A Traitor to Memory

Jill said, “Surely someone would have seen something.”


“They were interviewing people when the ambulance fetched me.” He spied the Humber where Jill had left it and lurched towards it in silence. Jill followed him, saying, “Richard, are you telling me everything?”

He didn't reply until they were at the car. Then he said, “They think it was deliberate, Jill,” and then, “Where's Gideon? He needs to be warned.”

Jill hardly knew what she was doing as she opened the car door, flipped the seat forward, and deposited Richard's packages in the back. Jill saw her lover safely into his seat and then joined him behind the wheel of the car. She said, “What do you mean, deliberate?” and she looked straight ahead at the worm tracks that the rain was making on her windscreen and she tried to hide her fear.

He made no reply. She turned to him. She said, “Richard, what do you mean by deliberate? Is this connected to—” and then she saw that he was holding in his lap the frame she'd found beneath her seat.

He said, “Where did you get this?”

She told him and added, “But I can't understand … Where did it come from? Who is she? I don't know her. I don't recognise … And surely she can't be …” Jill hesitated, not wanting to say it.

Richard did so for her. “This is Sonia. My daughter.”

And Jill felt a ring of ice take a sudden position round her heart. In the half light coming from the hospital entrance, she reached for the picture and tilted it towards her. In it, a child—blonde as her brother had been in childhood—held a stuffed panda up to her cheek. She laughed at the camera as if she hadn't a care in the world. Which she probably hadn't known that she did have, Jill thought as she looked at the picture again.

She said, “Richard, you never mentioned that Sonia … Why has no one ever told me …? Richard. Why didn't you tell me your daughter was Down's Syndrome?”

He looked at her then. “I don't talk about Sonia,” he said evenly. “I never talk about Sonia. You know that.”

“But I needed to know. I ought to have known. I deserved to know.”

“You sound like Gideon.”

“What's Gideon to do with …? Richard, why haven't you spoken to me about her before? And what's this picture doing in my car?” The stresses of the evening—the conversation with her mother, the phone call from the hospital, the frantic drive—all of it descended upon Jill at once. “Are you trying to frighten me?” she cried. “Are you hoping that if I see what happened to Sonia, I'll agree to have Catherine in hospital and not at my mother's? Is that what you're doing? Is that what this is all about?”

Richard tossed the picture into the back seat, where it landed on one of the packages. He said, “Don't be absurd. Gideon wants a picture of her—God only knows why—and I dug that one out to have it reframed. It needs to be, as you probably saw. The frame's banged up and the glass … You've seen for yourself. That's it, Jill. Nothing more than that.”

“But why didn't you tell me? Don't you see the risk we were running? If she was Down's Syndrome because of something genetic … We could have gone to a doctor. We could have had blood tests or something. Something. Whatever they do. But instead you let me become pregnant and I never knew that there was a chance …”

“I knew,” he said. “There was no chance. I knew you'd have the amnio test. And once we were told Cara's fine, what would've been the point of upsetting you?”

“But when we decided to try for a baby, I had the right … Because if the tests had shown that something was wrong, I would have had to decide … Don't you see that I needed to know from the start? I needed to know the risk so that I'd have the time to think it through, in case I had to decide … Richard, I can't believe you kept this from me.”

He said, “Start the car, Jill. I want to go home.”

“You can't think I can dismiss this so easily.”

He sighed, raised his head towards the roof, and took a deep breath. He said, “Jill, I've been hit by a bus. The police think someone pushed me deliberately. That means someone intended me dead. Now, I understand that you're upset. You argue that you've a right to be and I'll accept that for now. But if you'd look beyond your own concerns for one moment, you'll see that I need to get home. My face hurts, my ankle's throbbing, and my arm is swelling. We can thrash this out in the car and I can end up back in Casualty, asking to see a doctor, or we can go home and revisit this situation in the morning. Have it either way.”

Jill stared at him till he turned his head and met her gaze. She said, “Not telling me about her is tantamount to lying.”