He at least has his money. He has his awards statuettes and his film credits. Somebody will love him again, somebody foolish enough might even trust him. But it’s a grim shadow of what he had.
It is time to go. She wonders, briefly and absurdly, if she ought to buy something for Amber – a gift, like flowers? She drops the thought as soon as it arrives. It’s not a moment she can pad out with gifts and other such evasions.
At the trial Amber had said, ‘I felt like I was going mad. Everyone thought I was making it up, just to sound like I could prove it. And after a while I thought maybe I had made it up. Like nobody had ever been there. And I was this crazy drunk bitch who didn’t know what was real anymore.’ Becky read the full transcript afterwards. As a witness, she hadn’t been allowed to watch Amber giving evidence, not that she could have borne it.
A crazy drunk bitch. Becky could have spared her that.
Becky finds herself slowing down as she walks past beautiful Georgian terraced houses, their black-painted rails pristine against white-painted façades. Amber hasn’t given any indication of what she expects from their meeting, only that she wanted it to happen. Becky tries to think if there is anything at all that she could tell Amber about that night that she hasn’t already disclosed at Matthew’s trial. What more can she offer her, other than an apology, face-to-face? Becky is reminded of Adam crouched against her bedroom wall, shards of shattered china on the floor beside him, looking caged and desolate. Did he want to run then, like she wants to run now?
Adam had sixteen years to think about what he might say, if the day came when he had to account for Maisie’s paternity. And what had he managed, when that moment arrived? He had given an account wherein he was wrongly accused, and of something so monstrous that he was bullied into a lifetime of silence, trapped in a lie. Poor Adam. The victim of her assumptions.
He had a story that he could live with, maybe even one he could defend to other people, if Becky ever forced him to. He had spent sixteen years finding ways to not be in the wrong. He wouldn’t unpick them now. Not for her. But she could at least unpick herself from him. And she had done.
To begin with Maisie had blamed it on the Amber story, the sudden gulf between her parents. But as time passed, and Maisie learnt from Adam that he didn’t at all blame Becky for what she’d done, Maisie’s questions grew sharper. She wanted their old life back, and it wasn’t happening, and nobody seemed able to tell her why; Becky understood all that, but still hadn’t thought of a way to explain her bone-deep need to be far, far away from Adam.
‘So what is it? Why won’t you tell me?’ Maisie had said.
‘Our friendship’s changed. It’s just time for us both to move on.’
‘Move on from what?’
‘Just move on. Try to meet people that we might have a future with.’
‘That’s bollocks. You’re not even dating.’
‘Can you just leave it?’
‘No! Why do I have to see Dad on my own just because you’re “moving on” even though you’re actually not doing that? That’s really shit.’
Becky thought: yes, but I can live with that. And I can’t live with the way things were, not now.
So Maisie came and went between school and home, weekdays and weekends, seeing Adam when she could – until Becky began noticing that Maisie was returning from each visit less animated and more subdued. When gently questioned, Maisie reported how pancake-day had turned to cereal and then, lately, nothing at all: no groceries in his fridge, hence no offers of food. He bought her takeaways now, if she said she was hungry. And then, uncorked, Maisie talked about Adam’s unopened post and the foetid smell in his apartment, and about how much she missed the old Adam and their jokes and, finally, directed with full force at Becky, how angry she was that Becky wasn’t doing anything about it.
And all Becky had said was, ‘This isn’t about me. He’s not like that because of me.’ Fuck being held accountable for him.
‘Mum, I know people have called you about him. Everyone’s worried and you’re meant to be his best friend and you don’t even care!’
Becky’s answers were always a variant of the same neutral thing: she didn’t know for sure what was wrong with him, hadn’t seen him much herself recently, in fairness he wasn’t really speaking to her either.
Then one morning, Maisie begged. ‘Please visit him. I don’t think he’ll listen to anyone else.’ And the look on her daughter’s face caught her out. All Maisie’s affected teenage-weariness was gone. She looked like she had when she was toddler, bereft at some catastrophe but still hoping and believing that her mother might fix the world. Fit a dropped scoop of ice-cream back into its cone. Find a lost stuffed giraffe. Ungraze a knee. ‘Mum, I’m really worried he’s going to kill himself.’
Becky felt a tight and bewildering knot of righteousness and grief forming. She had let Adam keep his freedom, let his parents keep their pride in him, let him have his daughter’s love and respect. She’d let him keep it all for the sake of Maisie. All she had asked was to be cut free of him so that she could graft herself to something new and grow again.
She could have stayed home that day, ignored her daughter’s requests and the looming threat. And yet, she found herself travelling up twenty-three floors in a whisper-quiet lift to the door of Adam’s apartment. The truth was
