‘There’s nothing you can do. And it’s not for you to do. You weren’t the one who did all those things. This is what I meant about wanting to climb into the past and reshape it. You can’t do anything. And it all happened so long ago there’s nothing you can do to help now. It’s there. A fixed thing that happened.’ A fixed thing that keeps bleeding out into my present – whether that present was ten years ago or today. I cannot change the past but the past is changing my future all the time.
‘I’m glad I know, but then I’m not. I mean, there’s no way to romanticise him in my head now. It’s absolutely clear why my mother didn’t want anything to do with him, but it’s even more maddening that they’ve all been participating in making him out to be all right but a little flawed. He was nothing like that. He was nothing like they made out.’
‘But you’d prefer it if I said those things, too, wouldn’t you? You want everything they told you, all those lies, to be true, don’t you?’
He says nothing.
‘You thought I was going to tell you he had a bit of a temper, that he’d sometimes get a bit aggressive and shouty; you thought you’d hear his flaws and it would tack nice and neatly onto the things people don’t talk about. You never suspected I’d have to tell you all that, did you? And now you don’t know what to do, what to think. Cos he’s not here for you to hate. Or for you to talk to and get the “real” story.’
‘Please stop,’ he begs softly. ‘I’m really . . . this has floored me. I can’t deal with hearing anything else or your version of “I told you so”.’
‘Sorry,’ I reply, shamefaced. ‘I’m so sorry.’ That was exactly what I was doing. And while I was directing it at him, it was meant for Evan, too. For not believing me when I said this could end up with Verity properly behind bars. ‘Look, I’ll go. I’m sorry to drop all of this on you and not be able to make it better.’
He suddenly seems to see me again and holds me with his look. How he – Marcus – used to. ‘Actually, it’s for the best. I am, weirdly, glad that I know. I thought everyone was keeping things from me and now I know. I just have to work out how to live with all of this information.’
Jack Halnsley stands when I stand. From his pocket he produces a business card that he holds out to me. ‘I don’t imagine you’ll want to, but, I don’t know, if you do want to talk some more, here is how to get in touch.’
I reach for the card, taking it more out of politeness than anything else. He doesn’t relinquish it straight away, instead he hangs on to it a bit longer. ‘You’re very attractive, you know?’ he says quietly.
‘What?’ I say.
‘You’re really quite beautiful. I’ve thought it both times I’ve talked to you.’
‘What?’ I repeat and he lets go of the card.
He immediately sticks his hands in his pockets again. ‘Guess there’s something else my father and I have in common.’
‘What?’ I reply.
‘It looks like attraction is genetic.’ He offers me a half-shrug and a shy smile. ‘I might not see you again so I had to tell you what I’ve been thinking, feeling. I think you’re pretty incredible and I’m really attracted to you.’
My eyes search his face, looking for it, trying to see where it is hiding. I can’t spot it, can’t unearth it in the time I have left. But that doesn’t mean it’s not there. ‘That is a perfect example of what he would do. I’ve made myself vulnerable by opening up to you and in response you come on to me. Knowing that I’m married, too. See you later, Jack Halnsley. I really hope you have a good look at yourself and try to be a better person than your father.’
I place his business card on the table in front of us.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said all that,’ he replies.
‘No, you shouldn’t. I’ll see you.’
I leave before I get any more sucked in, before I start to let what he said infect my mind. Because I know myself. I know that the chance to do it over, to get it right, will become far too overwhelming if I don’t walk away now. Walk away and tell Evan everything.
Part 13
serena
Now
This book stool is not working out how I expected it to. Usually by now, when I’m months into a project, I can see progress, I can see how the final item will look or how it’s supposed to look. And every time I sit down in front of it, I know whatever I do next will be another necessary step to the final piece.
This book stool? Nope. I can’t seem to get the books to tessellate, fit together in a way that will make it secure with smooth lines, while still showing off at least some of the books. I try and I try, I waste hours here, putting the books out, stacking them and then taking them down and reordering them again. And it comes to nothing. Nothing.
Verity has been gone ten days.
Ten days feels like a lifetime, and every day I wish she would let us come to see her. She won’t entertain it, though. Not even Con is allowed to go down there. I was hoping that she’d change her mind about him, at least, but she has been intractable. I’m trying to respect her wishes even though it is slowly killing me. It’s doing the same to Evan, but we don’t talk about it because the heartbreak of speaking of it would be too much for both of us. I’m desperate to see if she is all right, as she instructs Mr Palmer to tell us she is. Or if she’s just pretending. I want to see if she has bruises, cuts, darker circles under her eyes, more lost weight.
At the back of my head, of course, is the worry of when the change will start. When she’ll start to become like Poppy. The Poppy who came out of prison was nothing like the young woman who went in. The one who emerged after twenty years was hard. Properly hardened, granite-like in everything she did. Even now, ten years later, I can see that edge is still there, only slightly under the surface. If threatened, it will come out, as we saw when she came here to attack Verity. The Poppy who went into prison would never have done that; for the one who came out it was the first course of action.
It’s only been ten days, but when did that start for Poppy? Was it something she needed straight away to make sure no one messed with her, or was it something that she put on to protect herself and it stuck? Or was it a slow, slow boil, like a frog in a pan of boiling water: put the frog in while it’s hot and the frog will jump out; put the frog in cold water and slowly turn up the heat so it becomes acclimatised to each increase in temperature and you can keep going until the water is at boiling point and the frog will be boiled alive. Is that what happened to Poppy? Every day something needed her to put on a hard face, take a strong stance, exhibit a certain attitude; every day she had to be that person to survive until that moment when she was boiling and forgot who she was at the start. I worry every day that this is what will happen to Verity.
Slowly, slowly, slowly she’ll have the heat turned up on her until she is like Poppy, she is boiling.
I toss down the book in my hands. I can’t concentrate on this right now. I can’t concentrate on much right now, but definitely not this.
Jack Halnsley keeps coming to mind, too. Evan hadn’t been happy when I told him I’d met with him and that he’d started to come onto me. But he’d understood my desperation, my trying to help someone because I couldn’t help Verity. It’s not what Jack Halnsley said about being attracted to me that keeps coming to mind, it’s what he said about his mother and their family. How they had all rewritten history to try to protect his name and reputation. All the schools he worked at had done that. And he must have screwed other pupils but they were too scared of the repercussions, I suppose.