‘How did Lewis overreact?’ I ask.
‘The last time we came to see you.’
‘You mean when you fed Georgina? No, I still don’t understand that. Tell me.’
‘She was so little, and premature. She slept nearly all the time, and her wakeful periods were in the night, always. That was the only reason Lewis said yes, when you invited us that last time. When she was asleep, there was no problem at all. She looked as perfect as Thomas and Emily had, even to Lewis. It was only when she opened her eyes that you could see the flaw.’
Flora sips her water. I wish I’d asked for some.
‘She slept nearly all that afternoon, do you remember? Even when Thomas started wailing about his blister, she didn’t wake. I’d promised Lewis that she wouldn’t. He said, “Good. I don’t want anyone knowing I’ve got a cross-eyed daughter.”’
‘That’s—’
Flora puts out a hand to silence me. ‘Please don’t say it’s awful or terrible or anything like that. You’re going to want to say that so many times if I tell you the truth, and I already know it’s terrible. You saying it doesn’t help.’
I nod.
‘That afternoon, the last time we saw you all as friends, I’d promised Lewis that if Georgina showed signs of waking, I’d take her off somewhere so that no one saw. I knew he had no need to worry. She only ever woke when she was hungry, and the second she started to feed, her eyes always closed again. I promised him I’d make sure no one saw her with her eyes open, and I kept my promise. No one saw a thing. Lewis was paranoid about it, though. As far as he was concerned, feeding meant she was awake, which meant there was a risk she’d open her eyes. He thought I was being reckless – that I might expose the shameful family secret: a non-perfect child. That’s why he screamed at me.’
I don’t know how I’m supposed to listen to this story and not react. My face must be expressing all the things I’m not saying in words.
‘I had other strict instructions that day too,’ Flora says.
‘Like what?’
‘Not to say anything about Georgina being premature. Lewis insisted: you and Dominic couldn’t know that my body had failed and ejected her too early. That’s how Lewis saw it. Zannah and Ben had both turned up on time, healthy and perfect, and Lewis needs to feel superior in order to find life bearable. For the first time, he didn’t. He blamed Georgina and me. Mainly me. Even Lewis understands that you can’t blame a baby for anything. He used to say it all the time: “It’s not her fault I don’t want her.” Sometimes it was, “It’s not her fault I wish she’d never been born.”’
‘Flora …’
‘It wasn’t only the strabismus,’ she goes on. ‘He never wanted a third child. He had his perfect boy and girl and he wanted to stop at two. He always said two was the perfect number, and that was how many children we were going to have. I should have listened. If only I’d listened …’ She covers her face with her hands. Her body heaves and she says something I can’t make out. I think it was ‘None of it would have happened.’
‘So you and Lewis didn’t agree to have a third child?’ I say.
Flora shakes her head. ‘He’d never have agreed. Never. I tried to persuade myself that I didn’t want another baby, but … When you want something so much, you don’t think straight, do you? I kept telling myself, “You’re so lucky already, you’ve got Thomas and Emily,” but the urge didn’t go away, and I thought Lewis would …’ Her face contorts in pain. ‘I miscalculated. I hadn’t seen the worst of him then – never directed at me, anyway. I’d seen him lay waste to other people, but … you remember how it was, Beth. He was so hard to resist when he was on your side and you had his approval. It made you feel invincible. I felt like the luckiest woman in the world when Lewis saw me as an asset. Then I went against what he wanted and got pregnant again, and everything changed.’
‘But if he knew you were trying to get pregnant and he didn’t want to …’
‘I didn’t tell him.’ Flora looks at me with pity. ‘You think I’d have had the nerve to defy him openly? No. I said it was an accident. “Good,” he said. “Then you won’t mind getting rid of it.” And he saw the look in my eyes and knew everything: that I’d disobeyed him, which would have been bad enough all on its own, and that I’d lied about it.’
‘What happened? How did he react?’
She stares into the distance. Finally she says, ‘You can’t imagine, Beth. He looked at me and I knew: everything was finished. He would never love me again. I was condemned. Lewis doesn’t give second chances.’
‘He used to boast about that.’ It was a feature that he had and we all lacked. There was a quote he liked, about it being your fault if someone hurts you more than once. He presented it as hard-earned wisdom, not intransigence, and we never questioned it. His belief in himself was so strong, we all fell in with it.
‘I begged him to forgive me, said I’d end the pregnancy. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but I’d have done it. I was so scared, even then. Not scared of what he might do at that point, just scared of what my life would be like if I wasn’t the beloved wife of the great Lewis Braid any more.’
All of this happened when Flora found out she was pregnant with Georgina. That’s why telling her best friend was the last thing on her mind. ‘But you kept the pregnancy. How come, if you knew Lewis was against it?’
‘He told me to. Said, “No, you won’t be having a termination.” As if he was in charge of me. I told him I didn’t want one, I thought it was what he wanted, and he said, “No, it’s not. Not now that I’ve had a chance to think about it. You chose to get pregnant, and now you’re going to see it through. We’re both going to live with the consequences of your unilateral decision.” Do you want to hear the most ridiculous thing of all? I was relieved! I thought maybe he was coming round to the idea of a third child. He was still sounding so cold and … different from the Lewis who’d loved me, but if he was telling me to keep it, I thought …’
‘You allowed yourself to hope.’
Flora nods. ‘I was sure that when the baby arrived, he’d love it. But that was never going to happen. He ruled that out, the second he saw through my “accidental conception” lie. He might not have made his whole plan on day one, but he drew a line that was going to stay drawn forever. I should have known. If I hadn’t been so desperate for another baby, I would have known. It was deluded wishful thinking. Lewis doesn’t change his mind, and to think that he would after I’d gone against him like that …’ She shuts her eyes.
‘What if Georgina hadn’t been born prematurely?’ I ask. ‘If she’d appeared bang on time, if she hadn’t had the problem with her eye?’
‘It could so easily have been fixed.’ A tear rolls down Flora’s face. ‘One operation – that’s all it would have taken. I told Lewis that. He said, “Do you know what the trouble with you is, Flora? You don’t know how to think properly.” I asked him what he meant. He said I had to work it out; he wasn’t going to tell me – part of his effort to improve my thinking capacity. I did in the end. Work it out, I mean. Even if Georgina’s eyes were fixed, even if she was the most flawless-looking, healthy child in the world, it still wouldn’t be okay that she was there. She was never supposed to exist. We were supposed to be a family of four.’