‘I’ll do it,’ I say. ‘And not tomorrow. Now. Right now.’
6
An hour later, thanks to my son, I have an Instagram account. He’s put it on my phone, too – a little pink and orange camera icon – so that I can correspond with Lewis Braid more easily.
If he replies.
I’d have preferred to contact Flora directly, but I’ve searched the whole house and can’t find the old address book where I wrote down her number. I probably threw it away years ago.
So far I’ve sent Lewis one message: ‘Hi Lewis, Beth Leeson here! Could you send me a phone number where I can contact you? It’s fairly urgent.’
Zannah was watching over my shoulder as I typed. ‘Is that … Oh, my God! Ben! She’s using punctuation.’
‘Lewis Braid uses punctuation on Instagram too,’ I said as both my children laughed at me.
Then I pressed send. Ever since, I’ve been picking up my phone approximately every ten seconds, and using the other nine of each cycle to prepare dinner.
‘Beth,’ says Dominic from the kitchen table.
‘Mm?’
‘You know it might be hours before—’
‘I know.’
‘Then stop looking.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Can you come and sit down for a minute? I want to talk to you, while the kids aren’t around.’
‘I can talk while I chop peppers.’
‘I know, but I’d like to …’
I listen to the silence as he reworks his plan and decides it doesn’t matter if I sit down or not. It’s lucky we’re not both equally stubborn; we’d have had to get divorced long ago.
‘All right. I get why you want to try and understand what you saw yesterday. Anyone would want to. But … have you considered the possibility that you’ll never know for sure?’
‘Of course I have.’
‘And you’re okay with that?’
‘No. Which is why I’m trying to find out.’
‘And hopefully Lewis’ll get back to you. But what do you think he’s going to say?’
‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t need him to ring me.’
‘Here’s what I think he’s going to say.’ I hear Dom pouring himself another glass of wine from the bottle on the table. ‘“Hey, Beth, great to hear from you! What? No, Flora wasn’t in Hemingford Abbots yesterday – she’s here in Florida with me. What, the children? Yeah, they’re all here too. Sorry? Kevin Cater? Yeah, we knew him vaguely. Couldn’t believe it when he and his wife turned up to view our house – and then they bought it! No, sorry, I’ve no idea if they’ve got kids or what they’re called.”’
‘He might say all that,’ I agree. ‘We don’t know that he will.’
‘What if he does? Will you accept that you’ve found out all you can, and leave it alone?’
I laugh. ‘Why would I do that?’
‘What else could you do, at that point?’
‘If Kevin and Jeanette Cater have two young kids, I can find out their names. I can talk to other neighbours on Wyddial Lane, find out if any of them knew Flora and Jeanette Cater. Or if any of them say, “She’s the same person, and we have no idea why she suddenly changed her name.”’
Behind me, I hear Dom’s long, slow sigh. Clearly my answer wasn’t the one he was hoping for.
‘Put that knife down, and the peppers, and come and sit here,’ he says. He sounds so reasonable and hopeful, it’s hard to resist. From his tone, I can almost believe that something brilliant will happen as soon as I sit down at the table, something that’ll solve every problem.
I compromise by bringing the chopping board and knife with me, so that I can sit and chop at the same time. Dom thinks if we’re face to face, he’ll be able to persuade me. Looking straight at him isn’t going to change what’s in my head.
‘Yes, you could find out the names of the Caters’ kids if you tried, but what good would it do? If they’re called Thomas and Emily, then yes, it’s a massive coincidence and bloody strange, I agree – but so what? And if they’re not called Thomas and Emily, then … well, you probably didn’t hear anyone call them Thomas and Emily. People can get things wrong, Beth. Even you.’
Don’t get defensive. Answer as calmly as possible.
‘That’s true. But why would that happen to me, when it never has before? It was hot yesterday, but not that hot. And … everything else I’ve seen before and since is real. The bottle, our wine glasses, these chopped red peppers … you can see them too, right?’
‘Beth …’
‘I’m not being facetious. I’m serious. I’ve had no other delusions or hallucinations. This isn’t part of a pattern. That makes me a reliable witness. I trust myself. I know who I saw yesterday. I saw Flora Braid. I heard her speak. She was my best friend for more than a decade. I’m not wrong about this.’
‘All right, let’s say you did. You saw Flora. And with her were two small children – who we know can’t be Thomas and Emily because they’re not little kids any more. So, fine. You saw Flora with two kids. She called them Thomas and Emily. Maybe she’s calling herself Jeanette Cater these days. Who cares? None of these people are anything to do with us. We can forget about them and get on with our lives. Or at least I hope we can. So far, Zan and Ben don’t seem too freaked out by all this, which is great, but if it carries on …’
‘They’re fine, Dom. Zannah’s loving it.’
‘Too much, yes. She’s got her GCSEs coming up. It’s hard enough convincing her they matter as it is. Having her mother fall apart at the exact time that—’
‘Wait. Who said anything about falling apart?’ I take the chopping board back over to the counter and start to chop an onion. ‘Wanting to find an explanation for something isn’t the same as having a nervous breakdown, Dom. Look, here I am, cooking dinner. I’m not crying, screaming, disintegrating.’
‘No, but you are obsessing. We’ve talked about nothing else since yesterday morning – which is fine, because it’s recent and it’s peculiar, I’m not denying that, but … you know.’
‘You want me to just forget all about it?’
Will he have the guts to say it?
‘Not immediately – speak to Lewis if you can – but at a certain point, yes. We’re going to need to forget this and move on. Accept that we’ll never know the answer.’
‘That’s not fair,’ I say quietly.
‘What isn’t?’
‘Pushing something you know you’ll be able to do and I won’t.’
‘Beth, it makes no sense to pursue this beyond a certain point if no answer presents itself soon. Let’s not allow it to take over our lives.’
Dom’s right: it’s not ideal for my thoughts to be full of an unsolvable mystery when Zannah’s GCSEs are coming up. Could it be some kind of stress-escape fantasy? Would that be enough to make me imagine I saw …
No. No way.
I might never know what it means, but I’ll always know what I saw.