The Girl I Used to Be(73)

“It’s like looking at you all over again,” she said. “It’s just wonderful, like a glimpse into the past.”

I knelt down by the side of the bath and tipped some water over Rory’s hair. He laughed and splashed me, drenching me.

“Will you tell me what’s troubling you, sweetheart?” she whispered. “What’s on your mind?”

Rory’s ears pricked up at this. “What’s on your mind, Mum?”

I gave my mum an exasperated look.

“She’s trying to guess what’s for supper.” She stood up and reached for a warm, soft towel. “Can you guess what it is?”

Rory stood up so quickly he almost slipped over. He clambered out of the bath and let my mum wrap the towel around him. “And wrap one around my head,” he said. “Like in the spa.”

My mum raised her eyebrows at me.

“We play spas, sometimes,” I admitted. “He has cucumber on his eyes and I have to paint his toenails.”

“And does Daddy do that, too?” she asked Rory.

“No, but we did it to him when he was asleep on the sofa.” He laughed. “Show her the photos, Mum.” He hugged me and just for that moment I forgot all my worries.



* * *



*

LATER, WHILE RORY was in bed and my dad was at a quiz night at their local pub, my mum and I sat on the patio. They have a fire pit, which my dad had lit before he went, to take the chill off the evening. She’d poured me a gin and tonic and I guessed she was trying to get me to open up to her.

“Is there something wrong at home? Have you and Joe been arguing?”

“No. Well, in a way. He’s got himself all excited, thinking we could move to Ireland. But I couldn’t do that. I’ve got the office and I wouldn’t be able to operate over there. As you said, I don’t know the area and I’m not qualified to work over there. It’s just a pipe dream for him, really.”

“Does he accept that?”

I sighed. “He and Brendan seem to think it could work.”

“Well, why doesn’t he find work over there and let you take a few years off with Rory and get qualified then? You could keep the office open here and take on a manager. It’s doable, isn’t it? You could even come back every month or so. Flights are very cheap from Liverpool to Ireland.”

I kept quiet. I couldn’t say to her that Joe had no intention of getting work. I knew what my mum thought of that. She’d been wary ever since he gave up his job to look after Rory.

“That’s not the problem, though,” I said. “I can deal with him.” I wanted to tell her what the problem was, but how could I? And then I thought, if I couldn’t speak to her, I couldn’t speak to anyone, so I said tentatively, “You remember what happened to me when I was eighteen? At that party?”

She stiffened. “Of course I do, pet.”

“I’ve been thinking about it. I should have let the police take it to court. It wasn’t fair, what I did.”

“What you did wasn’t fair?”

“No. Alex was arrested but then let go without being charged, and people thought he was guilty just because he was arrested.”

“But he was guilty, Gemma! You mustn’t feel bad about that.”

“I know, but he didn’t have the chance to put his case forward, did he? Going to court would have been horrible, but at least he would have had the chance to have his say.”

“What could he say?” she asked angrily. “He’d either say you agreed to it—and how could you prove you hadn’t?—or that he hadn’t done anything. There was no evidence by then. If you’d gone to the police at the time, it would have been different, but two weeks later? You think he would’ve just admitted it?”

“I had no choice,” I said, trying to keep my temper. “We went on holiday the next day. By the time I was ready to tell the police, I was in another country.”

“I know, pet,” she said. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t blaming you. I just meant that after two weeks there was no evidence. His defense lawyers would have made things really difficult for you.”

“I know,” I said. “I know. But . . . I don’t know. I just think he should have had a voice. If he had, he might not have . . . Well, he might still be alive.”

“It was terrible what happened to him,” she said. “It was. But that’s not your fault, Gemma. And his death may well have been an accident anyway. There was nothing to show he’d done it on purpose.”

I knew he had, though. Even though we weren’t friends, I’d seen him most days for two years and I’d got an idea of the sort of person he was. He was proud and ambitious; he lost his reputation and his dreams when he was arrested. It couldn’t be a coincidence that he drowned at New Year’s, just four months later.

“He’d always wanted to go to Oxford, you know,” I said after a pause. “I remember on our induction day when we were sixteen, we had to say what we wanted to achieve by the end of the course. I could tell from the way he talked about it that he’d succeed.”

My mum said nothing, her lips tight.

“And I don’t think the arrest would have stopped him practicing law,” I said. “I rang the Law Society a few years ago to ask them.”