The Secret Mother Read Free

the background. The Chinese loved that sort of thing; she remembered riding one like it in Nanchang.
Tallest in the world!
Iain thought it would help take their mind off the waiting – waiting for news of their babies.
    Nancy flopped onto the foot of the soft bed, it absorbed her without resistance. Something sharp dug into her backside. She lifted the edge of the quilt. May had tucked her sheet in tightly at the corners, like a hospital bed. Beneath the quilt, was a wooden figurine, small enough to fit in Nancy’s palm. A young waitress at The Bluewater Hotel had given the twins one just like it. She said it would bring them happiness, some sort of Chinese talisman. The waitress had been quite a fusspot, cooing in Chinese as they ate breakfast, even offering to take care of the twins while Iain and Nancy napped. Nancy kept the figurine and later made it into a necklace, fearing the twins might choke on it. Turning it over in her hand, Nancy wondered how to break the news to Yifan.
    You don’t know me but …
    I’m so sorry, Yifan. May’s been in an accident
…
    The only place left to search for his number was the closet. It smelled musty, like a long vacant holiday home.
    May didn’t own many clothes: the few dresses she wore for teaching, jeans and a neat pile of sweaters folded on the top shelf. There was nothing glamorous or sexy, nothing bold or unruly – only what was necessary. May didn’t wear hats, or keep outfits that didn’t fit her; there were no flowery smocks or tie-dye, no high heels or power suits – apart from an old skirt and blazer which looked a decade out of date. She hadn’t imagined May to live so frugally.
    A tin box was her last hope; tucked at the bottom of the closet, behind a mud-crusted pair of trainers, its lid emblazoned with a Chinese logo.
    She paused, then opened the lid.
    A photograph of Jen on the beach in Nice! Nancy had spent the best part of a week searching for this photo, hoping to stitch it into a memory quilt for her daughters’ sixteenth birthday. What was May doing with it? As she lifted it to the light, Nancy uncovered photos of Jen riding her bike. Jen on summer camp in the Lake District. Jen in the school play. Jen eating ice-cream under the plum tree. She flicked faster through. Every single one was of her daughter. And not only Jen. There were photographs of Ricki on family holidays, birthdays, days out … What the hell were they doing in May’s closet? The rational part of Nancy said they had something to do with Jen’s studies. A project on the family. Yes, Jen’s essay was on that very subject.
    “Stop being a ninny,” Nancy said out loud.
    But why had Jen never asked to take the photographs? She knew they were Nancy’s treasured possessions. And why hadn’t May mentioned them? It was practically the twins’ entire childhood.
    She knelt amongst the scattered pictures of her girls and held one up to the garish light. Immediately, she wished she hadn’t. It was the photograph of the twins in the People’s Park hours after their arrival. In the original, Nancy and Iain’s faces were like sunshine – delighted to be parents after years of waiting. But someone had cut them out, leaving two holes, two dismembered bodies.
    She stumbled to the sink, fearing she might wretch.
    Did May know about the mutilated photograph lurking in the bottom of her closet? No – no – she couldn’t believe it of her. It must have found its way there by mistake. But how could a whole album find its way into someone else’s closet by accident?
    What if … Oh God … what if May was a psychopath? A pervert? A child molester? She’d been coming to the house every week to teach Jen. What if she’d been preening her in secret or …
    Nancy lunged towards the desk, flung open the middle drawer and scrutinised the photograph of the ferris wheel. She’d missed it at first: a sign in bold neon letters,
Welcome to Nanchang,
suspended across the centre of the wheel. May had