Kind of Cruel (6 page)

I can say sorry to strangers, and even send them cheques for seventy pounds that I’ve told them they don’t deserve, but I can’t apologise to my own husband, not any more; I would feel like a hypocrite. Any ‘sorry’ I might say would be nothing more than a shield for the ‘sorry’ I’m not saying, the one I can never say.

Hypnotherapy and me are a bad match, I decide. I need something that’s going to pull me out of my endlessly churning interior world, not plunge me deeper into it.

I’ve never been less in the mood to make polite conversation than I am now, so Sod’s Law dictates that, on the exterior world front, today there are three mothers waiting on the corner for the bus. Usually there’s only one, who cuts me dead because I once said the wrong thing. I’ve forgotten her name and the name of her shaggy-headed child, but I think of her as OCB, which stands for organic cereal bar. She brings one every afternoon for her son, whose hair, she once told me, has never been cut because she can’t bear the thought of vandalising any precious part of him, and certainly not when he’s perfectly happy as he is, and why should she, purely for the sake of convention and to please the bigot contingent? She detained me for nearly fifteen minutes with a full explanation that veered into gender-role-redefining manifesto towards the end, even though I’d been polite enough not to ask her why her son resembled a sheepskin rug.

Before she decided I was beyond the pale and not worth talking to, I learned a lot about what it means to be a parent from listening to OCB. It seems fairly straightforward: if you have a child that behaves like a savage, deflect attention from his shortcomings by accusing the teachers of ‘pathologising’ him and failing to meet his individual needs, especially if these include the need to poke other children in the eye with a fork. If your son fails a test, accuse the school of being too outcome-focused; if he is lazy and says everything is boring, blame the teacher for not stretching or stimulating him in the right way; if your child is not particularly bright, couch the problem in terms of the school failing to identify and plug a ‘skills gap’; crucially, ostracise anyone who dares to suggest that some gaps – those belonging to clever children, specifically – are easier to fill with skills than others, and that, hypothetically, a teacher might try endlessly to lob into the chasm some fairly basic proficiencies and fail to lodge them there, owing to an inherently unsympathetic micro-climate of massive stupidity.

I probably shouldn’t have said that, but it had been a long day, and my freedom went to my head – the freedom of being a guardian and not a parent. I can see exactly how Dinah and Nonie make life harder for themselves, their classmates and their teachers, just as I can see their talents and their strong points, the personal and intellectual qualities that are going to make life easier for them. I feel no urge to feign modesty about the good or pretend the bad doesn’t exist, not having made the girls myself, and so I don’t need to enter into any reciprocal delusion-bolstering deals of the sort that many of the parents rely on: ‘It doesn’t surprise me
at all
that Mr Maskell hasn’t spotted that Jerome’s gifted, Susan – he hasn’t noticed that Rhiannon is either.’

Dinah and Nonie are first off the bus when it arrives, as they usually are. I hang back behind the mothers, as per Dinah’s instructions. In the very early days, she told me that I wasn’t allowed to run forward and give her a hug or a kiss, that Sharon hadn’t been allowed to either – any display of affection in a public place is embarrassing and therefore forbidden. I am, however, allowed to smile enthusiastically, and this I do as the girls walk towards me with quick neat steps, like purposeful businesswomen on their way to an important meeting. I can see from Dinah’s face that she has something significant to say to me. She always does, every day. Nonie is worried about how I will react to whatever it is, and how Dinah will react to my reaction, as she always is. I can feel myself mentally limbering up as they approach, knowing that whatever’s about to pass between us will seem to fly by at a million miles an hour, and I’m going to need to be on my toes, mentally. Luke has the knack of relaxing with the girls; he can coax them into winding down in a way that I’ve never been able to. My conversations with them often feel like super-fast games of verbal ping-pong, in which I’m desperate to let them win, but never quite sure how to.

‘Are you and Luke ever going to have a baby?’ Dinah asks, handing me her and Nonie’s book bags; it is my job to carry them to the house.

‘No. Why, what makes you ask that?’

‘Someone on the bus asked us, because you’re not our mum and dad. This girl, Venetia, said that if you had a baby of your own, you’d love it more than you love us, and Nonie got upset.’

‘If we did have a baby, we wouldn’t love it any more than we love you,’ I say to Nonie, making sure to look only at her, knowing Dinah’s pride would rebel at the slightest suggestion that she too might need reassurance. ‘Not one single bit more. But we’re not going to have a baby. We talked about it, and we decided. We’re going to stay as we are: a family of four.’

‘Good, because there’d be no point,’ says Dinah.

‘In our having a baby?’

‘No. It’d only grow up and work in an office. Has anyone from school phoned you today?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Should they have?’

‘Dinah’s in trouble, and it’s not her fault,’ says Nonie, picking at the skin on her lip.

‘I told you.’ Her sister turns on her. ‘Mrs Truscott didn’t ring because she knew Amber’d stick up for me.’

‘Stick up for you over what?’

‘Is Luke home yet?’ Dinah ignores my question, unwinds her school scarf from round her neck and hands it to me along with her gloves.

‘I don’t know. I’ve not been into the house, I’ve only just—’

‘I’ll tell him first and then I’ll tell you.’

‘That’s stupid,’ says Nonie. ‘He’ll tell her.’

‘
I’
ll tell her. But she won’t worry as much once she sees Luke thinks it’s funny, which he will.’

All this before we get to the front door. ‘What’s wrong with working in an office?’ I ask as I fumble in my handbag for my house keys. ‘I work in an office.’

‘It’s boring,’ says Dinah. ‘Not for you, if you like it – that’s fine. I just mean, when you think how many people work in offices – almost everybody –
then
it’s boring. It’d be silly to have a baby just so that it could grow up and do a boring thing that too many people do already.’

I drop my keys on the doorstep, bend to pick them up, say, ‘People do different things in their offices – interesting things, sometimes.’ I notice I’m not demanding to know what Dinah is putting off telling me; I also like the idea of waiting until Luke’s here to soften the blow by finding it hilarious.

‘I’m going to be a stonemason, like Luke,’ says Dinah. ‘I could take over running his business when he gets too old. He’s quite old already.’

Can girls be stonemasons? Luke is forever lugging around huge chunks of York and Bath stone that I’m sure no female could lift. ‘Last week you wanted to be a baroness,’ I remind Dinah as I unlock the door. ‘I think that’s a better fit, I have to say.’

Nonie hangs back. ‘How much money have we got?’ she asks. OCB, who is conducting an inventory of Sheepskin Rug’s possessions on the pavement nearby, adjusts her stance in the hope of hearing my reply.

‘That’s a funny question, Nones. Why?’

‘Enver in my class – his mum and dad have got so much money that he won’t ever have to get a job. We haven’t got that much, have we?’

I try to usher her inside, but she sticks determinedly to the doorstep. ‘You don’t need to worry about money, or about getting a job,’ I tell her. ‘You’re a child. Let the grown-ups do the worrying.’ Her frown lines deepen, and I realise I’ve said the wrong thing. ‘Not that Luke and I have anything to worry about. We’re fine, Nones, financially and in every other way. Everything’s fine.’

‘I’d like to get a job when I’m older, but I don’t know how to,’ she says. ‘Or how to buy a house, or a car, or find a husband.’

‘You’re not supposed to know about any of that stuff yet. You’re only seven,’ I say.

She shakes her head sorrowfully. ‘Everyone in my class already knows who they’re marrying, apart from me.’

‘Dinah – airlock!’ I call out, seeing that the inner door is wide open, the one that’s supposed to stay shut until the outer door’s closed. ‘Come on, Nones, can we go in? It’s freezing.’ She sighs, but does as she’s told. Disappointment rises from her small body like steam. She hoped to be able to solve her matrimonial problem before crossing the threshold, and it didn’t happen; now she’s having to go inside with it still unresolved.

I give her a hug and promise that as soon as she’s old enough, I will find the most amazing, handsome, clever, kind, rich, wonderful man for her to marry. She looks delighted for a second, then worried. ‘Dinah’ll need one too,’ she says. Nonie’s obsessed with fairness. I restrain myself from voicing my sudden strong hunch that Dinah will need at least three, as I hang up coats, arrange discarded shoes in pairs and pick up the envelopes that are scattered on the floor. One is from Social Services. I wish I could tear it up and not have to read what’s inside.

I’m about to close and lock the outer door when I hear a voice say, ‘Amber Hewerdine?’ I look outside and see a short, wiry man with black hair, dark brown bloodshot eyes and sallow skin. He looks as if he’s been doing too much or too little of something. Automatically, I wonder if he sleeps well. ‘DC Gibbs,’ he says, producing a card from his pocket that he holds in front of my face.

That was quick. Aren’t mistakes meant to take a while to catch up with you? Obviously the in-denial period of imagining I might get away with it has given its appointment to the horrible retribution that was booked in for a later slot.

‘Put that thing away,’ I tell him, looking over my shoulder into the house. Thankfully, we seem to be alone; he missed Nonie by a few seconds. ‘Listen, because this is important – more important than me looking at that woman’s stupid notebook,’ I hiss at him. ‘I’ve got two girls inside who
cannot
find out that you’re a cop. Okay? If they see you, you’re selling something: double-glazing, feather dusters, take your pick.’

‘Kind, Cruel, Kind of Cruel,’ he says, and I have that unnerving feeling again, the same one I had outside Ginny’s house, when I was caught in the act:
this is wrong
. His reaction is off by a few degrees. Why isn’t he telling me that helping oneself to the contents of someone else’s car is a serious offence? Why is he quoting those strange words at me? Then it hits me, what the problem is: this is like something that would only happen in a dream – a stranger accosts you outside your house and says the very words that have been going round and round in your mind.

‘What does it mean?’ he asks.
In a dream, neither of you would know what the words meant
.

‘You’re asking the wrong person,’ I say.

‘Amber?’ I look over the DC’s shoulder and see Luke walking towards us fast. He must sense that something’s wrong. I feel irrationally encouraged by the idea that there are three of us now, and two of us are on my side. Luke smells of sweat, and of the dust that’s coating his skin and clothes; he’s been at the quarry all day.

‘This guy’s police,’ I tell him, mouthing the last word. ‘Go in and keep an eye on the girls, tell them I’m talking to someone from work.’

‘What’s going on?’ he asks us both, as if we’re conspiring to exclude him.

‘I need to talk to your wife,’ DC Gibbs tells him. To me, he says, ‘You can agree to come in or I can arrest you – your choice.’

‘Arrest me?’ I laugh. ‘So that you can ask me why I looked at some woman’s notebook?’

‘So that I can ask you what you know about the murder of Katharine Allen,’ he says.

What is the difference between a story and a legend? In which category does Little Orchard belong? I’d say it falls squarely into the ‘legend’ category. It has a name, for one thing: Little Orchard. Those two words suggest more than a house in Surrey. They’re enough to call to mind a complex sequence of events and an even more multi-layered collection of opinions and emotions. Wherever we have a mental shortcut phrase for a story from our past, that provides a clue that the story has become a legend.

Does it matter that, apart from one Italian nanny, the only people who know it are all members of the same extended family? I don’t think so. For all those people, it stands out. It will always stand out. It’s unique: a banned story, one they have tacitly agreed never to mention to one another and one that, as a result, they probably dwell on far more than they would if they were allowed to discuss it freely. It is certainly the most intriguing story the family owns – a mystery that seems unlikely ever to be solved. No progress has been made towards solving it in seven years, and the reasons why this is the case are almost as interesting as the mystery itself.

What sort of mind would invent something so bizarre, and why? If I’m pretending, for now, that the story – the legend – is a lie from start to finish, then that’s a question that has to be asked of every event, every utterance and every emotion within the overall sequence – asked, and if possible, answered.

First, though, we must look at the sequence. Which is a practice we’ve grown unused to, ever since Little Orchard acquired legend status. When a story becomes a legend, our mental shortcut phrase tends to evoke not what actually happened, stage by stage – that would be far too labour-intensive – but a convenient wrapping that covers the whole. For Little Orchard, several obvious wrapping concepts spring to mind: ‘We’ll probably never know’, ‘It only goes to show that you can never truly know a person, however close to them you think you are’, perhaps even the treacherous ‘We’re better off not knowing’, since many people collude with whoever is attempting to pull the wool over their eyes.