All the Little Lies

CHAPTER ONE

Eve

She had to go. And quickly. Before they woke up. But still Eve stood by her daughter’s cradle, looking down at her in the glow of the night light, longing to stroke the warm little head once more. To run her finger down Ivy’s fat cheek and across her tiny damp mouth. The baby snuffled and shifted, and Eve held her breath. It was midwinter and still dark outside, but morning was on its way. She had to go now or it would be too late.

She crept barefoot past the bedroom where her husband was sleeping, but didn’t look in. The baby monitor would wake him when Ivy cried. Since her birth he had done as much for her as Eve had. And managed it better. He often did the first morning feed and there was breast milk in the fridge and stored in the freezer too.

She had left a note on the kitchen table. There was nothing more to do.

Her clothes and trainers were in a plastic carrier in the cupboard under the stairs. She threw them on and shoved her dressing gown inside. With any luck Alex would see it wasn’t hanging on the back of the bedroom door when he woke and assume she was with the baby or downstairs. It might give her a bit more time.

For once she was thankful they had no driveway or garage and it was nearly impossible to park outside their house. So Alex must have thought the car was down at the other end of the road when he got home. It was actually a few streets away.

Everything was so still and silent in the early morning chill that she was aware of her own footsteps even though she was wearing soft-soled trainers. The icy air bit into her lungs. Plumes of white steamed out as she breathed and the atmosphere had that heavy feeling that means snow is not far off.

There was a forlorn-looking Christmas tree in the window of one house and a string of lights twinkling from the gables of another. It was still officially the Christmas season. Today was the sixth of January – Twelfth Night – and the Eliot poem about the three wise men came into her head. Something about a journey, a long cold journey.

In the glimmer of the street lights the pavement had a frosty glitter and she told herself to concentrate. It wouldn’t do to fall.

Once, she thought she heard footsteps behind her and stopped, holding her breath. The footsteps stopped too, and she looked back down the street. There was a shape, totally still, under a tree at the end. It could be a figure, but might just be a shadow. And she needed to hurry.

The car windows were thick with white and she used the de-icer and scraper as quietly as she could. The rucksack she’d packed with a few essentials was already in the boot, so all she had to do was to climb in and start the engine. But when it was humming she sat for a moment breathing heavily.

And asking herself if she really wanted to go through with this.

Three Months Earlier

It was a relief to see Suzanne’s name pop up on her phone. She would want to talk about work and Eve always enjoyed that. It felt so strange to be at home in October instead of teaching. She was even missing the staff meetings. Suzanne had taken over as head of the art department and she rang once a week or so to talk things through, although they both knew she was perfectly able to cope on her own. Suzanne probably realized how much Eve needed to feel she was still part of school life. And it was good to talk about something other than her pregnancy.

‘Hi, Suzanne. How’s it going?’

‘Fine. And you? Alex still driving you mad?’

Eve felt a flush of guilt. What had she said? It was true she was fed up with Alex treating her like an invalid, fussing over everything from how much she slept to her diet, but she must have told Suzanne more than she meant. She tried to make her voice light. ‘No, he’s fine. It’s my mum who’s the real worrier. Anyway what’s up?’

They spent a few minutes discussing the new exam syllabus. Then Suzanne said, her voice rising a little, ‘What did you think of the link I sent you?’

‘I haven’t checked my phone recently.’

‘It’s nothing urgent. Just made me think of you.’

When they’d said their goodbyes Eve looked for the message. It was brief:

Have a look at this. Any connection?

Apart from that there was just a link to a newspaper story:

LOST ARTWORKS RESURFACE AT BALTIC GALLERY

Newcastle’s Baltic Gallery has a new exhibition of paintings by artist, Stella Carr. If you haven’t heard of her it’s not because she’s a new talent, but because soon after making a brief splash in the art world in 1986 she disappeared from sight and died tragically (and somewhat mysteriously) a year later at the early age of twenty-one. If she hadn’t done so it’s likely she could have been one of the leading lights in the BritArt scene of the late 80s, early 90s.

At the time of her death it seemed that the handful of her pictures seen in an exhibition of promising young artists, at London’s Houghton Gallery, were all Stella had left behind.

Seeing the name of the gallery made Eve pause. Her father had been a partner there. She couldn’t remember mentioning it to Suzanne, but if she had that might explain why she’d sent the link. He’d certainly be interested because he would have been there at the time of Stella’s exhibition. She carried on reading.

The ever-fickle art world moved on and Carr was forgotten. But with this new display it’s clear that she was a considerable talent. While some of the paintings were in the Houghton exhibition, and others appeared soon after, a few have never been seen before. According to The Baltic they were her last completed works. They are giving away very little about how they came by these. All this paper could learn is that they are from a private collection.

Below the article were two of the paintings. One showed a terraced hillside covered in dark trees. It was called Pines and the second, Mermaid. This was particularly arresting. Instead of a fish’s tail the mermaid’s whole body was green and almost snake-like. Only the face – beautiful but secretive with floating hair – looked human.

She really liked the style. There was a freedom in the brushstrokes; a vitality about them that she loved.

There was a close-up of the signature, and Eve stopped scrolling to stare at it. It wasn’t a name but a shooting star, just like the ones she used to love drawing when she was little. And something else stirred in her memory. Something that made her move on faster.

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 was so 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.’

Her dad went round the table to stand behind Jill, resting his hands on her shoulders. They both looked at Eve. ‘Ben and I decided to mount a show of upcoming young artists and she was one of them. The best of the bunch. Then I found out she was pregnant. She was young, poor and alone. And I offered to help her. We couldn’t believe our luck when we became your parents. Still don’t.’

He dropped a kiss onto Jill’s curls then turned away to switch on the kettle again, saying. ‘Now whatever happened to that tea?’

Eve could hear the Scottish lilt that became stronger when he was stressed. Her mum wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

‘So how did she die? I mean I could have inherited something.’ She rubbed her bump again. ‘My baby could have.’

Her mum spoke fast. ‘No it was nothing like that. It was an accident.’

Eve coughed. Her voice threatened to wobble. ‘What happened?’ She touched the article. ‘It says her death was tragic and mysterious.’

David came to sit beside her again, speaking softly. ‘It was certainly tragic. She died in a fire.’ He must have heard Eve gasp because he stopped. ‘I’m sorry, darling.’

She had covered her eyes with her hands, but dropped them again. The images behind her lids were horrible. A deep breath. ‘Go on. Tell me everything.’

He reached for her hand, squeezing gently. ‘It was in Italy where she was staying. I can’t remember how we found out officially. But sometime later her friend sent us a note and the newspaper report.’

She managed to say, ‘Who? Who was this friend?’

He stood again and went back to the kettle, tearing the cellophane from a new box of teabags. ‘Just a girl she knew. I think they shared a place in London when they were at art school. Her work was in the exhibition too, but it was fairly mediocre if I recall and I know nothing else about her. She obviously didn’t make it as an artist.’

‘What about the letter?’

He turned to her mother who said, ‘It was just a note. I’ll have a look for it, but it was very brief. Didn’t give much information. Nor did the newspaper.’

Her dad put a mug of tea in front of her. She took a huge gulp. The thought of her mother – that vibrant young girl in the photograph – burned to death was so horrible she was trembling. They all sat silently as they drank. It was as if they’d just suffered a bereavement.

After a while she took a deep breath and, looking from one of them to the other, asked the obvious question. ‘So who was my father?’

Her mother screwed her tissue into a ball and shoved it up her sleeve. ‘We never knew. A boyfriend she’d broken up with I suppose.’

Eve nodded, forcing herself not to say what she was thinking. Or an older man? Maybe someone who was married? She ran her finger down the article. In small print at the end it gave the dates of the Houghton Gallery exhibition. Eve was born close to nine months after the exhibition ended.

She looked up at her father. And that would be nine months after Stella met him.

CHAPTER TWO

Stella 1986

Stella was putting the finishing touches to a painting of her grandmother, standing close to the window to catch the last of the natural light. Her bedroom overlooked the tiny walled yard at the back of the house. Here in Marylebone they were surrounded by other Victorian terraces, so it wasn’t the best place to paint especially on a dull March afternoon. She squinted at the photograph propped on the easel. She’d replaced the armchair her nana was sitting on in the photo and the striped wallpaper behind her with a riot of huge exotic flowers – a fantasy garden. Of course the portrait was a fantasy too. Nana didn’t look like that anymore – she sat drooling in a chair in the nursing home – but this was how Stella wanted to remember her. She stroked the photo with one finger and swallowed on the lump in her throat.