Solomon takes his headphones off, ‘Laura, are you sure you … Bo, maybe we should turn the camera off …’
‘Already have,’ Bo says, turning to look at him, her eyes wide. She and Solomon had both read the tabloid article about Isabel and Hattie’s alleged involvement in Laura’s grandfather’s death, a story Bo had heard in Cork when she had asked around about Hattie and Isabel. It was the story she had been digging for when she interviewed Laura at the Button cottage, but now she’s afraid to record it. She’s not sure she wants to hear the truth. How everything shifts.
‘Laura,’ Solomon says gently as he places his equipment down, ‘you don’t have to tell this story.’
‘I think that I do.’
‘You don’t,’ Bo urges. ‘Please don’t feel that you have to. I’m not pressurising you.’
‘Neither am I,’ Solomon says firmly. ‘In fact,’ he adds, getting to his feet, ‘perhaps we should take a break, stretch our legs. It’s late. It’s almost three a.m. It’s been a long night, an emotional one. Tomorrow’s a big day, we should—’
‘I have to tell it for them,’ Laura says. ‘He can’t hurt them any more.’
‘Who can’t?’ Bo asks. ‘The garda? Or your granddad?’
‘Both of them. I have to tell the story. For Mum’s sake, and Gaga’s. When they hid me, they hid the truth. They were trying to protect me, but now it’s my turn to protect them.’
Solomon looks at Laura, tries to read her. Laura looks at Solomon and Bo studies them both, as they do the thing they’ve been doing since the moment they saw each other. This non-verbal communication.
She looks away to give them space, to give herself space, to disappear from the weirdness of the situation. From the beginning she saw something between them and pushed them together. She pushed them together to get the story, she used Solomon to get closer to Laura. She can’t deny she did it. He wanted to stay away, he knew what he felt, and she pushed him closer to her. She can’t blame either of them. She certainly doesn’t blame herself, but she sees it all for what it is, realistically and balanced. There is something large between them, something that connects them, something that she’s not even sure Solomon sees himself. Solomon, who is so observant of her flaws and so ready to judge others, can’t stand far back enough to see himself.
Whatever passes between them helps to move a decision along.
‘Fine,’ Solomon says, brushing his hand through his long hair. ‘If this is what you want.’ His voice is so soft, so gentle, so understanding, Bo wonders if she’s ever heard him use those tones with her, if he even knows what he sounds like.
‘It is,’ Laura says firmly. A nod of the head that sends her hair tumbling down over her shoulders. She takes her seat in the armchair in front of the cream curtains that have been drawn, the lamp gives a light warm glow beside her, an earth green cushion and throw are over the back of the chair, helping to bring out the colour in her eyes even more.
Solomon sits down, eyes on Laura the entire time. Bo feels like she’s interrupting something here, realises she has felt that way every time they’ve been in the same room together. She watches Solomon from the corner of her eye as he places his headphones on his ears, adjusts the sound again. She thinks of the countless times he has gotten lost in his own world beneath those headphones, either for work or for his own music. He uses sound as his escape, just like Laura. She looks from her to him. She thinks they really have no idea. Or they do and they have been utterly respectful of her the entire time. In a bizarre twist, she wants to hug them both, then squish them together, the idiots.
Bo turns to Laura. ‘Are you ready?’
She nods firmly, a determined look in her eyes.