Afterwards

‘Did she…’ How can I ask this?

‘No. She didn’t tell him what I look like now, if that’s what you’re worried about? But it won’t matter. That sounds stupid. Of course it will matter. What I mean is, it won’t change anything.’

What can I say? That only tough-as-old-boots married love could withstand this, not their fragile five-months- old romance; that ‘love is not love which alters when it alteration finds’ doesn’t apply to teenage boys.

‘Young love,’ you used to say, smiling, and I’d want to hurl a potato at you, or whatever I was washing or peeling at the time – as if this kind of relationship could age into wrinkles and smile lines. Because what he felt for Jenny had built-in obsolescence, even without the fire.

‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ Jenny says, a little baffled. ‘I mean, I know you don’t like him much.’ A very short pause, just space enough for me to argue, but I don’t and she continues. ‘He’ll tell the police about the red paint now, won’t he?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

Sarah walks past us on the phone. ‘This takes precedence,’ Sarah says, then pauses. ‘I don’t know. [Pause.] No, you take some time off work. [Pause.] I don’t have time for this right now.’

She must be talking to Roger. You try and like him out of loyalty to your sister, but I annually resent his sneering face at the Christmas table when he actually tries to win pulling the crackers but is the only person at the table not to wear the paper hat. Competitive about his own children, dismissive of ours; frankly, I loathe him, and perhaps that’s one reason I used to dislike Sarah, for being a unit with him.

She hasn’t mentioned her own family to you or her job, putting us absolutely centre stage. I’m only just discovering that how someone behaves in everyday life gives no clue how they’ll be when it counts. Maybe Roger – in the right circumstances – would wear a paper hat and let Addie win the cracker. Though he’s hardly shining now if Sarah’s half of the conversation is anything to go by. I think I see disappointment on her face, but not surprise.

‘She and Uncle Roger don’t get along any more,’ Jenny says to me as if reading my thoughts. So Sarah has talked to Jenny about her marriage. My God, who isn’t talking to Jenny about their marriage? Perhaps a teenage daughter in the room doesn’t smooth adult relationships but makes them gripe.

Sarah abruptly ends the conversation, saying she has to go.

Jenny and I go with her.

A nurse answers the locked door of the burns unit, surprised to see Sarah.

‘Jenny’s been taken to ICU, didn’t anyone-?’

‘Yes, actually it’s Rowena White I want to see. She’s been friends with Jenny since primary school, and you know how people become friends of the family too.’

She stumbles as she speaks; telling half-truths, like crumpled clothes, has never been Sarah before.

The nurse lets her in and we follow her to Rowena’s side-room. A woman is wheeled past on a trolley.

‘I can’t do this right now, Mum,’ Jenny says and I curse myself for bringing her into the burns unit. ‘I’ll be back in a little while, OK?’

‘OK.’

She leaves.

In Rowena’s side-room, a nurse is taking the dressings off Rowena’s hands.

Sarah waits a little way from the open doorway for the nurse to finish. ‘The burns have got damaged,’ the nurse says to Rowena, surprised. ‘Some of the blisters have burst…?’

‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry.’

‘Not your fault, sweetie. But how?’

In the doorway I see Sarah listening intently to this, but the nurse and Rowena haven’t seen her. I remember that Sarah did a two-year stint in the domestic violence unit.

‘I told the other nurse about it yesterday,’ Rowena says.

The nurse looks through Rowena’s notes.

‘So you did. You said you slipped…?’

‘Yes. I’m just so clumsy.’

I shudder at her use of Maisie’s vocabulary.

‘But there’s damage to the top of your hands as well as the palms?’ the nurse says.

Rowena is silent and doesn’t meet her eye.

‘Have the doctors taken a look at you?’ the nurse continues.

‘Yes. Does it mean I’ll have to stay here longer?’

‘It may do. We have to be so careful about infection. You know about all that, don’t you? I think I already read you my riot act?’

‘Yes, you did. Thank you.’

‘I’ll be back to see you in a bit.’

As the nurse leaves, Sarah comes in.

‘Hello, Rowena. I’m Sarah, Jenny’s aunt. Is your mother not here?’

‘She’s gone to get me a few things from home.’

Rowena seems at ease with Sarah so she can’t know that she’s been eavesdropping.

‘How are you feeling?’ Sarah asks.

‘Fine. Getting much better now.’

‘It was incredibly brave. What you did.’

Rowena looks embarrassed. ‘You saw it in the paper?’ she asks.

Rowena’s rescue effort was hidden in the middle pages of the Richmond Post. I’m not sure if you read that far. It was in the mode of ‘Very Small Earthquake Not Many Killed’ kind of a story – ‘Plain Girl Runs To Help But Doesn’t Rescue Anyone And Is Slightly Hurt’. Tara wouldn’t let anything detract from the main story of beautiful Jenny dying.

‘I saw it, yes,’ Sarah says. ‘But a colleague told me too. I’m also a police officer.’

‘Course. Mum told me. Stupid of me. It wasn’t brave though. I mean, I didn’t have time to be brave. Wasn’t thinking really.’

‘Well, I disagree,’ Sarah says. She sits down next to her.

‘Mum told me about Adam,’ Rowena says. ‘It’s just so terrible. I mean, Adam’s such a lovely boy. Well, you’re his aunt, so you know what he’s like.’

Her way of speaking is diffident, even when she’s trying to make a forceful point. Her young face so earnest.

‘You obviously know Adam?’ Sarah says.

‘Yes. I mean, he was only a baby really when I was at Sidley House with Jenny. But I got to know him last summer, when I was doing work experience there. I was his classroom assistant and he was just so… well, good. And thoughtful. Really polite. And that’s pretty rare in boys his age. And it’s just wrong what they’re saying about him. Awful.’

I hadn’t known that Rowena was courageous and neither had I seen that she’s become kind and intuitive; as though paper has been put on Maisie’s gentleness and Rowena is the brass-rubbing image.

‘And anyone could have got in,’ Rowena earnestly continues. ‘Annette – she’s the school secretary – well, she’s pretty lax about security. Presses the buzzer to let people in without looking at the monitor on her desk. I don’t want to get her into trouble, but it’s important to tell the truth now that Adam’s being blamed, isn’t it?’

Sarah nods. ‘Can you tell me what you remember from Wednesday?’

‘Yes, but, well, which part?’

‘How about from when you went to the school with Adam?’

‘OK. He wanted to get his birthday cake. I knew he’d be a little embarrassed if his mum went with him. I mean, he loves his mum to bits, I know he does, but it’s not cool in front of his friends, is it, to go with your mum? So I asked him if he’d like me to go with him. I had to get the medals anyway. I didn’t hold his hand until we got to the road. Held it just for that bit. Sorry, that’s not important, is it? Anyway, we went into the school together, and I went straight to the secretary’s office and Adam went to get his cake.’

‘On his own?’

‘Yes. He was going to meet me again in the office, so we could walk back to sports day together. I should have