Unwanted Truths

Tricia Haddon

Description

Family secrets - we all have them. But some are more devastating than others... Jenny Porter knows the name of every capital city in the world, but that doesn't mean she has all the answers. When she discovers she is adopted, she has nobody to turn to and, unable to trust her parents or talk to her friends, she buries her feelings. A few years later, Jenny is happily married. She doesn't love her husband, but she likes him enough to make the marriage work and raise a family. After the death of her parents, she finds herself reunited with her childhood sweetheart, Martin Barretti, and suddenly everything begins to unravel Jenny and Martin begin a passionate affair and make the difficult decisions to leave their families and spend the rest of their lives together. Now living with the love of her life, Jenny decides to use the change in adoption law to find information about her birth family and is horrified to discover the truth. Will Jenny tell Martin what she discovered and risk their future falling apart? Or will she do as her adopted mother did years before, and keep her secret?Unwanted Truths is a captivating novel that delves into the emotions and issues involved in adoption, touching on the change in British society from the repressive 1950s to the liberal 1970s/80s. Set mainly in Brighton, East Sussex and London, it is a gripping read for fans of contemporary fiction and romance novels with a twist.

Sujets

• Gran Londres
• Contemporary romance
• Brighton and Hove
• Greater London
• Brighton et Hove
• Sussex
• Grand Londres
• London

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 mai 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781784628215
• Langue: English

Extrait

Unwanted Truths
Tricia Haddon

Copyright © 2015 Tricia Haddon
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,
or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in
any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the
publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with
the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries
concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are
either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Matador ®
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ISBN 978 1784628 215
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Matador ® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

Converted to eBook by EasyEPUB

Dedicated to my parents and with grateful thanks to my family and friends for their help and encouragement.
Contents

Cover


Truth


PROLOGUE


PART ONE


1


2


3


4


5


6


7


8


9


10


11


12


13


14


15


16


PART TWO


1


2


3


4


5


6


7


8


9


10


11


12


13


14


15


16


17


18


19


20


21


PART THREE


1


2
Truth

Always tell the truth. That’s what we are told as children. But do we tell the truth to someone who hasn’t asked the question? Truth is final; no room to manoeuvre; the damage is done.
PROLOGUE

November 1981

She opened her umbrella as she picked her way across the green towards the church. In her hand was a single red rose. Feeling strands of damp hair sticking to her forehead, she drew the umbrella closer to her head and stepped up to the gate. A sycamore, its branches stripped of leaves by the tail-end of an Atlantic hurricane, separated the lichen covered stones from recent memorials. She noticed that three more graves had been dug since her last visit and glanced down at the shiny brass plaques, but didn’t recognise any of the names. Bending down she placed her rose in front of a wooden cross and whispered, ‘Happy birthday, Mum.’ Tears streamed down her face, mingling with the drizzle. She wiped the sleeve of her coat across her cheeks, and wondered why she hadn’t thought to bring any tissues. She sniffed hard and stood up. Moving to the end of the mound, she stared at the light brown soil interspersed with chalk. ‘ You’ll miss me when I’m gone ,’ her mother’s words that she had dismissed with the casualness of youth, now seemed a just retribution. She would have to decide about a memorial stone soon. Someone, she couldn’t remember who, said that you had to wait a year for the ground to settle.
‘Excuse me.’
She jumped and spun round, lifting her umbrella. A man stood in front of her, the tip of his jacket collar touching the lobes of his ears.
‘I’m sorry if I startled you, but I think you’ve left your lights on. Is that your Morris Minor outside?’ He frowned and looked down at the cross.
‘My God, it’s Jenny – Jenny Porter, isn’t it? I don’t believe it.’ A broad smile stretched across his sharp features. He held out his hand, but then let it drop by his side.
Is it him? she thought, her heart banging against her ribs. No, it can’t be. Not here. As the man turned his head slightly, she noticed a mole that interrupted the line of his jaw. ‘Martin.’
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have disturbed you.’ He turned to go.
‘No, no – it’s alright.’ Her chest tightened. She swallowed. ‘I never expected to see you again. You moved away. You don’t live here any more.’
‘Yes, we did, and I don’t. But my parents moved back about ten years ago. They always liked it up this way. That’s their house down there.’ He turned and pointed in the direction of a red tiled roof.
‘Yes, it is nice here. But not today – I mean with the rain.’ She blinked several times to refresh her eyes, thinking how awkward she must sound.
‘You were crying the last time I saw you,’ he said softly.
So he remembers. It was here by the windmill. But I’m years older now. She flicked her head back and ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it off her face. ‘I’d better go – my lights. I’m always doing that when it’s dark during the day.’ She didn’t move.
‘Yes, it’s easily done.’ He gazed at her. ‘It’s great to see you again, Jenny. I can’t believe it.’
‘Yes, it’s great to see you too,’ she said. Words that she had always imagined saying had vanished. ‘I must go – my lights.’ She drew her umbrella closer and started walking towards the path. She knew he was watching her, and it took all her strength to place one foot in front of the other.
‘I’m sorry about your parents,’ his words carried across the churchyard.
She turned and nodded. He was still standing at the foot of her parents’ grave. A pied wagtail bobbed out of her way as she met the solidness of the path. She shut the gate and, glancing back to check that she was out of sight, ran across the green towards the faint yellow beams. Balancing the umbrella against her body, she leant on the car and fumbled in her coat pocket for the key, her hand trembling as she tried to force it into the lock. For God’s sake, go in. Why won’t it go in? She removed it and tried again, it turned. Relieved, she threw her umbrella onto the passenger seat and sank behind the wheel. Why is he here? He must have lost someone too , she thought. I should have asked. I must go before he comes out. He can’t see me – not looking like this. She pulled the choke out and turned the ignition. The engine groaned. No, not the lights, please start, come on, don’t let me down. She adjusted the choke. On the third attempt the engine fired. She released the handbrake and drove away.

*
Jenny thought of nothing else for the rest of that afternoon. She now had a new image of Martin. It would take some getting used to; she had been comfortable with the old one. His words replayed in her mind as she stared at her son, who was twirling a sausage around with his fork in a pool of tomato sauce. She slammed her hand on the table. ‘Stop playing with your food, Nicky.’
‘I’m not hungry. Look, it’s a helicopter.’
‘You’re not hungry because you’ve been stuffing your face with chocolates,’ said his sister, leaning over the table towards him.
‘You said you wouldn’t tell.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t have hit me then, should you?’
‘She had some too,’ Nicky turned towards his mother.
‘But I’ve eaten all my dinner.’
‘For God’s sake, stop it you two,’ Jenny said, irritated that her thoughts were being interrupted. She glanced up at the clock on the kitchen wall. ‘Lorna, finish your pudding, then go and get ready for Brownies. You’ll need your coat, it’s still drizzling. No pudding for you, Nicky. I should be able to trust you not to eat sweets before dinner.’
‘Jen, let it go, what’s the matter with you?’ Robert, her husband, stopped eating and looked up. ‘He’s eight years old. He’s going to eat sweets if they’re around. Did you do anything today?’
Jenny winced as she spotted a sliver of cabbage stuck between his front teeth. ‘I went to the churchyard. I told you I was going. It’s Mum’s birthday; she would have been seventy-four today.’
‘I’m sorry, Jen, I should have remembered.’ He reached for the tomato sauce. ‘I thought I’d never get home tonight; the A23 was a bloody nightmare.’
‘But, Mummy, why did you go to the churchyard? You said Granny’s gone to heaven.’
‘She has Nicky, and so has Granddad. I go there to feel close to them.’
‘Is that because they lived near there? Why don’t you go to their flat?’
‘Nicky, that’s enough. Just get down,’ said Robert.
‘I miss Granddad.’ His lower lip quivered as he slid off his chair.
‘I know Nicky, we all do, come here.’ Seeing him hesitate, Jenny pulled him towards her and hugged him.
‘You must have been the only person there on a day like this,’ Robert said as he pierced a sausage with his fork.
‘Yes, I was,’ she said, thinking that this was the first time she had lied to her husband.
PART ONE
1

January 1953

Jenny Porter was bored. Dropping her book to the floor, she threw the bedcovers back and knelt at the window, dipping her fingertips in and out of the pools of water that lay on the sill. Lifting the net curtain she peered out, hoping to spot her friends as they returned to school after lunch. But the pavements and roads were deserted. Above the frosted roofs she could see the sails of the windmill that stood on top of a flint barn. Miss Bruce, who she thought was the prettiest teacher in the whole world, had said that years ago it had been a landmark for ships; and that a famous painter – Jenny couldn’t remember his name – had painted a picture of it.
The smock windmill, a manor house and a church were all that remained of the downland village of West Blatchington; one of several that surrounded Brighton and Hove. The farm labourers’ cottages had been demolished at the end of the Second World War, to make way for the housing estate. Jenny remembered how excited she had been when she was told they were going to live in a new flat with a bathroom. Homes for heroes, her father had called them.
Jenny coughed and fell back onto her bed. She was convalescing from measles. On the fourth day of her illness, a plethora of scarlet spots had appeared, making it difficult to tell whether she was red with white spots, or white with red spots.