It is as though I’ve been plunged chest-deep into iced water. Like I can’t draw breath. I concentrate very hard on the gold teardrop necklace nestled in the deep hollow of Nancy’s throat.
‘Listen. Listen to me, Samantha. No one would blame you. It must have been hard, right from the start. How old were you when you had her? Twenty?’
‘Eighteen.’
‘Most women now wait till they’re in their thirties.’
I look across at her but beneath the wide brim of her sun hat I can’t see her face, and I can’t tell if it’s a dig. It feels like one. Hurtful, prickling. I’d just turned eighteen when I had Edie. I once overheard someone in the supermarket say to my mother, ‘You must be so disappointed.’
‘They thought I might have killed her?’
‘Nobody would blame you.’
‘That’s absurd. I was her mother. I loved her. She was all I had.’
She looks at me curiously and takes another sip of tea. I straighten up in my seat. I’m not done yet. Down, but not out, as they say. I light a cigarette and Nancy immediately fans her hand in front of her face.
‘You used to smoke,’ I tell her.
She rolls her eyes. ‘I was fifteen. I did a lot of stupid stuff.’
‘Heh. You’ve got that right. Remember Quiet Mary?’
Nancy nods, but I’ve already seen the hunch of her shoulders, the way her eyes widen just a fraction. She’s still afraid of her. Even now. I curl a fist and tap it on the table, slowly and deliberately. Four times.
Her face blanches. ‘Stop it.’
‘Rattlesnake hunters, knocking at your door,’ I say, letting the smoke drift out my mouth like blown silks. ‘Do you think that’s who snatched Edie? Quiet Mary?’
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t want to talk about Quiet Mary.’
‘You know something. What is it?’
‘Leave it, I said.’ Her accent’s slipping. When I arrived, it could have cut glass. Now there’s that twang in it that sounds almost Cockney, home-bred. She crosses her legs, coils around herself.
‘All those spells you did. All the blood and the candles and the wine. Then Edie disappeared and Charlie, well, Charlie left a good-looking corpse, didn’t she? Did it frighten you? Did you think it was Quiet Mary’s revenge?’ I lean in, whispering, ‘Do you think you’re next?’
Nancy is silent for a moment but I can see her fear. It’s visible, like a shiver. She runs the pads of her fingers beneath her eyes, swiping at errant make-up.
‘I do know something,’ she says quietly, pouring tea from the pot with hands that look unsteady. ‘About Edie. She made me do a deal.’
‘What kind of deal?’
‘After this’ – she points to the grisly scar on her neck – ‘my parents wanted to press charges. I was always Daddy’s little girl and Edie knew that if I wanted to, I could talk them out of it. She was frightened she’d go to prison, you see. So she told me that if I could talk my parents out of dropping the charges she would tell me a secret.’
‘And did you?’
‘Yes. I didn’t like it, and honestly, no secret is that interesting, but when Edie wanted you to do something—’
‘You did it,’ I finish.
She nods. ‘Yes, you did, or it was worse for you. She made me promise not to tell anyone or Quiet Mary would get me. Said she’d come for me in the night and strangle me with her burial shroud. Edie told me Quiet Mary was silent, so I wouldn’t hear her coming. The first I’d know of it would be her dripping wet hands brushing against my face in the dark.’
I shudder, despite the sunshine. My cigarette tastes awful but I’m going to smoke it right down to the filter.
‘So I talked my parents out of it. Made them call off the lawyers, the police. “I’m dropping charges,” I told them, and they went along with it because my daddy loved me more than anything in the world. The next day I told Edie at school, near the canteen. “You’re safe,” I told her. “My folks’ll never invite you to my birthday parties again but at least you won’t end up in prison.” You know what she said?’
I shake my head, heart tapping a swift percussion in my chest.
‘Nothing. That’s what she said. Absolutely nothing. Didn’t thank me, didn’t even smile. Later on, she took me into the toilets at breaktime and showed me what she had in her bag.’
‘What was it?’
‘A pregnancy test. She wouldn’t answer any of my questions, just made me stand with my foot under the toilet door so I could hold it closed for her. All the locks were busted, you see. After about a minute she came out and even though I could see she was scared, she put the test face-up on the sink and we both watched those little blue stripes come up just as clear as anything.’
It’s as if a tiny bomb has been detonated. The shock of it rings in my ears. Distantly I can hear a dog barking, a car grinding its gears.
‘She wanted to keep it, she said. But it was making her sick. She was puking all the time, even at school. She told the others she had food poisoning.’
I think back to the last days I saw Edie, how she would tie up the bathroom in the mornings, the sound of the toilet flushing over and over again. Morning sickness. Oh my God. I have to clutch the edge of the table for support. My heart is pounding like it might give out. All these years and I never knew. I promised to take her to the doctor to get some contraception – it was the night of all that rain, the two of us
