A Traitor to Memory

Gideon apparently saw the answer he wanted within his father's silence. He said, “Yes. Right, then,” and dropped the picture of his sister onto the floor.

He strode to the door. He drew it open.

“For God's sake, I did it,” Richard cried out. “Gideon! Stop! Listen to me. Believe what I say. She was still alive when you left her. I held her down in the bath. I was the one who drowned Sonia.”

Jill caught herself in a wail of horror. It was all too logical. She knew. She saw. He was talking to his son but he was doing more: He was finally explaining to Jill what was keeping him from marriage.

Gideon said, “Those are lies,” and he began to leave.

Richard started to go after him, hampered by his injuries. Jill struggled to her feet. She said, “They're all daughters. That's it, isn't it? Virginia. Sonia. And now Catherine.”

Richard stumbled to the door, leaned against the jamb. He roared, “Gideon! God damn it! Listen!” He shoved himself out into the corridor.

Jill staggered after him. She cried, “You didn't want to marry because it's a daughter.” She grabbed on to his arm. He was hobbling towards the staircase, and heavy as she was, he dragged her with him. She could hear Gideon clattering downwards. His footsteps pounded across the tiled entry.

“Gideon!” Richard shouted. “Wait!”

“You're afraid she'll be like the other two, aren't you?” Jill cried, clinging to Richard's arm. “You created Virginia. You created Sonia and you think our baby's going to be damaged as well. That's why you haven't wanted to marry me, isn't it?”

The front door opened. Richard and Jill reached the top of the stairs. Richard shouted, “Gideon! Listen to me.”

“I've listened long enough,” came the reply. Then the front door banged closed. Richard bellowed as if struck in the chest. He started to descend.

Jill dragged down on his arm. “That's why. Isn't it? You've been waiting to see if the baby's normal before you're willing to—”

He shook her off. She grabbed at him again. “Get away!” he cried. “Get off me. Go! Don't you see I've got to stop him?”

“Answer me. Tell me. You've thought there was something wrong because she's a daughter and if we married, then you'd be stuck. With me. With her. Just like before.”

“You don't know what you're saying.”

“Then tell me I'm wrong.”

“Gideon!” he shouted. “God damn it, Jill. I'm his father. He needs me. You don't know … Let me go.”

“I won't! Not until you—”

“I. Said. Let. Me …” His teeth were clenched. His face was rigid. Jill felt his hand—his good hand—climb up her chest and push at her savagely.

She clung to him harder, crying, “No! What are you doing? Talk to me!”

She pulled him towards her, but he swung away. He jerked free and as he did so, their positions shifted precariously. He was now above her. She was below. And so she blocked him, blocked his passage to Gideon and his re-entry into a life she could not afford to understand.

Both of them were panting. The smell of their sweat was rank in the air. “That's why, isn't it?” Jill demanded. “I want to hear it from you, Richard.”

But instead of replying, he gave an inarticulate cry. Before she could move to safety, he was trying to get past her. He used his good arm against her breasts. She backed away in reflex. She lost her footing. In an instant she was tumbling down the stairs.

28





RICHARD HEARD ONLY the breath in his ears. She fell and he watched her and he heard banisters cracking when she hit them. And the sheer weight of her body increased her velocity, so even at the meagre excuse for a landing—that single inadequate slightly wider step that Jill so hated—she continued to hurtle towards the ground floor.

It didn't happen in a second. It happened in an arc of time so wide and so long that forever seemed inadequate for it. And every second that passed was a second in which Gideon, a Gideon able-bodied and unhampered by a plaster cast enclosing his leg from foot to knee, gained more distance from his father. But even more than distance, he gained certainty as well. And that could not be allowed.

Richard descended the stairs as quickly as he could. At the bottom, Jill lay sprawled and motionless. When he reached her, her eyelids—looking blue in the faint light from the entry windows—fluttered, and her lips parted in a moan.

“Mummy?” she whispered.

Her clothing rucked up, her great huge stomach was obscenely exposed. Her coat spread above her head like a monstrous fan.

“Mummy?” she whispered again. Then she groaned. And then cried out and arched her back.