leave. Even though there are as many unanswered questions now as there had been before, possibly more, they can see they have troubled this broken woman enough.
“Thank you so much for talking to us,” says Laura, putting her arm around Hilda’s shoulder to give her a brief hug and feeling the bones, hard and knobbly through her cardigan. “Now, if Mum mentions Linda, at least we will know who she is talking about. She’s increasingly living in the past, but it’s part of her life she never talked about before and we are so grateful to you, and so sorry for upsetting you.”
Outside, they say goodbye to Harry, who is looking at Hilda’s garden as if it has grown into a jungle during the hour or so since they arrived, and walk back to the car without a word. They are almost halfway home before Laura breaks the silence.
“What on earth was she thinking?” she says.
“Who?”
“Mum, of course! She must have known who the viper was, and she didn’t say a word - not until it was too late, anyway. How could she sit there with that poor woman and pretend she had no idea what it was all about?”
“I don’t know,” says Kelly with a sigh. “It looks like there is even more to all this than we thought.”
Suddenly, Laura has a horrible sensation of things rushing away out of her control. As if she is standing on a bridge, looking down at a flood-swollen river and thinking how easy it would be to fall in. How easy to be swept along like a snapped-off branch, twisting and turning in the currents before the water pulls you under once and for all. She can feel her heart beating faster than usual, and she feels a little sick. This was quite probably a murder, and her mother had known about it for such a long time before telling anyone that the trail had gone cold. Suppose it was the man on the train and he had carried on preying on young girls? Suppose he was a rapist, or had even killed again? It would all be her mother’s fault. And yet there is Hilda, whose life had effectively ended on that day all those years ago, refusing to hate her. What would she feel like in her position? What are they doing, turning over all these stones?
“You OK?” says Kelly, crunching the gears and swearing at the car as it struggles up an incline.
“Not really. I’m beginning to think this is all a mistake. Look what we just did to that poor woman. She’s probably still crying now, and to what purpose? Just so we could satisfy our idle curiosity. I think we have to stop it straight away, before we do any more damage.”
Naturally, Kelly does not agree, and they arrive at Laura’s house with no resolution. Kelly thinks they should at least try to find out whether the man is still alive, but cannot articulate why. Neither can she give any coherent idea about what they would do with the information if they managed to obtain it. Laura has to end the conversation there with one of her characteristically cheery subject changes so they can part without falling out.
Chapter 4
It is Friday, and Laura’s day stretches out in front of her. The kids are in school, the house is tidy enough and she knows she has no excuse. She has to both visit her mother and spend some time dealing with the chaos in her house – their house, the house she grew up in, to which she has always loved to return but which now fills her with dread. How pleasant it had been when she first married, to take Patrick there. To her haven, where everything was layered with memories and there were bits and pieces of her past all around, embedded in the fabric of the place. A photograph of her and some friends on a school trip in a ‘friends forever’ photo frame, or a psychology book on a shelf. She would feel like a strange hybrid of adult and child; grown up enough to have a life of her own but anchored, rooted here in this place that signified warmth, protection and love. It made her feel lucky and safe.
She decides to spend a couple of hours at the house
“Thank you so much for talking to us,” says Laura, putting her arm around Hilda’s shoulder to give her a brief hug and feeling the bones, hard and knobbly through her cardigan. “Now, if Mum mentions Linda, at least we will know who she is talking about. She’s increasingly living in the past, but it’s part of her life she never talked about before and we are so grateful to you, and so sorry for upsetting you.”
Outside, they say goodbye to Harry, who is looking at Hilda’s garden as if it has grown into a jungle during the hour or so since they arrived, and walk back to the car without a word. They are almost halfway home before Laura breaks the silence.
“What on earth was she thinking?” she says.
“Who?”
“Mum, of course! She must have known who the viper was, and she didn’t say a word - not until it was too late, anyway. How could she sit there with that poor woman and pretend she had no idea what it was all about?”
“I don’t know,” says Kelly with a sigh. “It looks like there is even more to all this than we thought.”
Suddenly, Laura has a horrible sensation of things rushing away out of her control. As if she is standing on a bridge, looking down at a flood-swollen river and thinking how easy it would be to fall in. How easy to be swept along like a snapped-off branch, twisting and turning in the currents before the water pulls you under once and for all. She can feel her heart beating faster than usual, and she feels a little sick. This was quite probably a murder, and her mother had known about it for such a long time before telling anyone that the trail had gone cold. Suppose it was the man on the train and he had carried on preying on young girls? Suppose he was a rapist, or had even killed again? It would all be her mother’s fault. And yet there is Hilda, whose life had effectively ended on that day all those years ago, refusing to hate her. What would she feel like in her position? What are they doing, turning over all these stones?
“You OK?” says Kelly, crunching the gears and swearing at the car as it struggles up an incline.
“Not really. I’m beginning to think this is all a mistake. Look what we just did to that poor woman. She’s probably still crying now, and to what purpose? Just so we could satisfy our idle curiosity. I think we have to stop it straight away, before we do any more damage.”
Naturally, Kelly does not agree, and they arrive at Laura’s house with no resolution. Kelly thinks they should at least try to find out whether the man is still alive, but cannot articulate why. Neither can she give any coherent idea about what they would do with the information if they managed to obtain it. Laura has to end the conversation there with one of her characteristically cheery subject changes so they can part without falling out.
Chapter 4
It is Friday, and Laura’s day stretches out in front of her. The kids are in school, the house is tidy enough and she knows she has no excuse. She has to both visit her mother and spend some time dealing with the chaos in her house – their house, the house she grew up in, to which she has always loved to return but which now fills her with dread. How pleasant it had been when she first married, to take Patrick there. To her haven, where everything was layered with memories and there were bits and pieces of her past all around, embedded in the fabric of the place. A photograph of her and some friends on a school trip in a ‘friends forever’ photo frame, or a psychology book on a shelf. She would feel like a strange hybrid of adult and child; grown up enough to have a life of her own but anchored, rooted here in this place that signified warmth, protection and love. It made her feel lucky and safe.
She decides to spend a couple of hours at the house
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