Chapters (55)
- Cover
- ANNA WHARTON
- Dedication page
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- Praise
- THE IMPOSTER
‘Oh no—’ Chloe tries to protest. She can’t risk bumping into Phil two days running, and anyway, she was planning on visiting Nan tomorrow.
‘Honestly, pet, it’s no bother at all,’ Maureen says. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Pat?’
‘Not if you say so, Mo,’ he replies, rearranging his legs on the pouffe.
‘There, it’s settled. Anyway, it would be good for you two to spend some time together.’
FORTY-ONE
Within days, it is a regular thing, Patrick giving her lifts to ‘work’. Chloe managed to convince him after that first day that she missed stretching her legs on the walk from the bus stop, so he drops her there without question and as soon as she sees his car disappear, she crosses the road and waits for the bus back to town.
They’ve left a little earlier this morning. Chloe had hoped that she could steal out and catch the bus before he was up, only when Maureen realized, she had hurriedly shooed Patrick into action, standing over him while he quickly pressed his feet into his shoes.
The fields that they pass are bathed in a soft golden light that has yet to burn through the fog that still blankets the crops, and the radio fills the silence between them inside the car. At Elm House there is no time for awkward silences; Maureen fills them, mining memories as if searching for gold. Evenings in Low Drove for Chloe now are more often spent with faded polaroid pictures scattered across the sofa cushions as they pore over every photo album in turn.
Patrick obediently carries boxes from the storage room up and down the stairs, as Chloe is made to sit on the living room floor among Fuzzy-Felt and Playmobil sets while Maureen encourages her to open each battered box and handle its contents. It is now Maureen who ploughs Chloe for long-buried relics of the past – how the tables have turned. Even Patrick seems pleased to see his wife’s new delight when one tiny gem is retrieved from the deep dark recesses of Chloe’s memory – or something like that.
In the car, though, when it’s just the two of them, Patrick seems less concerned with Chloe’s fuzzy memory, as if part of him switches off the moment they pull out of the drive at Elm House. She can’t explain this about-turn. Outside of Low Drove, he never mentions Angie. Although he never mentions DNA tests either, so Chloe has resisted picking at that particular scab. She wonders what their friend Josie would think of him going along with this idea that she really is Angie. Chloe would go so far as to say that Josie seemed suspicious of him. And even Chloe herself has been watching him more closely lately.