‘Don’t be. Don’t be sorry.’
‘She was pregnant. Nancy told me. They did the test together, in the bathrooms at school. So there you go. My violent fifteen-year-old daughter was facing expulsion and an unwanted pregnancy and she hated me. Some parenting, huh?’
My voice is shaking by the end. I have to walk away quickly before Frances can reply, before she can see the fault lines in me, splitting all the way through to my hollow, worthless spine.
Frances – Now
I watch Samantha walk away from me, hunched over as if she is in pain. I too feel winded, a sucker punch to the gut, a quick one-two. Pregnant. And not just any baby. William’s baby. Not necessarily, that nasty little voice replies.
This morning I went into Alex’s bedroom. He was at his desk in front of the window, just sitting and staring out at the trees beyond the house. He didn’t turn around when I knocked and opened the door, but I suppose he must have seen my reflection in the glass because he said, ‘Come and see this, Frances. There’s a magpie out there on the grass. I should tell Mum.’
I walked up behind him, careful to close the door behind me. I didn’t want to be overheard. I put my hand on the back of his chair and peered out towards the woodland. ‘Those woods look awfully dark.’
‘Well, there’s been no one to look after them since Dad died. It closes over you, you see, the canopy. The branches reach out towards each other, slowly shutting off the sunlight.’
‘I don’t like to think of it being neglected. It’s a shame.’
Alex shrugged. ‘Who would take the job on? You need to be a specialist.’
‘Like your dad?’
He turned to look at me, face unreadable. He was wearing a button-down shirt tucked into his trousers, hair neatly parted. So tidy. Even his fingernails were close-cropped and clean, despite all that digging in the dirt.
‘I suppose. He learned on the job, but hired people for the big clearance work. You volunteering yourself?’
I laughed, but he wasn’t smiling. It’s so hard to tell with him sometimes, where the jokes are. ‘No.’ I looked over at the shelf above the bed, as if my eye had just glanced upon the object that sits there and not deliberately sought it out, that it was not in fact the best part of the reason I came in here. ‘Is that the sheep’s skull?’
Alex looked over his shoulder, nodded.
‘Can I pick it up?’
‘Of course.’
I crossed the room and lifted the sheep’s skull from the bookshelf. It was grey, almost dirty-looking, not polished white as I’d been expecting. There were fissures along the surface and on the left-hand side a small dent I could press my thumb into.
Alex turned to look straight at me. ‘That’s where it got the head injury. That’s how it died.’
‘Amazing.’ I wanted to put it back. I didn’t like it, didn’t like the way the teeth jutted down into the palm of my hand. I forced myself to keep holding it, though, and to keep holding Alex’s interest. ‘Do you think you could still find the old well, if you had to?’
He thought for a moment. ‘I suppose. Certainly the area should be easy enough. It would be entirely overgrown in there now and the boards Dad put over it will probably be rotten. It wouldn’t be very safe.’
‘But you’d be able to show me where it is?’
‘What did you come in here for, Frances?’
My heart picked up, just a little. I put the skull back on the shelf, resisting the urge to wipe my hands on my dress.
‘I just wanted to talk to you about last night.’
‘Oh. The argument you two were having? Yeah. I heard it all.’
‘I’m sorry. That was inconsiderate of us.’
He shrugged.
‘Thing is, Alex, one of the reasons Will was cross was the photo I found in the shoebox. The one you told me not to mention. What I don’t understand is why you then went and told him about it yourself.’
‘He’s my brother, Frances,’ he said simply, as if that answered the question. ‘He needs to know if you’re digging around.’
‘I’m not digging around,’ I said. ‘I just think it’s an interesting story. Edie walked away from her friends and was never seen again. And your dad’s car was right there. You don’t think that’s interesting?’
‘My dad loved this family, Frances. He did a lot for us.’
I stared at him. ‘I would never suggest otherwise.’
‘He just wanted to help people, all the time. To do the right thing. That was his problem.’
‘Okay.’
‘Edie Hudson was a pest and her mother’s no better. My dad knew it and William knew it and you’d be wise to stay away from that woman while you’re here, otherwise she’ll taint you, too. Although I suppose you won’t be here much longer now, will you?’
‘What do you mean?’
He turned away again to look out the window, hands flat on the empty desk in front of him. ‘I suppose I just thought after last night, after what William did – I assumed you wouldn’t be staying together.’
‘Do you think William is like his dad?’
Alex didn’t even pause. ‘Absolutely.’
‘Do you think your father was unfaithful?’
I didn’t know what I was expecting from Alex. I didn’t know if honesty was too much to ask for in this strange situation.
He thought about it for a good long time, his eyes closed. ‘Yes.’
‘Does your mum suspect?’
‘My mum wouldn’t see it. She sees what she wants to see.’
I thought about Edward Thorn. A good man. A family man. Solid, dependable. It was even on his gravestone, wasn’t it? Steadfast husband and father. William had taken after him – William himself had told me that, and now Alex too. Like father, like son. Had Edward had his own Kim squirrelled away somewhere, like William? A younger girl – much younger, perhaps. Someone like Edie Hudson. Don’t be mad, I told myself. Men like Edward Thorn didn’t do things like that. She was a schoolgirl; he’d have got himself arrested.
‘You know, you remind me a bit of Edie, Frances. How troubled she was. I suppose that’s William’s type, though, isn’t it?’
I smiled, but my insides were curdling. The pain of William’s betrayal was low and sharp and raw and I didn’t know that I would ever get used to it. I opened my mouth to respond but then he asked me another question that froze me in my tracks.
‘Were you? A whore?’
I felt my mouth drop softly open. He’d heard everything. He must have been right outside the door. I felt my knuckles crack as I curled my hands into fists. ‘I have to go, Alex.’
‘Sure. See you soon, Frances.’
As I closed the door I experienced a moment of vertigo so steep it was as if the floor had dropped away beneath me. I gripped hold of the bannister, sure I was going to either fall down or throw up, but neither of those things happened and after a moment I heard Mimi call for William in her small, fragile voice. I walked slowly the rest of the way downstairs to tell her about the magpie in the garden.
Sitting here on the bench overlooking the slow-moving tidal river, I think about Edie taking her pregnancy test in the toilet block at school among the smells of bleach and paint and wet toilet paper. My mind circles back to the hidden well again, how all your bones would break if you were to fall down it on to the old bricks below. What would drive a man to do that? His secrecy exposed, perhaps? An unforeseen pregnancy? Blackmail? I think of the way Samantha looked yesterday, her face lined and blotchy with tears, and I know, I know I can’t leave yet. I can’t go without finding out where Edie Hudson is, and whether or not she has Edward’s baby with her.