It’s funny how some people refuse to admit their guilt. Even to themselves.
It’s odd how amnesia provides solace.
It’s amazing how people forget what they’ve done.
There’s not enough here to prove that Claire Evans killed her own daughter, alas. To convict her in the light of public opinion. To convince the world (and a jury) that she was a murderous mother.
One who killed her Cath. Her three-month-old baby.
I’ve gone over each word in that passage. With a fine-tooth comb. Even to the extent of copying it out here. The only phrase that faintly damns her is Mark’s anguished question: “What did you do, Claire?”
But that could mean anything. It’s not along the lines of: “You’ve just smothered poor Catherine, my sweet honeybun, to death.”
“I’m so sorry, Mark.”
That could also mean anything. It’s not an admission of guilt.
It’s not enough.
Fucking hell.
I am back to square one.
4 May 2015
Wait a minute. There’s more to the story. I’ve gone through that little stack of musty papers again. There’s an earlier diary snippet (dated 14 June 1996) that says:
8:15: Woke up drenched in sweat. Same dream as in earlier diary entries, but with horrible, horrible difference. The face wasn’t that of Jenkins. It was Cath’s this time. An eighteen-year-old version of my darling baby. Brown eyes like Mark’s, long blond hair like mine. Mouth curled in anger. You’ve screwed me, Mum, she kept screaming at me. You’ve made me Mono. Cursed me with your blood. Set me up for lifetime of failure, of being laughed at, of being second-class citizen like you.
A snippet from 15 June 1996 (the following day) reads:
6:27: Woke up shaking, sweat on palms and forehead. Same dream as night before, but with terrible twist: my grown-up Cath wasn’t Mono. She was Duo instead. Yet she was still yelling at me. You embarrass me, Mum, she kept saying, over and over again. Because you’re stupid and pathetic. Useless and inept, unlike super-cool Dad. Why has Cath replaced Jenkins in my dreams? Why aren’t these crazy nightmares going away?
Which explains the woman’s rambling, disjointed entry for 16 June:
17:15: Stared down at baby Cath in crib. She wasn’t crying for a change. Gurgled at me with smile, reaching for my finger with happy whimper. Looked beautiful. Innocent and angelic. So perfect I began to cry. What if she turns out Mono like me? What if I’ve inflicted lifelong discrimination on her? And if she turns out Duo instead, will she think that her ex-waitress Mono mother is beneath her? Will I lose her love and affection because I’m not Duo like her? Will she treat me with contempt? What if she says each day, in same patronizing way as Mark did this morning: “You ought to write that down in your diary tonight, Mum, and learn it more carefully”? What if I will never understand her? And what if she never understands me? Will my daughter still love me when she turns eighteen and discovers she’s Mono? Will she hate me for condemning her to such a fate? Or will she hate me even more if she turns out like her father?
The triggers for Claire’s postpartum depression are evident. The slippery slope of hormone-induced irrationality is clear. No wonder that moment of madness happened on 18 June, merely two days later.
Bloody hell. I’m starting to feel a little sorry for the woman. Even if she took the love of my life away from me twenty years ago. My love has since morphed into hate anyway. Love or hate. No middle ground.
Forgive or forget. I can’t forget, though it’s tempting to forgive her. Poor little tortured woman. I feel sorry for that little baby, too. But her husband still conspired to cover up murder. I’m not letting him off that easily. I should still drive home the point that he was stupid enough to marry a Mono in the first place. The precise point I tried to make when I paid him a courtesy call on the morning of his wedding day. The man’s a bloody idiot to choose her over me. How on fucking earth do I get this message across?
It will be lovely when they get a divorce, by the way. Deeply satisfying.
When they finally see just how right I was.
5 May 2015
Maybe I’m not back to square one after all. I should think. Vigorously. Even if I can feel another skull-splitting headache coming on. Mark Henry Evans could well have adopted a selective approach. He could well have retained carefully curated facts about what happened in his home on 18 June 1996. Like his cowardly Mono wife, he could well have lied in his own diary.
But people who lie to others seldom lie to themselves.
I’m sure of this.
Lies have their basis in truth. Because they are deviations from the truth.
To lie, one must know the truth.
Especially if one is a Mono. Even a Duo.
I’m convinced that Mark wrote a truthful account of what happened to his only daughter. Of what his wife did that rainy afternoon. I sense this in my bones. This is why he’s so protective of his old diaries. Keeps them in a bombproof safe.
Mark Henry Evans lies to his wife. Unashamedly. And he lies to me with equal verve. But he is incapable of lying to himself. As a Duo, he must be intelligent enough to know that he can’t.
He can’t afford to.
Not if he is a fucking novelist.
Most novelists write to make sense of the things that happen to them. They bring all their worldly experiences to their writing. They translate facts into fiction. Grief. Longing. Horror. Fear. Love. Loss. Facts they’ve learned from their diaries. Snippets of conversations they’ve recorded. All beautifully reimagined in descriptive prose. Brought to life again in touching, heartbreaking fashion. Most novels are subtle reflections of the people who penned them. Their personalities. Their pasts. The facts they’ve learned about themselves. In one way or another.
But it’s hell that inspires a novelist.
Not heaven.
A good novelist translates personal adversity into literary opportunity. Mark is a good novelist, despite his multiple sins. I meant it when I complimented him about his literary genius at the writers’ conference. Consider On Death’s Door, for instance. His most critically acclaimed novel. The one that catapulted him into the literary stratosphere. The one that almost won him a Booker prize in 2013.
In particular, consider the scene touted by critics as a tear-jerking masterpiece. The protagonist, Gunnar, discovers the death of his nine-month-old daughter. Mark would not be able to write that scene with such conviction. With such vivid poignancy. With such brutal accuracy.
If he’d obscured the truth from himself.
I now understand why he became so successful. How he managed to convert himself. From a penniless, unemployed ex-academic disinherited by his parents for marrying a stupid Mono. To a bestselling, wealthy novelist adored by millions. Because things began happening to his humdrum Duo existence. All sorts of terrible, brutal things. And he wrote about them with great sensitivity.
This always resonates with readers.