Where the Memories Lie

 

 

Where the Memories Lie ‘Yeah, give your dad a bit of time to relax. He’s had a hard week.’ I ruffled Anna’s long hair, dusty now with flour. ‘Can you beat those eggs for me? We’ll be there in a minute.’

 

I waited for Anna to disappear back into the kitchen and slid my arms round Ethan’s neck, kissing him hard on the lips. He smelled of mint and coffee and the outdoors. His tongue parted my lips and sought mine.

 

‘I know you’re snogging out there! It’s gross!’ Anna shouted out.

 

We pulled back and laughed. That was the trouble with having a bright twelve-year-old; it was hard to keep any secrets in the house.

 

‘You’ll be doing it one day,’ I called back.

 

‘Will not. Boys are gross.’ At least I could be thankful she still thought that. It wouldn’t be long before she had boyfriends and was getting her heart broken. It didn’t bear thinking about. I was buying her a chastity belt for Christmas.

 

‘What’s up?’ he whispered to me.

 

‘It’s about Tom. And this Georgia,’ I whispered back.

 

He rolled his eyes. ‘Not again. I thought we went through this yesterday. It’s just the ramblings of a senile man.’

 

‘Yes, but he said something else today.’

 

His shoulders stiffened underneath my touch. ‘What did he say?’

 

‘He told me her surname. He said Georgia Walker. I thought he’d just been fixated on a story I found online about a girl called Georgia Preston who’d been murdered by her boyfriend, but it wasn’t her. He called her Georgia Walker and said he’d killed her again. Do you know who she is?’

 

Ethan pulled back. ‘I’ve never heard of any Georgia Walker and there’s no way Dad could’ve killed someone. You’ve got it wrong. Or rather, he’s got it wrong. He’s confused, like I said. Look, I’ve had a 41

 

Sibel Hodge

 

stressful week, and quite honestly, I don’t want to waste my week-end talking about some ridiculous story that can’t possibly be true.’

 

‘But I—’

 

‘Just drop it, Liv. It’s nuts. I need a drink.’ He walked off into the kitchen, loosening his tie.

 

But I couldn’t drop it. Not like that. Not without at least trying to find out anything else about Georgia Walker. It wasn’t like Tom had mentioned something casual and inconsequential like a set of keys he’d once lost or a fly he’d killed, and it was niggling away.

 

Even with the Alzheimer’s it seemed very out of character for him to say something like that. So, although I was sure it was nothing, and Tom couldn’t possibly have killed anyone, I still wanted to find out why he was so obsessed with such a horrible story and where he’d heard it from.

 

I followed Ethan into the kitchen and went through the motions of drinking beer with him and making the food for the picnic ?

 

although I burnt one of the quiches ? answering questions when I was asked, nodding in the right places, but my mind was firmly fixed on Georgia Walker. When Ethan headed upstairs for a shower and the final quiche was in the oven I went into the living room and found Anna watching a YouTube documentary on the laptop about prisoners on death row.

 

‘It’s terrible, Mum,’ she said sadly, eyes watering. ‘This man was accused of killing this girl who lived in his town, and he says he’s innocent.’

 

‘They all say they’re innocent.’

 

‘But what if he really is? And there was this case study I’ve been reading about where the lethal injection caused such massive pain to the patient when he was—’

 

‘Prisoner, not patient.’

 

‘OK, prisoner. And he had loads of heart attacks and it took him about forty-five minutes to actually die in excruciating agony. Don’t 42

 

Where the Memories Lie you remember watching The Green Mile, when they were trying to electrocute a prisoner and bits of him caught fire and stuff but it didn’t actually kill him for hours?’’