Where the Truth Lies

By Margaret Tomkins

This a collection of short stories, written over ten years. They range from the supernatural to human relationships; from childhood to extreme old age; from fantasy to satire.

They deal with reincarnation, loss, shattered dreams, guilt, love and other aspects of the human condition. There is the plain spinster, who lives in a secret fantasy world through her writings; there is the baby snatcher; there is the ghost of a wronged woman at her own funeral. The man at the supermarket checkout exacts his own revenge on his tormentors; the teacher is summarily suspended on the word of one of his pupils. Undelivered telegrams change lives; a stone statue plays a central part in a boy’s life.

Other stories take place in post War Berlin, before the removal of the Wall, and in Venice, where a coupling leads to years of guilt and uncertainty. There is a satirical fairy story, mocking the modern world; there is an inept counsellor, seeking the help of her “friends.” The mystery of the meaning of life is examined in a story of reincarnation, which centres on the idea that at the moment of birth, a baby knows all her previous existences, and desperately wants to return to the womb. A common theme is deception, hence the title “Where the Truth Lies.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Mar 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781780888996

Book preview

Zola

The Boy

The boy basked on the roof of the shed every day of the year. He stretched out, hands behind his head, legs crossed, a painted smile on his painted face. Over the years, the weather chipped away at his pillar-box suit and black hair but his sunny smile remained the same.

He lived on the railway line between Mitcham and Balham and Justin saw him first when he was a boy himself. He was just four and being taken by his parents to London for a birthday treat. All day his parents quarrelled angrily, even on the train, and he gazed miserably out of the rain-streamed window as they jostled with each other. It was not a scenic route; the train slowly passed grey, dispirited tenements, neglected cuttings, frowsty stations. Suddenly the boy appeared, a figure of defiance in a hostile world. Justin came to look out for him on all his journeys to London.

He was a lonely boy. His father was a banker, his mother the personal assistant to the local M.P. They had long since grown tired of each other and Justin had come as an unwelcome surprise. They had supplied him with a nanny and sent him to an exclusive school in Westminster. He had come to hate the journey, and the jealous jeering of his less-privileged contemporaries. A gang of them would follow him into his first-class carriage and mock his uniform, his accent and his small frame. They attended a comprehensive in Balham and Justin always knew, when he sighted the smiling boy, that his torture would soon be over. Somehow he came to believe that, as long as he could see the boy, there was hope for him.

His father discovered his mother’s affair with the M.P. and divorced her, quickly marrying his own secretary and moving from Horsham to London. Justin moved unhappily between the two warring factions and saw the boy more often.

It was on his first day at work in his father’s office that Justin saw her and fell in love immediately. Educated in a boys’ school and too shy to make friends with boys who had sisters, his knowledge of woman was limited to his quarrelsome, aggressive mother. The girl was working on a computer at a desk in the open-plan office. She looked up briefly as he came in and smiled at him. She was beautiful: long blonde hair and long, long legs; brilliant blue eyes and full, sensual lips; large breasts and svelte hips.

’Ere – who’s that new bloke? Sarah asked her friend Olive. He keeps staring at me. She tossed her hair and thrust her bosom out.

Olive considered. She looked at Justin, hovering doe-eyed near Sarah’s desk. I think he’s the boss’s son, she said, coming to see how the other ’alf live. She turned back to her work.

Sarah looked at Justin with renewed interest. He was still puny and anxious-looking , with unruly black, curly hair, large pleading eyes and hunched shoulders. She eyed his Savile Row suit, his Ben Sherman Shirt, his Hardy Amies tie, and smiled at him.

My friend and I go to the pub for lunch, she said. Would you like to join us?

Justin travelled home on winged heels. He smiled at the boy, who smiled back.

Each day now Justin hurried to the station. He looked out for the boy because his appearance meant he was soon to see Her. Not only was he joining her for lunchtime visits to the pub but he was also asked to drinks after work on a Friday. Sometimes she pressed her thigh warmly against his; sometimes her hand brushed his when he reached for his glass; sometimes she smiled specially at him across the office. For the first time in his life, Justin was truly happy.

His father watched with an ironic eye. She’s a bit old for you, isn’t she? he said to Justin. Been around the block a few times too, I hear. He shrugged his shoulders. Still, I suppose you have got to learn…

Justin blushed to the roots of his hair. How could his father speak of his goddess in such a way? Maybe he was jealous. For once he had something precious his father couldn’t destroy.

It’s my birthday on Friday, said Sarah. I’ll be twenty-six. (She was actually thirty-four). I don’t expect you would fancy taking me out to dinner? She paused. I’ve never been to the Savoy Grill. She placed her hand on his. And afterwards…

It was a big wedding, followed by a honeymoon in the Bahamas, where Sarah proved a great favourite with the waiters, which somehow curtailed the time she spent with Justin. Still, he was pleased to see her so happy.

Sarah gave up work on their return and they moved to a big house in Horsham, where she led a busy social life. Justin ceased to look out for the boy, although he continued to work for his father. Somehow he was not as happy as he expected; Sarah was often out when he arrived home and frequently suffered from headaches at bedtime. In fact, she suggested he move to another room so she could get a better night’s sleep. There were no signs of children.

Her biological clock must be ticking, his mother said sourly. She recognised a kindred spirit in Sarah.

It was on the train to London that Justin read the newspaper headline. ‘Banker arrested for fraud,’ it said. ‘Fifty-four-year-old Robert Darcy was arrested last night on suspicion of cheating his clients out of thousands of pounds…’

Horrified, Justin looked out of the window. But the boy wasn’t there.

Sarah was packing when he got home. I can’t live with the disgrace, she wailed. She looked at him. I’ll be back for the rest of my things later. Richard is driving me to the station… Richard lived next door with his wife and three children.

Justin looked frantically out of the window on his journey to London next day. But the boy was gone.

They’re pulling down those slum tenements to build luxury apartments, the man in the Housing Department told Justin. They’re re-housing the tenants next week, I believe. And about time too…

Justin hurried down the grey streets. He looked frantically at the vandalised buildings, searching for the boy’s owners. He knocked on doors, pleaded with the occupants and offered a reward. Finally, he found himself outside No. 10, Carrington Gardens.

Yes, we’ve still got the statue, said the weary old man who answered the door. Our Mary couldn’t bear to part with it. We got it before she was born. My wife loved it so much that I got it for her, although it cost me a week’s wages at the time. Somehow it cheered our lives up. He sighed. My Mabel has gone now and we will be soon. But Mary wouldn’t let me leave the boy behind.

He’s coming with us, said a voice behind him. Justin looked at Mary, plump, brown-eyed, gorgeous Mary. She smiled at him. Where we go, he goes…

Justin doesn’t live in Horsham any more. Nor does he work in London. Instead, he lives with Mary and their two curly-haired children in a small cottage in the Cotswolds. At the bottom of the garden the boy rests his arms behind his head and smiles at the sun.

Justin is happy.

Baby Blues

I didn’t mean to take her.

I’ve always loved babies, even when I was a small child myself. I love their little faces, their tiny nails, their toothless grins. I love the smell of them when they have just had a bath and the feel of their arms around my neck. All I’ve ever wanted was to get married and have lots and lots of babies. It just didn’t happen. I hurried past prams and pushchairs without looking inside. I tried hard to congratulate pregnant friends, although I felt sick in the pit of my stomach when I heard the news. Sometimes I was so full of rage and pain that I wanted to lash out at them, to punch their rounded bellies, to deny their babies life. Why couldn’t I give birth?

We had never been able to have children, Patrick and me. Not for the want of trying, mind. We’d been married twenty years, and we’d tried everything – taking my temperature so we knew when the time was right, lying still for an hour afterwards, lying with my legs in the air, loose underpants for Patrick, and IVF for the last seven years. I think I might have been pregnant once, when I suddenly passed a very large blood clot, but I can’t be sure. I cried for a very long time over that. The doctors couldn’t say why but it was not very likely to happen now I was forty-two and on my last IVF programme.

That’s why I was working in the Phoenix Maternity Clinic. The too posh to push clinic, the locals call it. It’s for the really rich, I’m told. They all had Caesareans and then passed the baby on to Nanny. Of course, some of them just came for an abortion. It was quite the wrong place for me to work, Patrick said, but we needed the money for my last chance and the pay was much better than in any NHS hospital. I just cleaned the rooms, helped in the kitchen and served trays occasionally. I didn’t normally go anywhere near the nursery.

Phoenix Clinic is more like a luxury hotel than a maternity home. It has this big hall when you first come in, with gold flocked wallpaper and oak panelling. Every bedroom has a big double bed (what for, I’d like to know!) and its own bathroom, with gold taps and a bidet, I think it’s called. Each room has a huge television set, a DVD recorder, plush armchairs in velvet and a matching settee. There’s a big lounge for the relatives, with a bar at the far end, and heavy velvet curtains. And the food! Dishes I can’t pronounce, served on beautiful bone china plates with silver cutlery.

There’s a hairdresser who comes round with a beautician and a manicurist and there’s a sauna for those who want it. Talk about living in the lap of luxury! All for these girls to have in comfort the babies I could not have.

Some of them were quite sweet and I got big tips. It sounds funny but I felt sorry for them in a way. ‘Poor little rich girls’, my mother would have called them. They really had no idea of the value of money. Big notes lying around all the time – on the dinky little bedside tables, under the padded cushion on the chairs, on the shelves in the en suite bathroom. I could have helped myself any time. They wouldn’t have noticed. But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t help myself to something that wasn’t mine. Not then.

I took a dislike to Lady Laura Trevelyan the moment I clapped eyes on her. Lady, my foot. She was no more a lady than the next door cat, even if she was the daughter of a Duke. The airs. She behaved as if I didn’t exist, or, if I did, it was only to wait on her. She had been waited on all her life, I suppose.

She swept in the day before her Caesarean, all fur coat and no drawers, my mother would have said. She was followed by her husband, a foot shorter than her (how can a woman who is eight months pregnant wear three-inch stiletto heels?) and two men carrying suitcases – footmen, I suppose. One of them winked at me as he went past.

She was pretty, I suppose, in a brittle kind of way. She wore so much make-up it was difficult to tell what she really looked like, but she was certainly dressed very smartly.

She was in a lace-trimmed negligee when her visitors arrived – Lady Penelope Carstairs and the Honourable Caroline Conway (Horrible more like). She had rung for tea and cakes and I had been told to take them, so I was there to see her greet her guests.

They must have had about a hundred pounds’ worth of flowers between them, sweeping in on a waft of perfume and silken dresses. They bent to kiss her.

"Oh, darling, what a frightful time you are having! Are they treating you properly? When are you getting rid of the sprog? When are you going to be back in circulation? Missed you terribly."

They really did talk like that.

Give the flowers to the maid, said Lady Laura. She nodded at me. Find some decent vases for these and come back and arrange them, will you?

They were sitting on either side of the bed when I returned. I busied myself with the flowers and they seem to have forgotten all about my being there. Used to invisible servants, I suppose.

"It’s been such a ghastly experience for you. All these months getting bigger and bigger, cooed Lady Penelope, with a touch of spite, I thought. Whatever made you go through with it?"

How did you get into such a position in the first place? said the Horrible Caroline. "Thought you knew better. Much better." She winked at her friend.

It’s been such a bore, said Lady Laura. She yawned. "Charles wanted a son and heir. I wanted to get rid of it as soon as I knew, but he insisted. And it’s a bloody girl!"

Oh no! Both women burst out laughing. "Does