They can't know it's you

They can’t know ‘It’s you’.



Chapter One.



“You had absolutely no right to say anything!”

“I had to say something!”

“No you did not, after all these years, why now Helen, why?”

Helen fell silent, for once lost for words.

“You come here, uninvited, shouting your mouth off and now look what you’ve done, you’ve torn my family to shreds.”

“Now come on,” she piped up again, “You can hardly say I’ve torn your family to shreds.” She made those air quotation marks of hers with her fingers as she repeated my words, which irritated me even more than usual.

“Have you not? Have you not? So a secret that I’ve kept from my children, all of their lives, is now flying out there in the open? A secret I chose to keep for very good reasons, reasons which I explained for you!”

“Amanda, they had to find out some day, don’t you see that? I’ve done you a favour in a way...”

“You we’re meant to be doing me a favour by keeping this a secret. By keeping that big fat mouth of yours shut.” I unexpectedly screamed this at Helen, and I was as shocked as she was, as we stood staring at each, wide-eyed, silent and my face, teeth gritted, shaking with rage.

Finally she turned and lifted her handbag from the kitchen table.

“Well on that note I think it’s time for me to leave.”

“You know what? Don’t bother, because I’m leaving!”

“Amanda it’s your house for God’s sake.”

I stormed into the hallway, seizing my coat and the dog’s lead from the coat pegs. Bob the dog sped from the kitchen, down the hall and out the front door that I’d already flung open. Forcing my arms roughly into my coat I turned back and violently pointed at Helen, “I want you gone when I get back to this house, and don’t you dare, don’t you even dare think of stepping foot on my doorstep again.”

“Right” came the sorrowful reply, barely a whisper, from where she stood motionless in the kitchen doorway.

As soon as I turned the corner, the overwhelming burn of tears in my eyes and at the back of my throat arrived. I crossed the road to the park and Bob bounded off ahead and into the undergrowth. I always stick to the path and he knows the route, but I didn’t even care if he followed or ran off and never returned today. I didn’t even know where I was heading. I couldn’t get rid of the sickening image of Helen breaking the news. She’s never been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but what even crossed her mind? I doubt it just popped up into conversation as she had frantically repeated.

The Bell had gone last Wednesday. The house was a tip and I was in my dressing gown settling in for a night of reality TV.

“Surprise,” she’d shrieked, flinging her arms round my neck and forcing us both back into the house. “Bet you weren’t expecting to see me here.”

I wasn’t. She lived in Brighton and I hadn’t seen her since I dropped out of University there and moved up North. She wasn’t the reason I left, we’d been the best of friends, and I’d still class her as that now if I didn’t feel so guilty for not keeping in touch. Even so, I’d wish she’d called and warned me of her imminent arrival.

She’d remained all week and showed no signs of planning to leave. The kids had called round and loved her, they thought she was a hoot. It was just this morning I’d left for town leaving them all laughing and joking in the front room, as Helen animatedly recalled adventures of our University days. It had all seemed harmless enough, until I’d returned later and she’d grabbed my arm in the kitchen and lowered her voice.

“Look Amanda, I may have accidently told the children that secret of yours, don’t worry no one’s in the house.”

It was then that we’d had the argument. Our first real one in all our days of friendship, but to me the thing that she had just so casually confessed to revealing, was the ultimate betrayal. Her reactions showed she knew perfectly well herself that this was exactly what is was.

I fumbled in my coat pockets and pulled out a crumpled damp cigarette packet. Thankfully there was one left. I’d promised I’d given up, but right now having a fag was the least of my problems. Besides after today none of my children would care if I was alive, nicotine patch or no nicotine patch. I stopped and sat down on a moist bench, cupping my hands round the lighter, I sparked up and took a long hard drag and stared out over dew dropped grassy land.

“Aw come on Amanda!” Grandma Annie had excitedly croaked rubbing her dry little hands together. “Just imagine when we’re rich…ooh the things we can do.”

“Our chances are so slim though Grandma, we’ve got like more chance of being hit by lightening” I’d laughed.

“But I think tonight is our night.” She’d whispered, locking her wide white eyes with mine, her voice deadly serious, as though she’d just predicted a revolution or the end of the world.

“Fine.” I’d agreed half heartedly handing her a fifty pence piece and waiting as she frantically fumbled in her bag for her share, plus pen and paper.

“Now pick yours,” She’d beamed, forcing the pen and paper into my hand and closing my fingers over them with hers, “and remember we go halves, and no publicity. We say nothing to nobody.”

“OK whatever.” I’d said with a roll of my eyes.

This went on for a few months. Grandma Annie said the very same things every time. It started off as something I just went along with for a bit of excitement, but Grandma Annie would never let it drop. She loved it – a glimmer of hope and excitement at the end of her weeks. After a number of months, it became something that bonded us together, a shared interest. I felt bad if I didn’t opt in. I’d let our side down. I just saw it as me doing something nice for my old Gran, but always believed that nothing would ever come of it.

It was therefore no surprise that the events of Friday the 13th of January 1983 caused me to faint onto the cold, hard tiled floor of my local newsagents, with Mr Makda scrambling from behind the counter to my aid.

Grandma Annie had howled with joy and strangled a bruised me into a tight bosom embrace. Mum and Dad had stared dumbstruck for a while, checking it over and over before leaping about the house punching the air, with joy. Dad was first online google-ing Aston Martins and Mum was instantly leafing through her vast collection of Beautiful Home Magazines and Habitat catalogues.

All I felt was numb.

“Whats wrong Amanda, aren’t you pleased? Have you decided what you’re going to do now?” their questions had attacked me in a whirlwind of curiosity.

“She can do whatever she wants with it,” Grandma Annie had leapt to my aid. “Make sure you enjoy it though kid.”

You can imagine how you are meant to feel when and if something like this happens to you, but you can never truly know until it actually happens to you. I know I didn’t fly into an excited frenzy like the others, instead I found myself nervous and on edge. I’d lunged at Mum in the hall, when I’d seen her lift the phone to her lips and squeal “Guess what? Mum and Amanda, have only gone and won the-“

The phone had clattered out of her hand and spun across the floor.

“Amanda? What an earth is wrong with you?” Mum gasped.

I felt an overwhelming need to keep this a secret from everyone.

“Just promise we won’t tell anyone?” I remember sobbing hysterically to them later that night. I made mum cry too.

“Oh God, is this what you’ve been bottling up all this time, of course we won’t will we? Steve? Mum?” She’d looked encouragingly around at Dad and Grandma Annie.

Hearing them agree to stay silent came as such a gushing relief to me. Before my mind has constantly been filled with nauseating images of my new life. One was of me meeting my friends at our local and them all turning to me expectantly as we stood at the bar. I’d delve into my bag and realise I’d forgotten my purse. “Yeah right” and “Tight bitch” came the snarled replies. And believe me, that was the least upsetting of the images.

As the weeks past, and I came to turns with the secret, a period began where I really started to enjoy myself. To be fair a lot of this time is a blur of vodka shots, neon lights, smeared mascara and lipstick stained collars. I spent a vast amount of my time cruising around in my new navvy mini (a gift from my parents from passing my driving test, I said) with Helen. We both loved to see new places and now we could. The rest of the weekends we spent our time shopping. I found I loved to shop, and as I began to relax, so did my conscious hold on the purse strings.

“Oh god I love, love, love it!” screeched Helen. She had draped herself in the most ridiculous oversized fox fur coat. She was hopping heatedly from foot to foot and hugging herself, whilst staring into the full length, brightly lit changing room mirror. It was hideous, it was garish, but it was so Helen.

“I’ll buy it.” The words just fell out of my mouth.

“You’ll what?”

“I said I’ll buy. I’ll buy it for you.”

“Aye right Amanda, and after this we’ll go down the docks and I’ll pick you out a nice speed boat.” She fell about laughing, and then stopped alarmed with herself and stood frantically brushing down and straightening out the coat.

“No seriously, I’ll buy it you. I know you really want it, think of it, I don’t know, as an early Birthday present or something.”

“Amanda my birthdays not until July, and I’m really not expecting anything more than a good old tenner in a card like last year.”

“Helen I’m not joking, for god’s sake, I’ve got the money, just please let me buy it you.”

She shut up at last and eye balled me as though I was a mad woman.

“Amanda, it's five grand.”

To be fair, she had only agreed to come into this particular shop to try on the hideously over priced pieces for a laugh. She shook her head at me and then started to laugh again, easing off the coat and lovingly rearranging it back on the hanger. As she hung it back up on the door I seized it and sprinted out of the changing rooms.

“She’ll have it” I called back to the anxious looking changing room assistant.

“Amanda, what the hell are you doing” Helen was pounding the floor behind me.

I reached the counter, wapped out my plastic and snatched the pristine shopper, before flying out the gleaming spinning doors. Helen stumbled out after me with a face like thunder. When she caught up with me at the bus stop further up the road I knew I had to tell her.

Luckily a fur-coat clad Helen had no problem keeping quiet and we were soon living the perfect unrestricted University life in Brighton. We were out ever night with our ‘never-ending loan.’

“I’ve been saving up over summer” I told astonished housemates. “This is money still left over from my Birthday.”

“I’m just rich,” shrugged Helen.

Bob forced a muddy stick onto my lap. I jumped and quickly stood up, throwing it as far as I could. It landed in a flooded ditch up ahead, the dog pelted after it. It was growing dark. I slid my mobile from my pocket. No calls. No messages. This would now be my life. Isolated and ignored by the people I love most. I began to hurry along the path once more.

It was when I got pregnant, that everything changed. The father doesn’t matter, that’s one less person to worry about hearing this. I’d been sat on the bus home, nursing my just visible bump with my hand. I was intently ear wigging on the mother and daughter on the seats in front of me.

“Mummy? I want a pony.”

“Well tough.”

“But mummy I want one”

“Well…”

“I want one now!”

And with that the child had proceeded to scream and shout and furiously throw herself around on the seat, much to the alarm of several elderly passengers. All eyes were on the squawking child and the now red faced mother. It was my turn to be alarmed when the same red faced mother spluttered –

“Alright, alright darling, of course, mummy will get you a pony.”

And it was then it hit me. I could never let my child know I was a multi millionaire, nor any of my future children. Did I want to create a brood of overweight cry babies, who spent every day of their spoilt lives demanding things from a mummy they knew could afford it, and then beating her over the head with their jewelled rattles when I declined? Did I want lazy teenagers dependant on me, with no desire to do a days work in their lives? No desire to make anything of themselves. No, if they knew about their mother’s wealth, it would smother them. I wanted my children to wake up on Christmas morning, for instance, excited to see what was in their stockings, rather than expectantly opening up everything they had asked for. Where would the excitement in life be?

So that was the moment this mess all began. I had three children in all. David, my beautiful eldest, James, my equally beautiful second and finally my adorable daughter Rose. I chose for them to live the very same life that I had lived as a child. Of course they never went without, they have lived all there lives in our cosy Victorian semi, but most importantly they had what I always wanted them to have. A Normal, happy childhood. They weren’t selfish or demanding children, they fitted in with the other kids at school and they appreciated everything they got. Despite this, my body was still rushing with fear. There were certain pivotal events in their lives as they got older, which were weighing heavily on my mind. I knew these events would make them exceedingly angry with the bombshell Helen had so wonderfully delivered.

Bob and I approached the gates of the park, crossing the road and turning the corner, making our way back towards the house. There was only so long I could stay away. The children would want answers. Although in my heart I knew what I did was for what I saw as a greater good, I felt painfully was racked with guilt and sick to my stomach’s empty pit. No child likes to be lied to by their mother. It’s like that regretful first time you find out there’s no Father Christmas. You know your parents kept it quiet for you to enjoy the childhood Christmas dream, but it doesn’t stop you hating them just a little for lying to you all along. This wasn’t even a nice white fairy tale type lie. This was deception, from their own mother, for the whole of their lives.

David had always wanted to be a doctor since he was very little.

“You can be anything you want to be if you work hard enough.” I’d repeated to him over and over.

And he did work hard. He worked hard all the way through school and college. It wasn’t until it came to University that the problems arose.

“I’m starting a band.” He told me one night on a crackling phone line.

“A what? What about medicine?” I try to suppress my fury. If I could have foreseen the future we’d soon find ourselves in, I wouldn’t have tried at all.

“Mum, I’m leaving.”

“What on earth are you-“

“Forget Uni! This band is the only thing I want to do now. Me and lads need to get out. We need focus. We need to try and get jobs to raise money. We’ve no other choice.”