“They’re Kevin’s children,” says Flora. “Mine and Kevin’s. You’re right, they look like . . . their older half-brother and sister, and their eyes aren’t Lewis’s. There are brown-eyed people in my family. My mum has brown eyes like that. Maybe they’re her eyes. I know I always said they were the spitting image of Lewis’s but I never really believed it.”
“She only said it to keep me happy,” says Lewis. “They both had her face, and she thought I’d mind. I probably would have, in those days. I was still an emotional child when we had our kids.”
“Why did you give the children you had with Kevin the same names?” I ask Flora.
“Georgina’s death . . .” she starts to say.
“What? What about it?”
She seems to have frozen. We wait for nearly ten seconds. Then she turns to Lewis. “I can’t,” she says. “You.”
She sounds like a small child. You do it, Daddy.
Lewis rubs his temples with the flats of his hands. “Me,” he says in a low voice. “All right. You want my version? Flora’s never heard my version before, not in my words. Why would she? She already knows the story, so I’ve never needed to tell her, but she seems to want to hear it now. She won’t like it much, but okay. You sure you don’t want to take over?” he asks her.
She shakes her head.
Lewis looks at me. “You won’t like it either. Georgina didn’t die of natural causes. Gerard and Rosemary no doubt told you it was Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It wasn’t. It was neither natural nor unavoidable. Georgina died because Flora made two bad decisions. One: to have Georgina sleep in our bed. Thomas never did, Emily didn’t . . . but Georgina was premature and Flora was neurotic about her. For no reason that I could fathom, she wanted Georgina in bed next to her every night. Insisted it would be better for her. Fine—she was the mother, and I assumed she knew what she was talking about. I moved into the spare room. Couldn’t sleep properly with a snuffling baby that close.
“One night, I came home to find Flora halfway down a bottle of white wine. I was surprised. She didn’t normally drink, but she’d had a tough day with all three kids being difficult in some way. Still, I told her to take it easy. She said she was fine, she’d only had a couple of glasses. I told her that was more than enough and she swore at me—said it was none of my fucking business. It was the first time she’d ever spoken to me like that.
“We had a big row. I went up to my office—my office at home—slammed the door and worked for the rest of the evening. Flora gave the children their baths. That was supposed to be my job, but that night I didn’t care. I was too angry. I heard Flora putting Thomas and Emily to bed, heard them asking why Daddy wasn’t joining in. Then she must have taken Georgina and gone to bed because I didn’t hear anything else. At about ten thirty, I realized I hadn’t eaten and was starving. Flora hadn’t brought me up any supper, which I took to mean that she was still angry with me. I looked in the fridge and the oven—nothing. So I went out. Drove into Huntingdon, got myself a curry. Came home, went to bed in the spare room. I was still pretty angry, and wondering what I’d do if Flora didn’t apologize first thing in the morning. There was no way I was putting up with treatment like that. I went to sleep.”
He seems to be steeling himself to continue. Finally he says, “A few hours later, I was woken by screaming from Flora. I ran to our bedroom and found Georgina lying there, dead. In our bed. She was blue. Not breathing. It was the worst moment of my life.”
“I killed her,” Flora says, her voice no more than a whisper. “I didn’t murder her deliberately. What I did was worse, because I didn’t want her to die but I still caused it to happen: the opposite of what I wanted. Even though I’d drunk that wine, I still put Georgina down by my side, as I always did. Normally it was fine.”
“And this one night it wasn’t,” says Lewis. “Flora rolled on top of her and suffocated her.”
“So now you know.” Flora looks at me. “I’m a woman who got drunk and killed her baby.”
“That’s why you cut your parents out of your life,” I say, starting to understand.
“Not just them,” says Flora. “Everybody. Lewis, Thomas, Emily. You.”
“What do you mean?”
“Lewis didn’t want our marriage to end. Even after what I’d done. It was me. Lewis tried to help me. He was heroic. I didn’t want help, though. I wanted to pretend it had never happened—and that meant getting far, far away from anyone who had known or cared about Georgina. The other two children, and Lewis . . .” Flora shakes her head. “They were my victims as much as she was. I’d deprived them of a sister, a daughter. I’d deprived my parents of a grandchild. I had to get away from all of them.”
“And me?”
“No!” She says it as if having me in her life would have been the worst torment of all. “We’d been so close, Beth. You’d have sensed I was hiding something and dragged the truth out of me. And even if you hadn’t, don’t you understand? I couldn’t tolerate any continuity with my old life. The only way I could live at all was in a world that had never known Georgina. If I could have erased everyone’s memory . . . Obviously I couldn’t, but I made Lewis vow never to tell the others what had happened.”
“By the others, do you mean Thomas and Emily?” I ask.
Flora nods.
Lewis says, “It was bad enough that they’d lost their baby sister. Neither Flora nor I could stand the thought of them knowing the full truth: that their own mother’s negligence had killed her. And no one else could know the truth either, least of all the authorities. Flora might have gone to prison for all we knew. Then Thomas and Emily would have a mother behind bars, I’d have a wife who was a convict. No. Intolerable. Believe me, Beth, I was as keen to conceal the truth as Flora was.”
A tear rolls down Lewis’s cheek and he wipes it away. I’ve never seen him cry before. I don’t like it; it feels wrong.
“It was much easier to say that we’d found Georgina dead and had no idea why she’d stopped breathing,” he goes on. “Thomas and Emily were too young to connect that with the row they’d overheard the night before, me telling Flora to stop drinking.”
“I couldn’t go to prison,” says Flora. “That would have been the thing . . .” She trails off.
“What?” I ask her.
“I was too scared to take my own life, after Georgina died. I wanted to, more than anything—to never feel anything ever again. Couldn’t make myself go through with it. But if there was even a chance I’d go to prison I’d have done it.”
“So you called it cot death and everyone believed you?”
“The parents don’t get to call an infant death anything,” says Lewis. “Doctors decide. We told everyone that we’d found Georgina in her cot, blue and not breathing. People couldn’t have been more sympathetic. There was no hint of any suspicions in our direction. But Georgina had been born premature, and was maybe going to need surgery on her eye when she was a little bit older, so perhaps they found it easy to think of her as a flawed specimen.”
Flora flinches.
Lewis lets out a ragged sigh. “It was a tragedy, and we were in shock and grieving, but we could have survived it. We could have rebuilt our lives—but Flora wouldn’t allow that to happen. She couldn’t give us that chance.”
“I couldn’t live with them and pretend,” she says. “How could I stay there, knowing what I’d done? I didn’t deserve beautiful children and a husband who loved me. And I couldn’t live a lie, no matter how much Lewis wanted me to. What I really wanted, all I wanted, was to die. I prayed it would happen, without me having to do anything.”
“There were moments when I could have killed her,” says Lewis. “Not because of Georgina—because she was proposing to leave me, when all I’d done was protect her and our family.”
“So you left?” I ask Flora. “You abandoned them all?”
“That’s exactly what she did,” says Lewis. “And cut off all contact. With everyone. I had to go with
her to tell her parents. She begged me to do the talking, and I did it. I fucking did it, Beth. Then I had to tell Thomas and Emily that she couldn’t be part of their lives anymore. Flora and I came up with the least upsetting story we could think of in the circumstances: Georgina dying had caused her to have a breakdown, and now she wasn’t herself anymore and couldn’t be around anyone, including them. It was devastating for them to hear that, but what could I do? I could hardly say, ‘Mummy’ll be back any minute now, she’s just nipped to the shops.’ She wasn’t ever coming back to us. She’d made that clear, and I could see it. Even sitting in a room with me, having the conversations we needed to have, she couldn’t stand it. It was like she’d developed an allergy to all of us—me and the children.”
“To myself,” Flora corrects him. “You reminded me, that’s all—of the difference between what I used to be and what I’d become. It was better for Thomas and Emily not to be around me, given the state I was in. Lewis was a good dad, Beth. Is a good dad. Any damage I did by abandoning the family, he repaired.”
“I’m not going to deny that. Fuck it.” Lewis shifts in his chair. “I’m not. We had a rough few years, but slowly, steadily, Thomas and Emily—whose names Flora refuses to say, have you noticed, Beth?—grew into the happy, secure teenagers they are now. Thanks to me. And it has to stay that way. Over my dead body are they going to find out now, after all these years, that Georgina’s death wasn’t a tragic accident.”
“I won’t say anything,” I tell him. What good would it do, at this late stage? “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how awful it must have been.”
“Well, what can I say?” Lewis laughs bitterly. “Thank you, Beth, for making this little trip down Memory Lane possible. Can I go now? I need to get back to the office.”
“Without me?” Flora asks expressionlessly.
“Yes, without you,” he snaps. “I’m going to take a little break from trying to help you, if that’s okay.”
“But how will I get back to the house?”
“You’ll figure out a way.” Lewis stands up.
“I’ve got more questions,” I say.
“Oh, I bet you have. Flora can answer them.” In an angry, singsong voice he says, “Flora has decided today is a talking day. Good-bye, Beth.”
Without another word, he leaves the room.
22
I stand up and walk over to the window, to give Flora a chance to compose herself. She started to cry when Lewis left and hasn’t stopped since. Sunlight is streaming into the room, streaking the carpet and furniture with stripes of gold. They create a bar-like effect and make me think of prison—something that was in my mind even before Lewis and Flora came up to my hotel room, thanks to Chimpy.
There’s a darkness in here that’s almost suffocating; the light from outside can’t touch it. The shimmering turquoise swimming pool, palm trees and orange sun umbrellas on the other side of the glass look as implausible as a stage set that’s way too good to be true.
I flick the catch, slide the balcony door open and step outside. The hot air hugs my face. It’s a welcome relief. When the heat gets too much, I slide the door closed again.
“You should tell the truth, Flora. To your parents, the police, everybody. Instead of walking around like a shadow, hiding a horrible secret. You shouldn’t have to live like this for the rest of your life.”
“It’s better than having everyone know. Don’t tell me it isn’t. You can’t imagine how it feels to have done what I’ve done. It would destroy my parents if they knew.”
“And Thomas and Emily?” I say, wondering if Lewis is right about her unwillingness to say their names.
“Them too. I don’t want to hurt Lewis’s children any more than I already have. He’s been good to me. No one deserves any more pain.”
“Including you?”
“I deserve nothing,” she says quietly. “Nothing good, anyway.”
“They’re your children too, Flora. Not only Lewis’s.”
“Not anymore.”
“How much of what you’ve just told me do Kevin and Yanina know?”
“Nothing.” An impatient look passes across her face. “Why do you think I married Kevin? If he’d known, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near him. After Georgina died, when I left everything behind, I thought I’d be alone forever. That was what I deserved and what I wanted. Then I met Kevin, and he . . . he pursued me. I realized that I could maybe have a family again. As long as no one in my new life knew the truth. I’d changed my name by then, to Jeanette Dawson. Dawson was my mum’s maiden name. You won’t be able to understand this, but . . . I convinced myself I was a different person.”
“You didn’t tell Kevin you’d been married before?”
“He knew about Lewis, but not that I’d had any children with him. I lied about that. When I was pregnant with . . .” She stops. Starts again. “I made sure he never came to doctor or hospital appointments. It wasn’t hard. He had no interest in them. He’s not interested in much, Kevin. I don’t love him or particularly like him.”
“Then why . . . ?”
“Can’t you guess?” Flora smiles through her tears. “I wanted more children. Knowing you don’t deserve something doesn’t make you stop wanting it. I was weak. I shouldn’t have let myself accept Kevin’s proposal, but once I did, the rest just—” She breaks off and frowns. “No, it didn’t just happen. That’s not true. I let it happen. I was Jeanette now, so it was okay. That’s what I told myself—that it would be okay.”
“So you had two more children? With Kevin, not with Lewis?”
“They’re Kevin’s, Beth.”
“You had two children, and you called them Thomas and Emily.”
“You know I did. That’s why you’re here.”
“Why did you choose those names?”
She stares at me. Is she hoping I’ll withdraw the question?
“Why, Flora?”
“I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I wanted what I’d lost, I suppose. Kevin would have let me call them anything. Up to me, he said.”
“How did he feel when you told him you were going to Florida suddenly? If he knows nothing about what happened in the past, how did you explain this trip? Isn’t Kevin wondering what the hell’s going on?”
“I blamed it on you,” says Flora.
“Me?”
“When Lewis rang me to say you’d been in touch, my heart nearly stopped right then and there. I hadn’t seen or heard from him in twelve years. I was a nervous wreck. There was no way you’d contact Lewis after so many years unless you suspected something—I knew that. And Marilyn Oxley, my neighbor . . . she’d told Kevin that you’d asked her if our children were called Thomas and Emily. I had to get away from you, Beth. To make sure this didn’t happen. I didn’t want you to know, and I knew I could so easily break down and tell you if we met. You were my best friend for so long. We knew everything about each other, didn’t we?”
I nod.
“I couldn’t risk that. Lewis knew it was a risk, too. He said, ‘Cast iron rule: you don’t see her, you don’t speak to her, you don’t let her come anywhere near you.’ So I did everything he said, like I always have, apart from that one night—the night Georgina died, when I wanted a drink and then another drink so badly that I ended up killing my own daughter.”
“What happened to Georgina was an accident, Flora. If you want to say it was an accident that only happened because you made a bad decision, then tell yourself that . . . but even so, you should stop torturing yourself. Everyone makes bad decisions. And it was twelve years ago. Isn’t it time you forgave yourself?”
“What an excellent idea.” She eyes me coldly. “I’ll just do that, then, shall I?”
“Has Lewis told you you should forgive yourself? If you always do what he says—”
“He said it when it first happened, before I told him I was leaving. Hasn’t said it since.” She smiles as if at a fond memory. “Lewis has always been extraordinarily selfish.
Breathtakingly so, really. If I was going to remain as his wife and the mother of his children, then he didn’t want me to torture myself. It would have a terrible effect on them—his family. But if I’m leaving? Well, then he’s certainly not going to tell me to forgive myself, is he?”
“You said a minute ago that he’d been good to you.”
“He has, purely for his and his children’s sake. He doesn’t care about me anymore. Couldn’t you tell? I don’t mind. I still appreciate his help. I’m as obedient an ex-wife as I was a wife.” Flora laughs as if we’re having an ordinary conversation. “When he rang to say you’d contacted him on Instagram, I followed his instructions to the letter: pretended we were still together and living in Florida, a happy family of five. Going along with his plans was my only option. He could think straight and I couldn’t.”
“And you told Kevin what? ‘Someone I want to avoid is poking around in my business, so I’m going to have to go and stay with my ex-husband in Florida’?”
She recoils. “I’m not staying with Lewis and his children. I’d never do that. He wouldn’t allow it, either. Lewis arranged another house for me to stay in. I’m not part of their life anymore, and we both want to keep it that way. I’m a coward, Beth. I’m not confident and brave like you.”
“I asked about Kevin,” I remind her.
“Kevin understood, yes. He doesn’t pry into my business. That’s one of his best qualities.”
Got it. Prying is bad. Message delivered, loud and clear.
“So together, you and Lewis made a plan to mislead me because you thought the questions I was asking might lead to the truth coming out.” As I say it, I try to imagine the conversations they must have had if this is true. I picture Kevin Cater, not privy to these discussions, saying to Yanina, “Flora and her ex-husband must have some unfinished business to deal with, relating to this old friend. I’m not going to pry.”
“We knew you knew about the names,” says Flora. “How could I explain to you why I’d used the same ones? I knew it was the first question you’d ask me if you got the chance. There’s no explanation that makes any sense apart from the truth! And if I told you I was estranged from . . . from . . .” She covers her face with her hands.
Perfect Little Children Page 24
