Page 53 of The Girlfriend’s Secret

Yes, I knew that Mum would leave me and my family hundreds of thousands of pounds in her will and yes, I was very grateful for that. But she just couldn’t see that it would have been far less useful to me at seventy than it would be at fifty. If my mother ended up living into her nineties, I would already have spent my entire life working, so what good is a bundle of cash then when my best years are behind me? How about sharing some of it when me and my husband still had each other, our relative youth and our health to enjoy it with?

Mum never saw it that way. ‘You and Frederik will live to a grand old age and there will be plenty of time for you to do all the things you want to do in retirement, just like there is for me now,’ she would say whenever I was moaning to her about my soulless, time-sucking job. Such a sentiment only made me grow more frustrated as more and more time slipped away, and it overshadowed all the time I was around her.

Visiting her at home, something that felt more like an obligation and a sense of duty to my late father than anything I wanted to do, became more difficult. It felt like Mum was either totally oblivious to my daily drudgery and desire to escape it or she was fully aware of it and taking some sort of pleasure in it, as if she felt the next generation had to work just as hard as she had for her money. I told her more than once that the world had changed a lot since she was my age. Things were a lot more expensive these days, from mortgages to childcare costs to simply filling up your basket at the grocery store, and wages hadn’t risen in line with those costs. Some of these discussions led to arguments and some of them took place in front of our other family members, which was regrettable, but arguments aren’t always avoidable, are they?

But most of the time, Mum either brushed over my concerns or ignored them completely, sparing us another argument but not helping my predicament in the slightest.

While Mum could ignore it, I couldn’t ignore the growing sense of frustration that was burning in my belly.

It got bigger and bigger, but I didn’t know what to do with it.

Until I woke up in the middle of the night with an idea.

What if I sped up the process of getting my inheritance?

What if my husband and I didn’t have to work for another twenty years before we got to enjoy life?

What if I hastened my mother’s demise?

Once the terrible idea was in my head, it was impossible to shake. It stayed there, burrowing its way deeper into my brain. Every time I yawned, or my husband yawned. Every time our direct debits left our bank account. Every time one of us had our holiday request denied by our employer. Every time I got another day older and longed for the alternative life I could be living.

Every alarm clock. Every commute. Every cleaning job. Every sink I scrubbed and every floor I mopped. Every lunch break that went too fast. Every Monday morning that went too slow.

Until it all became too much and I decided the time for thinking about it was over.

The time for action had arrived.

I knew I would have to make it look like an accident. But I also knew that was possible because my mother lived alone and she was in her mid-seventies. Would anybody really think it was strange if she fell down the stairs?

I doubted it.

So I just had to do it.

On the day I did, I arrived at my mother’s house with a simple knock on the door. The nerves I carried inside myself were concealed by my false smile when Mum answered and said she was surprised to see me. I was supposed to be at work. I told her I was on my lunch hour. A simple lie to get closer. Mum believed it. Why wouldn’t she? She invited me in. Again, why wouldn’t she? I glanced at the staircase as I entered. All I had to do was get her to the top of it. Such a dark thought was offset by reminding myself that my mother had ignored all my pleas or hints for financial help over the years and seemed to take some perverse pleasure in my struggles. But very soon, the perverse pleasure would be all mine.

‘Sorry, can I just use the bathroom?’ I asked as nonchalantly as I could.

‘Of course, dear,’ Mum said. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

I went up the stairs and lingered at the top for a moment, composing myself, knowing the time was almost here. But there was still time to change my mind. To back out. To not try and kill my mother.

It would have been easy to alter my plan. To go back downstairs, have a cup of tea with Mum and then leave as if it was just another day. But then I thought of all the early mornings I still had ahead of me if I didn’t do this. All the alarm clocks. All the cleaning. All the bills to be paid. All the overdraft reminders from my bank whenever my funds dipped slightly too low. And most importantly, all the life I was missing out on living if everything stayed the same.

Then I called out to my mother.

‘Mum, what’s this smell up here?’

‘What?’ she called back.

‘There’s a strange smell.’

‘Is there?’

I heard Mum leaving the kitchen and approaching the stairs.

‘I’m not sure where it’s coming from,’ I said, knowing that would only entice her to come up here and join in my investigation.

I was proven right, and as Mum came up the stairs, I took a deep breath.