Reluctantly Home(81)

‘Who’s it from?’ she asked.

‘No idea,’ said her mother, although Pip knew she would have examined it thoroughly for clues. ‘London postmark, though,’ she added.

Pip made her way to the lounge and retrieved the letter. The envelope was thin with a self-sticking flap, the sort you buy in bulk from the supermarket. Her name and address were handwritten in blue biro in clear capital letters. She didn’t recognise the script. She picked it up and headed towards her bedroom.

‘Who’s it from?’ her mother asked as she walked past.

‘Not opened it yet,’ replied Pip without stopping.

Whatever it was, she didn’t want to open it in front of her mother. She deserved some privacy.

In her room she closed the door firmly and took the letter to the bed, slitting open the envelope with her finger as she did.

The letter inside was written on a piece of lined paper torn from a ringed notebook, the top edge ragged and uneven. She opened it out and looked at the address. She didn’t recognise it per se, but she knew at once exactly who had written the letter and she felt her head grow woozy as her vision blurred in and out. She thought she might faint, and she was forced to breathe deeply through her mouth the way she had been taught until she felt stable enough to read on.

The first sentence confirmed her fears.

Dear Miss Appleby,

My name is Karen Smith and I’m Robbie’s mum . . .





47


Pip dropped the letter to her lap as if it were radioactive. Suddenly all the oxygen seemed to have been sucked from the room, and her head swam.

Robbie.

The boy.

The child whose life she had snatched away.

With trembling hands, she picked the letter back up and tried again.

Dear Miss Appleby

My name is Karen Smith and I’m Robbie’s mum. I’ve been wanting to write for a bit, but it’s been hard. Since what happened I haven’t been much good. But I had to keep going for the other kids. It’s hard for them, too. I’m on my own. Their dad left when Robbie was three. Work has been good about it. I can have time off if I need it but they don’t pay me so I try to keep going. And it helps, having something to do. You don’t forget. I won’t ever forget. But going to work gives you something else to think about and money’s tight with it being just me. I have to feed us all somehow.

Pip took a shuddering breath and wiped her eyes with the flat of her hand. She was frightened to read on, but also compelled to. What did the woman want and why was she writing now, after all this time? Pip could feel her chest grow tighter with each sentence as she waited for the letter to begin its recriminations: the anger, the blame, the sheer and unmitigated hatred the woman must be channelling towards Pip, and which only now she felt able to put into words. But she had to keep going, despite her fear of what was coming next. It was inevitable, like looking at a gory open wound, knowing that it would make you sick but at the same time finding it impossible to ignore. She read on.

I think about you a lot.

Here it comes, thought Pip: the blame. She imagined the woman lying in her bed at night, unable to find any rest or peace, and hurling curses at the woman who stole her precious child from her. It was only natural that she would do that. She must hate Pip with every ounce of her being.

Once again Pip paused. Perhaps, for the sake of her own self-preservation, she really should stop reading and not go any further. She was doing so well at the moment, could feel real progress. The panic attacks had stopped, the dreams were abating, and she was starting to feel like she might be able to enjoy life again. She didn’t want to know about the mother’s pain. She could imagine it for herself, had been doing that exact thing ever since the accident. What could possibly be gained from being told what she already knew and going right back to where she had been? She could just replace the letter in its cheap envelope and throw it into the fire, where it would never have to haunt her again.

But Pip knew she couldn’t do that. The woman, Robbie’s mother, had taken the time to put her anger and pain into a letter and the least Pip could do was to read it, absorb it, take some of it on to her own shoulders. She braced herself for what was to come and read on.

I’ve thought about what happened and how Robbie died and how you came out of it without a scratch on you. And to start with I was so angry. I really hated you. It wasn’t fair that my beautiful boy had to die when you’d just walked away scot-free.

But then I thought that you didn’t walk away, did you? Not really.

My lovely Robbie – he’s gone forever. He’s not coming back. I’ll never see him play football for Arsenal (did you know he was a Gunners fan? He had his shirt on that day. He never took it off unless I made him). I’ll never see him get a job, get married, have kids of his own. And that hurts – God, that hurts so much. But he’s gone. He doesn’t know any of it.

But you. You have to live. His life was gone in a second but yours goes on and on. You have to think about what happened every day. I guess it’s always in your head, like it is in mine, and it never goes away no matter what.

The difference between you and me, though, is that Robbie was my boy. I’m going to grieve for him forever. But you. You shouldn’t have to spend the rest of your life suffering. That really isn’t fair.

Pip had been bracing herself for the impact of the mother’s words to hit her between her eyes and knock her sideways, but now she stopped in her tracks. What exactly was the letter trying to say? She went back and reread the last two sentences. This was no condemnation. The mother wasn’t damning her for all eternity, as Pip had assumed she would. Cautiously now, she let her eyes trace the rest of the letter.