Page 79 of Lessons in Life

Karen Foley stared hard at us for a good few seconds before lifting a trembling hand to her head. ‘I need to sit down…’ She crumpled slightly, hanging onto the door for support.

‘I’m so sorry, we’ve upset you,’ Jess said, immediately taking charge again as though she were at work with the residents at Hudson House. ‘Let me help you.’ Jess gently pushed back the door, taking one of the woman’s arms and indicating to me that I should take the other. ‘Feeling a bit dizzy? Come on, Karen, we’re here to help. Will you let us help you?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘I don’t think you are,’ Jess soothed. ‘Is Mr Foley at home? A cup of tea? In here?’ Jess guided the older woman into a room on the left where a TV was on, helping her into a chair, placing a cushion behind her back. ‘Is the kitchen through here? Tea? Always helps, don’t you think, Karen?’

‘Don’t leave me,’ I mouthed at Jess. ‘You sit and talk to her, and I’ll make us some tea.’

‘Is that all right, Karen?’ Jess said, reaching for the woman’s hand. ‘Is it OK if my sister goes into the kitchen and makes us all some tea? You’ve gone very pale.’

Karen Foley nodded, her eyes closed, and I set off down the gloomy corridor in search of the kitchen. The house, despite the January cold outside, was stuffily warm. I opened a door on my right and tried the light switch on the wall, but to no effect, my heart immediately racing in fear as a pair of malevolent eyes met my own. The huge ginger tomcat glared in my direction before racing for the open door, brushing past me into the hallway and up the carpeted stairs beyond.

‘Shit,’ I said out loud. ‘Biggest bloody cat I’ve ever seen.’ I tittered nervously and was about to close the door on what I assumed to have been the dining room when a disturbance from the far corner of the room had me straining my eyes. Another cat? The room certainly smelt as if there was more livestock in there and, repulsed, I breathed shallowly against the rank odour as two more pairs of green eyes met my own. Hell, Karen Foley must be a cat lady. But cats didn’t normally mutter, I conceded, as a stream of incomprehensible words followed by a couple of thuds reached my ears.

‘Hello? I’m Robyn. I’m looking for the kitchen to make Karen some tea.’

More muttering and strange little grunts. Was there a lamp I could turn on? My vision becoming accustomed to the soupy, fetid gloom of the room, I saw a lamp on a table in front of me and switched it on, my eyes immediately drawn to a sort of chair bed and what, at first, I assumed to be a pile of blankets and clothes and on which were parked three more cats. I moved further into the room, realising that the pile was actually a person whose eyes were staring at me with as much hostility as the ginger tom a minute earlier.

‘Hello, I’m Robyn. Er, we’ve just come to have a word with Mrs Foley about Lisa. Lisa? Lisa Foley’s our mum, you see…’

I trailed off as the man’s eyes bulged – actually bulged – and I could see he was paralysed down one side, his mouth twisted into a horrible grimace. ‘Right, well, I’ll be off then… to make this tea… I don’t want to disturb you if you were sleeping…’ I made my exit, pulling the door quietly to. Jesus, that was like something out of the filmPsycho.

I found the kitchen through an adjacent door, hurriedly filled the kettle, took three of the upturned cups drying on the sink and found a tin marked TEA on the counter. I made tea in the cups, dropping a bag into each, found milk and hoped Karen Foley took milk but not sugar. Carrying the three cups of hot tea in my two hands, I sidled past the room with the cats and grimacing man – presumably Adrian Foley – and went back into the sitting room.

Karen Foley was sitting back against a couple of cushions, eyes closed, but she opened them as I stood in front of her, reaching for the proffered cup and gulping at the scalding liquid as if her life depended on it.

‘I’ve just been telling Karen here what a good life Lisa has had, settling in Beddingfield and mum to us three girls,’ Jess said, indicating with a nod of her head that I should sit on the other side of Karen. ‘Apart from the horrible porphyria, of course.’

‘Karen, are you able to tell us anything about Lisa’s birth family?’ I asked. ‘The thing is, this porphyria is possibly genetic – you know, could be passed on down to me or my sisters. We’d really like to know if you had any idea whether Mum’s birth mother or father could have been a carrier.’

‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never heard of this porphyria. Lisa probably made it all up to get attention; she was always attention seeking.’

‘OK.’ Jess smiled, encouragingly. ‘Can you tell us anything about who Lisa’s birth mother was, then, Karen?’

There was a good thirty seconds’ silence while Karen appeared to make some decisions. Eventually, she said, ‘I can tell you as much as you want to know about that mother of yours.’

‘OK?’ Jess’s voice was gentle. ‘We’d love to know more.’

Karen went to speak, but then suddenly swung round to look at me. ‘You look like her,’ she said, staring and pointing a finger. ‘Apart from the hair. Lisa had long straight hair. I cut it off because it did nothing but make her think she was better than everyone else; everyone telling her how beautiful it was. How beautiful and talented she was. Vanity is such a sin; the good Lord teaches us that.’ Before I could reply, Karen turned back to Jess. ‘But you don’t look like her. Take after that scruffy black man she ran off with, I suppose? And there’s another one of you at home? Three girls? I wanted boys… she should have been a boy…’ She broke off, her eyes wide and quite scary. Mad. ‘Boys are so much easier than vain, affected little girls who think they know it all. And who men drool over. Well, they don’t. And, I’m telling you now, they’re not.’

‘Not what, Karen?’ Jess’s voice was gentle.

‘Not what everyone thinks they are,’ Karen cackled. ‘Lisa, the little tramp, was a thief.’

‘No! I don’t think so!’ Jess’s face was scarlet. ‘No! Mum is one of the most honest people I know.’

‘Just proves how much you don’t know, then,’ Karen sneered. ‘You ask her. Ask her about the thieving from shops. How we had to go down to Sheffield city police station when she’d been caught with all that make-up.’

Stunned, Jess and I took refuge in our tea. When Karen said nothing further, the gloating smile still on her face, I asked, ‘Is that Lisa’s father in the other room?’ Jess, unaware of his presence, looked up in surprise.

‘Mr Foley, yes.’

‘He doesn’t appear too well.’

Karen snorted. ‘Of course he’s not well. Would you be well if you’d had such a miscarriage of justice hanging over you all these years?’

‘A miscarriage of justice?’ We both leant in.

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