Haven't They Grown(25)

Dom doesn’t get a chance to tell me what he means because my phone starts to ring.

‘Hello?’

‘Beth! I can’t believe this! Is it really you, after all these years?’

Is it really you, Flora?

I don’t need to ask. I know it’s her, without a doubt. I’d know that voice anywhere. It’s the same one I heard yesterday morning, on Wyddial Lane. I can’t pretend any more, not now I’ve heard her speak. ‘Flora – sorry to just go straight in with this, but … can I tell you about something really strange that happened to me yesterday?’

Dom covers his face with his hands.

‘Of course,’ says Flora.

I tell her the same lie I told Lewis – that I ended up on Wyddial Lane by accident. Then I tell her what I saw, and what happened when Dom and I went back there this morning. When I get to the end of the story, she says, ‘Beth, that’s … the strangest thing I’ve ever heard. I can promise you, Thomas and Emily are no longer five and three.’ She laughs.

‘Obviously,’ I say. ‘I know it sounds like I’ve gone mad, but I haven’t. I don’t think so, anyway.’

‘Is this why you contacted Lewis?’

‘Yeah. Dom told me you’d all moved to Florida – I didn’t know that, but as soon as I heard it, I realised I could … well, I could find out if you were there or here.’

‘I’m here.’ Flora laughs. ‘Which, for you, means I’m there, and you can’t have seen me on a street in England where I used to live. Beth, I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to call you back later. Someone’s at the door. Lovely to talk to you – we’ve left it far too long! Bye.’

‘Wait,’ I say.

Too late. She’s gone.

She lied. No one was at her door. She could have ignored it, or let Lewis answer it. She hasn’t spoken to me for twelve years, I tell her the most bizarre story she’s ever heard and she chooses to end the call because ‘someone’s at the door’?

I know where I heard the word lucky. Flora said it, standing outside Newnham House yesterday, talking on the phone. As well as saying she was home, talking about Peterborough and saying hello to someone called Chimpy, she said, at the very end of the phone call, ‘Lucky. I’m very lucky.’

I pick up my phone again.

‘What happened?’ says Dom. ‘Where did she go? Who are you ringing now?’

‘No one. Look. Look what it says for the last call.’ I pass him the phone.

‘No caller ID.’ He says it as if it’s an answer that raises no questions, and hands the phone back to me.

‘What does that mean?’ I try Lewis’s number again and get a busy signal.

I can’t call Flora back, or see where she called me from. If she’s in Hemingford Abbots and not Delray Beach, for instance. Which would explain why there had to be a separate call – why Lewis couldn’t pass his phone to her so that she could speak to me.

Then who was the woman I just heard saying ‘lucky’?

‘It could mean many things,’ says Dom.

‘No.’ It could, but it doesn’t. ‘It means one thing. It means that Flora deliberately withheld her number.’





7


The nearest school to Wyddial Lane is in a village called Wyton. Houghton Primary has a large, square courtyard playground bordered by an L-shaped beige-brick building and another L made from green prefabricated units. There’s a tree in one corner, tall and thick with pink flowers, pushing up the concrete on either side of it. I think it might be a cherry tree. Dom and I have often agreed that trees are like fish – we ought to know more than we do about the differences between the various types, but we’ve reached our forties and can still only identify weeping willows and salmon with any certainty.

The tree, together with a fence painted the same green as the prefabs, allows Houghton Primary School to make a welcoming first impression. It’s eight forty-five. The bell signalling the start of morning school rang a few seconds ago, and the children are shrieking with delight and running circles around one another. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to have so much energy. I got up and left the house at five this morning, having had only about two and a half hours’ sleep. I wanted to make sure to get here before the pre-school breakfast club part of the day, so that I wouldn’t miss any parents who dropped their children off early.

Flora Braid – that’s who you didn’t want to miss. Dropping off Thomas.

I’m no longer correcting every thought that passes through my mind. I know why I’m here and I’m not going to argue with myself about it: I’m waiting for Flora to bring her son, five-year-old Thomas, to school. Emily, at only three, is still too young for school. Maybe she’ll be getting dropped off at nursery on the way.

So far, it’s not looking promising. I’ve seen two black Range Rovers, but no sign of the silver one I saw outside Newnham House. When the children start to form a queue to enter the building, I know it’s not going to happen. They’re not coming. Flora wouldn’t allow Thomas to be late for school. Lewis always used to tease her for wanting to get to the airport two and a half hours before even a domestic flight. When we went to Corfu, he grumbled all the way to Gatwick about how early she’d insisted on leaving. ‘When I’ve got my own private jet, I’ll get picked up from my house,’ he said matter-of-factly, as if this was something inevitable that would one day happen.