‘Doesn’t sound like anyone I know.’
‘I can’t stay in Rob’s flat,’ I said. ‘Not now. I – I can’t bear to stay. I’ll pack up my things and move out as soon as I can. I have to find somewhere else and I don’t know how long it will take.’
‘London’s full of places to live.’
‘It could take weeks to find the right place.’ I bit my lip. ‘Please?’
‘I’ll think about it,’ Derwent said.
The look on his face was as good as a yes.
40
It was a beautiful day, the trees turning red and gold in the bright October sunshine. The zoo was busy with families and tourists taking pictures of the animals and each other, leaning over barriers, pointing, fighting, laughing: normal life.
Bethany sat on a bench, her knees drawn up to her chest, other from the top of her head to the folds of her long black skirt. Not part of a family. Not interested in the antics of the penguins who were waddling around their enclosure adorably. Not normal, not like the people who strolled past her, sharing food, joking around, complaining about their sore feet or the cost of ice creams.
Normal life. That was what she had heard her aunt saying: Paul, we’ve got to look after her. We need to give her a normal life for a change.
Normal life seemed to amount to buying her a lot of stuff: a phone, new clothes, make-up, shower gel and shampoo and conditioner and detangler and micellar water and liquid eyeliner and a rainbow of nail varnish and anything else she showed the slightest interest in possessing. It was driving Lia insane.
Mum, why does she get everything she wants? It’s not fair.
Because, her aunt hadn’t said, she has nothing. Because her parents are on remand and they’re going to go to prison and they weren’t doing a very good job of being parents anyway. Because she’s not normal and we have to try to make her seem normal, so the least we can do is to make her look right.
Lia. She ate too much, wheedling biscuits and sweets and Coke out of her parents, swelling out of her clothes, self-loathing rising in her body like yeast. She sat in her room watching make-up tutorials on the internet, emerging with alarming eye make-up, brown streaks on her cheeks, over-drawn lips.
Normal.
‘You’re a freak,’ Lia had said to her, the second week they were at school. ‘Everyone thinks you’re weird.’
Bethany had given her the look: heavy-lidded disdain.
‘Do you know what the boys call you?’ Lia couldn’t wait to tell her. ‘The nun.’
Bethany rolled her eyes. ‘Original.’
‘Have you ever even kissed a boy?’
‘Have you?’
Lia faltered. ‘That’s not the point.’
‘I bet I know more about fucking than you do, Lia,’ Bethany had said.
Lia had blushed, and muttered something, and abandoned her to the lunch she wasn’t eating. Bethany sat on her own, staring into space, remembering William’s smile and the way he would look at her over Chloe’s head and how she’d been sure – so sure – that he liked her more than Chloe. It was just that she was young, that was all. Jailbait, he’d said, when she had been alone with him in the empty house and she had run her hands around his neck and pressed herself against him. Chloe was late, and they were alone, and she’d touched her lips to his. It had sort of been a kiss: she’d meant it as a kiss.
But, really, he hadn’t kissed her back. He’d jerked his head away.
‘What are you doing?’
Barely able to speak or stand, her heart full of love. ‘I want you. I want you to be the first.’
‘Come on, Bethany.’ And he’d pushed her away.
‘Please.’
‘I thought Chloe was your friend.’
‘She is.’
He had smiled, uneasy, flattered, running a finger down her cheek. ‘Bethany. I couldn’t do it. You’re too young. They call girls like you jailbait.’
‘I’m old enough to know what I want.’
‘Maybe,’ he said slowly. ‘Look, it’ll be your turn one day. Probably not with me, though. You have more sense, don’t you?’
No, Bethany had thought, helpless. I really don’t.
‘I can’t do this,’ he’d said. ‘I just can’t.’
Footsteps on the stairs: Chloe, her lovely face full of innocent joy. Full of love for them both. No suspicion, no doubt.
And Bethany’s heart had withered inside her, turning black, decaying to something utterly poisonous that was death to everything it touched.
‘There you are. Clever of you to find a bench.’ Brian Emery sat down beside Bethany, leaving a decent space between them. He handed her an ice cream cone. She took it carefully, avoiding any contact with his fingers.
‘Thanks.’
‘I hope it’s OK.’ He frowned, his whole forehead creasing. ‘I thought – it’s such a nice day.’
‘It’s good.’ She concentrated on sculpting the ice cream with her tongue and the silence lengthened.
‘The penguins are cute.’
‘I suppose so.’
Brian sighed. ‘Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea for an outing. You’re probably too old for the zoo. Chloe loved it here.’
‘It’s nice,’ Bethany said. It was the fourth time they’d had this conversation and she was getting tired of reassuring him. ‘I’m glad we’re here.’
‘Me too.’ He turned to her, too quick, too sincere. ‘It’s good to be with someone who loved Chloe too.’
Bethany ate the chocolate flake before she answered. ‘I was glad when you called my aunt.’
‘Well.’ He looked down at the remains of his cone. ‘I knew you were on your own. And I’m on my own too, now. I moved out last month. I’m going to get a divorce.’
‘Oh.’
‘It wasn’t going to work.’ His forehead wrinkled again and for an awful moment Bethany thought he was going to cry. ‘I can’t blame my wife for putting her sons first. That’s what parents do. That’s what they should do. But I can’t bear to be around them. I can’t help blaming them for what happened. And I blame myself – of course I do. If I’d known what was going on …’ He looked blindly at the penguins, gnawing his lower lip while he got his emotions under control.
‘You shouldn’t blame yourself,’ Bethany said. ‘There’s plenty of other people to blame. Like my parents.’
‘They said it was an accident.’
‘They drugged her,’ Bethany said, her voice hard. ‘She was so out of it on tranquillisers that she couldn’t walk in a straight line. She didn’t even know where she was, let alone what was happening to her. They held her under the water until she died. That makes it murder.’
Brian flinched. ‘I suppose. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you – knowing that.’
‘Really hard,’ Bethany said. She let her voice quiver. ‘I know they’re my parents, but I don’t think I can ever forgive them. I don’t know how they can make it right.’
Because it was true, wasn’t it? The betrayal of her birth was so huge that there was no sacrifice her mother could make to make up for it, no penance great enough.
Not even agreeing that she had brought Chloe to the church, when it had been Bethany who had dragged her there, promising that it was all going to be all right.