Haven't They Grown(85)

I follow a roped-off path until I arrive on a long, wide, sandy beach. Stretching out in both directions are two long rows of blue sun umbrellas and wooden recliners with cushions, mainly occupied. The blue-green sea is calm, barely moving apart from where it’s being disturbed by people determined to have fun in it. I take off my shoes and hold them in my hand as I walk between the rows of sun-loungers.

It doesn’t take me long to find her. ‘Flora,’ I say, half expecting her to get up and run away.

She’s sitting on the sand, in a large patch of shade from the umbrella in front. There’s some shade left over, so I sit down next to her. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, and mean it. Provoking her so that she ran away was a bad strategy. ‘I shouldn’t have accused you of lying.’

‘I don’t mind.’ She says it as if there was never a break in our conversation. She looks peaceful; almost content. ‘You don’t see why I’d want to stay in the same house. I understand that.’

‘But you did want to?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

She gives a small laugh. ‘It’s funny that I still want to hide things from you even after I’ve told you the worst. Don’t you think that’s funny?’

I wait.

‘Lewis only offered me the house once I was pregnant with Thomas – my Thomas. Not newly pregnant but quite far gone. I’d already had the twenty-week scan and knew I was having a boy. Kevin and I were living in a tiny flat with only one bedroom. He was doing one short-term contract after another for tech companies, and couldn’t seem to find a full-time job. No one would have given us a mortgage at the level we needed. I knew Lewis hadn’t sold the Hemingford Abbots house—’

‘How did you know that? You told me you and he hadn’t been in touch for twelve years until he rang you to talk about me.’

‘That wasn’t true. The truth would have sounded too weird.’

‘Try me.’

‘We’ve always kept in touch. Kevin knew nothing about it. It was Lewis’s initiative, not mine. He liked to check on me, so he rang me every few months. To check my situation was stable.’

‘Didn’t you mind, if you wanted to cut all ties with your old life?’ Is this a new lie I’m hearing or, finally, some of the truth? I wish I knew.

Flora shakes her head. ‘Turned out I had the same need he did: to check he’d said nothing, told no one our secret. Neither of us could let the other one drift too far out of reach.’

‘So, what, every few months you’d talk?’

‘Not for very long. They weren’t warm, friendly chats between friends. Far from it. Just … updates about our life situations. I told him when I changed my name, when I met Kevin, then later when I married him. Lewis needed reassurance that I wouldn’t confide in him about … the past.’

‘Presumably you told Lewis about being pregnant with Thomas the second, then?’

‘Don’t call him that,’ says Flora.

‘Shall I call him Thomas Cater?’

‘Yes, I told Lewis. He knew Kevin and I were hard up and couldn’t easily afford a house that was big enough for the new family we wanted to start, so he very kindly offered for us to live at Newnham House – which he still owned. He’d rented it out intermittently, but it had been empty for a while at that point.’

‘And you said yes,’ I state the obvious. ‘I still don’t understand why.’

‘I knew by then that I was having a boy and that I’d be calling him Thomas,’ says Flora. She stares at me with a plea in her eyes, as if urging me to work it out.

‘And … you thought that with a child called Thomas, in the same house you’d lived in before, you could almost pretend that nothing bad had ever happened?’ I say.

From Flora’s expression, I can see that I’ve guessed correctly.

‘Georgina had been dead for quite a few years by then,’ she says. ‘At first, yes, I wanted to get as far away from any reminders as I could, but I felt differently after I got pregnant again, and especially once I knew we were having a boy and what I was going to call him. Then, I wanted to try and … I don’t know, recreate what I’d had, I guess.’

‘And the house helped with that?’

She nods eagerly.

Is it possible? I don’t know why I’m bothering to ask myself. I can’t bring all the relevant facts to mind and listen to Flora at the same time.

‘Beth, never mind the house,’ she says suddenly. ‘Do you understand about my need for Lewis and his for me, even after everything?’

‘I think so.’

‘I never really loved Kevin.’

‘Yeah, you said.’ Is this going where I think it’s going?

A large yellow and blue beach ball rolls past us. Gleefully screaming children run after it, kicking sand in my eyes. I blink to get the grit out.

‘You were right,’ says Flora. ‘Thomas and Emily, they’re …’ Again she looks hopefully at me, inviting me to fill in the blanks.

‘Thomas and Emily Cater are Lewis’s children,’ I say.

‘Yes. Kevin has no idea. Please, please don’t tell him. Lewis’d kill me if he knew I’d told you.’