‘Lewis said you spoke to my parents. Did they tell you?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s a strabismus?’ Is it a car?
‘Weakness of the eye muscles,’ says Flora. ‘Georgina would have needed an operation. Well, she might have. There were other options. A patch might have cured it.’
Yes. Flora’s parents did tell me. One of them said something about Georgina maybe needing an operation. I can’t remember if they mentioned her eye, but Lewis did. He told me this morning that Georgina would have needed eye surgery, if she’d lived.
‘So … it’s like a lazy eye?’ I ask Flora. A girl at my primary school had one. She wore a patch for months. She still looked a little cross-eyed afterwards, but nowhere near as much.
‘That’s amblyopia,’ Flora says. ‘They’re connected, but they’re not exactly the same thing. Why are we talking about this, Beth? Georgina’s dead.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I … Why would you think there might be a link between the name Chimpy and Georgina’s eye condition?’
‘There’s no connection in my mind. I thought you might think it. To think that Chimpy might be a nickname for a beautiful girl …’ Her voice shakes. ‘A girl who looks like a chimp would be ugly, and Georgina was beautiful. She was beautiful. Her eye made no difference. It didn’t make her ugly.’
‘Flora, I never said it did. I would never say or think that. I now know that Chimpy is nobody’s nickname, so it’s irrelevant, but I don’t think it implies ugliness at all. Dom and I used to call Zan and Ben little chimps and it was nothing but affectionate. We certainly didn’t think they were—’
The words fall away as my brain races ahead. No, we didn’t. We didn’t think our children were ugly, and Flora didn’t think Georgina was ugly because of her eye problem.
Someone did, though. ‘Lewis thought Georgina was ugly,’ I say. ‘Because of her eye.’
The other four all have his eyes. Georgina might have had too, except her eyes were flawed. And Lewis can’t handle flaws. He never could.
‘Flora, did … did Lewis …’ I can’t bring myself to ask. If the answer is yes, how does it fit with what’s happening at Newnham House now, with Kevin and Yanina and little Thomas and Emily having the same names as their older brother and sister?
‘Can you come over now?’ Flora says, making my heart jolt. This is how she used to sound, at university and when we all lived in Cambridge. It’s what we’d both say when we rang each other, if there was something new and entertaining to gossip about. ‘Lewis isn’t here. I’m in the house he put me in, on my own. He won’t be coming back today. It’ll be safe.’
‘Yes, of course. Tell me where and I’ll get there as soon as I can.’
There’s silence.
‘Flora?’
‘We’ll have to be quick,’ she says. ‘I don’t think he’ll come back today, but there’s a chance he might in the evening.’
‘That gives us plenty of time.’ Plenty of time to get her out of there.
There’s a taut silence. I can’t even hear her breathing. If this chance slips away, I’m not sure I’ll be able to bear it. ‘Flora, please. You can trust me.’
‘I know.’
‘Then tell me. Where are you?’
She gives me an address.
25
Delray Beach’s North Fayette Boulevard is grander than I thought it would be. It’s the kind of street where I’d expect to find millionaire film stars behind every door. The houses are all enormous and all in different architectural styles, a bit like Wyddial Lane except this road must be thirty times as long. The house number Flora gave me was 4451. I’ve never been to a four-figure address in England. I’m not sure there are any.
I get out of the taxi, pay the driver and walk up the long drive that’s lined with square-trimmed shrubs in square silver planters. 4451 is the only modern-looking house on this stretch of the road. The others mostly look like oversized doll’s houses, with wrap-around verandahs, pillars, protruding porches and porte-cochères, and rows of cute-looking wooden sash dormer windows with shutters and roofs of their own poking out from red-tiled roofs that tweak up at the edges like slightly lifted skirts. This house, by contrast, looks futuristic: a huge geometric puzzle that someone has expertly solved by slotting together an angular white object and a dark grey one.
I ring the bell and Flora opens the door. Behind her, I see more smooth expanses of white and dark grey, as if the same materials have been used inside as out. There’s a sunken bar area with a glittering array of bottles and beautiful wood and leather high stools arranged in a crescent shape around it. Next to the bar is a shiny cylindrical column that goes up through the ceiling. I think it might be a lift. An elevator. Yes, it must be; there’s a door in it, discreet but visible.
There are white and grey rugs, white and grey sofas, white and grey cushions. It looks immaculate, like a movie set before the cameras and cast arrive. The only details in the scene that jar are me and Flora. If someone had told me three weeks ago that today I’d be here, in this place and this situation, I’d have said it was impossible. I was never going to see Flora again. That was something I was sure of until recently, until knowing anything for certain started to feel impossible.
Flora’s eyes are red, her skin pale, her hair pulled back into a short ponytail. She’s wearing a blue bathrobe over black leggings and a white T-shirt. ‘Come in,’ she says.
‘Whose house is this?’ I ask. ‘Does Lewis own it?’
‘His company does. Usually it’s for work contacts who need somewhere to stay.’
‘Figures. That’s why it looks perfect inside and out.’
‘How did you guess?’ says Flora.
‘What?’
‘That Lewis thought Georgina was ugly because of her eye. You said it on the phone before as if you knew, but you can’t have known. My parents couldn’t have told you. I didn’t say a word to them. Neither did Lewis.’
‘You told me, Flora. When you said Georgina was beautiful. You said it so vehemently, as if you were arguing with someone who thought the opposite. That someone wasn’t me. It wasn’t hard to figure it out from there.’
‘So you understand why Lewis overreacted in the way that he did,’ she says, walking away from me. Reaching the other side of the room, she turns on a tap and fills a glass with water. ‘Want some?’
‘No thanks.’ I don’t think she does either. She didn’t like standing too close to me.
The kitchen part of the open-plan ground floor has a wall made of glass that reveals a neatly landscaped terrace at the back of the house with a rectangular swimming pool embedded in it. As I move nearer to Flora, the artworks on the walls of the lounge area become visible. My breath catches in my throat.
Murmurations. Framed black and white photographs of large groups of birds making graceful shapes against a variety of skies. Exactly like the pictures in the lounge at Newnham House.
Flora looks at me as if to say, ‘Don’t come any closer’. I’m worried she’s going to run away from me again. The glass looks as if it might slide open if the right button were pressed.