A Traitor to Memory

And neither did Jill for the remainder of the journey to Cornwall Gardens. She took the route along Kensington Gore. Seven minutes more and they were parking at a spot midway along the leaf-blown square.

In silence, Jill helped her lover from the car and reached into the back seat to collect the parcels. On the one hand, since they were for Catherine, it made more sense to leave them where they were. On the other hand, since everything was suddenly so unsettled about the future of Catherine's parents, it seemed to send a subtle but unmistakable message to take them inside to Richard's flat. Jill scooped them up. She also scooped up the picture that had been the cause of their argument.

Richard said, “Here. Let me take something,” and offered his good hand.

She said, “I can manage.”

“Jill …”

“I can manage.” She walked to Braemar Mansions, the decrepit building yet another reminder of how she was compromising with her fiancé. Who would want to live in such a place? she wondered. Who would be willing to purchase a flat in a building that was falling apart at the seams? If she and Richard waited to sell his flat before they tried to sell her own, they'd be forever denied their house, their garden, and their place to be a family with Catherine. Which was, perhaps, what he had wanted all along.

He never remarried, she told herself. Twenty years since his divorce—sixteen? eighteen? oh, it didn't even matter—and he'd never taken another woman into his life. And now, on this day, on this night during which he himself could have died, he thought of her. Of what had happened to her and why and what he must now do to safeguard … whom? Not Jill Foster, not his pregnant companion, not their unborn child, but his son. Gideon. His son. His bloody son.

Richard came up behind her as she mounted the steps to the building. He reached round her and unlocked the door, pushing it open so that she could enter the unlit hall with its cracking tiles on the floor and its wallpaper sagging from its mildewed walls. It seemed a further affront that there was no lift and only a partial curve in the staircase to serve as a landing should someone wish to rest while ascending. But Jill didn't want to rest. She climbed to the first floor and let her lover struggle up behind her.

He was breathing heavily when he reached the top. She would have felt repentant to have left him fumbling upwards with only the rickety railing to assist in a climb made awkward by the plaster on his leg—but she thought the lesson was a good one for him.

“My building has a lift,” she said. “People want lifts, you know, when they're looking for flats. And how much do you actually expect to get for this place, compared with what we could get for mine? We could move house, then. We could have a house. And then you'd have the time to paint, redecorate, whatever it might take to make this place sellable.”

“I'm exhausted,” he said. “I can't continue like this.” He shouldered past her and limped to the door of his flat.

She said, “That's convenient, isn't it?” as they went inside and Richard closed the door behind them. The lights were on. Richard frowned at this. He walked to the window and peered out. “You never continue what you want to avoid.”

“That's not true. You're becoming unreasonable. You've had a fright, we've both had a fright, and you're reacting to that. When you've had a chance to rest—”

“Don't tell me what to do!” Her voice rose shrilly. She knew at heart that Richard was right, that she was being unreasonable, but she couldn't stop. Somehow all the unspoken doubts she'd been harbouring for months were mingling with her unacknowledged fears. Everything was bubbling up inside her, like noxious gases looking for a fissure through which they could seep. “You've had your way. I've given it and given it. And now you're going to give me mine.”

He didn't move from the window. “Has all of this come from seeing that ancient picture?” he asked, and extended his hand to her. “Give it to me, then. I want to destroy it.”

“I thought you meant it for Gideon,” she cried.

“I did, but if it's going to cause this kind of trouble between us … Give it to me, Jill.”

“No. I'll give it to Gideon. Gideon's what's important, after all. How Gideon feels, what Gideon does, when Gideon plays his music. He's stood between us from the very first—my God, we even met because of Gideon—and I don't intend to displace him now. You want Gideon to have this picture, and he shall have it. Let's phone him at once and tell him we've got it.”

“Jill. Don't be a fool. I haven't told him you know he's afraid to play, and if you phone him about the picture, he's going to feel betrayed.”

“You can't have it all ways, my darling. He wants the picture and he shall have it tonight. I'll take it over to him myself.” She picked up the phone and began to punch the number.

“Jill!” Richard said, and started to approach her.