by Sanjida Kay
20 AUGUST, BRISTOL
38
NICK
I arrived early enough to see Lotte and Theo before they went to bed. I brought a Lego space rocket for Theo, and a stuffed purple unicorn for Lotte. It was the one I was going to give Ruby-May; it’s about time I passed it on to her sister. I bought wine, beer and lemonade; flowers and chocolates for Amy; and a takeaway curry that’s currently keeping warm in the oven. I remembered to ask my sister to invite Chloe; I picked Dad up from Somerset and drove him over. Now we’re sitting round the kitchen table, eating poppadoms and mango chutney; Chloe is looking at her iPhone and ignoring us.
‘What are we waiting for?’ asks Matt, pouring us both a beer.
‘Bethany,’ Amy says, looking at the clock. ‘I’ll give her another ring.’
I twitch slightly and try not to listen to her call.
‘So what’s all this about, mate?’ asks Matt.
‘He just wanted us to get together,’ Amy says, smiling at me. She turns away as her mobile stops ringing. I hold my breath, but it’s a recording of Bethany’s voice; the call has gone to her answerphone.
‘Maybe she’s in the taxi,’ says Amy, sitting down and snapping off a piece of poppadom. She slides her other hand round Matt’s neck and they smile at each other.
I swallow and take a swig of beer. Do I really want to do this, just as Amy and Matt seem to be getting back on track? Dad’s examining the paintings stuck on the fridge that Lotte and Theo have made, with an expression that looks a lot like contentment. Bethany was right. This will destroy us. All of us.
‘Shall we start eating? It’s getting late,’ says Matt. ‘Some of us have to be up early.’
I clear my throat. ‘I’ll go and fetch her.’ Amy and Matt glance at each other. They’re thinking I’ve turned over a new leaf, or some other bollocks. My palms are sweaty and I wipe them on my jeans. ‘Why don’t you go ahead? Save some for me. For us.’
It’s dusk and rush hour has died down, but there’s no quick way to reach Bethany’s flat from St Andrew’s. I drive into the car park behind Bethany’s block of flats and pull into her space. I might have missed her. Perhaps she’s sitting at Amy’s kitchen table right now, eating biryani and spinning our family some tale. I call her, but it goes to voicemail again, and when I ring the bell there’s no reply. I imagine her lounging on her white sofa, drinking a flute of icecold Cava, waiting for me. She’ll say we shouldn’t ruin everything by telling them what really happened. She’ll tell me I haven’t got it in me to do it anyway.
There are no lights on in her flat. I press other people’s bells until someone answers, and I tell them my sister’s buzzer has broken and they let me in. I run up the stairs: five flights to the top. I pound on Bethany’s door. There’s no answer.
I text Amy and she replies immediately: No sign of Bee, but the korma is yummy! A x
There isn’t a concierge and there’s nowhere to hide a spare key in this clinical hall. She hasn’t even got a doormat and it’s not the sort of place for pot plants. Amy might have one, I guess, but that’s not really the point. I’m about to leave, when I try the handle. To my surprise, the door isn’t locked. I walk in.
There’s the faintest scent of roses. I don’t turn on any lights. The street lamps outside, the myriad lights on the hill opposite, blaze through the large, plate-glass windows. I can see the outline of the Clifton Suspension Bridge in a spider-thread of LEDs, the tungsten of Brunel’s Other Bridge, lamps glowing on the Grain Barge opposite. The flat is completely empty. I step inside and my footsteps echo on the wooden floors. There isn’t a single stick of furniture left. I go into the bedroom. Curtains flutter in the breeze from a window that’s open a crack, but there’s nothing here, either. Every cupboard in the kitchen is bare.
I call Bethany’s phone again, but this time it doesn’t even ring, as if the number has been disconnected. I check her Twitter feed and her Instagram account, but the last posts are about her forthcoming programme on the dangers of booking online holidays, and they were posted yesterday. I google her webpage, search for the contacts and find a number for her agent: it’s Felicity Pickering of Pickering Productions. I’m not sure she’ll answer, but it’s a mobile, so it’s worth a try.
She picks up on the first ring. ‘Yes?’
‘Sorry to bother you this late…’
‘Who is this?’ Her voice is stridently upper-class.
‘I’m Nick. Bethany’s brother.’
There’s a sharp intake of breath. ‘I’m surprised you have the audacity to contact me.’
I frown. I’ve never met this woman before. Unless I did, but I don’t remember; maybe at one of Bethany’s parties? I must have offended her in some way. Got drunk and said something inappropriate, knowing me.
‘Why are you ringing?’ she asks, crisply enunciating every word.
‘I’m trying to find Bethany.’
‘Ah, well, I can’t help you there. She’s terminated her contract with me. As of this afternoon. Rather abruptly, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m standing in her flat,’ I say. ‘It’s empty. I don’t know where she is.’
‘She didn’t tell you?’ There’s a slight softening of her tone. ‘Well, she won’t need any of those items where she’s going.’
Where is she going?
I must have said it out loud, because Felicity says, ‘America. Not sure where; she’s given me no forwarding address and she’s deleted her email account. I expect it’ll be Los Angeles. She always wanted to make it over there. Though, frankly, I think she’ll find she spends quite a lot of her time waiting tables.’ She gives a bark of joyless laughter. ‘Unless that fellow Stuart Linfield comes through with a decent contact for her.’
I thank her and hang up. Even on the way over to Amy’s with Dad, the smell of tarka dhal and chicken dhansak steaming up my Vauxhall, I didn’t quite believe it. I expected Bethany would phone to tell me I was being an idiot, and Luca was right here with her, laughing at my stupidity, at the joke they’ve played on me – the ex-child psychologist saying, Is time to forgive her, no?
But now I know for sure. I know my sister is guilty of letting my niece drown when she was meant to be looking after her, and then drugging my father and blaming him for her death. And by leaving like this, she’s given me a get-out clause. I can simply say that Bethany has gone to LA. We can all chorus: How rude, how like Bethany to go for a better offer without telling anyone, without even saying goodbye. And we can watch Dad drink gritty smoothies and eat omega-3s and pretend he’s got memory problems, and eventually a part of us will be glad when he passes, because we cannot help but blame him for Ruby-May’s death, even though we believed he was ill and his mind was no longer what it once was; and maybe, as Bethany said, we do hold him responsible for our mother leaving and our shit childhoods, and for making us the emotionally stunted adults we’ve all turned out to be.
Quietly, slowly, we will start to heal. We’ll remember Ruby-May with sadness and with joy, but we’ll no longer see the world in shades of grey: colour will seep in, as weak as watercolour at first; two, five, ten years later, it’ll return in a triumph of technicolour. Days will pass when we don’t even think of Ruby-May, forever frozen at three years old, but still a piece of us, still in our hearts.
I close the door quietly behind me and I walk slowly down the stairs.
But that – that is sentimental bullshit.
I don’t want Ruby-May in my fucking heart. I want her here, with me. Alive. And my sister is going to pay for her death.
39
AMY
Amy is clearing away the oily, turmeric-stained takeaway cartons, aware of Matt standing in the hall, jingling his keys impatiently in his hand, while Chloe and her dad sit side-by-side on the stairs, slowly putting their shoes on. Her father, of course, is struggling because of his age, but she’s not sure why Chloe isn’t keen on going home. Matt is irritable because he’s conflicted: on the one hand, he’s happy he’s had a midweek b
eer and a curry; on the other, he’s annoyed at Nick and Bethany’s tardiness, and that he now has to take both Chloe and David home. It’ll be after midnight by the time he returns from Somerset, but she still hasn’t been able to force herself to make Ruby-May’s room into a spare bedroom.
There’s a soft knock.
‘That’ll be them,’ she says, wiping her hands on the dishcloth.
‘About bloody time,’ says Matt, opening the door.
Nick is on his own. He looks odd, washed out. He’s done a lot of driving – to Somerset to collect their dad, and back, around Bristol – and he hasn’t eaten yet. Either that or it’s the street lighting, bleaching his Italian tan.
‘So where is she?’ Matt asks.
Nick clears his throat and runs his hand through his hair.
‘Can I talk to you? All of you?’
‘We’re right here, mate.’ The old aggression has seeped back into Matt’s tone.
‘Best if we sit down,’ Nick says, pulling himself up straight and looking her husband in the eye.
‘What’s happened? Is Bee okay?’ Amy asks.
Nick walks past without answering and stands in front of the oven. He gestures to them all to sit at the table. They’re so surprised, they obey. Amy starts getting up again.
‘We saved some curry for you. It’s—’
He shakes his head. He looks ill, as if he might throw up.
‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ he says.
As her brother talks, Amy has the sensation of all the blood in her body draining away, rushing from her head, sinking and pooling in her feet. It’s as if she’s known, all along, that this is what really happened. Still, the betrayal takes her breath away. A stabbing pain in her chest spreads through her arms, across her back; she thinks she might be having a heart attack.
When Nick says Bethany has gone to Los Angeles and that there’s no way to find her, Chloe bursts into tears, as if the enormity of what her aunt has done has just hit her. Matt puts his arm around his daughter and clamps her tightly against his chest. Amy’s father looks stunned and grief-stricken, shocked into silence. Matt, though, is loud, livid with anger. She thinks he’s going to crush Chloe.
‘Why the hell didn’t Bethany say anything?’ When Nick doesn’t reply, Matt asks, ‘How did you know? How did you find out? Why didn’t you tell us before?’
Chloe whimpers and Matt remembers himself, rubs his daughter’s arm and releases her.
Nick looks out of the window. ‘Bethany only just told me,’ he says eventually. ‘The bump on her head – she must have been feeling vulnerable. Guilty.’ He puts his hands in his pockets and leans back against the oven as if he’s exhausted. ‘I told her to tell you. Gave her a couple of days. And this is her answer.’
‘This is her answer? This is her fucking answer? To bugger off to America? She should face the consequences. She ought to go to prison for this!’ Matt stands up, his chair crashing against the wall. ‘I’m going to ring the police. I’m not—’
Amy takes a breath, finds the paralysis has gone. She rises to her feet and puts a hand on Matt’s arm.
‘Don’t,’ she says.
He’s about to pull away. His face contorts with fury. She can see it in his eyes: he thinks she’s going to protect Bethany, choose her sister over their daughter.
‘I never want to see Bethany again,’ she tells him. ‘Leave it. Leave her.’
‘I imagine she’s suffering,’ their father says.
In the silence, Chloe sobs. Matt’s knees buckle and he sinks back into the chair.
‘I feel as if Ruby-May has been killed all over again,’ Amy says.
Nick looks stricken. ‘I’m sorry, Ames,’ he says. ‘I am so sorry. But I thought we should all know the truth.’
She nods. None of them say anything for a moment. She can hear the kitchen tap dripping, the hum of the oven. The curry must have dried out by now.
‘But the lengths she went to, to frame Dad. I mean, that’s...’
‘Evil,’ says Matt.
Nick coughs, and glances at his father. ‘She did have a reason.’
‘Nothing could justify how she treated Dad,’ Amy says.
Nick ignores her. ‘When Bethany was sixteen she left home—’
‘What does this have to do with…’ Matt interrupts.
‘Do you remember, Dad?’
He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. ‘Oh, it was all drama, with Bethany.’
‘She went to live in a squat in Bristol with some anarchists.’
Her father tilts his head to one side as he remembers. ‘They were masters’ students studying on my course,’ he says, with the air of a professor correcting his student’s grammar. ‘Not a bad lot, but it wasn’t suitable for a girl of Bethany’s age to live with those young men in such surroundings. I went to see her. The place reeked of mice; the kitchen floor had caved in. The whole building had been condemned.’
‘You tried to persuade her to come home.’
Amy looks at the poppadom crumbs scattered across the table, grains of rice trapped in smears of mango chutney. She doesn’t know why Nick is telling them some story about Bethany. She’s finding it hard to focus.
My sister. My sister let my daughter die. She can’t think of anything else.
‘Bethany wasn’t having any of it. We had a huge row. She said some terrible things. But you know how Bee is. Most of it’s hot air. Still, it was painful at the time.’
‘You spoke to one of your colleagues about her, and he offered to talk to Bethany. In fact he said she could stay in his spare room until she was ready to return home. Professor Paul Williams. One of the senior lecturers. You liked him; he was well respected.’
Our father glances down now at his hands resting on the table, the knuckles starting to swell with arthritis.
‘It seemed like a good plan, and it worked – at first. Bethany listened to the prof. He’d always had a way with the students, particularly the female ones,’ Nick continues. ‘She took him up on his offer and moved into his house in Clifton. It was beautiful. Large rooms, high ceilings, gorgeous Georgian proportions. One of those baths with lion’s feet. All the luxuries we didn’t have – an endless supply of hot water, an American fridge full of food. He bought her stuff too. A posh dressing gown. A nice frock. A pretty necklace. It didn’t worry you at the time that he was in his fifties and had never been married? It didn’t strike you as odd?’
It’s as if the room has sharpened into high definition: every pore on her father’s face is visible, every age spot, every thread vein and stray hair. Amy puts her hand over her mouth and gives a small moan.
‘Do you want to tell them what happened?’ Nick asks their father.
Their dad clasps his hands together. ‘This is wholly inappropriate, under the circumstances. It’s not the time or the place. Chloe is present, apart from any other consideration.’
‘I know already,’ Chloe says, tracing a line through a pool of salt on the table. She doesn’t look at any of them.
Matt opens his mouth to speak, but Nick cuts across him. ‘He raped her. Repeatedly.’
Her father gives a violent jerk as if Nick has speared him with his fork. He’s turned ashen.
‘That’s somewhat of an overstatement,’ her father finally says.
‘Dad! She was sixteen. The same age as Chloe. She was a child. She was a virgin. Not that that should make any difference. Professor Paul Williams made her feel she owed it to him. The price of staying in his beautiful flat. The cost of a cheap necklace and a hot meal.’ Nick steps forward and places both hands on the table, leans towards their father. ‘And you knew. You might have had your suspicions before she even went to stay with him. You’d heard the rumours. Maybe you’d even helped cover up the accusations from his female students. They were silly young girls, and he was an acclaimed academic. You didn’t want to lose him from the department. You were Vice-Chancellor at the time. You didn’t want a stain on the university’s reputati
on under your guard. But then… then Bethany told you. She told you what had been going on. And you still did nothing.’
‘It wasn’t nothing, Nick,’ her father says. ‘I took her out of that situation. I put her up in my flat. The one you are currently benefiting from now. Rent-free.’
Matt frowns. ‘Why couldn’t she have gone there in the first place?’
Amy wipes away a tear and says, ‘Because that was where Dad met his women. He might not have been able to stay there for the entire week, after Mum left, but he still used it. He couldn’t have his daughter disrupting his affairs.’
‘I can honestly say I knew nothing about Paul’s alleged indiscretions with any of the students beforehand, or I most certainly would not have agreed to Bethany staying with him.’
‘Indiscretions?’ Amy breathes the word out. The smell of the spilt mango chutney is so sweet and sickly she thinks it will choke her.
‘But you didn’t do anything,’ Nick says. ‘You didn’t explain to Bethany what had happened. That it was rape. You made her feel it was her fault, and that it was nothing. You told her she was a stupid little girl. And you certainly didn’t tell anyone else. Like the police, for instance.’
No one says anything. Chloe is still looking down at the table, avoiding them all. Amy cries quietly.
Her dad unlocks his hands, presses the fingertips together as if he’s about to make a point in the lecture theatre. ‘It was a different time, Nick. One didn’t make those sorts of accusations about one’s colleagues. You don’t understand—’
Nick bangs his fist down on the table, making them all jump. ‘Oh, I understand all too fucking well.’
Matt gets to his feet. ‘I think it’s time for you to leave, David. And under the circumstances,’ he glances at Nick, ‘it’s probably best if I drive your dad home.’
Nick visibly deflates, as if the toll of telling Bethany’s story has sapped him of all his energy. He stands by the kitchen window and looks out over the city spread below them.
Matt pulls his chair out of the way, so their father can get up from behind the table, but he doesn’t help him to his feet or steer him by his elbow, as he normally would. After her husband and her father have left the room, Amy looks over at Chloe. She’s about to say she’ll call Chloe a taxi, when her stepdaughter looks directly at her for the first time that evening and Amy, instead, finds herself asking, ‘You knew? You knew all this time?’