Afterwards

  But her kindness and warmth are genuine.

  “You’re looking lots better,” she says to me, smiling at me as if I can see her as well as hear her. “Roses in your cheeks! And you don’t even use blusher, do you? Not like me. I have to slap on the stuff, but you look that way naturally.”

  Instead of a French salon, I imagine myself now in her warmly welcoming kitchen.

  When she came to see me last time, I was sure she was going to tell me something but was interrupted. Maybe she’ll confide in me now about Donald. I hope so. One of the things about all this I find so hard is that she didn’t, or couldn’t, turn to me.

  She’s fumbling in the pocket of her cardigan. She takes out Jenny’s mobile, with the little charm on it that Adam gave her for Christmas.

  “Tilly, the reception teacher, gave it to me,” Maisie says.

  Jen is staring at her phone in silence. Inside are texts of parties and travel plans and everyday chat with her friends, a teenage life in eight centimeters of plastic. It is shiny and undamaged.

  “Tilly found it on the gravel outside the school,” Maisie continues. “Gave it to me as I got in the ambulance with Rowena. Wanted to make sure I gave it to Jenny. Like it was important. I suppose she just wanted to be doing something to help. Well, we all did. Then I just forgot about it. I’m sorry.”

  “How could she just forget?” Jenny asks.

  “There was a lot going on,” I say, marveling at my understatement.

  “Should have returned it before, sorry,” Maisie says, as if she’s heard Jenny. “Complete scatterbrain.”

  Maisie finds a space between the vases of flowers for the phone.

  “They’ve gone overboard with the air-conditioning in Ro’s room,” she says. “So I put on my cardi. Found it in the pocket and wanted her to have it back. You know girls and their mobiles.”

  “But how could I have dropped it?” Jenny asks. “Ivo and I were texting each other while I was up in the medical room. And then it was the fire and I was still inside. So how come she found this outside?”

  “I don’t know, sweetheart.”

  “Maybe the arsonist stole it from me and then dropped it by mistake?”

  “But why would he steal it?”

  “If it was the hate-mailer,” Jenny says slowly, “perhaps he wanted some kind of trophy?”

  The idea sickens me.

  “Or maybe you went outside for some reason,” I say. “And then returned.”

  “But why would I do that?”

  I have no idea. We’re both silent.

  Maisie sits down on my bed again, chattering on in her sweet voice, trying to make this as normal as she can, as if she wants to pretend we’re in her kitchen together—and that it’s as cozy as it seems. A deception within a deception.

  Until today I’d thought Maisie’s babbling way of speaking was from a surfeit of things to say, a friendly warm outpouring, but maybe it’s more of a nervous habit, a flow of chat to swirl over underlying jagged unhappiness.

  Like the baggy, soft cardigan now covering her bruises.

  “They wouldn’t let Jenny have her phone in the intensive care unit,” she continues. “In case it interfered with the machinery and what-have-you. I said it would be off, just by her for when she wakes up. But even if it’s switched off, it’s still no good because they said it might carry bugs and of course we don’t want that!

  “So I’ll leave it next to you and tell Mike it’s here because maybe he’ll want to keep it safe for her at home.”

  Jenny is staring at her phone.

  “I still can’t bloody remember. If I could …”

  She trails off, furious with herself.

  Maisie has turned slightly away from me.

  “There’s something I have to tell you, Gracie. I don’t want you to hate me for it. Please.”

  The curtains are swirled open around my bed, and two doctors come in to do their usual frequent checks. One of them turns to Maisie.

  “Please don’t pull the curtains round her bed. We have to be able to visually monitor her all the time.”

  “Oh yes, of course, I’m sorry.”

  The doctors leave but the noise and urgency of the ward is all around us, not even a pretense at a salon or kitchen now.

  “Donald came to visit Rowena earlier,” Maisie says.

  Finally, she’ll confide in me. And I want her to. Maybe it will unburden her a little.

  “He’s so proud of her.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Jenny says—her frustration and anxiety so near the surface now. But I try to understand. Perhaps Maisie needs to keep that film of a happy family playing to someone who’s been watching it for years, maintaining the illusion, because the reality—Donald hurting her already injured child—is just too hard.

  “You know I’d do anything for Rowena,” she says quietly. “Don’t you, Gracie?”

  “Except leave your husband so that he can’t hurt her anymore,” Jenny snaps.

  “It’s not that simple, Jen.”

  “Oh, I think it is.”

  “I didn’t finish telling you what happened,” Maisie continues. “So you don’t know why he’s so proud.”

  “This is absurd,” Jenny says, still snappy. I beckon her to be quiet so we can hear Maisie.

  “I told you that when you ran into the building, I ran away, to the bridge. I went up to the fire engines, told the firemen there were people inside the school and we all pushed cars out of the way. I told you that …”

  I remember the sound of people shouting and horns going and the smell of diesel fumes and fire reaching the bridge, as if Maisie’s sensory memory has somehow become mine too. No flimsy insubstantial film this time.

  “While I was there, on the bridge or maybe before, when I was still running to get there, Rowena went into the school.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jenny says; neither do I.

  “She’d seen you run in,” continues Maisie. “Heard you screaming for Jenny. But she didn’t run away. She found a towel in the PE shed and she soaked it in water. She put it over her face. Then she went into the school to help you.”

  Dear God. Rowena going into a burning building. For Jenny. For me.

  “They think she must have been overcome by fumes. She was unconscious when the firemen got to her. She’s not badly hurt, but they were worried she might have some kind of internal damage; they’re still keeping a lookout for that.”

  I never guessed she had that kind of courage, or anything like it.

  Her heroism is extraordinary.

  I don’t think you’ll completely understand, but I know what it’s like to go in. Heat up the grill as high as you can, then put your face inside the oven. Then your whole body. Add choking smoke and no oxygen. Shut the door.

  Instinct and love made me run into that building and then pushed and shoved me onwards. I had the selfish desire to run away, yes, just as I told you. But I needed Jenny in my arms more than I’ve ever needed anything before. Ultimately more than I needed to save myself. And I discovered in that choking burning school that the reason self-preservation can’t win in a mother is because part of yourself is your child.

  But Rowena went in without instinct. Without love. I’ve barely seen her since she went to secondary school, and she’s never been friends with Jenny. But somehow she overcame that terror. Just her courage pushing her on. Like the knights in one of Adam’s Arthurian legends, heroically selfless.

  Adam.

  Rowena was comforting him as I ran into the building, not pausing to even speak to him. Was it Adam’s misery that prompted her?

  “I didn’t realize she was even missing,” Maisie says. “When the fire engines got to the school, there were so many people—parents and teachers and children and press people—and I thought she was there, among the crowd. I just assumed …”

  “I think she was trying to make her father proud, again,” Jenny says.

  “And then a fireman brought her out and she wa
s unconscious,” Maisie continues. “When I told Donald—”

  She breaks off, distressed. Then, with effort and emotion, continues. “You shouldn’t condemn someone, should you? If you love them, if they’re your family, you have to try and see the good. I mean, that’s what love is in some ways, isn’t it? Believing in someone’s goodness.”

  “Does she really believe that?” Jenny asks.

  “Yes, I think she does.”

  “Jesus.”

  Maisie holds my hand more tightly.

  “It’s funny, in one afternoon you know what you’re made of. And you also discover what your child’s made of. And you can feel such shame and such pride at the same time.”

  But it’s her father, not her mother, who Rowena wants to be proud of her. It was for him she went into the burning school. And it was in vain.

  I remember the raw hatred in Donald’s voice. “Quite the little heroine, aren’t you?” Her cry of pain as he grabbed hold of her burnt hands.

  18

  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-duck-pond 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 recognizing names.

  “Yes.”

  “There’s a cafeteria 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 all right. Take your time.”

  Maisie stirs her tea, as if the flimsy plastic spoon gives her something to grip on to, 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 realize 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 gotten 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 all right. But then she was yelling for Jenny, over and over, and I realized 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, 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.