The Half Sister Page 16

  ‘They can’t have thought she was a clandestine murderer. Grace in the tower with the arsenic. I can’t think of anyone less likely.’

  ‘Thumping up the stairs in her size nines, imagine it!’ Diana laughs. When she has her breath back, she slows herself down. ‘No, I think they were just checking out that the stories matched. What time she left, that sort of thing. Anyway, they’ve obviously ruled her out. But they did have another hypothesis.’

  ‘What? Who?’ Sally leans forwards, but Diana isn’t whispering.

  ‘Michael. Da-da.’ Diana drum-rolls the table.

  ‘Mikey?’

  ‘Hear me out. It hadn’t occurred to me, but they wondered if perhaps he’d been mucking around with the key. Remember I told you he’d been hanging around all evening? Well, he could have done something . . . locked the door to keep Valerie safe, or something like that, then later, when his mother’s dead and everyone’s going on about the key, he doesn’t know what to do.’

  ‘You’re always saying he’s obsessed with keys.’

  ‘And it might explain why he won’t speak,’ Diana confides in Sally. ‘He’s dug himself into a terrible hole and can’t get out. And the longer you leave telling the truth, the worse it is. Obviously it’s a relief for me, but the trouble is, I’m not sure it’s something you’d ever get over, killing your own mother, killing anyone, even if it is by mistake.’

  Over a third glass and a light salad, they mull over the consequences of what quickly moves from theory to fact, Sally wondering if, although Mikey is one of the most gorgeous little boys she’s ever met, he’s going to prove too much. She’s seen a documentary about those residential places where they put child murderers, not that she’s saying he is a murderer per se.

  ‘Per se’ sets Diana off again, giggling like a schoolgirl.

  Sally persists. ‘Hundreds of thousands of pounds a year they cost, more than Eton. In the long term you might be doing him a favour as well as yourselves. You said yourself you think he’s always dreaming up ways to get back at you. He might be dangerous, Diana.’

  Before they leave, Diana allows Sally to hug her.

  ‘You’ve been looking pretty frazzled, Di. I wouldn’t be a friend if I didn’t point it out. He doesn’t hit you, does he?’ She indicates Diana’s eye. ‘Mikey, I mean. Because it wouldn’t be a surprise given what he’s grown up with.’

  Diana’s hand moves to her cheek; she thought the bruise had gone or was at least well concealed. She explains her little fainting episode. Now is not the time to tell her one remaining friend that she fears she is turning into a fitting lunatic.

  Not eating enough is Sally’s conclusion. ‘You’re as thin as a stick. Can’t get all the calories from Sauvignon blanc, darling. But perhaps things will look up now.’

  Now that the alcohol is wearing off and her head is throbbing and the sun is weakening, Diana is running down like a toy with a flat battery. ‘One way or another, the end’s in sight,’ she says.

  Swans, gilded and deceptive, glide silently in the pond above the weir next to them. Someone told her they are mute, although Diana isn’t sure that’s true; she’s certainly heard that they only sing when they’re dying. Strong, ice cold and capable of snapping a man’s leg.

  ‘It’s the only hangable offence left in Britain, isn’t it?’ Diana says, as she locates her keys. ‘Beheading a swan.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It’s almost as if someone has handed Michael the script. He certainly plays the part of the demented boy to perfection. Joking apart, this was a shocking incident, even on Wynhope’s new Richter scale of disturbance. Edmund is very shaken by the whole thing, but Diana is neither surprised, nor upset. She sees it both as evidence of his capacity for evil and as something of an opportunity.

  ‘Do boys his age get charged for crimes like this?’ Diana wonders. ‘I mean false imprisonment. He could get sent away to some institution just for this, let alone what happened with Valerie. What on earth’s going to happen to him, Edmund?’

  Mikey locked up a little girl. At the end of morning break, he volunteered to tidy up and told five-year-old Aimee to help him carry the play things into the equipment shed, and then he locked her in. It was a very long time before she was found sobbing on a bed of footballs, entangled in the nets. Neither explanation nor remorse was forthcoming from Mikey, but everyone was very understanding. He received an exclusion until the end of the summer term and the chance to start afresh in September providing Special Needs pay for extra support in school. No mention of a young offenders’ place, quite the opposite. Sharing the police theory that it might have been the boy himself who inadvertently caused the death of his mother, everyone agreed it all made perfect sense and passed the story on like Chinese whispers until it became an accepted account of events for the teachers, the local authority, and the parents at the school gates. And, of course, Mikey didn’t deny it, did he? There was no question of Mikey being prosecuted: aged nine, he was just below the age of criminal responsibility; the little girl’s parents were not pressing charges; he’d never locked anyone up before; and there was no indication that he’d do anything like it again. ‘Mikey needs help, not punishment. When things are as bad as this, it’s a home we need, not an institution.’ Those were D.I. Penn’s very words, according to Edmund, who wholeheartedly agreed and decided that’s what we’re doing, Diana, we’re giving him a home, whatever the cost.

  In that home, Diana feels very much like matron.

  ‘Mikey and I could do with a hot blackcurrant, we’ve both got the summer sniffles.’

  ‘If you’re making tomato soup for Mikey, that’s just what I feel like.’

  ‘I’m sorry, darling, I’m exhausted. I’ll go up after supper at the same time as Mikey.’

  The more they both need, the less she gives them. As often as not, supper comes out of the freezer, there are no clean shirts ironed in the dressing room, and despite the fact that July is marvellous and the borders are on fire with lupins and purple cranesbills and the orchard is a waterfall of roses, there are no fresh flowers in the morning room. The deterioration in standards is partly due to Mrs H leaving, partly due to money being tighter than it was before (although they are hardly on the breadline), but mostly due to the fact that she is so, so tired and why does any of it matter anyway? She can barely get herself up in the morning and hours pass with her slumped alone in front of daytime TV, watching the disasters watching her. There are very few highs, mostly a grey dragging decline, a feeling that they are all sliding inexorably downwards, helpless on a bank above a dark quarry pond, clutching at trees whose branches snap as they slip and whose roots are shallow in sandy soil.

  No longer at school, Mikey spends even more time in the nursery with his circus animals, winding Sellotape around their bodies over and over again and spreading them out, flat on their backs, sleeping or dead. School initially proposed sending a teacher but are grateful when Diana offers to collect and deliver work herself; after all, overstretched staff have more than enough to do at the end of the summer term. The boy completes pages and pages of maths, draws careful diagrams of plant parts, fills in the blanks in punctuation exercises, and everything is returned with green ticks and smiley faces. Against all odds, he is a very intelligent boy, which is part of the problem; a stupid child would be much easier to deal with. He writes a lot as well, and she reads the stories before handing them in, just in case, but they are also returned with banal comments: ‘Great imagination, Michael. You have organised your story into a clear beginning, middle and end.’

  A Story by Mikey

  One day Solomon found a letter with his name on the front. The letter says that Solomon should climb a very famous mountain and when he got to the top he should tell everyone his news. Solomon had a lovely yellow flat with a cat and lots of jigsaws but he was bored because he did not have a school or a job or nothing to do all day except watch television or go to funrals so he decided it would be exciting to climb the mountain!!!


  It was sunny and cold! It was very hard work because the snow was very deep and he nearly fell over a very perilous cliff. He ate all his chocolate so he did not have any food left so he kept going anyway because he wanted to go as high as he can and tell everyone the news then one night an iceman came to find him and said I will climb the mountain with you and I know everything about the mountain because I am an ice man. Michael was very happy to have a friend and he went everywhere with the iceman the iceman did not have any eyes or any mouth and was much bigger than him but he did have a dog.

  In the end nobody knows if Michael got to the top of the mountain because they only found his lunchbox because everything else was made of ice but there was two sets of footprints on the top and a pool of water in his bedroom at home that never went away and then Solomon’s mother was sad and so was his dog then they went to his funral but there was nothing to burn because you cannot burn water.

  That one goes in the bin, the truth is starting to leak out of him.

  When August comes, the City of London sleeps, along with Westminster and anything decent on the television, the entire establishment still behaving as though it is on school holidays. Edmund certainly does. He is home most of the time at last, the summer evenings are long and light, and the two of them should have been on the lawn with friends, eating strawberries and drinking Bellinis, the glow of the low sun bringing warmth to their faces and colour to the old brick of the house, the marigolds spread at its feet like a cloth of gold. Instead she finds herself, pale and raw, cooking sausages which stink out the kitchen, and after supper it’s fishing, another exclusive activity in their men-only club. In the dusk, they saunter down the drive towards the river, an ink etching, silhouette of man and boy, through the musk mallow and yellow mead in the meadow they wander, later leaving their dead fish on the kitchen counter in the way that cats leave baby birds for their owners.

  Even the dog prefers the boy to her now.

  If she were to walk with the boy to the river, she would push him in.

  It’s white hot outside. It hurts her eyes. She keeps the curtains closed.

  If it rains, Edmund and Michael play inside. Sometimes chess in the study, more recently engrossed in a box of magic tricks Edmund brought home. Presents from town are no longer flowers and velvet-boxed surprises, but tacky gadgets from toy shops he has had no excuse to visit for forty years.

  ‘Mikey’s got a trick to show us,’ says Edmund. ‘He’s written a series of instructions.’

  1. I am going in the drawing room. When I bang three times on the door, you lock me in from the outside.

  2. Leave the key in the door on the outside.

  3. I will escape!

  It is the tedious, age-old trick of the coat hanger, the key and the newspaper under the door.

  ‘Encore, encore!’ calls Edmund from his seat in the gods on the stairs. ‘Bravo!’

  ‘He does it on purpose,’ says Diana.

  ‘It’s just a game, Di.’

  ‘Do you think it feels like a game to me?’

  Edmund catches up with her in the garden. Ever since the earthquake she lives in fear of thunder; it’s close now, pulling on its boots. Deadheading the roses, she is aware of the steady throb of bees on the thyme and the way her head pounds continuously nowadays no matter what pills she takes. The scent of lavender, which once would have evoked memories of their holidays in Provence, now reminds her of the sachet in that drawer and all that it contains.

  ‘I’m sorry about Mikey’s tricks, perhaps you’ve got a point,’ Edmund is saying. Something unusual in his tone of voice causes her to pause. He’s not usually a sarcastic man. ‘Does he ever talk to you about what he’s up to? Because he does talk to you, apparently.’

  Carefully, she resumes working, snip-snip-snipping away.

  ‘You see, Sarah phoned earlier about the special guardianship date. We had a little chat, and she wondered how his therapy was going? I said fine, as far as I know, not that I’m ever told.’

  ‘Yes, it’s fine,’ confirms Diana. She does not know how long she can get away with sitting in the public library every Thursday morning, Michael in the corner reading on his own while he is meant to be at a therapist she cancelled weeks ago.

  ‘And,’ Edmund continues, ‘she was surprised, to put it mildly, that you hadn’t told me Mikey talks to you. Long conversations, I imagine, all about the meaning of life.’

  The boy is winning, the flag in the middle of the tug-of-war rope inching inexorably over the winning line towards Edmund, her feet sliding away beneath her.

  Unable to differentiate between the bud and the dead, Diana is cutting blind. ‘He doesn’t talk to me, you know that. But I wanted it to be true. That social worker looks at me so critically, so patronising, I feel so ashamed and hopeless. Crapmother dot co dot uk, that’s me.’ She hopes he might love her for her apparent honesty.

  ‘I don’t know what to believe any longer, Diana.’

  ‘What you mean is that you don’t believe me, or should I say believe in me?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ The loose mortar on the garden wall flakes as he picks at it.

  ‘You don’t need to, it’s obvious.’ Full house: mother, sister, husband, none of them believe. ‘I’m not the only one who has been economical with the truth, am I?’ she retaliates. She’s holding one of the beautiful, undamaged roses in her hand and doesn’t know what to do with it. ‘Why were you so worried when the police came here? Don’t deny it. I could see it in your face.’ She chucks the yellow rose in the wheelbarrow, along with all the sodden petals and the thorns.

  ‘So it’s all about me, is it?’ Edmund is walking away. ‘Typical.’

  ‘Well, it’s not just all about me. If you didn’t hide away in London, if you supported me more with Michael, instead of ganging up and undermining me maybe he would bloody well talk.’ Diana screams after him, ‘You aren’t even listening to me now! I’m a nobody here now.’

  Edmund has swung back and is face to face with her now. ‘What exactly do you mean? Economical with the truth? I’ve never done anything illegal. Life’s not black and white in business, Diana, you know that. It’s all lines in the sand. People overstep the mark the whole time but as long as it’s profitable and everyone wins, nobody minds. But then you get something like this earthquake and the whole thing comes down like a pack of cards.’ He grabs her arm. Her wrist hurts, and she’s frightened of him, for him. ‘But, one, I’m not unfaithful to you. Two, I’m not a liar. Three,’ he says, dropping her as if he’s been holding a leper.

  ‘Yes? What’s number three? You might as well say what you mean.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right, run off back to Wynhope and your toys. Peter Pan in Neverland. And unfaithful, what’s that about? And a liar?’ Her voice is rising, higher and higher. ‘So it’s just me, is it? What about Michael? You think he always tells the truth on his little whiteboard? It’s easy, isn’t it, to hear no evil when you don’t listen and to speak no evil when you don’t talk. Come back!’

  So he comes back. In the sunlight, his face looks like a caricature of confusion – grey round the edges, dark circles under his eyes – but he speaks very clearly and deliberately. ‘He’s a child, Diana, that’s the difference – a child. And, yes, I do believe him. He’s a very truthful boy.’ Edmund pulls his jumper over his head and rolls up his shirt sleeves as he talks. ‘I know he’s not mine, I know it’s not easy, especially for you, but you can’t say I don’t try. We go fishing, we take Monty out for hours, we go to the chapel, we play cricket.’

  ‘Oh yes, your boys’ own club.’

  ‘There you are. If I’m around, you’re jealous. If I stay away, you grumble. Heads I lose, tails you win. Listen.’ His voice changes, maybe he’s close to tears. ‘It’s silly because we’ve only had him a few months, but he’s the closest I’m ever going to get, and I never understood how that would feel.’ As he rubs his face with his hands, earth smears across
his damp face. ‘And forgive me if it doesn’t fit in with your life plan, but I like to think of my parents having grandchildren, another generation, alive, here at Wynhope. Wynhope deserves it.’ His gesture encompasses the park, the coach house, the whole estate. ‘I’d like to think of leaving something good.’ Taking up the handles of the wheelbarrow, he calls Monty to follow him. ‘Something more than death and a pile of rubble.’

  Death and a pile of rubble is exactly what it’s all about. In a suffocating courtroom, the inquest asks all the same questions and fails to find the answers. The four-day hearing exhausts them, the temporary nanny Diana reluctantly agreed to hire finds Michael delightful, but as soon as she leaves in the evenings he is defiant and abusive towards Diana, and they collapse into bed unable to find the words to process the day or comfort each other, night after night after night.

  In summing up, the coroner’s initial comments are, as expected, regarding the effect of the pool on the foundations: the survey was inadequate and this will be pursued by a separate investigation by the local planning authorities. Equally, there is nothing new in the account of the physical details, the fact that Valerie survived the earthquake and died in the aftershock. It is the final conclusion which shakes Diana.

  ‘As the doors were locked by person or persons unknown and for reasons not established and as there is no clear indication as to why the key was not readily available to expedite the deceased’s escape between the first and second shocks, and bearing in mind that had the doors been unlocked the deceased may have escaped alive, the consequences of the doors being locked are both significant and enduring and therefore the jury in this matter records a narrative verdict.’

  A narrative verdict. Are you sitting comfortably. In the beginning. Happy ever after.

  ‘Well, thank goodness that’s over,’ says Edmund, back at Wynhope. ‘It’s been hanging over us like the sword of Damocles. I’m not looking forward to the local authority snooping around, but at least they seem to think it’s the surveyor rather than me who’s at fault. And now we can get on with our lives. It might be a bit inappropriate, but I’ve opened a bottle of fizz, Di.’