The Bad Mother: The addictive, gripping thriller that will make you question everything

‘I had something to eat at Mum’s,’ he said, raking his fingers through his hair and scratching his head. ‘I thought you were going to suit yourself.’

‘But you never eat at your mum’s.’

‘I told you …’ His words trailed off. ‘Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Why don’t you have something else and we’ll save the stew for tomorrow?’

‘But we’re at Mum’s tomorrow.’ She swallowed hard. ‘What doesn’t matter, Adam?’

‘What?’

Her heart palpitations made for an unpleasant mix with her churning stomach. ‘You started to say something and then you said it doesn’t matter. Tell me.’

Adam looked suddenly tired, or had Lucy simply not noticed how the worry lines criss-crossing his brow had deepened over the last few months? His cheeks were ruddy from being out in the cold but that didn’t explain his watery eyes.

‘I said this morning that I’d risk Mum’s cooking.’

‘No you didn’t!’ she said, not meaning to snap but unable to contain herself.

She could recall the conversation in question quite clearly. They had been lying in bed, Lucy pressing Adam’s hand firmly on her belly as they waited in vain for him to feel her baby’s kicks. She would swear that she hadn’t lost track.

More calmly, she added, ‘You didn’t say anything about eating at your mum’s. We talked about what might be lurking in the freezer, that’s why I wanted to use up the braising steak.’

Adam raised his arm but couldn’t quite reach her, or he didn’t want to. ‘You’re right we did, and then I said how I might need to eat some humble pie, figuratively and literally.’

‘No, that’s not possible.’

‘So I didn’t say it?’

‘I’m not doubting you, but I don’t see how I could have forgotten something like that.’

Passing a hand across his face, Adam said, ‘But Lucy, you are doubting me.’ He released a sigh with a hiss. ‘Fine! I’m the one having conversations with myself. I’m the one who leaves the gas rings on.’

Adam made a move to go into the kitchen but Lucy stood her ground. ‘No, I’m not saying that.’

‘Yes, that’s exactly what you’re saying,’ he said, pushing past her. ‘I know you like to be little miss perfect and this stuff is driving you crazy, but have you ever stopped to think about what effect it’s having on me? You’re not the only …’

Adam had walked past the gleaming kitchen cupboards and the bubbling stew to stop a few feet away from the dining table. The sun was going down and the spotlights Lucy had selectively switched on in the kitchen had left the dining area in shadow, but not the complete darkness she had hoped for.

‘Adam,’ she began.

‘What have you done to the flowers?’ he asked, his voice full of the hurt Lucy had wanted to spare him.

She had thinned out the casualties and revived the remaining flowers as best she could using tricks she had searched for online, including snipping stems, adding sugar to the water and even something called the hat-pin trick. She had managed to prop up some of the weaker stems using the evergreen foliage but the end result was a haphazard arrangement of twigs and brown-edged blooms.

‘The water ran out and I hadn’t noticed.’

Adam sank down on to a chair and pulled at a rose with mottled edges. ‘You let them die.’

Lucy came behind him and folded her arms around his chest, resting her chin on his shoulder. ‘I didn’t mean to. No one’s ever given me such a massive bunch of flowers before and I didn’t realize how much water they’d need. I’ve saved what I could.’

Adam covered his face in his hands and whether it was deliberate or not, he pulled away from her as he bent forward. Lucy went with him, making her posture unnatural and uncomfortable, but she refused to let go.

Adam exhaled. ‘I don’t seem to be able to get anything right.’

Lucy squeezed her eyes shut. They were words she had flailed herself with so often and it seemed wrong, hearing them uttered by her forbearing husband. ‘Don’t say that.’

‘I can’t help thinking it’s because I’m not looking after you. I wanted to wow you with the flowers but they were too much. I can see that now.’

Despite an overwhelming sense of guilt, Lucy felt a bite of anger too. If she were in a better frame of mind, if she wasn’t pregnant, if she wasn’t making so many stupid mistakes, she would tell Adam it was only a bunch of flowers. It wasn’t as if she had let a living creature die.

But Lucy wasn’t in a better frame of mind so she said nothing. Yes, they were only flowers, but they were also a symptom of something far more unsettling.

‘And it’s not just you I’ve failed,’ Adam continued, sighing deeply. ‘I’ve messed things up with Mum too.’

‘But you said it went OK.’ She held back from framing the remark as a question. She couldn’t assume that was what Adam had actually said. She had been too busy worrying about the dead bouquet to pay much heed to what he had told her. ‘You are speaking again, aren’t you?’

Adam straightened up and, taking Lucy’s hand, guided her on to his knee. He kissed her neck before pressing his cheek against her chest. ‘Yes, Mum never stopped,’ he said. ‘I was the one behaving unreasonably, as you so rightly pointed out. I went there determined to make it up to her but she didn’t give me the chance. She’s refusing to go to New York now. I did try to get her to change her mind back but she says it’s her decision. Not that it matters. It’ll still be my fault.’

‘If it’s Viv’s decision, you can’t be held responsible.’

‘You don’t know my brother.’

And that was the thing; Lucy knew very little of Adam’s half-brother, other than it pained Adam to talk about him. Scott had been twelve when Viv’s second marriage collapsed and it had been his choice to live with his dad. Fifteen-year-old Adam had been left with their mum and, already estranged from his own father, the fractures in the family had deteriorated. Long before Lucy had arrived on the scene, Scott had moved to the States and Adam had cut him out of his life completely. Viv’s relationship with Scott was only marginally better, although it was hard to tell because she rarely mentioned his name in front of Adam.

‘I did try to make her change her mind.’

‘I believe you,’ Lucy said, rocking him gently in her arms.

‘It seems like she spends her whole life saying sorry, but she can’t go back and change a single thing, so why try?’

When Adam fell silent, Lucy chose not to ask the many questions filling her mind. She wanted Adam to open up voluntarily about whatever childhood traumas made his relationship with his mum so fraught and the one with his brother untenable. She was desperate to hear his fears. Anything was better than considering her own.

‘How was your day?’ he asked. ‘Did you do anything else except decimate my bouquet?’

Lucy let the comment pass. ‘I went for a walk around Marine Lake with Hannah.’

‘You met her?’ asked Adam, pulling away from Lucy so he could see her face.

‘I said I would.’

‘No, you didn’t. I was under the impression that you thought seeing Hannah would be too much stimulus for you at the moment. That was what you said.’

‘Adam …’ Lucy began but suddenly her mouth was as parched as the shrivelled flowers she had thrown away.

‘When we were lying in bed and you were ignoring what I told you about eating at Mum’s, were you having a nice conversation with yourself about meeting Hannah, by any chance?’

‘No.’

‘So you didn’t tell me?’

‘Not then, but we’d talked about it.’

‘But you didn’t think to mention it this morning? Why sneak behind my back, Lucy?’ he asked and before she could answer, he added, ‘I suppose she’s as mad as ever. She hasn’t had any more kids, has she?’

‘No, she was fine. I liked catching up with her. Look, I called her on the off-chance she was free, it was a last-minute thing. You said I could.’

‘I – said – you – could?’

‘I didn’t mean it like that!’

‘Repeat after me,’ he said slowly. ‘Adam is not my lord and master.’

Lucy felt foolish but Adam held her gaze expectantly.

‘You’re not my lord and master,’ she mumbled quickly. ‘I know that. What I meant was, we both said I should see Hannah after Mum set me up.’

‘Luce …’ Adam wiped his hands over his face. ‘OK, fine, we said you should see her. Even though we said no such thing. So how was it?’

Lucy felt herself shrink inside but carried on bravely. ‘It was OK. She didn’t bring the kids with her and, for the record, even Hannah admits her life’s in chaos.’

‘Just like you said.’

‘Yes, just like I said,’ Lucy agreed, rather than open up that particular debate again. ‘And she doesn’t have more kids, but her cat’s had kittens.’

‘Poor mites. God help them in that house.’

Lucy bit her lip and, wanting to remind him of the people they once were, she said, ‘Which is why she’s looking for good homes. Remember when we were thinking about getting a kitten?’

‘Yeah, I wish we had now. I’d feel better letting you loose with a cat than I would a baby – at least it could look after itself,’ he said and, oblivious to how his barbed words had made his wife wince, he added, ‘So, aside from adding a cat to our household, what else have you two been conspiring about? Are you going to see her again?’

‘Only for business. She wants me to do a portrait of her nan. She died at Christmas and I said I’d meet her grandad to discuss what he wants.’

Adam’s body jerked. ‘Lucy, you said you’d stop painting.’

Lucy knew she had promised no such thing but she didn’t have the stomach for another argument. She could feel Adam tensing as he prepared to slide her off his knee. She stroked the side of his cheek. ‘I told her I’d do it after I’ve had the baby. I’ll keep putting her off,’ she promised.

‘Because it’s what you want or because you think it’s what I want?’ asked Adam, his stare intensifying as he waited for the right answer.

‘It’s what I want, Adam,’ she whispered softly.

Adam lifted the folds of her brushed-cotton shirt and began exploring her body with his hand. He pulled at her vest top until he found a route to her warm flesh. His fingertips were ice cold and she felt a shiver as he worked his way up to cup her breast. As his lips brushed against hers, he whispered, ‘That’s my girl. Now how about we go to bed and put all of this behind us?’

With a rush of relief, Lucy was eager to agree. Unlike the flowers, she had survived to fight another day.

8

Christine glanced anxiously at her daughter. ‘I’d feel better if you came in for a quick cuppa,’ she said. ‘It’s a long drive home.’

‘I don’t know, Mum. Adam should be back by now.’

Lucy took her hands off the steering wheel and dug her phone out of her pocket. The last text from her husband had been the apology for missing their introductory antenatal class.

Christine peered over her shoulder. ‘No message?’

‘Nothing,’ Lucy said through gritted teeth. ‘He can’t still be caught up in traffic.’

‘It must have been pretty serious to close off part of the motorway. We should be grateful Adam wasn’t the one involved in the accident.’

‘I know,’ Lucy said, ‘but I’d told the midwife how supportive he’s been and I felt really stupid turning up without him. He knew how important it was to me. He should have left earlier.’

‘And Adam will be thinking the exact same thing. Now come inside and relax before you race home to give him an earful.’

Lucy was forced to agree, and not simply because she didn’t think she would last the next forty minutes with the baby pressing on her bladder. The delay would give her time to build up the courage to drive back through the tunnel, a journey she would never have chanced if she hadn’t needed to pick up her mum as a stand-in. She expected Adam to be mortified when he found out.

There had been a time when Lucy joked with Adam that she was the better driver, but the one-and-a-half-mile drive beneath the Mersey had become a passage of fear. It stemmed from one particular incident when she had been driving through the tunnel with Adam, not long after she moved in with him and before she could use her baby brain as an excuse. Adam had been forced to yank the steering wheel to keep the car from drifting across the narrow lanes before Lucy even knew what was happening. Tonight, it was her anger alone that had kept her focused on driving between the white lines.

‘He’ll be as disappointed as you,’ Christine said after handing Lucy a cup of chamomile tea and taking a seat next to her on the sofa.

Lucy watched the rising steam curl and twist as she sighed. ‘He knows how much I want him to feel more involved. So far, all he’s been able to do is listen to my complaints about how sick I feel, or how tired I am,’ she said, stopping short of adding the more serious complaints about her ineptitude.

Since the disaster with the flowers a month ago, Lucy’s life had been peppered with similar mishaps, if not on such a grand scale. She wasn’t sure how she had managed to finish her painting of Ralph without calamity, but the end result had been surprisingly good. Lucy had been used to juggling three or four paintings in a month to earn a steady income, but it had been worth the time spent focused on just the one. When she handed over her latest piece to her overjoyed client, she had briefly regretted the call she had made to Hannah to put off her next commission. Her one consolation was that she was now painting for pleasure.

Freed from that sense of trepidation whenever she accepted a new commission, Lucy had made her latest work deliberately abstract. Capturing the ideas she had felt tugging at her imagination the day she had met Hannah, Lucy had produced three canvases that were experimental, to say the least. She had been so pleased with the end result that she had posted photos of them on her website a couple of days ago and although she was apprehensive about how well they would be received, her change in direction had taken the pressure off, as Adam had predicted. The baby was their main priority now.

‘I’ve been trying to get Adam to feel the baby’s kicks,’ she continued. ‘And he said he did the other day but I think he was only saying it to appease me. I want him to get excited about the baby instead of wondering why the hell we ever thought I was ready to be a mother.’

‘But you are ready! And do you seriously think he isn’t excited?’ said Christine with disbelief heavy in her voice. ‘He wants this baby as much as you do, Lucy. When you talk about her and your eyes light up, so do his. Trust me, I’ve been watching.’

‘But when I worry, so does he,’ Lucy said, lifting her cup to her lips and willing the chamomile to work its magic.

She knew Adam hadn’t deliberately missed the class and he had been full of remorse when he phoned to explain how he was sandwiched between two stationary cars on the M60, but she had refused to make him feel better. The last text he had sent had been a follow-up apology to the one he had tried to make during their call when Lucy had been yelling too much to hear it. She also knew that, however bad Adam felt, at some point she would feel worse and there was a good chance she would be the one apologizing by the end of the night. Even so, she couldn’t let go of her anger.

‘At the very least he owes you an apology. I didn’t mean to wreck your night out.’

‘Don’t be silly. I’m just sorry you had to drive over to Liverpool to pick me up. If I’d known I’d be needed, I wouldn’t have had a drink. You don’t think anyone noticed I was a bit squiffy, do you?’

‘You were there for me, that’s the main thing.’

‘Perhaps this should serve as a warning. I should be ready for any eventuality.’

‘I’ve still got three more months to go,’ countered Lucy. ‘And you should be able to go out and celebrate whatever spurious excuse for a celebration you happen to have. What was it this time?’

‘Nothing more than surviving another day at the tax office with double the workload and half the staff.’

‘You should retire if it’s getting too stressful,’ said Lucy, almost believing that the suggestion was purely for her mum’s benefit.

‘I couldn’t afford to, not yet,’ replied Christine. She looked into the depths of her cup and refused to meet Lucy’s gaze when she added, ‘And I hate to say this, but I might not be able to reduce my hours either. I haven’t put in a request yet because I’m not sure it would get approved.’

Lucy took a gulp of scalding tea that burnt her tongue. ‘But you’d be saving them money, surely?’

‘Our department is already cut back to the bone and the savings wouldn’t be enough to offset the disruption. My best chance would be to wait for a fresh round of budget cuts, or yet another reorganization.’ Christine took hold of her daughter’s hand when she added, ‘I want to help you more than anything but I think we both have to be prepared if it doesn’t happen as quickly as we’d like.’

Lucy kept her head down so her mum wouldn’t see the tears brimming.

‘I’m sorry, this is really bad timing,’ Christine said. ‘A more sober me would have picked a better day to bring it up.’

‘It’s not like I was expecting you to be on call twenty-four seven, Mum, and it’s fine. It means Adam will have to work from home a bit more than we were planning, that’s all. His boss doesn’t exactly chain him to the desk. As long as the work’s done, I’m sure no one would mind.’

‘And Adam will look after you, won’t he?’

‘Of course,’ Lucy said, her instinct to defend him overriding her present annoyance. ‘I know he has his moments, like tonight, and he can be …’

‘Awkward?’

Lucy found herself smiling. ‘Something like that,’ she said. ‘But he’s so loving, and incredibly patient.’

‘And I’m sure he’ll make a really good dad.’

Hoping to take advantage of her mum’s loose tongue, Lucy asked, ‘What about my dad? Was he a good father? Up until he died, I would have said he was the best, but what did I know? What was he really like, Mum?’

When the sofa creaked as Christine shifted position, Lucy gave her mum’s hand a tight squeeze. She wasn’t going to make it easy for her to evade the questions she had been dodging for two decades.

‘He loved you more than anyone,’ Christine said. There was a catch in her throat when she added, ‘He idolized you.’

‘If that’s true, then why did he do what he did?’

‘It’s—’

With her heart racing, Lucy shook her head. ‘Don’t say complicated.’

Lucy had never been given much information about the events surrounding her father’s death and as a result, she had spent most of her life making up her own theories. Her greatest fear of late was that whatever had been wrong with her dad had been passed on to his daughter, lying in wait until she was at her most vulnerable.

‘But it was complicated, love,’ Christine said.

‘Complicated how? What was so bad that he felt he couldn’t bear to spend another day with the daughter he idolized?’

‘He wasn’t thinking straight.’

‘I know that,’ Lucy said, her words strangled by twenty years of pain. ‘No one in their right mind jumps off a bridge for no apparent reason. Why did he do it, Mum? Were there any warning signs? Why wasn’t he thinking straight? Was he ill?’

Christine had never spoken of the possibility that Lucy’s dad had suffered from a mental illness, but Lucy was beginning to understand how something like that could creep up on a person. He could have been hiding it from everyone, even himself.

Closing her eyes briefly, Christine bowed her head and refused to meet her daughter’s gaze. ‘It was because of me,’ she said at last. ‘Your dad and I had a strong relationship when we first married and we told each other everything. But as time went on, we got in the habit of saying nothing rather than worrying or hurting each other. Eventually, we fell out of practice of talking at all except through you. You were the glue that kept us together.’

A shudder ran down Lucy’s spine. If she had been the glue that had kept her family together, why wasn’t she sitting there with both her parents? What had been wrong with her dad? What was wrong with her? Lucy could feel herself shutting down in panic – did she really want to know how bad things could get?

‘My biggest regret is that the last time we talked, we argued and I never got the chance to put things right,’ Christine confessed in a whisper.

Her quivering voice gave Lucy the excuse she needed to retreat from the past. ‘Oh, Mum, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have brought it up, but it’s been playing so much on my mind lately.’

‘You’re about to become a parent yourself and it’s natural to want to look back, but you need to concentrate on what lies ahead.’

‘I am,’ Lucy said, her half-empty cup trembling in her hand as she set it down. ‘And if you don’t mind, I’d better make a move.’

Lucy worked her way to the edge of the sofa and arched her back as she stood. She was about to put her phone in her handbag when it beeped.

‘Another apology?’ asked Christine.

Lucy grimaced as she read the message. ‘Actually, it’s from Hannah. She wants to know if I still want the kitten. They’re ready to leave their mum.’ Her friend was practically begging her to take one.

‘You’re not seriously considering it, are you?’

An image of wilting roses flashed through Lucy’s mind but she pushed it away. Adam had said she’d be fine looking after a cat and she had read somewhere that animals had a positive effect on mental health. A kitten would brighten her day and, more importantly, build her confidence in time for the birth of her daughter. Those poor kittens needed homes and even Adam had felt sorry for them.

‘It would be nice to have some company through the week, and Adam quite likes the idea,’ she said. She was stretching the truth a little, but he had talked about the addition of a cat to their household as if it were a fait accompli.

‘But you’re going to have your hands full as it is when the baby arrives.’

Lucy turned her phone to show her mum the photo Hannah had sent of a fluffy ginger kitten with a handwritten sign in front of it that read, ‘I love Lucy.’

Christine pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and smiled at the image. ‘Aww, he is cute.’

‘You could get one too. I don’t think she has homes for all of them yet.’

‘At least one of us has to keep hold of our senses,’ Christine warned.

If the comment was meant to dissuade her daughter from making a rash decision, it had the opposite effect.

‘He’s been de-flead and wormed but I’ll get him health checked anyway and neutered when he’s old enough. By the time the baby comes, he’ll be all settled in. I might even pick him up on my way home,’ Lucy said, liking the idea of snuggling up with a purring kitten that very night.

‘Shouldn’t you run it past Adam first?’

‘After tonight, I really don’t think he’s in any position to object. Do you?’

‘But you’re not prepared! You’ll need food and a litter tray.’

‘And cat litter, and food bowls, toys, a collar, and a bed,’ Lucy said as her musings turned into a firm decision. ‘And possibly a hot-water bottle to keep him warm until he gets used to not having his brothers and sisters around. There’s at least one twenty-four-hour supermarket on my way home. I can work fast.’

With a plan forming in her mind, Lucy messaged Hannah to let her know she was on her way. Her next message was to Adam, warning him that there was a surprise coming and as she pressed send, Christine picked up the coat Lucy had flung across the back of the sofa.

‘Are you sure this is a good idea, love?’

‘Honestly, it’s fine,’ she said as she slipped on her coat. ‘I’m glad I came in for that cuppa now.’

Lucy was grinning as she dug her hands into her pockets for her car keys, but her smile quickly faded.

‘I can’t find my keys. What have I done with them?’ she said as she searched her handbag. When her fingers failed to connect with anything vaguely key-shaped, she shook it close to her ear in case her sense of touch had deceived her.