‘Don’t lie to me! How long have you been reading my letters?’
Mum’s hand flies to her face, and she starts to take off her glasses, but then changes her mind, leaving them skewed across her nose like a child’s seesaw. I look at her and I don’t see my mother. Only rage, a giant hotplate of fury.
‘How long have you been reading my letters?’ I ask, for the third time. I don’t think I have ever spoken to her in this tone. ‘And don’t lie,’ I say. ‘Not again. Seriously, Mum, do not lie to me.’
I’m wholly unprepared for what comes next. I’m expecting weeping, my mother slumped on the floor begging forgiveness, when suddenly she turns, sweeping the letter into the air as if it were a parking ticket or some other insult to her existence. It zigzags slowly towards the floor. ‘Like you’ve lied to me?’ she says. ‘Like you lied to me about wanting to go to LA for a “holiday”? About wanting to see your friend Nathan, do a bit of surfing? Like you lied to me about Alan having an “emergency” the day you got back?’
With a deliberateness I find mesmerizing, she moves forward and plants her hand on the bench that runs down the centre of this part of the workshop. ‘Like you lied to me about that . . . that girl ?’ She stares wildly at me, as if searching for her son in the face of a serial killer. ‘How could you? How could you have slept with her, Eddie? How could you betray your sister like that? ’
She must have been reading my letters for months.
No wonder she’s been so paranoid and clingy since I got back from LA. And no wonder she tried everything in her power to stop me going over there in the first place. Usually when I tell her I’m planning a trip, she looks pleased, because it allows her to convince herself I’m still having a life. This time she behaved as if I were emigrating to Australia.
‘That girl,’ she adds, shuddering. She looks like she’s talking about a rapist or a paedophile, not Sarah Harrington. Although I guess that to Mum there’s no moral distinction. ‘I meant what I said that day. I hope it was her in that hearse.’
‘Jesus Christ , Mum!’ I breathe. My voice is soft with wonder. ‘After all you’ve been through, you wish the same pain on someone else? Are you for real?’
She makes a dismissive noise with her mouth. My mind leaps in all directions, finding clues everywhere. This is why she’s started to become ill again. She has known about Sarah for months.
‘Was it you who called her?’ I ask quietly. ‘On the phone? Was it you who sent her that threatening message? Is that why you wanted to get a new phone back in July?’
I’ve started getting those marketing calls, she’d said. They’re really stressing me out, Eddie. I need a new phone number.
‘Yes. It was me who called her. And I don’t regret it.’ She’s wearing a pink jumper. For some reason the pink makes this ugliness all the more shocking.
‘And did you turn up at her old school that day? Did you lurk about on the canal path near her parents’ house when she came down to visit?’
‘Yes.’ She’s almost shouting ! ‘Somebody had to do something. I could not have her infect you. You’re all I have left!
‘Somebody had to do something,’ she repeats, when I fail to reply. ‘And you obviously weren’t going to. Moping around like that, telling your poor sister how much you loved the woman who killed her . . .’ She trails off. She’s hissing again. I stop hearing the words. All I can think is, Do you have any idea what I have gone through to keep you safe from this? How lonely I’ve been? Do you have any idea what I have sacrificed for the sake of your sanity?
It comes to me at some point that she has stopped talking. Her eyes are wide and glassy with tears.
‘How did you get Sarah’s phone number?’ I hear myself asking, although I know the answer. ‘How did you know she was at her old school that day? Have you been looking at my phone, too?’
She tells me yes. ‘And it’s your fault, Eddie, so don’t you get angry with me. I had to intervene, somehow. I had to try to protect Alex from . . . from this. ’
A tear escapes her eye, but her voice remains firm. ‘It’s your fault,’ she repeats. ‘You who love to talk about choice! You had a choice, and you chose that woman. That girl .’
I shake my head, sickened. Her hatred is as livid and vital as it was in the weeks following Alex’s death, intact after all these years.
‘It’s your fault,’ she repeats once more. ‘And I will not apologize.’
And with that I feel a rupture in my skin – those layers, so thin and strained, so many years, just give way and it all haemorrhages out. The resentment, anger, loneliness, anxiety, fear, whatever – you name it, it’s all storming out like a burst water main. I know in that moment that I cannot carry on like this. I’m done.
I lean against the door, exhausted. And when my voice comes out, it’s oddly level, as if I’m reading the shipping forecast.
‘No,’ I say blankly. (Bay of Biscay: good. ) ‘No, Mum, you’re not blaming me. I am not responsible for your actions. I am not responsible for how you feel, or what you think. It all comes from you. None of it is mine. You chose to read my letters. You chose to harass Sarah. You chose to turn what’s happened to me in the last few months – which, for the record, has been hell – into some sort of grand betrayal. You did that all on your own; I didn’t do a thing.’
She starts to cry in earnest, although she still looks furious.
‘I am not responsible for your illness, Mum. Nor is Sarah. I have done my best for you – my very best – while you’ve invaded the only tiny bit of privacy I thought I had left.’
She shakes her head.
‘Yes, I met Sarah, and yes, I fell for her. But I gave her up the moment – the second – I found out. And everything I’ve done since then has been in your best interests. Not mine, yours . And you’re still blaming me?’
I watch her consider her response. She’s starting to panic. It’s not that she’s listened to what I’ve said, or thought about it, or (God forbid) realized that I might have a point; it’s more that she’s used to me having given way by this stage, and it’s beginning to dawn on her that I won’t.
So she does what I knew she’d do, eventually: she recasts herself as victim.
‘OK,’ she says, and the tears begin to stream down her face. ‘OK, Eddie, it’s my fault. It’s my fault that I have this awful, miserable life, that I’m trapped in my house, taking all that horrid medication. It’s all my fault.’
She watches my face, but I don’t move a muscle. ‘You tell yourself whatever you like, Eddie, but really you have no idea how hard my life is.’
Given that I’ve been looking after her for nineteen years, I think this is a little unfair.
We stand like two pawns in a chessboard face-off. Mum breaks eye contact first, doubtless to make me feel like the aggressor. She looks wretchedly down at the bench, tears squeezing and dripping into the deep ruts and saw marks below.
‘Don’t leave me, Eddie,’ she says eventually, like I knew she would. ‘I’m sorry I did what I did. I’m just devastated about you and . . . her. It’s destroyed me.’
I close my eyes.
‘Don’t leave me, Eddie,’ she repeats.
I move round the bench and hug her. A tiny sparrow of a human being, so easily crushed. I hold her, rigid, and think of my ex-girlfriend Gemma. This was the moment she could never truly understand. The moment when, even after Mum had pushed me to the outer edge of my capabilities, it was still my job to comfort her, to tell her everything was OK. The capitulation was totally inexplicable to Gemma. But I suppose that, like most people, she’s never had the experience of being responsible for someone else’s mental well-being. She’s never lost her sister, and then, nearly, her mother.
This time, though, it’s different. I’m hugging Mum because I have to, but inside the landscape has already changed.
It’s raining by the time I get her into the Land Rover and drive her home. The sky is stuffed with grey clouds, swarming quickly over each other like angry thoughts. I apologize silently to Sarah. Wherever she is. I don’t wish you dead , I tell her. I wish you only happiness.