The Mother’s Lies. Joanne Sefton

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       June 1963

       Katy

      She wondered if there would still be honeysuckle.

      From the car window she caught sight of it from time to time – flashes of mottled flowers on the motorway embankment and in the hedgerows – pink and cream against the bright beech and shadowy hawthorn. There had been honeysuckle in flower a year ago; scrambling around the edges of the building site, its tendrils grasping over the broken earth and scattered debris and scenting the afternoon air. It would all be different now. But still, she would like Mary to have honeysuckle.

      That was why they were coming today, Mr Robertson had said. It might seem more familiar at this time of year; Katy might be able to remember something new. It was also the last chance before the building was due to open to the public.

      Katy didn’t want to remember at all.

      Last time they had brought her back, it had been in winter. The windows of Mr Robertson’s stately old Austin had frozen up while he waited for her. Katy remembered that, and she remembered Etta, wrapped in a fur coat with black felt hat and gloves, standing stiff with malice whilst Katy and the police shivered from the cold.

      It had all been different to that first June day with Mary. In winter, there had been no broken earth and no wire fences, no ramshackle no man’s land where the site met the farms. By January it was all flat tarmac surfaces, white paint and clean lines. Builders’ vans were parked neatly by the entrance, and a pair of window fitters had stopped work to gawp at them, until one of the coppers went over to have a word.

      ‘This is us, then,’ Mr Robertson called from the front seat, bringing Katy back to June; back to honeysuckle and the present. Miss Silver, sitting next to her, gave her hand a quick squeeze, as if she were embarrassed but felt she had to do it anyway. There was a copper waiting at the bottom of the slip road. Mr Robertson pulled in, past the signs advertising next week’s grand opening of the service station. Moreton Chase it was going to be called – someone had told Katy that last time. The Austin slowed as if to stop, but the young constable waved them on, scurrying to replace the painted wooden traffic cones that were being used to block the slip lane.

      As the car swung round a wide bend into the car park, Katy felt her heart beat faster. She didn’t want to remember what happened a year ago. She didn’t want to feel Mary’s weight in her arms. She didn’t want to see Mary’s face. Instead, she forced her mind’s eye downwards, remembering only her own feet in their scuffed school shoes, tramping through the grass and clover on a sunny June morning.