The Day She Came Back(52)

‘Oh right, of course.’ He looked at the floor, his face coloured.

‘I did send you a text.’ She recalled the 3 a.m. attempt at contact to which he still had not replied.

‘I saw that . . .’

‘You did? Right, I did wonder, as you didn’t reply and it was something important: my life, in fact, that I wanted to talk about, needed help with.’

He hesitated. ‘My wife said not to reply as you were . . . I think she said, agitated.’ He nodded. ‘She said you sounded agitated.’

‘Did she? She was probably right. I am a little agitated.’ She gave a dry laugh, agitated . . .

‘I’ve got to be honest, it feels very strange coming here and not having your gran answer the door.’

‘Well, at least you have decided to be honest. That’s something, I guess.’ She watched his face colour and his mouth flap. ‘How did you see this working, Bernard?’ Her tone was clipped.

‘Oh! I suppose the way it always has. I do whatever is needed. It’s like the Forth Bridge, this house!’ He tried out a small laugh, which she ignored. ‘I still need to finish repairing the veranda that is proper rotten in some places, and I need to dredge the pond, the garage door needs painting, I have a list . . . Then I get a payment direct into my account every second Friday – and your gran adjusts it – sorry, used to adjust it – depending on my hours. I keep a log in my little book.’ He patted his pocket to indicate that this was where his little book lived.

‘I see. So I make you a cup of tea the way Prim used to, while we chat about the weather and the state of the wood on the veranda, and we just ignore the fact that you have been at the heart of the deceit that has ripped apart my life? Is that what you thought?’ She clenched her fists to stop them trembling.

‘I . . . I don’t know. I thought—’

‘I don’t care what you thought!’ She cut him off, despite having asked the question. ‘But this is what I think: I think you have some nerve. You were a spy in this house, watching my every move and reporting back to Sarah—’

‘It wasn’t like that!’ It was his turn to interrupt.

‘Wasn’t it? Tell me how it was then.’

She thought of all the times she had stumbled across him and Prim laughing over a cup of tea as he leaned on the countertop, or how they would stand admiring a flower bed, deep in conversation. Fury balled in her gut at the thought that she might have arrived home from school, given them a quick wave and made her way to the privacy of her bedroom and all the while there was the very real possibility that they were not discussing the loose linen cupboard door or what to plant around the lake, they were talking about her, about Sarah! How could it be that Bernard was in receipt of such important information while she was left out in the cold? It was monstrous, and she vented her anger on him, too blinded by emotion to question whether or not it was justified.

‘Prim didn’t know.’

‘Didn’t know what?’

‘Didn’t know I wrote to Sarah. I never told her.’ He hung his head and took a deep breath.

It should have made a little difference to her rage, but she was too deep in the pit of anger to think straight or claw her way up to the calm surface.

‘Sarah contacted me not long after you were born and asked me if she might be able to give me the odd call. And she did, once or twice a year, that was all, and then she sent me a new address in Oslo when she got settled, and I started jotting her notes – again, just once or twice a year.’

‘Did you ever see or hear about me crying for her? For my mum who died?’

He nodded and kept his eyes averted.

‘And all you had to do was tell me, tell me that my mum was still alive and that you knew where she was!’ Her voice cracked at the most monstrous thought.

‘How could I? You were a little girl and Prim would have been mad, she’d have told me to leave and Sarah would have lost the only contact she had . . .’

‘Jesus! So instead you became part of it, part of the conspiracy that has left me feeling like a stranger in my own house, my own family! I don’t know what’s real any more.’ Victoria kicked her toes against the brass lip of the step.

‘I couldn’t stand it, Victoria. I couldn’t stand for her not to be part of your life, that was all. It felt cruel.’ He tried and failed, in her eyes, to justify his meddling.

‘And what about me? That wasn’t cruel? I can’t stand that I have mourned my mum for my whole life; I thought she had died, Bernard! I thought my mum died! And one word from you and my life would have been so different!’ she cried.

‘I guess Prim thought—’

‘Prim’s not here any more, is she?’ Frustratingly, this phrase alone was enough to make her tears gather.

‘No, no, she’s not.’ His voice was soft. He rubbed his palm over his face, suggesting the reminder had moved him. ‘I don’t know how I got mixed up in it all, I just want to fix things.’ He looked like he might cry, but that was just too bad; she had cried her own fair share of tears.

‘You spied on me and fed information back to Sarah, and to make matters worse, Prim paid you for the privilege.’

‘It wasn’t like that!’ he implored.

‘So you said.’ She folded her arms, feeling simultaneously a little scared and elated that she was now in charge and in control. ‘I don’t want you to come here any more. Well, there’s no need, is there? Not now I can write my own notes to Sarah telling her to fuck off and leave me alone – should save you some stamps.’