The Child (Kate Waters #2)(40)

She hesitated, and Jude waited for her to say it.

“And he made you throw me out when I was sixteen,” Emma said.

“He didn’t,” Jude snapped. “It was my own decision based on your behavior. You were impossible to live with and it was driving a wedge between us.”

“Between you and me or you and him?” Emma said.

“Both. You were trying to force him out with your lies and tantrums.”

“Lies?”

“Saying you’d seen him chatting up other women. Trying to destroy our relationship. You can’t deny it, Emma.”

“I’m not denying it. I did see him chatting up that woman down our street.”

Jude was furious all over again—with her daughter and herself.

“It was all perfectly innocent,” she hissed. “She denied it completely.”

“Well, she would, wouldn’t she?” Emma said.

“Look, I know I wasn’t the perfect mother, but you weren’t the perfect daughter, either.”

“But you were the adult, Jude,” Emma said, their discussion returning to well-worn lines. “Anyway, I’m just surprised you want to see him again now. He did leave you.”

“Things are different now,” Jude said firmly as if closing the subject. But a voice whispered in her ear, And I am so lonely.

I should have carried on working. Stupid to have retired early.

She’d given up being a lawyer when her parents died and left her a bit of money. “I’m sick of it all,” she’d said. “I’ll be a lady of leisure instead. I’ll go to afternoon concerts and museums.” But she hadn’t got into the swing of having spare time. She chafed against it constantly. Against life, really.

“Well, it’s up to you, Jude,” Emma said. “But be careful.”

Afterwards, the phrase echoed in Jude’s head. But she silenced it. Things have changed, she told herself.





THIRTY-TWO


    Emma


TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2012

My head is full of Will Burnside, and I find I’ve doodled a stick man on my notepad. My pen has gouged deep into the paper as I rerun my final days in Howard Street. The house reeked of disappointment. It seemed to drip down the walls and taint the food.

I can remember the hiss of the whispers between Jude and Will, the staccato urgency of phone calls and the closing doors. My exclusion. How could Jude say I was in love with Professor Will?

The drawing is on the same sheet as the reporter’s name. Kate Waters. I trace over the letters with my pen as I think about how I can talk to her without showing my hand. I need to know what she knows. Maybe put her off the track. Away from me.

I could mention the drug addicts, I think, and stop drawing.

I scroll down through the chapter I’m working on and write down the first name I come to.

“Hello, I am Anne Robinson and I used to live in Howard Street,” I try it out. “Did you know there was a house of drug addicts in the street? I think the baby belonged to one of them.”

It sounds stilted and scripted so I have another go, trying to make it sound more natural. “Hello,” I say again, sounding even more forced.

“Oh, forget it,” I say, and throw my pen across the room.

But I know I’m going to do it. It’s a good idea. She’ll go looking for the sad kids. Since Jude mentioned them, I’ve tried to remember them—I think they must have lived at number 81—but I can only recall them as a group, not individuals, with their dirty hair and stick-thin arms tattooed with needle tracks. “The living dead,” Will used to call them.

What if she asks questions? I think, biting the skin round my fingers. I start writing down details I remember. There was a girl called Carrie. They were there for years. Or it seemed like years. They’d gone before I left in 1985, I think. The landlord cleared them out early one morning. All their stuff was on the pavement, smashed cups, spilled bags of pasta, stained sheets, and old jumpers. The addicts didn’t take anything with them. It all stayed until the next time the binmen came round and shoveled it aboard the lorry. I’d forgotten all that until today. Packed it away with everything else.

Okay, I’ve got my story, I chivy myself back to the task at hand. I dial the number for the Daily Post and wait.

“Daily Post, how can I help you?” a woman chirrups.

“Er, can I talk to Kate Waters, please?” I reply, already sounding like an imposter.

“Putting you through.”

“Hello, Kate Waters,” a voice says. And it begins.

My carefully crafted opening sentence vanishes from my mind and I stutter.

“Hello, is that Kate Waters?” even though she’s just said so.

“Yes,” the voice is crisper now.

“Sorry, it’s just I’ve never spoken to a reporter before,” I burble.

“That’s okay,” she says. “How can I help you, er . . . ?”

For a second I can’t remember the name I’ve chosen, then blurt: “Anne. Anne Robinson.”

“So, Anne, how can I help you?”

“It’s about the baby on the building site,” I say and I hear an “Oh” under her breath. “You see I used to live in Howard Street.”