by Julie Corbin
I shake my head.
‘So.’ She swallows her mouthful. ‘Back to my mum.’
‘Yes.’ I nod, keen to get this over with. ‘Did your dad’s diaries mention why your mum was in hospital?’
‘She had a brain tumour.’
‘That’s right. A grade IV astrocytoma, a highly malignant tumour that infiltrates the brain and can be a considerable size before it becomes symptomatic.’
She finishes the muesli bar and crosses her arms and legs. ‘The diaries make it sound like everyone gave up on Mum the moment she got the diagnosis. Especially Dad.’
‘That’s not fair on him, Kirsty. They were so much in love and they were finally having a baby they’d longed for and she had cancer. It was unbearable for him.’
‘But what about her? How unbearable must it have been for her?’
‘I’m sure in her blackest moments she was very afraid. But what I remember most about her is that she was incredibly brave and very happy because she was having the baby she’d always wanted.’
‘A baby she never got to hold.’
‘That’s true. But your mum did know that she was not going to live much longer than a few months.’
‘How can you say that?’ She throws out her arms. ‘You’re not God!’
‘I saw her neurological scans. She didn’t have a healthy brain and, statistically, to live for any length of time with an aggressive tumour of that size is not possible.’
‘So you do think you’re God?’
‘No, I—’
‘And if she was going to die, then what difference would killing her a few months early make? Is that what you thought?’
‘Absolutely not—’
‘No need for you to feel guilty. Poor woman was already on her way out.’
‘Kirsty!’ I try to take hold of her hands but she stands up and moves to the other side of the room.
‘That poor woman was my mother!’ she shouts. ‘And in a few months they might have found a cure!’
‘They didn’t find a cure. They still haven’t. There are treatments but—’
‘But they could have found a cure! They might have operated on her and got some clue from the way her brain was working. The right forensic team with the right surgeon at exactly the right moment. They could have developed a treatment from studying my mother’s case. From my mother.’ She rushes towards me and I stand up before she lands on my knee. ‘Tell me that’s impossible,’ she says quietly. ‘Tell me.’
‘It’s not im-poss-ible,’ I say slowly. ‘But it’s so improbable as to be extremely unlikely.’
‘But it isn’t impossible.’ She pushes me in the hollow of my shoulder and I stumble back towards the window, my arms automatically stretching forwards to keep her away from me, but there’s no need because she’s turned her face into the wall and has her arms wrapped around herself, not making a sound. Sunshine is filtering through the lace curtains, spilling honey-coloured light on to the carpet, and I move the curtain to one side, looking out on to the front street where people are far below me, hurrying about their business. It’s still raining, but the sun has dodged the clouds and I know that somewhere out there, people will be admiring a rainbow.
‘A monkey’s wedding,’ Kirsty says, coming to stand beside me, her expression calm again. ‘That’s what my dad always said. When it rains and shines together, it’s a monkey’s wedding. Daft, isn’t it?’
I look at my watch. It’s already after five o’clock. In exactly an hour I need to meet the children at the police station, even although it now seems pointless to go through the rigmarole of taking prints when Kirsty’s all but admitted to doing it.
‘Do you have somewhere to be?’ she asks me.
‘I do.’
‘I’m sorry I lashed out just now.’ She looks genuinely contrite but then how would I know? She’s already made a point of showing me her acting skills. She returns to her seat, patting the space on the bed in front of her. ‘Please sit down again.’
I consider my options – there are only two: I leave or I stay. I came here to give her a chance to talk and to find out whether my past mistake was responsible for what’s been happening and clearly it is. So I can leave the rest to O’Reilly, or I can stay and pursue the details myself.
It doesn’t take me long to decide that I’ll stay. I want to hear what she has to say about the night Robbie’s drink was spiked. And I want to know whether she’s planning anything else, because if she is, then I need to stop her.
‘What do you want from me, Kirsty?’ My skirt’s beginning to dry but it still feels cold and uncomfortable, and I sit down on the remaining chair to benefit from the patch of sunlight. She reacts by pulling her chair towards me so that we’re only a foot away from each other.
‘Good. I’m glad you’re staying.’ She smiles. ‘I want us to work out a way to fix this problem that we have with each other.’
‘I don’t have a problem with you.’
‘Even when I admit to what I’ve done?’
‘Tell me.’
‘I wasn’t the only one.’ She looks up at me through dipped lashes. ‘There was someone else involved too.’
‘Tess Williamson?’
‘Tess Williamson,’ she affirms, shaking her head, as if simply saying Tess’s name speaks volumes in itself. ‘She was on the phone just now having a meltdown about the whole thing and – well,’ she widens her eyes, ‘you’ve met her. She has all the courage of the lion from The Wizard of Oz.’ Her expression is contemptuous, and I can easily imagine her manipulating Tess until she does as she says. ‘Okay, so I suppose I haven’t always been that kind to her but Tess wants friends.’ She shrugs. ‘Some people have to buy their way into friendships. Others don’t. That’s the way it works.’
‘What do you mean by “the whole thing”?’
She looks at me blankly.
‘You said Tess was having a meltdown about “the whole thing”.’
‘We came to your house,’ she says lightly. ‘We wrote “murderer” on your living-room wall.’
My feeling of shock is brief – isn’t this what I’ve been expecting? It’s almost a relief to know that I’ve got to the source. But behind that relief is anger and I can’t risk unleashing it. If she wrote on the wall, did she also almost kill Robbie? I shake my head to clear the thought.
‘Why did you write “murderer” on the wall?’ I say.
‘It was Tess’s idea. When you were first put up for the City Women award I was really upset and Tess told me I should get revenge.’
‘This was last September?’
‘Yes. I’d known about you for a while because I’d found my dad’s diaries earlier in the year when he had another stint in hospital and I was clearing out the loft.’ She tilts her head. ‘Just imagine it. I’d recently found out that a Dr Naughton had killed my mother and I was wondering what to do with that news when I read all about you in the papers. How you were Irish and your maiden name was Naughton and that you’d trained in Edinburgh and worked in neurosurgery. And now you were a GP into do-gooding on a grand scale. Like you were curing cancer or something. When in fact you’re nothing special, are you?’
‘No, I’m not. I’m a flawed human being, capable of making wrong decisions. And living to regret them.’
‘Tess thought I should take revenge there and then but I was curious about you. I wanted to get to know you and when I saw you had a teenage son I thought that was the best way.’
‘So you joined the hockey club?’
‘Luckily, the club standard isn’t very high. Meetings are on Fridays and I was already a weekly boarder at Sanderson.’ She shrugs. ‘It worked like a dream.’
‘You were operating under a false name and you came into my house under false pretences.’ I hold her eyes. ‘That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?’
‘My life has always been extreme.’ She thinks for a moment, her expression serious. ‘You have a nice family, you know?’
‘Yes
, I know.’
‘I’ve lived in a few families and mostly they’re teetering on the edge of misery. But you three are generous and friendly and you laugh a lot. For a while I really thought I was over it. I was being Emily and people like Emily and it feels good being liked.’ She laughs. ‘That’s an ironic laugh because Kirsty isn’t anyone’s favourite. I’m sure when you spoke to the girls at Sanderson they told you that.’
‘They did.’
‘You’re newly divorced, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you want to fight back at your husband – hurt him, kill him even?’
‘I’ve never thought about killing him, but I have been angry, depressed at times and spiteful.’
‘Did you do anything?’
‘Kirsty.’ I sigh. ‘Can we just stick to the point?’
‘This is the point.’ The fire in her eyes keeps me tied to her. ‘Did you do anything?’
‘I thought about all those things women do – emptying joint bank accounts, cutting up his suits, sewing prawns into curtain seams so that the smell of rotting fish would drive him nuts – but I didn’t do any of that.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘Well . . . I gave some of his stuff to our local charity shop and he had to buy it back.’
She smiles. ‘Go on.’
‘And I hung about outside his flat a couple of times, waylaid him, made a fool of myself until he called the police on me.’
‘Bastard,’ she says, her voice hushed with empathy. ‘Sounds like you’re better off without him. And you’ve not turned to drink?’ She affects an accent. ‘You being Irish ’n all.’
I shake my head. ‘No.’ In fact I have been drunk a few times when the kids were with Phil and I only had Benson for an audience.
‘And did you have the perfect upbringing? Cut flowers in a vase on the kitchen table, the smell of baking when you opened the front door?’ She’s shifted mood again and now she’s an interviewer, all teeth and exaggerated interest. ‘A mother who dried her hands on her apron then threw her arms wide to hug you?’
‘No. I had a mother who was depressed. She got very little joy out of her life, her children included.’
‘But even a bad mother’s better than no mother at all, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not,’ I say flatly. ‘As a doctor, I’ve seen both ends of the spectrum and all the stops in between.’
‘Well, I would have liked the option of a mother.’ She leans forward in the seat. ‘You took that away from me.’
‘Kirsty.’ I steady my voice. ‘Did you spike Robbie’s drink?’
‘Yes.’
Her admission triggers a noise from my throat. It’s a sound I’ve never heard before – a visceral concoction, a witch’s brew of anger and hatred and willingness to tear the flesh off bones. It scares me rigid and my face flushes with the effort it takes to keep myself in check.
‘You’re shocked,’ she says, her mouth widening into a pleased smile.
I close my eyes, glue my lips together and let myself breathe. Do not let her get to you, I tell myself. She’s a mixed-up teenager who’s got in way over her head. She needs to understand how badly she’s behaving and then we can put this behind us.
I clear my throat and just about manage to look her in the eye when I say, ‘Tell me about that night.’
‘Well.’ She muses for a bit. ‘It was Tess’s idea. She bought the GHB and . . .’ She shrugs. ‘Spiking his drink was easy.’
‘So why did you save him?’ I say.
‘I never wanted to kill him. And when I saw him lying there, I knew I’d given him too much.’ She pauses, her eyes bright with revelation. ‘His house keys had fallen out of his pocket and I realised I needed to take revenge on you directly, not hurt Robbie.’
‘Kirsty, you almost killed him.’
‘You actually killed my mother. I think I have the moral high ground here, don’t you?’
‘Listen!’ I lean towards her. ‘I know you’re angry and you have every right to be. I completely understand that. But look at what you’ve done. Your actions against Robbie were deliberate. What happened with your mother was an accident.’
‘But you didn’t come forward to tell the truth?’
‘I did own up to my mistake. I told my boss exactly what had happened.’
‘And?’
‘He persuaded me that resigning wouldn’t serve any purpose and that I should pick myself up and make sure I became a better doctor because of it.’
‘And that made it okay?’
‘No, it wasn’t okay. I was very upset by it and I did consider giving up medicine.’
‘But you didn’t?’
‘No.’
‘And then you moved on?’
‘Yes. But it was difficult. Believe me, I did not take your mother’s death lightly. I’m extremely sorry that it happened.’
‘You’re sorry that you killed her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then say it.’
‘Kirsty.’ I take both her hands in mine and pin our eyes together. ‘I’m so sorry I killed your mother.’
Her body rears up and she takes a breath, broken by a suppressed sob that she confines to her throat. I try to hug her but she pulls away and drops on to her knees on the rug. ‘My father never moved on.’ She drags out a box from underneath the bed and when she takes off the lid there are four piles of A5 notebooks. She looks through them until she finds the one she wants and sits back on the chair, holding the book on her lap. When she opens it, a sheet of paper falls out. ‘Do you remember this?’ She thrusts the paper in front of my face. It’s a faded piece of Basildon Bond writing paper.
‘It’s the letter I sent to your father.’ I recognise my own writing – Dear Trevor, I am sorry to have missed you when you came on to the ward and even sorrier that Sandy has passed away . . .
‘He already knew that Mum’s death had been caused by a doctor making a mistake with the drugs – he’d overheard a couple of nurses talking about it.’ She clears her throat and gives me a pointed look. ‘Let me read you what he wrote in his diary.’
‘This letter came today from Dr Naughton. I think she must be the one who made the mistake with the medicine. I’m sorry if Dr Naughton was the person who made the mistake because Sandy liked her and I’m not going to make a fuss. Nothing will bring Sandy back.’
She turns the page and reads on.
‘Dr Naughton gave me her phone number and twice I’ve called her home, but the doctor she lives with said she wasn’t well enough to talk to me. He told me not to call again because Dr Naughton isn’t well. I hope she’s not having problems with her pregnancy.’
Kirsty stops reading, closes the book and crosses her ankles. ‘If that was all that had been written, I would never have been sure that you’d done it, but do you want to know what happened next?’
She can’t hide the look of triumph on her face and I know that what’s coming is likely to upset me but still I have to say, ‘Yes.’
‘See for yourself.’ She holds out the book. ‘It’s about halfway through.’
I find the right page and start to read.
This morning when I was visiting Kirsty in the baby unit (she grows stronger by the hour and is almost breathing for herself – how happy Sandy would be to see her!), Dr Naughton’s fiancé came to talk to me. He’s a brusque sort of a man, a psychiatrist, I think. He doesn’t have much of a bedside manner, more time for doctors than patients, was the impression he gave me. He told me that I was never to ring their home again. I said I never would have, if it hadn’t been for the fact that Dr Naughton asked me to. ‘You’re upsetting her,’ he told me. ‘Dr Naughton is a good doctor and she doesn’t deserve to have this incident colour her future.’ I had no answer to that. Sandy’s death reduced to ‘an incident’. I turned away from him and he walked back into the corridor. He didn’t even ask after the baby. Somehow that made me sadder than anything.’
I close the bo
ok and stay very still, tension locking my diaphragm.
‘Just as well you divorced him really, isn’t it?’ Kirsty says. ‘Or else you’d be filing for divorce as soon as you get home.’
I’m struggling to breathe in and, on numb legs, I lurch towards the casement window, tugging it up from the bottom until it’s open about a foot. I steady myself on the sill as cool air floods on to my face and into my lungs.
Phil. How could he have done that? What gave him the right to recklessly interfere in my life? I feel the urge to shake him and shake him until all his arrogance and self-importance has emptied out and he’s forced to see his behaviour for what it was. Despite the fact that I no longer love him, I feel gutted for the woman I used to be, blindly trusting a man who could happily go behind her back and manipulate the situation as he saw fit.
‘Did you know my father called your house?’ Kirsty asks me.
‘No, I didn’t. I only found out a couple of days ago. Phil kept it from me.’
‘Why did you marry him in the first place?’
‘Because I loved him.’
‘And love is blind?’
I shrug a reply and sit back down, my body heavy with the weight of murky, churned-up feelings and nowhere to empty them out, clean myself up and move on.
‘For years I looked at other girls’ mothers and imagined what it would be like to have one of my own,’ Kirsty says. ‘I imagined what it would be like to have someone who tucked me in at night and read me stories, who sewed on nametapes and took me shopping.’ There’s a reedy, fragile tone to her voice that makes her sound as if she’s on the edge of tears. ‘When I’m acting I can lose myself in another person’s life. I’m like clingfilm. I can wrap myself around characters, around people. I can take their shape. I don’t find that difficult because I don’t really have a self. I spent too much time wishing I was one of those other girls, the ones who had mothers.’
