Mindsight (17 page)

I turned away, opened the laptop and checked the train times, then sent a message to Emily to say when I’d be there and I’d call her when I was on my way. After that I emailed Tom. I kept the tone light and didn’t mention last night, just told him I’d keep in touch while I was in Cumbria.

I was about to switch off when I thought about Lorna. I believed her when she said she loved me. And what right did I have to be angry with her because she’d had an affair? She had forgiven me for something so very much worse – I had killed the man she loved.

But I still didn’t trust myself to talk to her. At least an email would be a start.

Dear Lorna,

I am so sorry I behaved the way I did the other day and of course I still want us to be friends. You will always be my dear fairy godmother and I just need a little while to get used to the idea of you and Dad.

Lorna, if I’m going to help Tom, I have to know everything about the time around the accident. About anything at all you remember that could be relevant. I still have the feeling you’re keeping things back and if it’s because you’re trying to protect me, it isn’t working.

Above all I must find out why I took those pills and how I got hold of them. But I’ve realised other things may have been different to the way I imagined them. So please will you rack your brains for anything that might be relevant about me and Steve, about Dad, or about the situation in the firm at that time.

Clare

I hesitated for a second then added,
with love,
before my name and a kiss after it.

As I left the flat next morning, Nic opened her door, still in her dressing gown and slippers.

‘Hi Clare, you couldn’t spare a drop of milk could you? I’ve run out again.’ When I turned back to my door she must have registered the holdall. ‘Oh sorry, you’re off somewhere. I won’t keep you.’

I had plenty of time before my train, so I brought her a carton from the fridge.

‘Thanks, babe,’ she said, her shiny eyes crinkling at me. ‘Going somewhere nice?’

‘To see my cousin.’ Her nod and beaming smile somehow made it impossible not to add, ‘The Lake District.’

‘Ooo, you lucky thing,’ she said. ‘How long for?’

‘Just till Friday.’ I turned to open the front door.

‘Hang on a sec and I’ll get dressed and give you a lift to the station. Molly’ll enjoy the ride.’

‘No really, I’ve got plenty of time and I’d like a walk.’

‘Well, if you’re sure. It’s really no trouble. Don’t know why I keep paying out for that car. Only use it once or twice a week for shopping.’

She reached into her own hallway and I edged closer to the door, but when she turned back to me she was holding a pad and a pen. ‘Here are my phone numbers.’ She scribbled something and tore off a scrap of paper. ‘I’ve got your landline one, so give me your mobile number too.’ She laughed, waggling her head so her blonde, uncombed curls flopped back and forth. ‘You know, in case your flat catches fire or something.’

It would have been rude to refuse and after all she was just trying to help: to be a good neighbour. And I nodded when she said to give her a ring if I wanted a lift from the station when I got back, although I knew I wouldn’t do so.

On the train up north, I asked myself what on earth I was doing, churning up the past when I couldn’t even get a grip on the present; couldn’t deal with ordinary life and still looked at normal people as if they were enemies. But it was too late to turn back, and resting my head on the carriage window, I tried
to put everything, and most of all the fear of what would happen when I saw Emily and Matt, out of my mind. As the miles rolled by, and the rain began to sheet down over fields that became greener and greener, I finally slipped into a dreamless doze.

I was woken by my mobile and I fumbled for it still half asleep. ‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Clare? It’s me, Emily.’

My heart thudded; she was ringing, no doubt, to put me off.

‘I won’t talk for long because you’re probably on the train and I hate people who chat on their mobiles. What time do you get in?’

‘4.30, but don’t worry … ’

‘Just wanted to tell you to forget all this taxi rubbish. I’ll meet you at the station.’

*

Emily, who once could hardly heat beans without burning them, had evidently become a keen cook and I sat in her kitchen at a big pine table as she stirred a risotto on the stove. They’d done a lot of work on the house and it was very different from the little place I remembered her and Matt buying a few months before their wedding. But it still felt very much like Emily: warm, untidy, and with touches of bright colour everywhere.

I’d asked if I could help, but she laughed and told me to relax and sit where she could see me and every so often she turned to beam at me, her brown eyes sparkling. ‘It’s so good to have you here. Wish you could stay longer.’ She ladled stock into the bubbling pan.

‘I wouldn’t have blamed you if you never wanted to see me again.’

‘Don’t be daft.’ She shot a teary smile at me. ‘Let’s just start again, shall we? I promise I won’t talk about the past. Just relax and enjoy a little holiday.’

I asked, ‘When does Matt get home?’

She turned away, her voice muffled as she searched through packets and jars in a cupboard. ‘He’s in Scotland, not due back till late Thursday, so you won’t see much of him. He was so disappointed to miss you.’

I swallowed down my frustration. ‘Oh well, never mind, that gives
us
more time to talk.’

As if my words had some kind of negative power, an awkward silence descended. Emily ground pepper into the pan, put dishes to warm, and occasionally hummed to herself, while I looked around the room.

It had been extended since my last visit a couple of months before the wedding, but they’d kept the rough brick walls of the original cottage, and the one opposite the table was covered in framed family photos.

Emily had dark hair and eyes, like me, and in one picture – the two of us throwing dried leaves at each other in her parents’ garden – we looked like a couple of little gypsies.

That day was suddenly in my mind more clearly than yesterday. The smells of autumn bonfires in a nearby garden, the chill air against my hot little cheeks, and the joy of knowing I would be staying with Uncle Alan and Auntie Rose for a whole week. Away from Mummy’s complaints about my untidiness and noise. Here I could forget, for a while, what a bad girl I was.

The picture below was one of Alice’s birthday parties. Mum must have been having a good day because she looked radiant, blonde hair cascading over her shoulders. There were eight candles flickering on the cake and Alice grinned over them, her smile identical to Mum’s apart from a lost front tooth. Dad had insisted Emily and I, awkward young teens, should be in the picture too and Emily had managed a stiff smile, whilst I looked down at the cake, hiding my face with a fall of hair.

There were various old wedding photos scattered around. Emily’s parents as toned- down hippies: Alan in a blue shirt with ruffles and a white jacket, and Rose trailing flowers from her mass of hennaed hair. A black and white of a couple I didn’t recognise – Doris Day and Rock Hudson lookalikes – were all tuxedo and frothy chiffon. Our shared grandparents, Dad and Uncle Alan’s mother and father, were there too: my grandfather in tails, top hat in his hand, and his new wife, very French and stylish, in tight-fitting white satin. A single photo of Matt and Emily tucked in amongst the group was the only evidence of their own wedding day.

As we ate we discussed asparagus and Italian cheese, Emily seeming to be as uncomfortable as I felt.

When we’d finished I told her to take it easy while I made some coffee, and as we drank it, I looked up at the paper smiles gleaming through the glass on the wall behind her head.

‘I notice there’s only one wedding photo of you and Matt.’

She shifted in her chair, rubbing a hand over her bump. ‘Well, they all went into the album.’

‘And you didn’t take one or two down from the wall when you knew I was coming, I suppose?’

‘No I didn’t, and to be honest I never look at the album either.’ Her brown eyes flashed at me for a moment, before she looked down at her plate again. ‘I’m sorry, Clare, but honestly it doesn’t matter anymore, at least not to me. Matt and I are happy now and the past is past. So we don’t really talk about it.’

‘That’s just it though, Emily. I need to.’

‘But what good can it do, going over painful things that can’t be changed?’

‘I have to understand what happened. Tom’s asking questions I can’t answer for one thing and well … I just need to know. I thought maybe the photos might help me to remember something from that day.’

She ran her hand through her hair, and pulled herself upright, her bulk making her stagger. ‘I’m too tired to look for them tonight. Let me show you your room and if you still want to see the album I’ll find it tomorrow.’ It was clear she was upset, but at the door of my room she seemed to revive.

‘Honestly, Clare, I think you should let it go. I was at the wedding too, remember, and if there was anything I thought you should know don’t you think I’d have told you by now?’

I smiled and squeezed her arm. ‘Of course. But I suppose I just need to remember for myself.’

She turned away. ‘Let’s talk about it in the morning.’

I told myself at 3 a.m. that I was just going down for a glass of water, but instead, I wandered through the downstairs rooms, keeping the lights dim, quietly checking bookshelves, opening drawers and cupboards. It was wrong to sneak about like this, but I guessed Emily would try to avoid the subject of the album in the morning, and I dreaded having to raise it again.

There was no sign of it and when I opened the final cupboard, the one under the TV, I wasn’t surprised to find only DVDs and a few old videos. But then I saw a DVD box that looked different to the rest. It was plain white, a little dusty and labelled in curling gold letters –
Our Wedding
.

I was shaking as I pulled it out. It had clearly not been looked at for a long time, and Emily might even have forgotten it was there.

At least I had to hope so, because it was going back home with me.

Chapter Fifteen

Neither of us mentioned the wedding album next morning and Emily seemed relieved when I chatted about other things. She had a doctor’s appointment at 10.30 so she wasn’t surprised when I said I’d go for a walk.

She waved me off and when I reached the main road, out of sight of the cottage, I took out my mobile and rang for a taxi.

My last memory of that dreadful day was of pulling up, a little late and very anxious, at the church.
The building had haunted me ever since, yet standing in front of it, as the taxi drew away, it seemed no more familiar than something seen in a picture postcard. It was more chapel than church, with a tiny graveyard to the side, on the edge of the little village of Bramstone. In one direction a lattice of fields stretched away, and in the other, the fells rippled down in green waves to the lake at the bottom of the valley. The air was transparent in the way that seems particular to the Lake District.

Matt’s parents had owned these fields and the reception was in a marquee beside their farmhouse. They’d sold up a couple of years ago, and the marquee, of course, was long gone, but I thought the church might yield something.

Inside, I breathed in a mixture of polish and dying flowers. A Victorian stained glass window overpowered the small altar. It was a nativity scene: the pale Pre-Raphaelite virgin clutching a roly-poly Jesus, his plump face scowling up at her, no doubt wanting his next feed.

It sparked no memory, nor did the pews, each with its own embroidered kneeler. I sat cradling one of them, the purple fabric emblazoned with the motto:
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
Well, I certainly wouldn’t be doing any stone throwing, I thought, as a laugh escaped, only to turn into a sob. There was nothing here I remembered, nothing that meant anything. I banged the pew with my fist as I stood.

‘All right, love?’

How she’d managed to get right up behind me with her bucket and mop I couldn’t understand, but I choked out that I was fine.

David Hillier was the second witness to arrive at the scene of the accident. At the time, he lived in Bramstone and I’d planned to ask Emily to help me locate him, but I realised, unless he’d moved, I should be able to find him myself. After all, Bramstone was just a hamlet and, apart from Matt’s family farm and the church, there were only four or five houses. So it shouldn’t be too difficult to track down Hillier, if he still lived there.

The road to Bramstone led nowhere else, and much had been made at the trial of how surprising it was that anyone was around in the early hours of a Sunday morning. Hillier was returning from visiting his dying wife in hospital and the other witness was the young biker, Jacob Downes, who’d just been riding around.

I suddenly had a clear memory of Downes at the trial, scratching fiercely at a mop of dark, unkempt hair as he reddened and stumbled out a kind of apology when the judge asked, with startling irrelevance, if he took into account the fact that his noisy engine might spoil the sleep of other people.

At the time, Hillier had been a headmaster, and would have retired so I gave the first cottage a miss when I saw the little trike in the garden. The second, a neat bungalow, fronted by a perfect lawn edged with lavender and petunias, looked more promising.

He came to the door seconds after I rang the bell and I suspected he’d seen me through the panoramic living room window. Inside, the radio was playing something classical. He greeted me with a smile that suggested my face was familiar but he couldn’t quite place me. His professionally warm, ‘Hello, dear, and what can I do for you?’ made me guess he had put me down as an old pupil, or perhaps a parent.

‘I’m Clare Glazier … you remember … from the trial.’ It was clear before I finished speaking that he did. The smile vanished, and his face flushed as he began to close the door on me.