned to Alice, eyes wide.
‘In the name of the Holy Mo Farah, Alice, what the hell was that about? One minute my sausage roll was approaching the landing strip, and the next minute you were out of there like yer arse was on fire. I haven’t run that fast since the eighties.’
Alice couldn’t answer because she was staring straight ahead, trying to contain the tornado that was swirling in her head, scooping up every memory and everything she thought she knew, and then shooting it all out in different directions.
The photos of Morag and Cillian.
The scribbles on the back that showed their first date was in March.
The fact that Zac had mentioned his birthday was in October.
There were only two possible explanations: he was premature. Or Morag had slept with someone else before she met Cillian.
If the first was true, then why would he be questioning the date his parents met? Surely he would know if he’d arrived early?
And if the second option was true, then who had Morag slept with? And why hadn’t she shared that with Alice? They’d told each other everything. Absolutely every blooming thing. At least, she’d always thought that they did. But then… another realisation dropped into her consciousness. Morag must have been pregnant when she left for Ireland. Why hadn’t she said anything? Or, like Alice, had she not been aware of it, even though she would have been a few months on? Morag had been a tiny size eight back then – maybe she’d just been one of those women who didn’t show until later in their pregnancy, and didn’t even realise they were pregnant until the baby was practically there? Alice’s mind was whirling as she struggled to decide if that could be plausible. It felt like too much of a stretch. Morag was always way too switched on about her body to have missed that. Surely, she had to have known, but again, why would she have kept that from her? Unless…
Every synapse of her brain tried to prevent Alice from answering that question, despite the building blocks of coincidences that were piling up to a whole big pile of conclusions.
Morag’s sudden dislike of Larry.
Her decision to leave a job she adored and flee the country with a man she’d only just met.
Her warning to Alice at the airport. ‘He’s not who you think he is.’
Her disappearance from Alice’s life.
Maybe if it were just those things, then she could sweep it to one side and tell herself that she was being crazy. But there were two other vital pieces of evidence that were difficult to ignore.
The note. What was Morag apologising for?
And then, the final brick in that wall. It had only fallen into place when she’d registered the connections of all the other factors. But it really was unmistakable… When she looked into Zac’s pale blue eyes, they were so familiar to her.
And that was because they were the same shade and shape as the eyes she looked at every single time she gazed at her son.
The son who had exactly the same eyes as his dad.
‘Oh sweet Jesus, oh sweet Jesus, Alice! You’re hyperventilating!’ Val had one hand on the wheel and the other was clutching for Alice’s fingers. ‘Put yer head between yer knees. No! Don’t do that. This snow is coming down like icing sugar falling off a Victoria sponge and if I have to brake suddenly, you’ll end up in the glove compartment. Just close your eyes and breathe. Breathe. Nice and slow. That’s it. Hang on, I’m pulling over.’
‘No,’ Alice managed to gasp. ‘Just keep going. Please. Get us home.’ What was happening to her? Why couldn’t she breathe? Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
Alice continued instructing her lungs to gulp in air for the next few minutes, until they were pulling into their street. Only when she could see the house at the end of the path did Alice feel her heart rate begin to slow, but her legs were still trembling as she got out of the car. If Val hadn’t been supporting her arm until they got through the front door and into the kitchen, then she wasn’t sure she’d have made it.
‘Sit there and I’ll get the kettle on,’ Val instructed, taking charge.
Alice put her head in her hands. On the day she’d left Larry, she’d resolved right then and there that she would never let him affect her life again, never allow him to hurt her, and now she had a very real feeling that she’d just taken a cannon ball to the heart.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ she whispered, before, on still shaky legs, she managed to go down the hall and climb the stairs to her bedroom. In the cupboard, she found what she was looking for – the suitcase that she’d kept with her for over a decade, the one that had concealed her escape fund when she’d been planning to leave Larry, as well as all her important documents, belongings and, most importantly, all her photographs.
Opening the case, she flicked through half a dozen photo albums until she came to the one she was looking for – life before she married Larry. It had been decades since she’d opened it, because she couldn’t stomach to see herself when she was young and optimistic, before a malignant narcissist had sucked the life out of her. She’d even considered burning it at one point, just as she’d torched every photo of her wedding day, and the years that came after it. But somehow, she’d felt the need to keep this chronicle of her life before she became Mrs McLenn. Her parents were in it, before Larry used the subtlest of coercive control to alienate them from her life. Her teenage and twenty-something friends were in it, before they were all cut out too. By the time she got married, all she had was Larry McLenn, and she’d been too blinded by love to see that’s what he’d wanted all along.
Tucking the album under her arm, she held on tight to the banister as she descended the stairs, still not confident her legs would hold her.
Back in the kitchen, Val already had the tea out and the biscuit tin open. It was like prescribed medication in this house.
‘You okay now?’ Val asked her, concern written all over her face.
Alice nodded. ‘I think so. Sorry if I terrified you, Val. It was just all a bit of a shock.’
Val did what she always did – tried to make everyone around her feel better. ‘Och, no need to apologise. My pal, Josie, once passed out in the front seat, because she’d accidentally eaten magic mushrooms. That was far more terrifying.’
Despite the shock of everything that had just happened, Alice felt the edges of her mouth curl up and the next thing, she was laughing and sobbing at the same time.
‘Don’t worry, pet,’ Val assured her, holding her hand, that concerned expression still there. ‘It’s just all the emotion. Just keep breathing and it’ll pass.’
Alice closed her eyes, and did as she was told. All those years with Larry, her only joy had been Rory. Other than that, she’d been so utterly miserable to her core, that her sole defence was to shut down her emotions to the point of being robotic. Now that she’d allowed that coil of numbness to unwind, it sometimes bubbled over, and she found herself sobbing over clips of rescue dogs on Instagram, or yelling with joy when nice people won Family Fortunes .
It took a few minutes, and several sips of hot sweet tea, but eventually she began to feel like she could function again. She tested that by recounting all her thoughts in the car to Val, and her friend was the first one who vocalised the conclusion she’d been skirting around since she’d said goodbye to Zac.
‘Wait – so you think Larry and your pal, Morag, might have had…’ Val paused and Alice was really grateful that she didn’t say ‘sex’, even though that’s what they were both thinking. Val settled on, ‘…a fling?’
‘No!’ was Alice’s first reaction, but then, far weaker, ‘Well, yes. Am I crazy?’
Val sat back in her chair. ‘I’m not sure, love, but no wonder you’re in shock. That would be a shred of the heart after all these years.’
Alice had already opened the album and was flicking through the mixture of old Polaroids and photos that came from the kind of old-fashioned film that had to be developed by Boots or Happy Snaps.
She found the first couple of photos she was looking for and took them out of the album. London. Morag’s birthday. Larry had taken a group of their friends down there in early January to celebrate and they’d had a ball, staying in a posh hotel and trying out new bars and clubs, in which, of course, he made sure they were treated like VIPs.
‘That’s Larry there, obviously…’ she said, pointing him out to Val, not that she needed to. Most people in Scotland – probably the UK too – knew what Larry looked like, because he’d been a highly vocal MP, and then he’d been plastered all over the press and the news when he’d been embroiled in the bribery and drugs scandal that had scuppered his career.
‘He’s not aged well,’ was Val’s only comment and Alice knew she said that from experience. After his downfall, Larry had pulled in old favours to get a job as a taxi driver and Val had the misfortune of getting in the back of his cab last year. Although, by a long and shocking chain of events, that journey had resulted in the two women meeting, so Alice would always be grateful.
‘Look at how happy Morag is there,’ Alice said, drawing attention to the wide grin on Morag’s face. Larry was between them, one arm draped around Alice and the other around Morag, and her friend must have been giggling at something he’d said because she was looking up at him with the biggest smile, eyes all crinkled with laughter.
The next photo was the same. Then another. All of them taken on that trip, all of them joyful.
Alice flicked another couple of pages, until she came to the second lot of photos she had in mind. ‘These are the ones we took the night Morag left. At the airport. It was a few months later.’
The images showed the two of them at the departure gate, Morag’s eyes red and glowering at the camera with sadness, while biting her lip as if her heart was breaking. There were three or four, all of them just as awful. Back when she’d first had these photos developed, Alice remembered putting Morag’s scowl down to the fact that she was sad to be leaving, but now, she saw something else.
Morag’s expression wasn’t sadness. It was anger. Fury. Disgust. And she was staring right at the camera. Which meant she was staring right at the man behind the camera too. ‘Larry took that photo.’
Val puffed out her cheeks. ‘I mean, it wouldn’t be enough for a jury to convict, but I see what you’re saying.’
Alice felt some kind of comfort that she wasn’t going mad. ‘It’s not just that, Val. It’s all the other things too. It explains it all. And I know it’s not proof of anything, but looking at Zac today was like looking at Rory.’
As if he’d heard his name being mentioned, Alice’s phone began to ring, and her son’s name was on the screen. She picked it up quickly and tried desperately to make her voice sound normal.
‘Hello, son.’
‘It’s the big day!’ he announced gleefully. ‘Are you excited? Honestly, we can’t wait for you to get here. Sophie has been hoovering for a week and a half.’ Alice heard a yelp in the background and then laughter from them both. Rory had moved to Reading to be with Sophie a few months ago, and it warmed her heart to see and hear them both so loved up and happy.
‘I can’t wait either,’ she said honestly. ‘I wish I was there already.’ If she’d gone yesterday, then she wouldn’t be dealing with this today.
‘Listen, I’m just calling to say I checked the Glasgow Airport website and loads of flights are delayed. It’s still saying you’ve to check in at the same time, but just in case you’re delayed, we just wanted to say don’t worry. No matter what time you get here, we’ll be at Heathrow to pick you up.’
‘That’s great, son, thank you. I’ll see you tonight. Love you.’ It still warmed her heart every single day that her son had turned out to be such a good man, with no trace whatsoever of Larry McLenn’s twisted, malevolent genes.
‘Love you too, Mum.’
And then in the background she heard, ‘Love you, Alice!’ from Sophie, before they hung up.
Her stomach went back on to a spin cycle. If her suspicions were correct, then this would have repercussions for Rory too. He’d grown up an only child, regularly bemoaning the fact that he had no siblings. That had been deliberate on Alice’s part. She’d refused to bring another child into Larry’s world. By the time Rory was a toddler, the boyfriend and fiancé who’d love-bombed her was long gone, and in his place was a sneering, cruel husband who’d created a world she and her son couldn’t escape from. There was the irony. Larry hadn’t wanted Rory. She’d found out after the wedding that he’d only married her to preserve his image and his political aspirations and later, that was the same reason he wouldn’t let her leave. All she could do back then was stick it out and do everything she could to protect her boy.
‘Och, Alice, I don’t envy you this one,’ Val said, reaching for a second caramel wafer, which Alice knew signified a Defcon 3 alert level. ‘Are you going to share your thoughts with the lad if he comes here?’
Alice wasn’t sure how to answer that. Zac had obviously sussed out that something didn’t add up, and Alice was fairly certain he’d realised that Cillian couldn’t be his dad. But what right did she have to become involved? It wasn’t her place to tell him. However… could she really withhold information like that when she might have the answers he was looking for?
She sent up a silent message. ‘Come on, Morag, tell me what you would want me to do.’
The sound of the doorbell interrupted her wait for a reply.
Val stood up. ‘Actually, you don’t need to answer that question, because it looks like we’re about to find out.’