He frowned as he tried to remember. ‘Eighteen, I think.’
‘So you weren’t her first or anything?’
‘No. She was engaged to someone else before she met me.’
‘What, and then like she met you and fell in love so she had to end it with him?’
‘Actually, it was already over between them before we met.’
Her bottom lip came out, suggesting she wasn’t too pleased with that answer. ‘But did you fall in love straight away?’ she prompted. ‘Did you know she was the right one for you?’
Sensing it was what she wanted to hear, he said, ‘I think so, more or less.’
‘Was she like the most beautiful woman you’d ever seen?’
He smiled. ‘Yes,’ he replied.
She nodded, seeming happy with that, then lifting his hand she began twisting her fingers round his. ‘So you were seventeen,’ she said, keeping her eyes down.
‘And now you’re going to ask me who she was,’ he responded wryly.
She shook her head. ‘No, not unless you want to tell me.’
‘I’d rather you told me why you’re interested.’
She shrugged and continued to stare at their hands. ‘No reason,’ she said, bending and stretching his thumb.
He waited, wishing he was more up to this, but at the same time glad she felt able to broach it. In the end he said, ‘Have you met someone? Is that why you’re asking?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I just think, like, you know I shouldn’t do it while I’m still only fourteen, should I?’
Managing to keep his tone level, he said, ‘Well, as it’s not even legal until—’
‘I know that. I’m just saying.’
When she didn’t elaborate any further, he said, ‘Is someone asking you to do it?’
‘No, but the girls at school … Lots of them have already done it, and it’s like no big deal, so …’ She trailed off, leaving him to wonder if it was a big deal or not.
‘The time to do it,’ he said carefully, ‘is when you meet someone special who means a lot to you and thinks you’re—’
‘That is so old-fashioned,’ she cut in. ‘It’s not like that these days. People just do it because they want to. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it any more,’ and turning around she laid her head back on his shoulder.
As he stroked her hair he tried to puzzle out what the conversation had really been about, whether she was undergoing some kind of peer pressure, or perhaps she had met someone but didn’t want to admit it.
‘You are the coolest dad,’ she told him suddenly. ‘I can say anything to you.’
‘Well, you definitely didn’t hold back when you were swearing at me last night,’ he reminded her dryly.
She giggled, and cosied in a little closer.
They continued to sit quietly, staring absently into the dying fire, each with their own thoughts, until Mrs Davies brought in some tea and set it down on the desk.
It was a while after she’d gone that Miles started to get up, reluctant to break the closeness but keen to see Kelsey eat something, even if it was only a biscuit.
‘You know when I came in just now,’ Kelsey said as he poured the tea, ‘and you were talking to someone on the phone? Was it her?’
Glad she had no way of seeing his sudden leap in tension, he said, ‘Yes, it was.’
She didn’t speak again until he turned round to pass her a cup.
‘I don’t want it,’ she said, looking away.
Deciding not to argue, he put it back on the tray and picked up his own.
‘So like you had to ring off because I was in the room?’ she said, her face becoming pinched.
‘Would you have preferred that I carried on talking to her?’ he countered calmly.
Her expression turned stonier than ever.
Sighing, he went to sit next to her again. ‘I heard Rufus in the background,’ he said, ‘that was why I rang off. I didn’t know what to say in case it upset you.’
‘Why would it upset me? I couldn’t care less what you say to him.’
‘Darling …’
‘It’s
fine
. You can talk to him all you like, and her. It makes no difference to me.’
‘I wish you meant that.’
‘I do,’ but it was clear she didn’t.
Taking a breath, he forced himself to say, ‘They’re going to be in Devon this week. I’d like it very much—’
She was on her feet. ‘I’m going back to school tomorrow,’ she told him, her voice shaking with anger.
Knowing it would be wrong to try and talk her out of it, but not wanting her to go like this, he said, ‘Why don’t you come and sit down? We need to talk—’
‘I am so not interested. What you do with her—’
‘Kelsey, please try to understand why it’s important that you and Rufus meet. You’re both my children …’
‘He might be, but you don’t have to worry about me
any
more. I’ll go back to school and then you can be with him.’
‘That’s not what I want. You’re creating a difficulty where there doesn’t need to be one.’
‘It’s you who’s creating the difficulty just by having him,’ she cried. ‘Anyway, I don’t care what you do, because I won’t be here.’
As the door closed behind her he put his head in his hands, despairing of what to do, or even say, to try and get through to her. Then quite suddenly she was back.
‘You couldn’t give a damn where Mum is now, could you?’ she accused furiously. ‘You’re not interested in anything about her, because all that matters to you is your
son
.’
‘Kelsey—’
‘And that’s all that matters to her too,’ she shouted over him. ‘So you’re both the same and I’m sick to death of you. I hate this house and this family and I wish you were all dead.’
As she went thundering up the stairs he reached for his phone and did something he hadn’t done in days. He called Jacqueline’s mobile which hadn’t turned up with her other things and left yet another message reminding her she had a daughter and asking her to spare a thought for what this silence was doing to her.
‘If you’re checking your voicemail,’ he said, ‘you’ll know by now how desperate she is, and if you’re up to date with the news perhaps you’ll understand how much she needs you while she tries to adjust to what’s happening.’ He was about to ring off when he suddenly added, ‘It might be over between us, Jacqueline, but she’s still a child, for God’s sake. She doesn’t deserve this. As her mother you should stop being so damned selfish and put her first for once in your life.’
Chapter Fifteen
THE CHURCH CLOCK
on Kew Green was striking midday as a dark-haired woman in a camel coat passed by. She was counting the chimes absently in her mind:
one, two, three …
through to
eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen
. She halted. Her eyes came up from the pavement to look around. Had anyone else noticed? It didn’t seem so, because the world was continuing on its way, cars speeding in either direction, dog-owners and their pets roaming the green, early lunchers heading for the pubs. She was certain she hadn’t made a mistake, so perhaps she was the only one who’d bothered to count.
She glanced up at the tall bell tower with its elegant green dome and intricate arches. Both golden hands of the clock were pointing to twelve. There was no fourteen, but how could there be? Her gaze lost some focus as her thoughts became blurred by curiosity and a little amusement. Then it occurred to her that maybe only she had heard the final two chimes, because only she was supposed to. At the suggestion of a coded message, a hidden sign, her heart gave a jolt. She wished it was possible to have the last two minutes over again, to be certain she’d heard right. Then, as though surging up from a bottomless well, the chilling echo of the same refrain –
please let me have the last two
minutes
over again –
made her turn from the church and walk on.
It was an ordinary day; a dullish sky, with an occasional skip of wind, and leaves gently falling. She paid it no attention, because the weather held no more interest for her than nature, or people, or places. She and the world were strangers now, passing one another by like ships in the night, or hands on a clock. There was no desire to renew their acquaintance; they only had old animosities and an uncrushable spectre of hope to bind them together.
Life, on the other hand, was her enemy. She detested its trickery as much as its extravagant promises and barefaced artifice. It had dealt so cruelly with her that to punish it she had simply withdrawn from its game. Never again would she be seduced by its persuasive glimpses of a rosy future or believe in its ability to come good in the end. She had no heart to engage with it anyway, no blood left to shed, or even tears to cry. Now, when she cut herself, guilt ran from her veins, and when she cried shame rolled from her eyes.
If only she could have those few minutes over again. Life didn’t allow that though, did it? It delivered its blows then left the defenceless to the harrowing torment of their own minds, and the insupportable burden of a conscience that could never be salved. The screaming in the night had never been her baby crying for his mother, it had always been her. Wild, plaintive howls of grief and despair to break the harshest of hearts and soften the coldest of souls. Miles would find her in the garden, begging the moon and stars to take pity on her in a way the sun never did.
Please, night, bring him back before another day dawns without him
. But night never did. It was unmoved by her plight; it had
no
interest in filling her empty arms, or easing her pain. Like God and fate, it blessed the people who’d crept out of nowhere to devastate her world, while it cursed her for the two minutes of negligence that had allowed them to steal her son.
She was still walking, approaching the roundabout at Richmond now. The garage that used to be there no longer was; it had become an estate agent’s a while ago, though she didn’t know when. She stood on the far side of the busy interchange, staring through the traffic to the benign-looking building opposite with its glossy white facade and black timber frames. Never a day went by when she didn’t stand here, not really seeing, just thinking, about Sam, and who he might be now. And the person, or people, who’d taken him. Had it been a kind, gentle woman who’d gone on to love him and treat him well? Or an evil, sadistic monster who’d— She shut that down abruptly, as she’d finally learned how. Over the years the person, or people, who’d devastated her life had acquired a thousand different faces and even more names. She saw them in shops and on buses, outside schools and in playgrounds. She never spoke to them, she only watched their children and felt the emptiness inside her growing deeper and blacker until sometimes it was all there was left of her.
In the early days she’d been drugged in an effort to silence the nightmares and keep her calm. It had turned her into a zombie, but it hadn’t stopped her thinking about stealing a child – if life could take from her, she could take from it. Not that she wanted someone else’s child, she only wanted her own, but sometimes she felt an urge to punish the world for what it was doing to her. She’d never done it, because
even
in her grief-demented state she’d had enough compassion to care about the woman who’d suffer.
With her eyes still focused on the building opposite, she wondered if those responsible had ever returned to the scene of their crime. Did they know it was no longer a garage? Why would they care? Had they spared a thought for her that day, or any day since? Surely they must have read or heard the news, so they’d have known that the police, and even some of their friends, had started to suspect her and Miles of killing their son? It hadn’t made those who’d taken him come forward, but it had brought others into the light, people who had opinions and theories, others who’d suffered similar fates, and a woman who’d stepped from the shadows to claim that she knew for a fact Sam Avery had never been in the car when his mother had driven into the garage.
She blinked reflexively as a driver sped past, angrily blasting his horn. She didn’t look to see what had prompted it. She wasn’t interested. She merely continued to stare at what used to be the garage, unaware of time or space, or even sound. Her breath was shallow, and her nerves taut and frayed like thin copper wires. Sam’s laughter was pushing up from the past to blend with Miles’s frustration and Kelsey’s angry confusion. He wanted to be heard, but his sister’s voice was louder, drowning him out with her sobbing and pleading, desperate to be seen and loved. The need moved past her like a breeze. She knew it was there, and even fleetingly felt it, but it didn’t penetrate far or remain. It had no place with her, she wouldn’t accept it, because it belonged to a world she had no part in.
Life wasn’t going to touch her again, and if it
thought
it had made amends by giving her a daughter, it must realise by now she had proved it wrong. It could keep its little tokens of mercy and false bundles of joy. She’d been cheated of one child, she wasn’t going to be tricked again. Miles could nurture and bond with their daughter if he chose to, the risk was his to take. For her there was no forgiveness – life hadn’t returned her son, so she wouldn’t accept what it had given her in his place. Nor would she allow it to toss her another son, a substitute, a salve, as though Sam had never really mattered. Oh no. She wouldn’t conceive again until her firstborn was back in her arms.
Her head went down and she bunched her hands more tightly in her pockets as she turned to walk on. Anne Cates needed to return to the house she had rented, which she’d paid for in cash, in advance, so no one bothered her at all, not even her landlord who lived in Spain. To her neighbours she was merely the dark-haired woman at number fourteen who kept herself to herself. One or two mumbled good morning and passed on by, heads down, hurrying to the station where they bought various newspapers on their way to work. The headlines would be of momentary interest before they turned the page, moving on to the next. They’d never connect them with the woman who occasionally walked around the green, or stood on a roundabout staring at something that didn’t exist any more. They’d have no idea of the shock she’d received on picking up the paper two days ago, or of the emotions that had followed since like shadows, trailing behind for a while, then suddenly looming large and dark at the front of her mind.