Haven't They Grown(48)

‘To avoid talking to me, clearly. But why? She must have been scared I’d ask something or scared to tell me something, scared I’d find out whatever the secret is. Maybe she thought I’d found out already, maybe Marilyn Oxley told her I’d been asking about the Caters and Thomas and Emily. If the secret is something eccentric but harmless, her fear makes no sense.’

‘Maybe she was scared of you. Just you. Nothing to do with her secret.’

My heart twists. He can’t know.

‘Why would she be?’

‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

I turn away. I wish I could be indignant, but I can’t. I’ve wondered the same thing myself. Though if Flora’s scared of me because of what I did twelve years ago, that would be an absurd overreaction. She can’t imagine that I’d …

‘Beth, I’m sorry.’ Dom’s voice cuts into my thoughts. ‘That was below the belt. There’s nothing scary about you.’

We all have things we’d rather people didn’t find out about us. I don’t want to, though. Not any more. ‘I need to show you something,’ I say.



Dominic and I sit on opposite sides of our bed. Between us, lying on the duvet, is a cream envelope that I’ve dug out of an old handbag. The handwriting on the envelope is Flora’s.

I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. Not at the time, and not at any point since. ‘Don’t tell Zannah and Ben,’ I say. ‘I’m not proud of this and I’d rather they didn’t know.’

Dom nods.

I pick up the envelope and shake its contents out onto the bed: a Christmas card with a picture of Santa Claus and his reindeers flying over a snowy mountain. And a photograph of the Braids, with a slit that’s been cut into it and a hole in the middle, where a small part’s been excised … and then, lying a few inches apart from the other two items, the cutting from the picture, the person whose absence has made the hole: a tiny baby wrapped in a pink and white blanket, eyes closed. Georgina Braid.

I pick up the card and show Dom what’s written inside it: ‘To Dom, Beth, Zannah and Ben, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Lots of love from Lewis, Flora, Thomas, Emily and Georgina.’ Followed by three kisses, as per Braid family card-writing tradition. A perfectly ordinary message.

Georgina was two months old in the photograph. The last time the Braids came to visit us was February 2007, when Georgina was four months old, two months before she died.

If she died.

Flora and I both knew that our friendship was over in February 2007, but we were pretending otherwise, to ourselves and to each other. Dominic had no idea. I don’t know what Lewis knew or didn’t know. I made a special fuss of baby Georgina, aware that not long ago I’d deliberately taken a pair of scissors and cut her out of a happy family photograph.

‘Not my proudest moment,’ I say to Dom.

‘You? Oh. I thought you were going to say that this was how it arrived – with Georgina cut out.’

‘No. I did it.’

‘Why?’

I remember as if it happened earlier today, though it was twelve years ago: once removed from the photograph, Georgina landed on the kitchen floor. Seeing her lying there, so tiny and separated from her family, I felt immediately ashamed. What the hell was I doing? What if cutting a child out of a family photo was like sticking pins in a wax model of someone you hated? I would always be someone who had done that to a baby. I could never undo it, which made me feel weirdly doomed – as if, with one vicious, unjustifiable act, I had sealed my fate.

That was my immediate reaction. Overreaction. A few minutes later I realised that all I’d done was cut up a photo, and what did it matter, really? Impulse control had never been my strong point and I knew I’d behaved pathetically, but it was hardly likely to harm Georgina Braid in real life.

Still, I couldn’t bring myself to throw the Braids in the bin, after what I’d done already. I put the card and the pieces of the photograph back in the envelope, which I stuffed into the side pocket of my handbag. I told myself everything was fine, that no one would ever find out I’d done something so petty and spiteful.

‘Flora found out,’ I tell Dom. It’s a relief to say it out loud. The horrible thing I’d done, and how bad it made me feel, was nothing compared with the shame I felt when Flora saw the evidence. Most people successfully hide the worst aspects of their characters from everyone they know, all their lives. I was unlucky.

‘She found out you cut Georgina out of the photo she sent you? Jesus, Beth. I don’t understand. At all.’

‘When the Braids came round for the last time … You probably won’t remember, but you and Lewis went out to the Granta for a pint.’

Dom shakes his head. Of course he doesn’t remember.

‘I knew Flora was thinking the same as me: we both wished you hadn’t gone and left us alone – well, alone with the kids. We were chatting, trying to pretend everything was okay, but deep down we both knew it hadn’t been normal for a while between us, and then suddenly Thomas started wailing. He’d pulled the skin off a blister on his heel and it was bleeding. Flora handed Georgina to me and started rummaging around in her changing bag, looking for a plaster. She didn’t have one, but I knew I had one in my bag. I totally forgot, in that moment, that the cut-up picture was also in there. I sent Zan to look for the plaster. A few minutes later, back she came with all of that.’ I nod down at the photo pieces and the card. ‘She gave it to Flora and said, “Look. This was in Mummy’s bag. Someone’s torn baby Georgina out of the photo.” She had no idea what she was doing, obviously. She just thought it was a weird thing she’d found, and that we’d want to know about it. I could feel myself turning bright red. One look at my face told Flora who the guilty party was.’