Sarah arrives at my bedside, looking as briskly efficient as ever and I am grateful for her competence; what good would a dinghy-on-a-duckpond person be to us now?
Maisie is sitting silently next to me, as if spent; her fingers shivering.
‘Hello, Grace, me again,’ Sarah says. ‘It’s like Piccadilly Circus in here this evening.’
‘You think she can hear too?’ Maisie says.
‘Absolutely. I’m Sarah. Grace’s sister-in-law.’
I think I see anxiety on Maisie’s face. My fault. I’ve made Sarah out to be a dragon in the past.
‘Maisie White. A friend.’
‘So are you Rowena White’s mother?’ Sarah asks, a savvy police officer instantly recognising names.
‘Yes.’
‘There’s a canteen open somewhere. Would you like to get a cup of tea with me? Or at least something that passes for tea?’
She isn’t giving Maisie much option.
I hope to God she’ll get Maisie to tell her about the domestic abuse so Sarah will add Donald to her list of suspects. But in our years of friendship Maisie’s never even hinted at it. Or maybe she did and I wasn’t savvy enough – or sensitive enough – to hear her.
As they leave, Sarah spots Jenny’s mobile phone.
‘It’s Jen-Jen’s,’ Maisie says. ‘A teacher found it outside the school. Knew she’d like it back.’
Maybe she calls her ‘Jen-Jen’ to show Sarah how close she is to the family, maybe to show her right to be here, and I’m touched by that; a sign of the old, more assertive Maisie.
Sarah picks up the phone and Jenny is on tenterhooks. But Sarah puts it in her pocket.
‘I’ll be in the garden,’ Jenny says, her frustration and upset clear. ‘And it’s Jenny now. And I should have my phone, not Aunt Sarah.’
For some reason I’m glad of her adolescent strop; her indignant energy.
I follow Sarah and Maisie towards the cafeteria. Do you think anyone’ll discover Sarah’s turning their relatives’ rooms and cafeterias into interview rooms?
The Palms Café is empty and the striplights turned off, but the door’s open and the hot-drinks machine is working. Sarah gets styrofoam cups of something masquerading as tea and they sit together at a Formica table.
The only light now is from the corridor, making this institutional room shadowy and strange.
‘I’m trying to find out a little more about what happened,’ Sarah says.
‘Grace told me that you’re a policewoman.’
Once, Sarah would have brusquely corrected her, ‘police officer’.
‘Right now, I’m just Grace’s sister-in-law and Jenny’s aunt. Would you mind telling me what you remember about yesterday afternoon?’
‘Of course. But I’m not sure I can help much. I mean, I already told the police.’
‘As I said, I’m just talking to you as family.’
‘I’d come to pick Rowena up from school. Well, I should say work, because she’s a teaching assistant, not a pupil now. I was really chuffed when she asked me to give her a lift home. I hadn’t seen much of her lately, you see. You know what teenage girls are like.’ She trails off. ‘Sorry, this isn’t important, sorry.’
Sarah smiles at her, encouraging her to continue.
‘I thought she’d be out on the playing field helping with sports day. But Gracie told me she’d gone into the school with Addie, to get his cake. A trench cake that they’d made together-’ She breaks off, putting her knuckle into her mouth to bite away a sob. ‘I just can’t think about it, not properly, about Addie, with his mum so… I just can’t…’
‘That’s alright. Take your time.’
Maisie stirs her tea, as if the flimsy plastic spoon gives her something to grip onto; determined to continue.
‘I went to find her. When I got to the school I popped to the loo, the grown-up one. I’d just gone in, when I heard a noise, really loud, like an air-raid siren or something. Nothing like the fire alarms we had at school so it took me a few moments to realise what it was.
‘I hurried out, worried about Rowena. Then I saw her coming out of the secretary’s office.’
As she stirs, tea slops out of her cup onto the Formica table.
‘Through the office window I saw Adam was safely outside by the statue. I thought everything was OK. But I didn’t know about Jenny. Didn’t even call for her. I didn’t know to do that.’
‘Which floor is the secretary’s office?’ Sarah asks.
‘The upper ground. Just next to the main door. I told Rowena to look after Addie and I went to help the reception children. Mrs Healey thinks they’re too young to be at sports day, you see. Sorry. What I mean is, I knew that they’d be in the school.’
Sarah mops up Maisie’s spilt tea with her napkin, and this simple act of kindness seems to relax Maisie. Dragons don’t mop up your spilt tea.
‘And then?’ Sarah asks.
‘I went down to the lower ground floor where their classroom is. It wasn’t so smoky down there and they have their own exit with a ramp leading back up to the area outside the school. Tilly – Miss Rogers – was getting all the children out. I helped her calm them down. I know them all, you see. I read with them once a week so I could help reassure them.’
Her voice is suddenly warm and I know she’s thinking of those four-year-old children; their outline still fuzzy somehow, as if you’ll touch their aura before you can touch the quietness of their silky hair or peachy-soft faces. Beautiful baby creatures still. I used to think she still read with them, after Rowena had grown up, because she missed her own daughter being a tiny girl. But maybe, for one afternoon a week, she was trying to go back to a time before the abuse; to when she and Rowena were happy; a time when she really didn’t give a hoot!
‘Did you see anyone other than Rowena and Adam and the reception teacher?’
‘No. Well, not in the school, if that’s what you mean? But about five minutes later the new secretary came outside. There was a lot of smoke by then but she was smiling, like she was enjoying it, or at least she was not at all upset and she had lipstick on. Sorry. Silly.’
‘It was five minutes after the alarm that she came out? You’re sure?’
‘No, I mean, I can’t be totally sure. Never very good at timings. But we’d got the children out and lined them up, counted them at least five times. She brought Tilly the register to officially check they were all accounted for, but we knew they were.
‘Just after the secretary came out, the fire got worse. There was a huge bang, and flames, and smoke was pouring out of the windows.’
‘Did you see anyone else?’
‘No.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes. I’ve been trying to remember but I really don’t think I saw anyone else. But there easily could have been other people there. I mean, it’s a big building.’
Sarah hasn’t drunk her tea, concentrating every ounce of attention on Maisie, while not letting her feel it.
‘And then?’
‘A few minutes later, I think it was that, I saw Gracie running towards the school, I think she was screaming, but the fire alarm was so loud I can’t be sure.’
She pauses a moment, as if she’s watching me running full tilt towards the school.
‘I knew she’d be so relieved when she saw Adam, and she was, and I thought that everything was alright. But then she was yelling for Jenny, over and over, and I realised that Jenny must be inside. And Gracie ran in.’
I see the pressure of tears building behind Maisie’s face. She presses her fingerpads, hard, against the skin on her temple as if it’ll force the tears to stay inside.
Sarah is looking at her intently now.
‘Did you know that Adam has been accused of starting the fire?’ she asks.
Maisie is astonished. Is that why Sarah told her – in order to gauge her response? She must clearly see now that Maisie’s astonishment is genuine.
‘Oh God, that poor family.’
Tears break free and stream down her face. ‘Sorry, selfish. I’ve no right to cry, have I, not when Gracie and Jenny…’
Sarah picks up Maisie’s cup. ‘I’ll get you another?’
‘Thank you.’
And this small act of kindness again seems to relax Maisie a little.
‘What do you know about Silas Hyman?’ Sarah asks as she goes to the drinks machine.
‘He’s dangerous,’ Maisie says immediately. ‘Violent. But you’d never guess that. I mean, that he’s a sham. And he gets people to love him. Young people. Exploits their feelings for him.’
I am taken aback by her vehemence, and how sure she is about him. How does she know?
‘In what way is he a sham?’ Sarah asks.
‘I thought he was kind, really caring,’ Maisie says. ‘Wonderful, actually. When I read with the little children, I take one at a time out of their classroom up to the first floor where they have the lower school reading books, and we sit on the rug together.’
Maisie is talking to her across the shadowy expanse, as if it’s a relief to talk about it, her words tumbling out.
‘Mr Hyman taught in the other classroom on that floor. You’d hear his class laughing. And there was music too. He was always playing them something. I worked it out in the end. It was Mozart for Maths and jazz for getting changed for sport because it speeded them up. I once heard him telling off Robert Fleming but he didn’t shout at him. He didn’t need to shut the classroom door like some of the teachers in case parents overheard. And he had special names for them all. His whole focus in the school seemed to be the children. Not getting ahead in his career, or making sure there was impressive work up on the walls for parents to see. Just the children, inspiring them and making them happy. So you can see why he had me fooled, can’t you? I mean, I think he fooled all of us.’
Sarah joins her with two new cups of tea. In all the time I’ve known her, Sarah has never drunk tea, only coffee, and it has to be real not instant. Maybe her police persona drinks tea because despite telling Maisie she was talking to her as a member of our family, it’s the professional Sarah I’m watching.
‘When did you realise you’d been fooled?’ Sarah asks.
Maisie takes the tea and fusses with a little pink packet of fake sugar before she answers.
‘At the school prize-giving. We give a prize, you see, every year. For Science. Rowena’s going to read Science at Oxford, St Hilda’s. Sorry. I mean, that’s why we were there.’ She pauses for a moment, as if thinking back. ‘He barged in, looking so angry, and then he swore at the headmistress. Threatened all of us.
‘But no one else took it seriously. I mean, they just found him embarrassing rather than threatening.’
‘But you took him seriously?’
‘Yes.’
At the prize-giving Donald was sitting pressed up next to her. Maisie knows first-hand that threats of violence can translate into the real thing. Or perhaps Donald doesn’t give a warning first.
‘Did you tell anyone your anxieties about him?’ Sarah asks.
‘Yes. I phoned Sally Healey, the head teacher, later that evening and told her she should get the police to make sure he wasn’t allowed near the school again. A restraining order, I think it’s called? I’m not sure. Something that meant he wasn’t allowed near the children.’
‘Did she?’
Maisie shook her head and I saw the upset on her face.
‘You said he gets young people to love him,’ Sarah continues. ‘And exploits their feelings?’
But Maisie seems to have clammed up now, lost in her own thoughts.
‘Maisie?’ Sarah asks, but still Maisie is silent.
Sarah waits patiently, giving Maisie time.
‘Grace told me that Addie adored him,’ Maisie says eventually. ‘But I didn’t realise how much till the prize-giving.’
‘What happened?’
‘Has no one told you?’
‘No.’
You hadn’t said anything to Sarah and I wasn’t close enough to her to risk this touchy subject.
‘Addie stood up and defended Silas Hyman,’ Maisie says. ‘Told everyone that he shouldn’t have been fired.’
‘That was brave,’ Sarah says.
I should have risked telling her.
‘But it’s wrong to make someone adore you,’ Maisie says, emotion shaking her voice. ‘When they’re so much younger and can’t properly think for themselves. That’s exploitation. Wicked. And you can make them do what you want.’
Her anger is both startling and touching. I know what she’s suggesting and so does Sarah. But no one could have made Addie light a fire.
I don’t blame Maisie for thinking Adam easily manipulated. He’s always been shy with adults, even Maisie. And after the prize-giving he’d looked so cowed, flinching from Donald’s lighter.
‘I should get back to my daughter,’ Maisie says. ‘I told her I wouldn’t be long.’
‘Of course,’ Sarah says, standing up. ‘One of my colleagues spoke to a firefighter at the scene. He told me of her bravery.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d like to speak to her, if that would be alright? Just to get it all straight for myself.’
‘She’s upset at the moment,’ Maisie says, looking fearful. ‘In a bit of a state. I mean, that’s understandable, isn’t it, after everything that’s happened. So would you mind waiting?’
Is she afraid Rowena will tell Sarah about Donald?
‘Not at all,’ Sarah replies. ‘And you’ve been very kind to spare some of your time. I’ll pop by tomorrow. See if she’s feeling up to talking to me then.’
‘I haven’t told her yet,’ Maisie says. ‘How badly hurt they both are.’
‘I understand.’
Maisie leaves and Sarah scrupulously writes up notes in the owl-covered notebook.
‘So get her to give a new statement right now,’ you say vehemently.
Sarah has joined you at Jenny’s bedside.
‘Tell Baker that someone else knew that he was violent,’ you continue. ‘Christ, if Maisie thinks that about him, other people will too.’
‘At the moment there’s no point,’ Sarah says patiently. ‘Not unless and until his alibi is broken. And I also need to pursue other avenues at the same time.’
She makes you go for a sleep, while she takes your place at Jenny’s bedside.
And I return to the garden where Jenny is waiting.
It’s different out here in the cool of the evening. Someone has watered the flowers and filled the bird bath. If you look straight up, past the perpendicular walls on all sides, studded with glass windows, you can see the sky, that shot-silk dark blue that you get late on a summer’s evening with stars punched through the fabric.
We don’t feel any pain out here and I think it’s because, although we’re outside, the garden is in the middle of the hospital and those perpendicular walls that rise up all around us offer us protection.
My senses are so much more receptive now – I can smell the subtlest, smallest thing, as if lacking a body has left my senses exposed and quivering.
Me, who couldn’t even smell when the toast was burning – Grace, for heaven’s sake, it’s charcoal!
Now the air feels softly weighted with the heavy summer perfumes of jasmine and roses and honeysuckle; strata of scents layered in the air like the coloured stripes in Adam’s sand jar.
And there’s another perfume. Sweeter than the others, it’s igniting an emotion I shouldn’t be feeling, not now – a twanging of nervousness and an expansive unlimited excitement. Time ahead of me is opening up, unbounded; a river through Grantchester then onwards away from clocks at ten to three towards London and beyond; to ever more possibilities.
It’s stocks. The smell of night stocks and I am in Newnham garden, late on a warm summer evening, near to Part Ones, my mind filled with paintings and books and ideas. I’m with you. And the night-time stocks are releasing their fragrance like confetti over my love for you and my anxiety about exams and my excitement for the future.
Memories are usually like a DVD playing, not connected to the room you’re in while you remember.
But I’m actually there, Mike. My feelings pungently real.
Love punches me in the solar plexus.
Then it’s over and I’m back in this boxed piece of summer.
The loss feels cold and colourless.
But there’s no time for self-indulgence. There is something significant about what’s just happened, something I can use to help my children. But the thought is slipping away and I have to grab it by its coat-tails before it’s gone.
It was Jenny hearing the fire alarm going off at the school. ‘It was like I was back in the school, really back there.’
I turn to her.
‘When we saw Donald White with Maisie and Rowena, do you remember smelling something?’
Because I remember now the smell of Donald’s aftershave and cigarettes.
‘Perhaps. Yes,’ Jenny replies.
‘Do you think that’s why you heard the fire alarm?’ I ask.
‘My mad person’s tinnitus? It’s possible, I suppose. I didn’t really analyse it.’
I hear a child screaming.
Adam.
I jerk my head around. He isn’t here.
‘No! She’s not dead. She’s not!’
Too small a voice for such huge words.
I run to him.
He’s hunched over my bed, silent. He’d never cried out his grief but I’d heard him. Mum’s arms are around him.
‘I’m here!’ I say to him. ‘Right here. No one knows that yet but they will. And I’ll wake up, my sweetie! Of course I will! I’m giving you a kiss and you can’t feel it, but I’m here. Kissing you now.’
I have no voice.
Screaming in a nightmare, making no sound.
I force myself into my body but my vocal cords are still snapped and useless and my eyelids still welded shut. I try with all my might to touch him, but my arms are beams of impossible weight. In this black, vile, inert place, there is nothing I can do to reach him.
And out there he’s in a dark angry ocean, drowning.
Panicking, I’m breathing more quickly. I try to slow my breathing and I can! I take breaths quickly, in and out, in and out – and then deliberately slowly – surely Mum will realise I’m trying to communicate! Adam too!
I can do something! Maybe this means we won’t need to wait for years for me to wake up!
As I take deliberate slow deep breaths I think of blowing up Adam’s orange armbands before he could swim, tight around his thin white arms, and how he’d bobbed happily in the water, not feeling any fear; my breath keeping him safe.
I slip out of my body – surely Mum will be calling to a doctor, pointing out this signal from me that I am in here and Adam won’t be crying any more.
But Mum is with Adam at my bedside, her face white as she tries to comfort him as he cries. Maybe I should feel angry with her. But it’s tearing her apart and I know the courage it took.
Addie pulls away from her and runs. She goes after him and grabs him and they tussle. He goes limp and she puts her arms around him, like a body cushion against excruciating pain. She half carries him out of the ward and I go with them.
His face looks so pale, bruised shadows under his eyes. He’s withdrawn even further into himself as if his whole body is now mute. I put my arms tightly around him.
‘Next Hallowe’en, Mum, I’m going to have a
‘I don’t think it works that way.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well…’
‘I’ll have a glove. So that they know someone’s there. I mean, otherwise, how will I get any sweets?’
Hallowe’en was four months away still. He’d have supplanted this idea with a new one by then.
‘Good idea, the glove.’
‘Yup.’
He can’t see or feel my arms around him.
I will wake up. One day I will wake up.
It’s dusk now. Through the glass wall abutting the garden, most of the wards are in half-light. In one of the rooms, through the uncurtained window, I see a child in bed, just a shape, with small arms. Another big shape, which I make out to be his father, smooths the child’s hair and then waits. The small shape in the bed grows motionless as the child falls into sleep. The father is just standing there now, rigidly upright and alone, flapping his arms up and down, up and down, up and down as if he can fly them both away.