Lying in Wait(79)

‘Oh God, I had no idea she was that bad.’

‘She’s sleeping in his bed, for Christ’s sake. Laurence really needs to go and see her. He won’t listen to me. Yeah, she’s mad as a brush, but he’s being unfair to her. She just keeps crying and saying that he’s all she has. A visit even once a week shouldn’t be too much.’

‘He was upset too, about the argument, really upset.’

‘And you have no idea what it was about?’

‘Not a clue.’

‘It could have been about you.’

‘Me?’

‘Yeah, him choosing you over her. You should tell him to go visit her.’

‘Nobody is making him choose. I will tell him to visit.’

She leaned back in the armchair. ‘So how long have you been going out with Lar?’

‘A few months.’

‘Yeah? How did you meet him?’

Her questions were rude and nosy, but I wasn’t going to pretend. ‘My dad used to sign on in his office.’

Helen smirked. ‘Lydia’s not going to like that.’

‘Lydia?’

‘His mum. She’s a pathological snob.’

‘She’s not going to like that I’m separated from my husband either.’

‘Fuck’s sake! Really? No wonder they had a row.’

Helen hung around for a bit longer, waiting for Laurence to arrive. We chatted cordially enough, but I could tell she didn’t like me very much. Eventually, she had to go.

‘No harm to you, you seem all right and you’re pretty and all, but it’s never going to work, you and Laurence. You come from different worlds.’

‘I don’t think that’s any of your business.’

‘I’ve known him a lot longer than you.’

‘He loves me.’

‘Touché. But it’s not enough. Good luck.’ She swanned out the door, brazenly swiping a bottle of wine off the table as she left. ‘He owes me.’

I was deeply unsettled. When Laurence came home, I quizzed him about Helen and what she had said.

‘Ignore her. She’s jealous. You and I? We were thrown together in the most bizarre circumstances, but we were the good to come out of it. We can’t let others interfere.’

I didn’t think that Da signing on in his office was so bizarre, but I was comforted by his words. ‘What took you so long at the hardware shop?’

‘I tried to walk there, but I got so tired, I had to get the bus and I had to wait ages. I’m so tired and hungry all the time. I’m trying to stop eating. I don’t understand why I suddenly crave food all the time, like I used to.’ He flopped down on to the sofa and put his feet up, turning the television on.

I hadn’t commented on it, but Laurence had been looking increasingly bloated over the last few weeks. I was sure it was just a phase, something that would correct itself when he resolved this row with his mother. He hadn’t been his usual attentive self. He seemed moody and depressed.

‘Maybe Helen is right and you should go see her.’

‘Who?’

‘You know who. Your mum.’

Sometimes when Laurence didn’t want to discuss something, his eyes sort of blanked, as if he was shutting down.

‘No.’

‘Look, I already know she’s not going to approve of me. Helen told me as much. But if she’s really suffering, you should make the effort, Lar. She is your mother.’

‘No.’

‘Laurence –’

‘Just shut up about her, will you?’

That was the first time Laurence had ever raised his voice and snapped at me. He reminded me of Dessie in that moment. Bullying me into submission. I hadn’t expected Laurence to be like that. I wondered for the first time if I’d made a terrible mistake. Of course he apologized later, and was extra kind to me – exactly like Dessie. But I had convinced myself that Laurence was better than that. I needed him to prove me right, but I was helpless as I watched him slide further and further into himself.





22


Laurence


My mother. I tried to get back to work, get back to loving Karen, get back to being normal, but I couldn’t get my mother out of my head. As a nine-year-old, she had killed her twin sister, and yet she had been able to compartmentalize that, to put the fact to one side and carry on as if it had never happened. Maybe it was a genuine accident, but if there had been no intention, why had she never talked about it? And now that I knew she had been involved in Annie’s death, I felt like I had been living with some kind of version of my mother. I knew her better than anyone. And yet I hadn’t a clue who she was or what she might be capable of. She could turn on the flip of a coin from an emotional wreck to a sort of robot – clinical, callous and detached. Malcolm, of course, had always wanted to see the best in her, so he was inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt about Diana, but he didn’t know anything about Annie Doyle.

I questioned every conversation I’d ever had with her about Annie’s body and why my father may have killed her. I analysed all the ways she had manipulated me, and recalled how she had spoken to my father in the few months prior to his death. She had been the strong one. He had gone to pieces. They were complicit in Annie’s murder, and I knew that if it had been a straightforward accident, there would have been no need to cover it up. I couldn’t guess what had driven her or them to kill a vulnerable young girl, but I couldn’t stop my mind from imagining all the possible scenarios and seeing Karen in Annie’s place. It tormented me. My mother was as monstrous as my father, perhaps worse because she had been so well able to lie and pretend for so long. I tried to get my head around it. My sweet, frail, vulnerable mother had killed one if not two people. It explained her neuroses, her snobbery, her fear of leaving the house. And it terrified me. Because if my parents were capable of murder, was I?