Haven't They Grown(91)

‘What? What are you talking about?’ She sounds genuinely thrown off course by the question, as if I’ve asked her about a complicated algebra problem.

‘You must remember the last time we all got together. You found out that I’d cut up the photo you sent me of you, Lewis and the kids. We both knew we’d never see each other again, though we didn’t say it explicitly.’

‘I’d forgotten that you did that,’ Flora says quietly.

‘You forgot that I cut Georgina out of a photograph?’ I pause to consider this. It takes me a moment to realise what it means. ‘I suppose that’s possible, if you had a lot on your mind, and you did, didn’t you? You’d been distancing yourself from me for a while before that day. Months. Something else was going on in your life. It started around the time you got pregnant with Georgina. Maybe that was it, the thing that changed everything: the pregnancy. Whatever it was, there was something you couldn’t talk to me about and didn’t want me to find out. Bit by bit, you started to vanish from my life. You didn’t really want to come round that last time, did you?’

‘I remember it now,’ she says. ‘Lewis and Dom went to the pub.’

‘Yeah, for a bit. Then they came back, and they were in the kitchen, and we were in the lounge with all the children. Georgina was a tiny baby. She’d been asleep all afternoon. Then she started to stir and you picked her up to feed her. You seemed on edge – more than you’d ever been with Thomas or Emily. I assumed it was because of the tension between you and me. You’d just found out about the photo, and I thought that explained the atmosphere that you could cut with a knife. That wasn’t the explanation, though, was it? You and Lewis had brought the tension with you. He came into the room while you were feeding Georgina and yelled at you. I’d never heard him shout at you like that before. Other people, yes, but never you.

‘I wish I could remember exactly what he said. It might have been as simple as “What are you doing?”, as if feeding your child in front of your best friend was a cardinal sin and you ought to know better. He looked and sounded appalled, and it made no sense.’

‘Yes, I remember,’ says Flora.

‘I didn’t get it. I still don’t. You’d fed Thomas and Emily in front of me and Dom a million times – older Thomas and Emily – and Lewis had never batted an eyelid. He said so himself when I asked him about it earlier today: he reminded me that you used to sunbathe topless on the beach on holiday. He never minded that. So why the sudden move towards prudishness?’

Blindly following my instincts, I press on. ‘It wasn’t about modesty, was it? Lewis had never insisted that no one should see your body except him. It was about Georgina. Somehow, this is all about her. That was when everything changed: when you got pregnant with her. You didn’t tell me when you found out you were pregnant, or when she was born. And then she died. None of the other children died. Only her.’

‘Do you really want to help me, Beth?’

‘You know I do.’

‘Then don’t ask me. Help me by …’ I hear a ragged gasp. Then she says, ‘I don’t want anything to happen to you. You say you don’t want me to come to harm? I want the same for you. The used-to-be-best-friends thing goes both ways.’

I close my eyes. There it is, finally – an admission. A cold, heavy feeling lands in the pit of my stomach. Fear. She’s telling me there’s something to be afraid of, something for me to be afraid of, if I don’t drop this.

I’m scared of what will happen if I do. If I abandon Flora, Thomas and Emily to whatever mess they’re in, I’ll hate myself.

And I was right. I’ve been right all along. Does that mean I’ll be right if I listen to the part of me that’s saying I have to stay and see this through?

Right all along? Like when you thought Thomas and Emily Braid might not have grown a day older in twelve years?

I haven’t got time to doubt myself. ‘Who was Georgina’s father?’ I ask. ‘Was it Lewis? Or was it Kevin Cater?’

‘Lewis,’ Flora says quietly. ‘Why would you think it was Kevin?’

‘I wondered if maybe Lewis didn’t want you to feed another man’s baby. I can’t think of any other explanation that makes sense.’

‘No. I was never unfaithful to Lewis. I never would have been.’

‘When he yelled at you, you ran out of the room like a frightened mouse, clutching Georgina – as if you thought you’d really screwed up.’

‘I don’t remember much about that day.’

I get up, walk over to the balcony door and slide it open. This room, beautiful and comfortable though it is, is starting to feel like a cage. How long before I can go home?

You can go any time you like. Back to your family, back to safety …

‘Want to hear something stupid?’ I ask Flora.

She doesn’t reply.

‘Remember in the lobby before, I asked you who Chimpy was?’

‘I don’t know that name. It means nothing.’

‘I know. I made a mistake. The first time I saw you in Hemingford Abbots, you were talking on the phone and crying as you got out of the car. I knew then that something was wrong. It’s not like I’d never seen you upset before. I had, loads of times, but those were all normal upset. What I saw in Hemingford Abbots looked different. It sounded different. More serious.’