Sworn Secret (33 page)

‘Sort of.’

‘It’s a terrible thing; you must all be very shocked.’

‘I love you, Mum.’

‘Oh, Lizzie.’ Kate pulled her close again, strangled by a sudden, overwhelming love for her daughter, so strong she knew she wouldn’t be able to say the words without crying.

I love you too, sweetheart, you have no idea how much
.

But she didn’t want to cry in front of her any more; Lizzie had seen her cry so much, and it wasn’t fair. Kate had to be strong for her. She didn’t let go of her daughter until the threat of tears had passed.

‘Can I get you anything to eat?’ she asked, when her voice was strong enough.

‘Why do you think he killed himself?’

‘I don’t know. Things like that don’t have easy answers.’

‘Was it anything to do with you or Anna?’

Kate’s heart started pounding. ‘Why? Why on earth would it be to do with me or your sister?’

Lizzie began to chew her lower lip.

‘Has someone said something?’ Kate was terrified. ‘What have you heard?’

‘So there is something?’ Lizzie said.

Kate didn’t answer.

‘Mrs Howe said some stuff,’ Lizzie said with caution.

‘Mrs Howe? She spoke to you at school?’

Lizzie didn’t answer.

‘When did she speak to you, Lizzie?’

Lizzie lifted her chin and fixed her eyes on Kate. ‘Just now. I was at her house.’

Kate tensed. ‘Why were you at her house?’

Lizzie didn’t answer.

‘Please tell me you’re not seeing that boy.’

‘Haydn.’

‘I don’t care what his name is.’

‘His name is
Haydn.
’

Lizzie crossed her arms and stepped one foot in front of the other. Kate saw Anna then. Right there, in Lizzie. She reached for the worktop as her head began to swim.

‘I love him.’

For a moment or two Kate thought she might laugh. But the urge left her quickly, and instead, to stop herself crying, she dug her fingers into the worktop. ‘I asked you . . . no, I
told
you never to see him. Didn’t you understand me?’

Lizzie didn’t answer.

‘You can’t see Haydn Howe again.’

Lizzie continued to stare, her eyes icy, her fingers grasping handfuls of school skirt. She shook her head. ‘No. You can’t do that.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You can’t tell me not to see him.’

‘Oh, is that right?’ Kate folded her arms, mirroring Lizzie’s belligerent pose.

‘I’m nearly sixteen.’

‘You’re
not
nearly sixteen!’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m fifteen and I’ll see who I want.’

‘Not him.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘Don’t you dare swear in this house!’

‘Why not? You swear all the bloody time!’

‘Lizzie!’ Kate shouted. Lizzie narrowed her eyes. Kate took a breath and stilled her voice. ‘It’s been a bad week for me. I don’t want to carry on with this conversation. You will not see that boy again.’ Kate spoke each word slowly, enunciating every syllable, trying to convey the weight of her request.

‘
Yes I will
! I
love
him!’

‘Of course you don’t love him.’

‘I do!’

‘You’ve only just met him. You don’t know what love is, for Christ’s sake. And come on, Lizzie, he was Anna’s boyfriend.’

Her daughter pursed her lips and shook her head. ‘No, they weren’t together.’

‘Yes, they were, Lizzie. It’s not right.’

‘They weren’t! He told me. They were never boyfriend and girlfriend.’

‘Sweetheart.’ Kate tried to steady her voice. ‘He was always here. Always ringing her. He sent her flowers. He was always hanging around outside the house. I even caught him on the pavement once, watching her bedroom window at night.’

Lizzie was fighting tears. Shaking her head. ‘No! You’re wrong. Why do you want to ruin my life? I love him and he loves me. Just leave us alone!’

‘If you carry on like this I’ll ground you.’

‘Oh really?’

‘Yes, really.’

‘And how long will you ground me for? A day? A week? That won’t stop me seeing him.’

‘Then I’ll ground you until you leave home.’

‘Then I’ll leave home now.’

‘What on earth has got into you? What are you trying to do here?’

‘I’m
trying
to grow up! I’m
trying
to get on with my life. You don’t let me do anything. Why don’t you trust me? What have I ever done to make you think you can’t trust me?’

Lizzie breathed heavily. Kate stared at her, incredulous that Lizzie would choose today to morph into the hideous, irrational teenager Kate thought she’d never see in her. Kate tried to get a grip. This wasn’t going to work. She needed to keep calm. She needed to use guile, not force. This wasn’t a battle she could lose; she would not have Haydn Howe anywhere near Lizzie. Kate took a few seconds to breathe.

‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, I do. It’s just . . . him . . .’ Kate saw Angela’s hateful eyes boring into her, Stephen’s stricken face declaring his love for Anna, then him moaning in that vile film, Anna’s pale skin against his. Images of him hanging. Echoes of Angela calling Anna a whore. For a brief moment Kate wondered if she should just come out with it, tell Lizzie about Rebecca’s film, about what Haydn’s father did to Anna, explain how the thought of Lizzie anywhere near the son of that man made her skin crawl. But she couldn’t do that to her. ‘I just can’t let you see him.’

‘It’s not up to you!’ screamed her daughter.

‘You don’t understand—’

‘No, I don’t understand! It’s bullshit. I love him. He’s clever and funny and intelligent. He plays the guitar. He volunteers with wildlife. I bet you didn’t know that? He gives up his own time to help with birds and other stuff, like cleaning graves. And he makes me happy. You don’t even
remember
happy. You should be pleased for me. Why are you telling me what to do? You let Anna do what she wanted whenever she wanted!’

‘Don’t you dare bring Anna into this.’

‘Why not?’ Lizzie shrieked. ‘You have no idea what it’s been like for me since she died. You walk around as if the world has ended. You’re always bloody crying or painting. You never laugh, you hardly ever smile, you cry
all the time
. You say you’ve had a bad week? What do you think it’s like for me living with you when you’re having one of your “bad weeks”? It’s awful. I don’t know what to say or what to do. You won’t talk to me. Do you know what that feels like? You miss her so much and your life is so flipping devastated, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re the next one off that stupid, hateful roof!’

Kate stared at her, feeling herself collapse as Lizzie’s words began to dissolve her.

‘When I told you I loved you just then,’ Lizzie went on, ‘you didn’t tell me you loved me back. You couldn’t, could you? And that’s because you don’t!’ Tears streamed down Lizzie’s cheeks. ‘You keep me safe, you worry about bees, knowing where I am or me catching a cold, but you don’t
love
me. We don’t talk, you don’t get excited for me, or sad with me. You’re not involved in my life. All you see is Anna’s ghost. You shut yourself away from me, and it makes me wish it was me that died and not her. Then at least I wouldn’t have to live with you missing her so much.’

Lizzie fell backwards against the wall and covered her face with her hands.

Kate blinked hard. ‘How can you say that?’ she breathed. ‘How can you even think that?’

‘Because it’s true,’ said Lizzie into her hands. ‘Because ever since she died you’ve been so unhappy and there’s nothing I can do, and I don’t think you love me any more.’

‘But I love you more than life itself. I didn’t say I loved you just now because I was trying not to cry; just the thought of how much I love you chokes me so I can’t speak.’ She reached out to bring Lizzie towards her. But Lizzie shuffled along the wall away from her, then dropped her hands away from her face.

‘It’s no good just thinking it, though,’ she said. ‘That’s no good to me.’ And then she left Kate alone in the kitchen.

History Repeated

Kate was waiting for him at the kitchen table. In front of her was a glass of white wine. On the table was another glass.

‘Sit with me?’ she asked.

She poured some wine and pushed the glass towards him. His head ached so badly the lights in the kitchen stung.

‘Where have you been?’ she asked. The question wasn’t antagonistic. Kate seemed placid. Calm. She had brushed her hair and wore clean clothes – a pair of faded black jeans and a loose-fitting maroon sweater that slipped a little off one shoulder, showing clear, smooth skin. He wished he could lean forward and kiss it.

‘I went for a walk,’ he said.

‘It’s late.’

‘I was thinking.’

‘About us?’

Jon nodded.

‘I’m sorry, Jon. I’m sorry for how I’ve been. I got caught up in my grief and it sort of possessed me.’

‘You’re allowed to be sad. It’s not that, it’s . . .’ Jon wished he could explain exactly what he was feeling. Hearing her apologize for being sad because of Anna wasn’t what he wanted. But when he tried to form sentences from the mayhem he felt, the words sounded petty and juvenile: loneliness, rejection, sexual frustration, feelings of being unloved, undervalued, unnecessary.

‘I had a row with Lizzie,’ said Kate. She sipped her wine, and then drew a knee up to her chest.

‘About?’

‘I told her she wasn’t to see Haydn.’

‘Has she been seeing him?’

Kate nodded. ‘Apparently she loves him. Anyway, she didn’t take it too well and we had a fight. She’s all grown up and I didn’t even notice.’ Kate drank again. ‘She said awful things.’

‘She’s a teenager. That’s her job.’

‘She said she wished it was she who had died, not Anna, so she didn’t have to live with me being so upset. She said she didn’t know if I loved her, and because of that she was scared I was going to kill myself.’

Jon lifted his glass and tipped it to one side, then back again, and watched the surface of the wine waver until it found a peaceful horizontal again. ‘That’s because of Stephen’s suicide. Things like that make children question everything around them.’

He was trying to comfort Kate, but he understood exactly how Lizzie could think those things. He thought similarly himself a lot of the time. It was easy for him and Lizzie to imagine Kate’s life being so devastated that she could never truly love either of them again.

‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to lose her. Or you. But I feel like I’ve let that happen.’

Jon refilled Kate’s glass.

‘Not too much,’ she said. ‘That last glass has gone straight to my head.’

‘Would you like something to eat?’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘I think there’s some crisps in the cupboard.’

Jon opened two packets of Hula Hoops and emptied them into a cereal bowl, then he put them on the table between them. Kate took a small handful, but didn’t eat them. Instead, she stared at them in her open palm like three gold rings.

‘Even these remind me of her,’ she said.

Jon saw Anna then, at Lizzie’s third birthday. She was threading her fingers with Hula Hoops. Three on each finger. Then she ate them, methodically moving along her line of Hula Hoop towers. Her face was serious, occupied, cheeks puffed up like a hamster’s. Kate and Jon had cried silent tears of laughter as they watched Lizzie copying Anna, hooking the crisps on to her fingers, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth with concentration. But rather than eat them herself, she had presented her ten crispy fingers to her sister, who leant forward without missing a beat and started to eat. It was Lizzie who beamed as though she’d won the lottery. It was a story that showed Lizzie’s generosity, the way she worshipped her big sister, her selflessness. The story was only interesting because of Lizzie.

‘The Hula Hoops remind me of Lizzie,’ Jon said.

There was a shade of confusion on Kate’s face, and then realization as the fog in her memory cleared so that she re-saw the sketch of her young daughters and the Hula Hoops. She put the handful of crisps back in the bowl.

‘What’s wrong with me?’

‘Nothing.’

‘But Lizzie? You should have heard her. What if I’ve lost her?’

‘How could you? She’s your daughter. You love her and she loves you. She’s a great kid and that’s because of you, because of the way you brought her up, the things you taught her and the person you are.’

He put his hand on hers. ‘We’ve all said a lot of things to each other today, but it seems to me like we’ve taken some sort of step forward. Don’t you think?’

She looked up at him and nodded.

‘I’ll go up and have a chat with her. Maybe we should have a late Chinese?’ He smiled.

‘That would be nice.’

He left Kate at the table and went upstairs to Lizzie’s room. The door was closed. He called her name and gave a brief knock. There was no answer. He knocked again.

Still nothing.

‘Lizzie,’ he said. ‘Can we talk? Mum and you need to patch things up. It’s silly you both being upset.’ He waited for her reply. ‘Lizzie?’

He knocked again.

Nothing.

He opened the door and peeked in. It was quiet. The curtains were open and the dusky summer evening light bathed the room a cloudy blue. She was in bed.

He sat on the edge of the bed and put his hand on her. ‘Come on, poppet. Don’t be—’

His heart stopped.

He pulled the duvet back, horror filling his every cell. Pillows. Two of them in a line down the centre of the bed, then covered up, plumped in the right places, designed to look like someone sleeping. Designed to fool an adult. To give someone the chance to sneak out of the house.

‘Kate!’ he yelled.

She was upstairs in a matter of seconds.

‘Christ, no! Lizzie!’ she screamed.

They ran downstairs. Jon was sweating, fingers shaking, head turning over and over. All he could think of was the school roof. But that was totally illogical. That was Anna. Not Lizzie.

‘Call her mobile,’ Kate said, from behind him. Her face was set and her arms crossed. Jon grabbed his phone and dialled her number. It went straight to voicemail.