Haven't They Grown(92)

‘Stop,’ Flora whispers.

‘I thought I heard you say “Hey, Chimpy,” and then, a few seconds later “Peterborough”.’

‘Please, Beth.’

‘But I didn’t. What you said was “HMP Peterborough”, the name of the nearest prison to Hemingford Abbots. Hey Chimpy, HMP. They sound so similar. If it weren’t for Lewis, I’d never have worked that out. He said something in passing this morning about “Her Majesty’s pleasure” – a phrase I’d not heard for years. It’s such a weird expression. I thought, “Is that why prisons are called HMP?”, and then suddenly it came rushing at me: “Hey, Chimpy”. It sounds almost exactly the same as “HMP”. That’s why I had a strange echo in my mind.’

‘I don’t know anyone who’s in any prison,’ says Flora.

‘No one’s in prison. Least of all you. Right?’

After a short silence, she says, ‘Plenty of people are in prison. I don’t know anything about any of them.’

‘I know what that phone call was, Flora. I know what it means. You were almost too upset to speak. I don’t blame you.’

‘You can’t possibly know who I was speaking to and what it was about,’ she says.

‘I see why you’d think that, but I can and I do. Now I understand why it was such an effort to force out each word. That’s why there was a break between the two parts of the prison’s name, HMP and Peterborough, a break just long enough to make me hear them as separate. I thought I knew exactly what you’d said, and got fixated on the wrong questions: what was the relevance of Peterborough and who was Chimpy? I thought Chimpy might be Georgina.’

‘Then you’re not as clever as you think you are.’

‘What do you mean?’ I ask her.

‘Lewis never allowed nicknames or shortenings. Don’t you remember? I was never allowed to say “Tom” or “Emmy”.’

This feels different, suddenly. As if we’re having a real conversation. ‘I knew you never called them anything but Thomas and Emily. I didn’t realise Lewis had forbidden it.’

‘He never explicitly said, “I forbid it.” He didn’t have to.’

I’m wondering how to respond to this when she says, ‘He used to be horrible about Zannah’s name.’

‘What?’ Rage rears up inside me. It always does when someone criticises Zan or Ben, even if the criticism is perfectly valid.

‘Not about her,’ says Flora quickly. ‘Only the name. Lewis always liked her. He used to say in an admiring way, “That child has a steely edge.”’

I don’t want to hear anything Lewis has said about my children, but I’m afraid to say so in case it discourages her from talking about other things.

‘He thought we should call her Suzannah at all times, I suppose?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where did he stand on Ben?’

‘Benjamin.’

I turn and lean against the balcony rail so that I’m facing the room. The view that should lift my heart is starting to irritate me: the open sun umbrellas like spiky blue and white wheels, the rectangular, six-pillared building at the far end of the pool that makes me think of an Indian shrine.

‘Rom-com Dom was fine, though,’ I say, trying to work out how to move the conversation back to HMP Peterborough in a way that doesn’t feel forced.

‘That was a joke,’ says Flora. ‘Chimpy wouldn’t be very funny as a nickname. More of an insult. I would never compare my own child to a chimpanzee. Why did you think I would? Because of the strabismus?’

‘The what?’ I picture a polished violin made of dark wood.

‘Lewis said you spoke to my parents. Did they tell you?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s a strabismus?’ Is it a car?

‘Weakness of the eye muscles,’ says Flora. ‘Georgina would have needed an operation. Well, she might have. There were other options. A patch might have cured it.’

Yes. Flora’s parents did tell me. One of them said something about Georgina maybe needing an operation. I can’t remember if they mentioned her eye, but Lewis did. He told me this morning that Georgina would have needed eye surgery, if she’d lived.

‘So … it’s like a lazy eye?’ I ask Flora. A girl at my primary school had one. She wore a patch for months. She still looked a little cross-eyed afterwards, but nowhere near as much.

‘That’s amblyopia,’ Flora says. ‘They’re connected, but they’re not exactly the same thing. Why are we talking about this, Beth? Georgina’s dead.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. I … Why would you think there might be a link between the name Chimpy and Georgina’s eye condition?’

‘There’s no connection in my mind. I thought you might think it. To think that Chimpy might be a nickname for a beautiful girl …’ Her voice shakes. ‘A girl who looks like a chimp would be ugly, and Georgina was beautiful. She was beautiful. Her eye made no difference. It didn’t make her ugly.’

‘Flora, I never said it did. I would never say or think that. I now know that Chimpy is nobody’s nickname, so it’s irrelevant, but I don’t think it implies ugliness at all. Dom and I used to call Zan and Ben little chimps and it was nothing but affectionate. We certainly didn’t think they were—’