‘And this one night it wasn’t,’ says Lewis. ‘Flora rolled on top of her and suffocated her.’
‘So now you know.’ Flora looks at me. ‘I’m a woman who got drunk and killed her baby.’
‘That’s why you cut your parents out of your life,’ I say, starting to understand.
‘Not just them,’ says Flora. ‘Everybody. Lewis, Thomas, Emily. You.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Lewis didn’t want our marriage to end. Even after what I’d done. It was me. Lewis tried to help me. He was heroic. I didn’t want help, though. I wanted to pretend it had never happened – and that meant getting far, far away from anyone who had known or cared about Georgina. The other two children, and Lewis …’ Flora shakes her head. ‘They were my victims as much as she was. I’d deprived them of a sister, a daughter. I’d deprived my parents of a grandchild. I had to get away from all of them.’
‘And me?’
‘No!’ She says it as if having me in her life would have been the worst torment of all. ‘We’d been so close, Beth. You’d have sensed I was hiding something and dragged the truth out of me. And even if you hadn’t, don’t you understand? I couldn’t tolerate any continuity with my old life. The only way I could live at all was in a world that had never known Georgina. If I could have erased everyone’s memory … Obviously I couldn’t, but I made Lewis vow never to tell the others what had happened.’
‘By the others, do you mean Thomas and Emily?’ I ask.
Flora nods.
Lewis says, ‘It was bad enough that they’d lost their baby sister. Neither Flora nor I could stand the thought of them knowing the full truth: that their own mother’s negligence had killed her. And no one else could know the truth either, least of all the authorities. Flora might have gone to prison for all we knew. Then Thomas and Emily would have a mother behind bars, I’d have a wife who was a convict. No. Intolerable. Believe me, Beth, I was as keen to conceal the truth as Flora was.’
A tear rolls down Lewis’s cheek and he wipes it away. I’ve never seen him cry before. I don’t like it; it feels wrong.
‘It was much easier to say that we’d found Georgina dead and had no idea why she’d stopped breathing,’ he goes on. ‘Thomas and Emily were too young to connect that with the row they’d overheard the night before, me telling Flora to stop drinking.’
‘I couldn’t go to prison,’ says Flora. ‘That would have been the thing …’ She tails off.
‘What?’ I ask her.
‘I was too scared to take my own life, after Georgina died. I wanted to, more than anything – to never feel anything ever again. Couldn’t make myself go through with it. But if there was even a chance I’d go to prison I’d have done it.’
‘So you called it cot death and everyone believed you?’
‘The parents don’t get to call an infant death anything,’ says Lewis. ‘Doctors decide. We told everyone that we’d found Georgina in her cot, blue and not breathing. People couldn’t have been more sympathetic. There was no hint of any suspicions in our direction. But Georgina had been born premature, and was maybe going to need surgery on her eye when she was a little bit older, so perhaps they found it easy to think of her as a flawed specimen.’
Flora flinches.
Lewis lets out a ragged sigh. ‘It was a tragedy, and we were in shock and grieving, but we could have survived it. We could have rebuilt our lives – but Flora wouldn’t allow that to happen. She couldn’t give us that chance.’
‘I couldn’t live with them and pretend,’ she says. ‘How could I stay there, knowing what I’d done? I didn’t deserve beautiful children and a husband who loved me. And I couldn’t live a lie, no matter how much Lewis wanted me to. What I really wanted, all I wanted, was to die. I prayed it would happen, without me having to do anything.’
‘There were moments when I could have killed her,’ says Lewis. ‘Not because of Georgina – because she was proposing to leave me, when all I’d done was protect her and our family.’
‘So you left?’ I ask Flora. ‘You abandoned them all?’
‘That’s exactly what she did,’ says Lewis. ‘And cut off all contact. With everyone. I had to go with her to tell her parents. She begged me to do the talking, and I did it. I fucking did it, Beth. Then I had to tell Thomas and Emily that she couldn’t be part of their lives any more. Flora and I came up with the least upsetting story we could think of in the circumstances: Georgina dying had caused her to have a breakdown, and now she wasn’t herself any more and couldn’t be around anyone, including them. It was devastating for them to hear that, but what could I do? I could hardly say, “Mummy’ll be back any minute now, she’s just nipped to the shops.” She wasn’t ever coming back to us. She’d made that clear, and I could see it. Even sitting in a room with me, having the conversations we needed to have, she couldn’t stand it. It was like she’d developed an allergy to all of us – me and the children.’
‘To myself,’ Flora corrects him. ‘You reminded me, that’s all – of the difference between what I used to be and what I’d become. It was better for the children not to be around me, given the state I was in. Lewis was a good dad, Beth. Is a good dad. Any damage I did by abandoning the family, he repaired.’
‘I’m not going to deny that. Fuck it.’ Lewis shifts in his chair. ‘I’m not. We had a rough few years, but slowly, steadily, Thomas and Emily – whose names Flora refuses to say, have you noticed, Beth? – grew into the happy, secure teenagers they are now. Thanks to me. And it has to stay that way. Over my dead body are they going to find out now, after all these years, that Georgina’s death wasn’t a tragic accident.’
‘I won’t say anything,’ I tell him. What good would it do, at this late stage? ‘I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how awful it must have been.’
‘Well, what can I say?’ Lewis laughs bitterly. ‘Thank you, Beth, for making this little trip down Memory Lane possible. Can I go now? I need to get back to the office.’
‘Without me?’ Flora asks expressionlessly.
‘Yes, without you,’ he snaps. ‘I’m going to take a little break from trying to help you, if that’s okay.’
‘But how will I get back to the house?’
‘You’ll figure out a way.’ Lewis stands up.
‘I’ve got more questions,’ I say.
‘Oh, I bet you have. Flora can answer them.’ In an angry, sing-song voice he says, ‘Flora has decided today is a talking day. Goodbye, Beth.’
Without another word, he leaves the room.
22
I stand up and walk over to the window, to give Flora a chance to compose herself. She started to cry when Lewis left and hasn’t stopped since. Sunlight is streaming into the room, streaking the carpet and furniture with stripes of gold. They create a bar-like effect and make me think of prison – something that was in my mind even before Lewis and Flora came up to my hotel room, thanks to Chimpy.