Hanging Hill - Mo Hayder [104]
‘There’s nothing to tell. He found a girlfriend. They’ve got a baby.’
‘Is Millie OK with it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I saw her the other day, Millie.’
‘I know.’
‘She looked well. She’s growing up fast. She’s very pretty. Is she well behaved?
‘Not really. No.’
Zoë gave a small smile and Sally stopped spooning tea.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Is that what you came to talk about? Millie?’
‘In a way. There’s some news. Ralph Hernandez – her friend? He’s going to be OK but he tried to kill himself this morning.’
‘Ralph?’ She put the tin down with a clunk. ‘Oh, good Lord,’ she muttered. ‘It just doesn’t seem to stop.’
‘We’ve got someone talking to the headmaster at Kingsmead. I guess he’ll decide how to break the news to the kids.’
‘But is it Ralph’s way of …’ she tried to find the right word ‘… his way of admitting that he had something to do with Lorne?’
‘Some people think so.’
Sally lowered her eyes and put the lid back on the tea tin. She’d never met Ralph, but she knew all about him. She pictured him tall and dark. So, then, a suicide attempt. Another thing for Millie to carry. As if this household didn’t have enough weighing on it. She cut slices of an orange-iced almond cake she’d made at the weekend in an optimistic attempt to cheer herself up. She got out plates, napkins, forks, and had turned to the fridge for the milk when behind her Zoë said, ‘But that’s not really why I’m here.’
She stopped then, her hand on the fridge door, her back to the room. Not moving. David, she thought. Now you’re going to ask me about David. You’re so clever, Zoë. I’m no match for you. Her head drooped so her forehead was almost touching the fridge. Waiting for the axe to fall. ‘Oh,’ she said quietly. ‘Then why are you really here?’
There was a moment’s silence. Then behind her Zoë said quietly, ‘To apologize, I suppose.’
Sally stiffened slightly. ‘To … I beg your pardon?’
‘You know – about your hand.’
She had to swallow hard. It was the last thing. The very last thing … The accident with her hand hadn’t been referred to by anyone in the Benedict family since the day it had happened, nearly thirty years ago. To mention it was like saying the name of the devil aloud. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she managed to say. ‘There’s nothing to apologize about. It was an accident.’
‘It wasn’t an accident.’
‘But it was. An accident. And all a long time ago. Really, so long ago we hardly need to go back and—’
‘It wasn’t an accident, Sally. You know it, I know it. We’ve spent nearly thirty years pretending it didn’t happen, but it did. I pushed you off that bed because I hated you. Mum and Dad knew it wasn’t an accident too. That’s why we got sent to separate schools.’
‘No.’ Sally closed her eyes, rested her fingers on the lids and tried hard to keep the facts straight. ‘We got sent to separate schools because I wasn’t clever enough for yours. I failed the test.’
‘You could hardly hold the damn pen, probably, because your finger was broken.’
‘I could hold the pen. I didn’t get into the school because I was stupid.’
‘Don’t talk bullshit.’
‘It’s not bullshit.’
‘Yes, it is. And you know it.’
There was a long, hard choke wanting to come up from Sally’s stomach. She struggled to keep it under control. Finally, and with an immense effort of will, she opened her eyes and turned. Zoë was standing awkwardly on the other side of the table. There were red patches on her cheeks as if she was ill.
‘I need to make amends, Sally. Everyone does. If we want to live well in the present we need to face the failings of our past.’
‘Do we?’
‘Yes. We have to. We have to make sure we … make sure we connect to other people. Be sure we never forget that we’re part of a bigger pattern.’
Sally was silent. It sounded so weird, words like that coming out of Zoë’s mouth. She’d never thought of her sister as connected to other people. She was something quite out on her own. A lone planet. She needed nothing. No people. It was what Sally envied most, maybe.