‘You know, you remind me a bit of Edie, Frances. How troubled she was. I suppose that’s William’s type, though, isn’t it?’
I smiled, but my insides were curdling. The pain of William’s betrayal was low and sharp and raw and I didn’t know that I would ever get used to it. I opened my mouth to respond but then he asked me another question that froze me in my tracks.
‘Were you? A whore?’
I felt my mouth drop softly open. He’d heard everything. He must have been right outside the door. I felt my knuckles crack as I curled my hands into fists. ‘I have to go, Alex.’
‘Sure. See you soon, Frances.’
As I closed the door I experienced a moment of vertigo so steep it was as if the floor had dropped away beneath me. I gripped hold of the bannister, sure I was going to either fall down or throw up, but neither of those things happened and after a moment I heard Mimi call for William in her small, fragile voice. I walked slowly the rest of the way downstairs to tell her about the magpie in the garden.
Sitting here on the bench overlooking the slow-moving tidal river, I think about Edie taking her pregnancy test in the toilet block at school among the smells of bleach and paint and wet toilet paper. My mind circles back to the hidden well again, how all your bones would break if you were to fall down it on to the old bricks below. What would drive a man to do that? His secrecy exposed, perhaps? An unforeseen pregnancy? Blackmail? I think of the way Samantha looked yesterday, her face lined and blotchy with tears, and I know, I know I can’t leave yet. I can’t go without finding out where Edie Hudson is, and whether or not she has Edward’s baby with her.
I stare out the window as the bus judders along the road back to Thorn House. The narrow road is lined with overgrown hedgerows and snarls of brambles. My head is spinning. I keep thinking about missing girls and ghost hitchhikers and the bowlful of round, ripe tomatoes that sits by the kettle in the kitchen and makes my stomach curl every time I look at it. I’m thinking about Kim and Edie and the way poor Mimi’s brain seems to be full of holes. I’m wondering about what really happened the night she fell down the stairs, alone in the house with Alex.
Don’t be ridiculous, I tell myself, you’ve already got his dad pinned for getting Edie pregnant and bumping her off and now you think Alex is trying to harm his mum? What for?
I know what for. I don’t even have to think about it. He’s been closeted by fear of her disapproval for years. A young man having to make clandestine trips to London and Brighton to meet men, to forge relationships and just to be himself. How tortuous to carry that secret around with you for your entire life.
By the time I get back to Thorn House the weather has turned. Low, ponderous clouds gather, charcoal-grey and heavy as iron. It’s going to rain. I carry the bags of shopping into the kitchen and take out the fruit, putting it into the sink to be washed. I’ve been teaching myself how to brew the fragrant tea Mimi likes, using flowers from the garden. Rosebuds and petals of chamomile, dandelion, jasmine and pale yellow chrysanthemums. After I’ve tidied the shopping away I take a pot of it into her room, nudging the door carefully open with my hip.
‘Rosebud and jasmine t—’ I cut off.
Mimi’s flushed, the colour creeping up her neck into her cheeks. Her hands grope blindly across the bedside table, knocking against the phone, which dings brightly. I rush towards her, putting the tea tray down on the bed, noticing the thin sticks of her legs beneath the covers. I catch her hands gently, surprised at the wiry strength I can feel thrumming beneath her skin, and wonder if this is delirium, passing through her like a voltage. I call for Alex and William, but by the time they come running through the doorway Mimi is calming down, glassy-eyed and a little vacant, looking around her as though she has just woken up. She says there were black spots on her bedside table, ‘crawling all over it like insects’. William, Alex and I exchange concerned glances over the top of her head. Alex begins to insist on calling the doctor but Mimi abruptly shuts the idea down, telling him, ‘All I need is the company of my boys and a good rest. Thank you for my tea, dear heart. Sit with me, William. I’d like to hear you read.’
‘I’m busy, Mum. I’ve got a conference call in ten minutes. Can Frances do it?’
Of course I do it. I read her the headlines and some articles from the supplement, her horoscope. ‘Use your excess energy today to get out there and do some exercise!’ We both laugh at that. I quarter her some oranges and put them in a bowl on her lap. The bright smell of them fills the room, almost tropical.
‘You look better now, Mimi,’ I tell her.
She nods and smiles. ‘I feel it. It’s hard to be unhappy when you’ve got all this garden to look at. See those roses? Edward planted them for me. He wanted us to have a daughter called Rose but sadly, well – these things can’t be planned, can they?’
‘No.’
‘Tell me again the story of how you and William met.’ She squeezes my hand and her
