The Couple at No. 9(101)

Later that afternoon Theo goes to visit his mum’s grave. The cemetery is busier than it usually is on a Saturday, which he puts down to the weather. Couples are strolling through the grounds arm in arm, families with young children and buggies. His heart contracts. He wants it so badly for himself and Jen. It’s a cruel irony to him that his dad illegally fathered all those children when he, Theo, can’t even get his wife pregnant. He wonders why his dad did it. He’d read up on other cases of doctors performing fertility fraud – he’d never heard of it before. A God complex is usually one reason. That sums up his father perfectly.

When he reaches his mum’s grave he kneels down to take the old flowers out of the vase and replaces them with the fresh roses. ‘They got him, Mum,’ he says, as he arranges the roses in the vase. ‘He’s admitted to pushing you and I think they’ll get him for Rose’s death too. I’ll …’ his voice catches ‘… I’ll never understand what happened that day. I’ll never understand him. But I promise, Mum, I promise that if I’m lucky enough to be a dad I’ll be everything he wasn’t.’

He touches the glossy marble tombstone, remembering the last time he’d seen his mum: the weekend before she died. She’d stood on the doorstep, pressing a bag of home-made cottage pies and lasagnes into his hands. She was the one who’d made him want to become a chef. She’d given him a huge hug, almost as if she knew it would be the last. And then she’d stood waving until he’d reversed out of the driveway, her smile hiding the pain she must have been feeling. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, a lump forming in his throat. ‘I’m sorry I never knew what he was capable of. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.’





59


Daphne



August 2018


Two women come and visit me today. They have dark curly hair, although one is older than the other. The younger one is wearing denim dungarees and looks like she might be pregnant. The older of the two is in an orange sundress. They are both beautiful. But all young women are beautiful to me, with their youth and their agility and their hips that don’t ache when they walk.

‘Gran,’ says the younger one, sitting beside my bed. I’ve been in bed a lot lately. My body doesn’t feel strong but I don’t know why. I cough and the younger one’s face crumples with worry. She’s chewing her bottom lip. The older woman looks hostile. She reminds me of someone. The expression she’s pulling, the disappointment in her eyes. She reminds me of Rose. ‘It’s Saffy,’ says the pregnant one. Saffy. Saffy. The name rings a bell. She’s calling me Gran. She must be my granddaughter. The other has to be her mother: they look so alike. But I’ve never had children. I know that. I’d remember that. The younger one is crying. I don’t know why. Tears are slipping down her face and falling onto the denim trouser legs, creating little dark splodges. Who are your tears for, my dear? I long to ask her. But my mouth won’t move. The words won’t come.

The older woman stands behind this Saffy and squeezes her shoulders. ‘Mum,’ she says, looking at me. ‘It’s Lorna. Lolly.’

Lolly. Of course it’s Lolly. My Lolly, my love.

‘I wish you could remember,’ she says softly. ‘I wish you could remember what happened to Rose, why you took her name.’

Of course I remember. ‘To keep you safe,’ I suddenly say, and their eyes widen in surprise. My voice is croaky. I sound like an old woman. The hands folded over my sheets are wrinkled and veiny. I am an old woman. Of course I am. Why do I keep forgetting that?

Lolly comes around the other side of the bed and places her hands over mine. ‘I want to forgive you, so much,’ she says. Her hands feel warm on top of my cold ones. ‘Especially now. We’ll never really know what happened that night,’ she says to me. I stare back at her. I’m not completely sure which night she’s referring to. I close my eyes. It hurts to keep them open. My chest aches and so do my lungs. I can hear their voices although they sound very far away but they’re talking about Skelton Place. And Rose.

My Rose.

I realize they’re talking about an upcoming court case. And Victor Carmichael. They’re talking about the night Rose died.

And despite the pain in my chest and the ache in my lungs I begin to talk.

I could feel Rose slipping away from me. It was the same feeling I had when I was a kid. When I was Jean. Susan pulled away from me too, and I knew the same thing was happening with Rose. It began after she killed Neil, looking back. She wasn’t a murderer. She didn’t put the bad things she had done in a box in the deep basement of her mind, not to be looked over, dwelt on, again. Not like I did. It was a gift. It helped me move on. But Rose couldn’t do that. Rose needed to believe she was a good person, that she was kind, that she’d go to Heaven one day. I loved that about her. That innocence. It was refreshing after what I’d come from. But sometimes it could also be unbelievably annoying. She expected too much from people. Nobody was all good or all bad but Rose was very black and white. And I could tell, after she found out who I really was, she began to re-examine her feelings for me. She got past it because she had killed too – but she could console herself that she’d done it out of loyalty and love. Out of protection and self-defence. Mine had been out of anger, and fear, and that deep-rooted sense of abandonment.