Afterwards

by Rosamund Lupton

  “So was it an investor who wanted a fire?”

  “Nobody wanted a fire. Nobody!”

  “Wasn’t that why you wanted those fire precautions in place, so that the insurance would pay out?”

  “No!”

  “And no one gives a damn about Jenny and Grace. Just fucking money.”

  She’s here as your sister and she can swear if she wants to.

  Mrs. Healey is just staring at her school.

  “I heard that some of the children have already been given places in other schools,” she says, her voice very quiet now. “And who’s going to give me a job? When I allowed my school to burn down, when one of my teaching assistants is so badly hurt?”

  “A colleague of mine will interview you formally,” Sarah says, curtly.

  Tears mix with the sweat on Mrs. Healey’s cheeks.

  “We were never going to come back from this, were we? Whatever I did.”

  29

  On her car phone Sarah tells Mohsin about the ticking financial time bomb at Sidley House. As she speaks, I remember Paul Prezzner, the Telegraph journalist, talking to Tara. “The point is that it’s a business. A multimillion-pound business. And it’s gone up in smoke. That’s what you should be investigating.”

  Jenny had thought so too.

  “I’m sorry,” Mohsin says when Sarah finishes. “We’ll get people onto it straightaway. Talk to the head teacher, get the background on the investors. The whole shebang.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I leave you alone for an hour,” he says, his voice affectionate, “and you create a whole new line of inquiry. New suspect. New motive.”

  “Yup.”

  Adam is so close now to being cleared. And surely that will help him; surely that will mean he can talk again.

  Mohsin is quiet; on speaker phone we can hear him take a couple of breaths.

  “Baker’s getting Davies to contact you about the disciplinary meeting. He wants you to come in at three today. But this may make him drop it.”

  “I doubt that, somehow. I do mind, you know, even if I don’t show it, about losing my job.”

  “It won’t come to that.”

  “It may come to much worse than that. The thing is, I’ve just got too much to worry about to really notice that I’m worrying about that too. Has Ivo left?”

  “About twenty minutes ago. He should be there by now.”

  We arrive back at the hospital, but I can’t see Jenny.

  I follow Sarah to the ICU.

  You and Ivo are standing next to each other in the corridor. You’re looking at Jenny through the glass, but Ivo isn’t. Have you noticed that?

  No, that isn’t a criticism of him, because none of us can bear to look at her; but we are her parents, so we have no choice.

  “I’m pretty sure it was fraud, Mike,” Sarah says to you.

  You stare at Jenny, not turning to Sarah.

  “Do you know who?”

  “Not yet. We’re checking it all out, making sure the paper trail’s there.”

  She doesn’t tell you about her disciplinary meeting with Baker, that the ice has given way beneath her now.

  “Does it matter?” Ivo says, speaking for the first time. “Who did this or why?”

  I understand why to him it doesn’t matter. Will the who or the why mend her body, heal her face? How can anything matter compared with that?

  No one’s yet told him that Adam’s been accused, that he’s the reason it matters.

  Ivo turns away and leaves. The doors of the ICU bang shut behind him.

  Where is Jenny?

  I go after him, calling out, “No. Don’t go. Please.”

  He hurries on, me at his side.

  “She doesn’t mean it, saying she doesn’t want to see you. She’s just trying to feel that way, to protect herself, but it won’t last. She wants to see you desperately. I know her so well, you see. And she adores you.”

  He’s reached the escalator.

  “She’ll come to find you. Soon. Because she won’t be able to keep this up much longer. And she’ll need you to be at her side.”

  He walks quickly along the ground-floor corridor towards the exit, not hearing me.

  “You have to be with her.”

  He doesn’t turn.

  I yell at him, “Don’t do this to her!”

  He gets to the glass wall that abuts the garden. He stops.

  In the garden, Jenny is sitting on the wrought-iron seat.

  He looks at her through the glass, totally still now. People swarming past him.

  How does he know she’s there? How?

  He looks for the door and finds it.

  As he’s about to go out, a security guard comes up to him.

  “That garden’s not for use. It’s just for looking at.”

  “I have to go out there.”

  From the security guard’s point of view Ivo must look a little mad—shaky, his face white but with eyes oddly glowing.

  “If it’s outside you’re after, go out of our main exit, sir; walk along the road and follow the signs to the park.”

  Ivo doesn’t move.

  The security guard waits a moment, decides he can’t be bothered to do much about this, and walks away. I wonder if he’ll call Psychiatry and check that all their in-patients are accounted for.

  I think things like this so I won’t feel Ivo’s emotion that seems to shatter the glass between them. Not a hormonal tide, as I’d once patronizingly assumed, made of an overflow of teenage glands, but something finer and lighter and purer—love that is young.

  I was wrong about him. Horribly so. I distrusted him because he was so different from you. And because I’d rather feel itchy distrust and skepticism than flesh-wounding jealousy.

  When Jenny told me about her and Ivo staring at each other’s faces in Chiswick Park, I tried to bury missing the way you once looked at me: “Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread / Our eyes upon one double string.”

  But at some point—how long ago? Was it sudden or gradual?—the double string turned into a washing line of domesticity.

  Who’s going to stare at my thirty-nine-year-old face for an entire afternoon?

  Deep down, I must have always known that this was about me, not him.

  That looking at Ivo, with Jenny, was looking at what I’d lost.

  “Oh grow up!” says my nanny voice. “Stop whining! For goodness’ sake, you’re a thirty-nine-year-old mother of two, what do you expect?” She’s right. I’m sorry.

  Ivo goes into the forbidden garden.

  He goes towards Jenny.

  But she hurriedly leaves.

  “Jenny …?” I say.

  “I want him to leave me alone.”

  I look at her, not understanding.

  “I don’t want to see him! I told you that!”

  She walks quickly away from the garden and Ivo.

  He looks around, as if searching for her. Then he leaves too, confused and hurt. As if he knows he’s lost her.

  And perhaps I have too, in a small way.

  Because I don’t understand her, Mike.

  I don’t know her and I thought I did.

  Ivo waits by the garden, hoping she’ll return. And I wait too. But there’s no sign of her.

  I’m not sure how long we’ve been here now, and still no sign of Jenny, but I’ve just spotted Mohsin hurrying along an upper walkway.

  When I catch up with him, he’s meeting Sarah.

  “I tried to get you on your mobile, but it’s switched off,” he says.

  “Not allowed near the ICU.”

  “The fraud line plays out. The head teacher is giving a statement backing up what you said, and Davies has been looking more closely at the investors. The Whitehall Park Road Trust Company put two million pounds into Sidley House School thirteen years ago.” He pauses a moment. “It’s owned by Donald White.”

  The fraud has a face now, one that had seemed warmly avuncular and then became harsh und
er the hospital lights and closer scrutiny.

  “It fits with what you suspect,” Mohsin continues. “If he’s capable of domestic violence, then I think he’d be capable of arson.”

  He puts his arm around Sarah.

  “Baker’s ‘reassessing’ the witness report against Adam. Which is code for he fucked up. He now thinks—we all do—that this was fraud. And that Adam played no part in the arson attack.”

  Relief feels like a cool wind, a balm. And I see that Sarah feels it too. I long for her to run to you, right now, and tell you.

  “Donald White could have attacked Jenny that first night,” Sarah says. “When her oxygen was tampered with. His daughter was in the burns unit too. If he’d been discovered, no one would have questioned him being there.”

  “Baker’s brought him in for questioning,” Mohsin says. “I’m going to talk to Rowena and Maisie White now. See if they can shed any light on what Dad’s been up to.”

  Sarah kisses Mohsin lightly on the cheek. “I’ll tell Mike.”

  I go with Mohsin into the burns unit and towards Rowena’s room. Maisie is with her, unpacking some toiletries from a floral washbag.

  “… and I’ve brought your Clinique soap as well as the nice bath one—” She sees Mohsin and stops talking. I think she seems afraid.

  “Maisie White?” He holds out his hand and she takes it. “I’m Detective Sergeant Farouk.” He turns to Rowena. “And you’re Rowena White?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d like to ask both of you a few questions.”

  Maisie steps towards Rowena.

  “She’s not really in a state to—”

  “That’s why I’ve come to talk to you here, rather than ask you to come to the police station.”

  Rowena rests her bandaged hand lightly on her mother’s.

  “Mummy, I’m fine. Really.”

  “I gather that Mr. White was an investor in Sidley House School?” Mohsin asks.

  “Yes,” Maisie says, her voice oddly terse.

  “Why didn’t he use his name?”

  “We wanted to keep it private,” Maisie says. She looks anxious. “Why do you want to know about it?”

  “If you could answer my questions. You were saying that you want to keep the investment private?”

  “Yes. I mean, we didn’t want Rowena to be seen differently than other children when she was at the school. Didn’t want anyone thinking she was getting special treatment or anything. And I, well, I had one or two really good friends there. I didn’t want them to watch what they said about the school. Using a trust name, not ours, made it feel not so much to do with us. And pretty quickly that’s what it felt like. I mean, Donald invested the money and then we all sort of forgot about it.”

  “Forgot about a two-million-pound investment?” Mohsin asks.

  “Mum didn’t mean it like that,” Rowena says. “It was more that we dissociated the school with the financial investment Daddy had made.”

  Maisie is blushing, and I think she feels a twit! And I feel sorry for her because I do believe her. I think she shoved it under the carpet and got on with being just a normal parent at the school.

  “But it must have generated an income?” Mohsin asks.

  “It didn’t for ages,” Maisie says. “It’s only been quite recently that it’s been paying anything.”

  “It’s been our only source of income actually,” Rowena says. “Dad’s other businesses didn’t weather the recession very well.”

  “Did you know that you were about to lose all of that money and the income it generated?”

  “Yes,” Rowena says immediately. “We discussed it as a family,” she continues. She’s trying to be the adult, mature.

  “It wasn’t that big a thing,” Maisie says. “I know that sounds silly. But money isn’t everything, is it? And we’ll be all right. I mean, we’re going to have to sell the house. Get somewhere smaller or rent. But in the great scheme of things, well, that’s not what happiness is about, is it? Where you live? And Rowena’s finished at school now, so there are no more school fees. That would have been the only really hard thing to change, if she’d had to leave her school.”

  “And how does your husband feel about this?”

  “He’s disappointed,” Maisie says, quietly. “He wanted to give Rowena everything. In her second year at Oxford she has to live out of college and Donald had planned to buy her a little flat of her own. We didn’t want her in some student house that could be miles from her lectures and not very safe. And it would be an investment, too, we thought. But clearly … well, that’s not possible. Poor Rowena, it was a big blow.”

  But I think there might be a more sinister reason for Donald wanting to buy Rowena a flat. Did he want to continue controlling her, under the guise of indulgent father?

  “I don’t mind not having the flat,” Rowena says. “Really. Not a bit.”

  “And she’ll have to get a student loan and a job while she’s at university,” Maisie says. “And that’s hard. I mean, when you’re studying as well. I don’t mind for me. I mean, I’d quite like a job, actually.”

  “Mummy, the police officer doesn’t want to hear all of this.”

  “Do you think your father was just disappointed?” Mohsin asks Rowena.

  Maisie quickly answers for her. “He was also upset, of course he was. But there was nothing anyone could do about it.”

  “I have to tell you that your husband has been taken to Chiswick police station for questioning.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Rowena is pale. “The fire, Mummy. They must think it’s fraud.”

  “But that’s just ridiculous!” Maisie says. “He once joked that he’d burn the place down, but it was just a joke. You don’t joke about something like that if you’re actually going to do it, do you?”

  “I’d like to talk to you in private later, Mrs. White, but for now I want to ask Rowena a few questions.”

  “She has nothing to tell you. Nothing.”

  “Rowena? Do you want to talk to me without …”

  I see Rowena’s eyes meet Maisie’s.

  “I’d like Mum to stay.”

  Gently, thoughtfully, Mohsin probes Rowena about Donald. But each avenue of questioning is blocked off by Rowena’s loyalty. No, he’s never lost his temper. No! He’d never hurt her in any way at all. He’s a devoted father.

  As I listen to Rowena’s earnest voice I think how different she is from Jenny. Not just her seriousness and what she’s had to contend with during her life, but even the words she uses. None of them would be found in that dictionary Jenny made for me. I wonder how often she chats to her contemporaries, if she has any friends.

  “You’ve got it all wrong!” she finally bursts out. “Daddy didn’t do anything. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. You’ve got it all wrong.”

  As Rowena cries, Maisie puts her arms protectively around her.

  She and Maisie have both covered for him over the years, and surely they’re covering for him now.

  Jenny thought Rowena ran into the burning building to make Donald proud, but was it to protect him again, by trying to limit the harm he’d done?

  I’d thought that Rowena needed love to push her into that burning school. Maybe it was love for her father, however little he deserved it, that had made her go in.

  Mohsin, clearly frustrated, winds up his interview. Maisie is going to the police station, despite Mohsin telling her she won’t be allowed to see Donald. I don’t understand her loyalty to him. Not with Rowena being hurt too. I just don’t understand.

  But it doesn’t matter. The hows and whys don’t matter.

  Adam is cleared.

  You are at my bedside, silent. I’m not sure what I expected, hoped for, not a smile on your face, but a relaxation in your body now that Adam is exonerated. But your muscles are wound so tight that your body looks unnaturally stiff, like a marionette.

  Where’s the man in the Cambridge tea shop who was going to climb and
abseil and white-water raft through life?

  When I reach the bed, you tell me about the insurance fraud, that Adam won’t be blamed anymore. “About bloody time too!” And for a moment there’s an energy in your voice, but that’s as much relief as you have. Because no heart has been found for Jenny, and I am still in a coma.

  Then you tell me that a heart will be found for Jen, and that I will wake up. And that man is right here by my bedside. Not a marionette but a climber. How absurd I was to think you could relax at all now, how insensitive and stupid. Every fiber of your strength is needed to carry us both up that mountain of hope; our weight is the weight of your love for us, an almost impossible burden.

  I’m so sorry for what I said about Ivo earlier. Because we do love each other, I know that. Not with that intensely perfect young love we once had, but with something stronger and more durable. Our love has aged with us; less beautiful, yes—but more muscular and robust. Married love, which is built to last.

  I return with you to the ICU for yours and Sarah’s changing of the guard at Jenny’s bedside. Despite Donald being in custody, you’ve refused to stop guarding her.

  “Not till the bastard’s admitted it. Not till we’re totally sure.” Maybe you’re finding it hard to let go of your suspicion of Silas Hyman, despite the evidence against Donald. You need a written confession, something tangible before you’ll desert your post.

  Like me, I think that each time you leave her ward and then return, you allow yourself to hope that a heart has been found for her. And that somehow not being there will make it more likely—a watched-pot-never-boils on a life-and-death scale.

  Nothing has changed.

  Jenny is outside the ICU.

  “No heart?” she says and waits a moment. “Sounds like a bid in bridge.”

  “Jen …”

  “Yeah. Gallows. Sorry. Aunt Sarah’s phoning Addie and Granny G.” Her face crumples. “He’s in the clear, Mum.” Her relief is expressed in tears. Her love for Addie is one intrinsic fact about her that never changes.

  “About Ivo, Jen—”

  She pulls sharply away from me. “Lay off the interrogation. Please.”

  She walks quickly away, and I watch her go.

  I think I glimpse someone in a blue coat, getting out of the lift. I hurry towards him.