That’s where he lives. In the sink hole. That’s where he takes the children.
And for eighteen years that memory, and what came next, had stayed in hiding in my mind. For eighteen years the door to the past had stayed shut, keeping the truth inside. And then, on my birthday, eighteen years to the day after Conrad disappeared, that narrow door had opened up like a sink hole in the ground: releasing the past like a swarm of bees. All from a piece of French toast, drenched in Golden Syrup: Out of the eater came forth meat: and out of the strong came forth sweetness.
Why that moment, I wonder? I’ve never really understood. Perhaps it was my talk with Jerome, or the troubling scene at my parents’, or the stress of having to hide it all from Dominic; but, in any case, here came a memory, bringing with it the dusty smell of St Oswald’s library, and the sour dark scent of the sink hole, and the sound of the pipes in my parents’ house, and the picture of Mr Smarthwaite. Memory and, with it, a surprising realization. I’d always believed that my five-year-old self worshipped my big brother. My parents had always told me so, and I had always believed them. His image on the mantelpiece looked down at me like the face of God, dominating my childhood. He was in our prayers every night; my parents spoke of nothing but him. And over the years my brother had come to embody every quality I lacked. He was grown up; clever; good at sports; outgoing; popular; good-looking. Most of all, he was a boy. Boys achieved things. Girls did not. If they were pretty (and good, of course), they married well. But I was not good. I had shamed the family, first by getting pregnant, and then for taking up with that coloured boy.
But here it was at last, the truth; perhaps too late to serve me now, but strong and undeniable. A truth even my therapist had never managed to extract; a truth that had been left for years untouched, like a flooded mine shaft, until one day the wall was breached, and the knowledge came rushing through; deadly; dark; unstoppable. Conrad, my brother, my hero; my friend; the angel at our table; the martyr; the one too good for this world –
I’d hated him.
PART 5
Styx
(River of Hate)
1
July 9th, 1989
Memory is like a young child: it is immensely suggestible. It is coloured by feelings; dreams; other people’s convictions. And, like its friend, the subconscious, it loves to deal in metaphor, so that Memory often leaves home dressed in a sensible outfit, and returns in a tutu and fairy wings, with its face painted like a tiger.
Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I’d believed that my memories of Conrad were real: but now, I began to realize that the truth had been overwritten by years and years of guilt, suggestion, mythology. The brother I knew was not the boy whose face hung over the mantelpiece, flanked with a pair of candles and a little vial of water from Lourdes. He was not the boy the press had described – handsome, popular, loved by all. Throughout my childhood, he had stood, monolithic, over me. Now I saw him for what he was: cruel; petty; bullying.
Now that the dam was broken at last, I remembered all kinds of incidents, tricks and childish cruelties. The times he’d locked me in the bathroom and threatened me with Mr Smallface; the times he’d lied to my parents, and taken me with him to hang out with his friends by St Oswald’s playing fields, or along the old railway, or smoking down by the Clay Pits, while he claimed to be taking me to the playground, or the park, or the children’s library.
It occurred to me that the boy I’d seen on my first day – the blond boy with the Prefect’s badge – might have been my subconscious mind, trying to make me see the truth. The fact that I hadn’t recognized Conrad was wholly understandable: through the lens of my memory he had been unrecognizable. But as a teacher, I’d seen him at last without the rose-coloured spectacles – as a grinning little shit, no different from any other disruptive pupil.
If only you’d been on the scene then, Roy. You might have helped me work it out. But all I had at the time were Scoones and Sinclair and Carrie Macleod – and now, Jerome. And although the truth about Conrad had been a private epiphany, I still had no further memory of what had really happened to him, or what his last words to me had been, or of what – if anything – I had seen on the day he disappeared. But maybe Jerome could help me, I thought. His suggestion made sense. If the wall of my hidden past was beginning to give way, then anything – a scent, a word – might trigger another inrush of memories.
‘Becks? Are you nearly ready?’ That was Dominic, from downstairs.
I looked at my untouched breakfast tray. The thought of eating anything made me feel suddenly nauseous.
‘Just a minute!’ I called cheerily, and set about looking for how to dispose of my birthday breakfast. Thankfully, the bedroom had its own adjacent bathroom. I poured the orange juice down the sink, followed by the coffee. The drain gave a little hiccup, but seemed to accept the offering. The French toast was more of a problem; eventually, I tore it into small pieces, and flushed them down the toilet. It took three flushes to get rid of them all, as well as half a bottle of bleach, but finally, the evidence was gone.
‘Becks? Are you OK?’
‘Of course.’ I opened the bedroom door. ‘I just wanted to look my best for when I meet your family.’
He grinned. ‘I know. They can be a bit much,’ he said. ‘But they’re all going to love you. They just need the chance to see you in a – relaxed environment.’
A relaxed environment. I suddenly felt like laughing. I’d met Dom’s parents once for a meal at a local restaurant, as well as two of his sisters and their respective husbands, but it had not been a relaxed environment, and I had spent most of the time in a state of acute anxiety. Dom’s family was a close one, but their way of expressing affection seemed to consist mostly of teasing, shouting, squabbling and violent recriminations for a series of childhood incidents.
It was so different to what I had known that I had kept almost silent throughout the meal, provoking the comment from Dominic’s Ma: ‘Not much of a talker, is she, Dom?’
It was not a promising start; and missing Victoria’s birthday had not helped repair the damage. I feared that Dominic’s family had found me very dull, or worse, thought that I considered myself too good for them. Of course Dom had denied this, but I didn’t believe him.
‘I told them you were shy,’ he’d said. ‘And – I hope you don’t mind – but I also told Ma about your therapy, and that business with your brother. No one’s going to bring it up, I swear,’ he went on quickly. ‘I just wanted everyone to know you’ve been through a lot, and it isn’t your fault, and how sweet and wonderful you can be when you let your defences down.’
Of course, he never realized how little he had ever seen of what was behind my defences. I’d lied to him from the very start; our time together was woven through with bright threads of betrayal. But Dominic was a simple man, and assumed that everyone was equally so.
He saw the empty breakfast tray on the dressing table, and smiled. ‘Was it good?’
‘Delicious,’ I said.
He kissed me. I could smell his cologne, and the memory of the joint he’d smoked the previous night before going to bed. And I wanted to please him: I wanted to be the trusting girl he thought I was; sweet-toothed, eating my French toast, excited at the prospect of my very own birthday party.