Where the Truth Lies

I never wanted to leave 88 St Stephen’s Place where Mom died in the upstairs bedroom seven months, three weeks and four days ago after what her obituary said was a ‘long struggle with cancer’. I cut it out of the paper - the obituary - and stuck it in my diary. ‘Survived by loving husband William, daughter Plum and sister, Frith…To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die…In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in the name of Lily Westwood, to the UK Breast Cancer Society.’ After a decade in England, William, Plum and Frith return to South Africa to settle in Paarl; all of them grieving after the untimely death of their beloved Lily. Newly-widowed William throws himself into restoring North Wind Manor, an Edwardian house, decaying after years of neglect. Frith, her identical twin sister, struggles to come to terms with being a ‘twinless twin’ while keeping her promise to Lily: to devote herself to William and Plum in their new lives in South Africa. Eleven-year-old Plum escapes into her imagination, which runs riot when she discovers the diary of Charlotte Butler, documenting her tragic life as the wife of a Captain of the British Imperial Yeomanry. As her aunt and father spiral slowly out of control, Plum is reeled into an obsession with the diary’s author, whom she believes is a spirit inhabiting the manor. ‘Where The Truth Lies’ interweaves past and present to explore the twisted dynamics of a family brought closer by sorrow, regret, mortality and an understanding that the truth is not always simple.