Afterwards

He starts to cry and you hold him as tightly as you can.

Silence expands between you, a blown soap bubble around the emotion it contains, then breaks.

‘You have me,’ you say.

And your arms around Adam aren’t trying to hug him now, but clinging onto him.

‘And I have you.’

35

Five hours have gone past and it’s nearly midnight now. Jenny’s fairy stories were down on this time of night – coaches turning into pumpkins and dancing princesses needing to be back in their beds – but the stories Adam enjoys give a more positive spin: the witching hour when moonlight is bright and the world is silent and everyone is asleep apart from the little girl and the BFG, blowing his dreams into bedrooms.

I can see The BFG on the second shelf. You are on the top bunk, Adam on the bottom, Aslan tucked in next to him.

My dancing shoes, if I had any, would smell of antiseptic.

I’ve been to the hospital and I need to tell you what happened.

I watched as you sat with Adam, holding his hand, grateful that I’d built up enough tolerance to the pain of being away from the hospital so I could be with him as he slept.

I thought how lovely it was that the children call Mum ‘Granny G’, to differentiate her from your mother, Granny Annabel; because although she died before they were born she’s still their grandmother too.

You found Addie’s old night-light, then you moved up to the top bunk, your hand stretching down in case he needed you.

Mum came in, wanting to go and see Jen for a little while now that you were looking after Addie.

I went with her.

I’m not sure if I’ve told you this, but once Mum found out I was no longer in my body she started talking to me all the time, in all sorts of places. ‘A scattergun approach, Grace, poppet, sometimes you’ll be there to hear me. I’m sure.’

She drove her ancient Renault Clio furiously fast along the almost empty dark roads towards the hospital.

‘I watered Adam’s carrots and tomatoes,’ she said.

‘Thanks.’

‘Should have given your windowboxes a proper soak. They get dehydrated so fast when it’s hot.’

‘Maybe you can re-plant. I’d really like it if you did.’

She was silent for a little while, her face so much older now. She jumped a red light but there was hardly any traffic to notice or care.

‘I’ll put in something which doesn’t mind drought so much. Lavender would be pretty.’

‘Lavender would be perfect.’

We arrived at the hospital. The goldfish-bowl atrium was almost deserted, just a few straggling patients, their footsteps echoing in the emptiness; a single doctor hurrying. Lights from cars flashed through the glass of the window from the darkness outside.

I thought about Mr Hyman and how afraid I’d been of him when he came to the hospital. ‘Get away from my children, get away!’ Is that what happens in the aftermath of a terrible crime? All the ugliness and cruelty of it spilling out onto the people around; an oil slick lapping ashore, indiscriminately blackening what it touches. He’s deeply flawed, yes, but not guilty of any sin. A fallible man but not a wicked one. Blameless of any crime. Addie was right to trust him. And I’m so glad you told Addie that Mr Hyman cares about him; that he’d never do anything cruel to him; glad that you called him Mr Hyman again.

Mum went to Jenny’s bedside. In the corridor, I saw Jenny waiting for me.

‘I need to know,’ she said. ‘Why I went back to the school, and why I went up to the top again, and my mobile phone thing. I need to know all of it.’

We had the big picture then, the huge facts, but not the details.

‘The police will find out when they question Maisie tomorrow,’ I said.

‘But I might not have that long,’ she said and we were talking about something else entirely.

‘Of course you do.’

‘No. I told you, Mum, I’m not going through with your plan. And I’m not going to change my mind.’

I didn’t argue with her, not then. Because as well as courage, our daughter has also inherited your infuriating stubbornness. ‘Independence of mind!’ you’d correct. ‘Strength of character!’ Well, all I know is that whereas other little girls at nursery were on the good-biddable- weedy scale of character, Jenny was up the other end as stubborn-wilful-strong-minded depending on your vantage point.

And yes, I’m proud.

I always was, secretly.

But I didn’t share her need to know. I only ever wanted to find the truth to clear Adam, nothing beyond that. And I also knew that she had plenty of time, because that’s what I would give her. I would win that argument.

‘I need to remember it all, Mum,’ she said. ‘Because if I don’t, it’s like a part of my life didn’t happen. The part of it that changed everything.’

I understood why she needed to know and I had to respect it. And I would be ready to protect her if she got too close to the fire.

We went towards Rowena’s room, because Jen had had her ‘mad person’s tinnitus’ memory there. At the time, we’d thought it was the smell of Donald, not Maisie, that had prompted it.

As we walked, we pieced together what Jenny had remembered of Wednesday afternoon so far. We knew that she’d taken two large bottles of water from the school kitchens and gone outside, using the side entrance. She’d heard the fire alarm and thought it was a mistake or a practice. She’d been worried Annette wouldn’t know what to do, so she’d put the bottles of water down by the kitchen entrance, and gone back in. Inside she’d smelt smoke and known it wasn’t a practice.

We reached Rowena’s room. Jenny closed her eyes. I wondered which of the scents in the room had prompted her memory last time – perhaps Maisie wore perfume that I hadn’t consciously noticed before. Her cardigan was still draped over a chair. She must have left it behind when she was arrested.

I waited with Jenny for a few minutes; three or four maybe.

I braced myself to face the stranger that my friend had become.

‘I’m taking water out of the kitchen,’ Jenny said. ‘I get outside. The fire alarm is making a hell of a din. I think Annette won’t know what to do. So I put the water down and go back in. Bloody hell, it really is a fire.’

She broke off. We’d got to this point before. The only new thing was that we thought her mobile phone had fallen out of her pocket when she put the water down.

Jenny took my hand.

‘I was afraid to do this alone,’ she said. ‘I mean, go any further.’

But I already knew that was why she had waited for me first.

She closed her eyes again.

‘The smoke isn’t that bad,’ she said. ‘You can smell it, but no worse really than when there’s something in the oven that’s caught. I’m not frightened, just working out what I should do. I think that actually Annette won’t be worried at all, she’ll be loving this! Finally she has her drama.’

I saw Jenny struggling as she reached the final doors in the memory corridor.

I thought of Sarah’s ‘retrograde amnesia’ – fire doors, I imagined, thick and heavy, protecting her from what lay beyond them.

I think it’s knowing she is so loved by Ivo – and also by me and you and Adam and Sarah – which gave her the strength to push at those doors to make them open; to re-enter the horror of that afternoon.

‘And then I see Maisie,’ she said.