Tell Me No Secrets (20 page)

We step into a cobblestone courtyard with a grass square at its centre. The grass is neatly trimmed and edged with rose bushes.

‘Let me just bolt the door behind us,' Sister Bernadette says, small fingers deftly drawing the heavy iron back into place. ‘I'm told one can never be too careful.'

A black and white cat makes a beeline for me and weaves through my legs, his tail curling around my calves. Then he gives a plaintive meow and sits at my feet looking up at me. I bend to stroke him and he purrs loudly, his eyelids dipping with pleasure.

‘I see Bubble is making friends with you,' Sister Bernadette comments. ‘We're rather overrun with cats! And none of them any good at mousing.' She moves her long skirt aside to reveal a small grey kitten resting in its folds. She scoops him up and carries him close to her neck. ‘Hard to resist though, aren't they?'

As my eyes grow accustomed to the scene, I count five more cats sleeping in neat circles in the suntrap on the grass. ‘You have quite a collection,' I say.

‘Thirty-six at the last count.' She frowns momentarily. ‘We really must find homes for them.' Then shakes off the thought and says, ‘Come along, my dears.'

We walk around the grass and through an open archway in the building diagonally opposite. Bubble runs along the flagstone corridor ahead of us. Treading lightly on silent paws, he stops in front of a door and waits for us to catch up. We are shown into a square room with three long windows facing south. It's almost midday and the sunlight catches the dust motes that hang in the air. The room is comfortably but sparsely furnished. Two well-used sofas face each other, and a solid oak coffee table is positioned to one side, underneath the window sill. Several books lie on the table scarred with the evidence of time and heavy usage.

‘Sister Philomena is threatening a trip to Ikea but it suits us, I think.'

‘It's homely,' Euan says, stroking the back of the sofa. Bubble jumps up beside his hand and waits for it to stray his way. ‘People- and cat-friendly.'

‘Exactly! A little make do and mend in places but we're here for the Lord's work. Let others worry about interior design.'

We both smile. I'm so tense, my face is beginning to feel like it will crack.

‘Now to find Orla. At this hour she may well be helping in the dairy.'

‘Before you go, Sister,' I say, my hand skimming her sleeve. ‘I'm wondering – do you think Orla will join you permanently?'

‘As a novice, you mean?'

I nod.

‘There's been no suggestion of that. I think Orla's feet are very firmly planted in the outside world.' She gives me a conspiratorial nudge. ‘A life of prayer is not part of her aspiration.'

‘I thought she might be swayed by the sense of community and ambience here.'

She looks dubious. ‘Sometimes a life of prayer and worship may seem attractive but in reality, it can be a challenge.'

Bubble leaves with Sister Bernadette and we are left alone.

‘You were right,' I say to Euan. ‘Another lie. So much for the becoming-a-nun story.'

‘It should make it easier,' he says. ‘If she's not doing it as a matter of conscience then we have a better chance of changing her mind.'

‘My stomach is churning.'

‘I'm here.' He briefly touches my cheek. ‘Moral support.'

The next hour or so will dictate the course of the rest of my life and I'm terrified. Terrified, but at the same time glad to be taking action. Third time lucky.
I can do this.
I breathe deeply and walk up and down the room. I'm determined not to lose my head this time.

Five minutes pass and, finally, Orla walks in. Euan is standing by the window and I am sitting on the arm of the sofa, skimming through an edition of
The Imitation of Christ
by Thomas à Kempis.

‘Grace. Euan.' She does a good job of smiling. ‘This is a surprise.' She looks at the book in my hand. ‘See, Lord, I stand before You naked and poor, begging for grace and imploring mercy.'

‘I hadn't got that far,' I say.

‘Chapter 112.' She is dressed as she was before. Dark trousers and cardigan, white top, her hair tied back in a simple band and no make-up.

‘Right.' I put the book back on the table. ‘Look, I'm sorry we've interrupted your stint in the dairy but we . . .' I look at Euan. He's staring away from us, out through the window. ‘I need to talk to you.'

‘Take a seat.' She passes me a cushion embroidered with the words
God is light
. I wedge it into the small of my back. She sits down opposite, crosses her legs and waits. I am immediately reminded of Angeline. Both mother and daughter have a rock-hard stillness that radiates outward like a force field. They are entirely sure of themselves, as if their thoughts and motives are superior to everyone else's.

‘So . . . I feel like we haven't had a proper chance to talk. The first time, in the restaurant, I was too shocked to respond sensibly and the second time it was my girls' birthday and well . . .' I see how it feels to smile at her. ‘I was more concerned with being a mum.'

I stop there. She doesn't fill the silence. She just sits, her hands clasped on her lap, her eyes watching me. My smile feels misplaced, tactically weak. I remove it at once.

‘Orla, I've come here to ask you not to visit my house on Sunday.'

She raises one eyebrow. ‘You don't think Paul will be relieved to have some closure?'

‘Paul accepted the pathologist's verdict.'

‘He must have had questions?'

‘It was an
unfortunate accident
,' I stress. ‘Most likely caused by a combination of factors: the storm, unfamiliar ground, a child's natural curiosity putting her at risk.' As I'm speaking a memory comes back to me: Paul, several years ago, visiting Rose's grave, grief talking.
Why did she go into the water?
I blink the memory aside and push on. ‘Your story would be—'

‘My story?' she interrupts. ‘The truth is not a story. The truth is the truth. Wouldn't you agree, Euan?'

All this time Euan has been standing by the window but now he comes and sits down beside me, his thigh resting against mine. ‘The time for the truth was then, Orla.'

‘The truth will out,' she says. It's almost a whisper, smooth as melted chocolate.

‘Only because you're going to say something.'

‘And not before time.'

‘Dredging it up won't help anybody.'

She laughs at this. ‘It will help me! Aren't my feelings worth considering?'

‘Orla, we had our chance to be truthful,' I butt in. ‘Now time has moved on and Paul and I' – I bring my hands together – ‘our destinies are linked. We have two children. You have to understand how damaging this would be for us as a couple and as a family. In fact – that would be it! No couple, no family, not after that.' I'm managing to keep my tone even but only just. I take a few breaths, wait for Orla to answer.

She doesn't. She stares at Euan and then me and then back to Euan again.

‘Let's be clear.' She leans towards me. ‘I am going to tell Paul about that night whether you like it or not. What you think or feel is irrelevant.'

‘But, Orla, you didn't even push her! It was me! You weren't directly involved.'

‘I was there. Right next to you. It might as well have been my hand.'

‘But it wasn't your hand. You were simply a bystander.'

‘I see.' She looks up to the ceiling and then back at me. ‘So a blind man is walking along the street. There's a manhole in the road but the cover has been left off. I see him walk towards it. I watch as he falls down into the hole. Who is to blame, Grace? The person who left the cover off? The man himself – perhaps he should have stayed home – or is the fault mine for watching him fall?'

‘That's hardly the same thing,' Euan says. ‘Nobody saw Rose drown.'

‘So you're saying Grace is innocent?'

I hold my breath. I expect him to tell Orla what he's been telling me all these years, that there's no hard and fast evidence it was me. Coincidences happen. Just because Rose was found close to the bank where I pushed her – that doesn't prove anything.

But he doesn't cast doubt on my guilt, instead he says, ‘Accidents happen. Tragic accidents that can't be undone.' He shrugs. ‘The only option is to move on. Put it behind you and move on.'

Orla gives Euan the full benefit of her stare. ‘We killed someone,' she says flatly. ‘We killed a child.'

‘It was dark, Orla!' I shout. ‘We didn't know she'd fallen into the water.'

She turns back to me. ‘And the next day when we found her? What about then?'

‘Well, it was too late, wasn't it? She had been dead for hours.'

‘We could have owned up.'

‘We could have . . .'

‘But I stopped you saying anything.'

‘But I didn't have to listen to you!'

‘Of course you did! You always listened to me.'

‘I had free will. I chose not to exercise it. That doesn't make it your fault.'

‘We wouldn't even have been there if it hadn't been for me.' She tips her head to one side and says softly, ‘Seriously though, how have you lived with it all these years?'

‘With difficulty,' I admit. ‘And believe me – that's an understatement. But always,
always
I try to make things good and better whenever I can.'

‘She was a child. We were cruel and careless and she ended up dead.'

‘I know that, Orla! I fucking know that.'

Euan puts his hand on my arm.

I swallow, lower my voice and say, ‘Believe me, there has not been one single day when I haven't thought about Rose and wished that I'd done it differently – but it happened. Confessing to Paul and dragging my family through the mud will not change the fact that we were there and Rose died.'

‘It keeps you stuck in the past though, doesn't it?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘You haven't moved on. You straddle two time zones, keeping one foot planted in each. Isn't that uncomfortable?'

My heels start drumming on the floor. ‘I have no idea what you're on about.'

‘Are you sure? Are you sure you're not still living back where you left off? What about Euan?' She looks at him but he doesn't bite. ‘The man you think you should have had. Your feelings preserved with first-love intensity. You hark back to a time when life was simple, before you loaded yourself down with guilt and remorse and family baggage.'

‘My family are not baggage, Orla. They are the reason I'm here.'

‘You're here for yourself.'

The rising temper inside me is so all-encompassing that I daren't speak.

‘You're stuck, Grace. You're on a rubber band looping backward. You're continually pulled right back to that night and the horror that followed.' She blows out her cheeks and says, ‘You even married her father.'

‘I fell in love with him. I told you that already. I love him still.' My tone is staccato and my fists are clenched. I want to hurt her physically, pull her to the ground and stamp some sense into her. It's not an emotion I'm used to and my face is heating up from the effort involved in staying still.

She gives me a satisfied smile and I realise that getting me riled is exactly what she's after. In my mind's eye I see her on her knees in front of me, defeated, her cheeks tear-stained. It makes me feel better. I pull my feet tight into each other and hold them still.

‘You know what, Grace?' She laces her fingers together and raises her arms straight up above her head. ‘I think you'll feel much lighter when we get this out in the open.' She looks at Euan. ‘I think we all will.'

‘This is not a game to me.' My voice is steady again.

She widens her eyes as if she can't believe I would suggest such a thing. ‘Me neither.'

I lean forward. ‘You have to see how impossible my life would become.'

‘But think what it would be like if you no longer had anything to hide.' She also leans forward. She is whispering. To an outside observer it would look as if we were sharing secrets. ‘What would it feel like?'

I almost fall into her eyes. I can't help it. In direct sunlight they are smoky, large, fluid and soft as cashmere. I take a moment to think about what it would be like to journey through my life, free and easy, nothing nasty under any stones, or in the dark corners of the closet. How effortless it would be to live life without fear of discovery. How refreshing to embrace complete honesty. Wonderful. And impossible.

I break eye contact and look out of the window. An ancient gardener is using a hoe to clear weeds at the edge of the cracked paving stones. He is slow and methodical and every so often he stoops to lift the weeds and throw them into his wheelbarrow. After a minute my mood has settled and I look at her again. She is sitting back in her seat, her legs stretched out before her.

‘You know Euan thinks there's a distinct possibility that I didn't kill Rose,' I say.

She glances across at him. ‘Does he now?'

‘He thinks there are other explanations. She could have been sleepwalking, she could have been out looking for something—'

‘Well, God forbid that we don't consider Euan's opinion.'

‘He has a point.'

‘He wasn't there. He was off getting drunk with Callum and co. Weren't you, Euan?'

He doesn't answer.

I grab her arm. ‘We just automatically assumed that it was me.'