We part some time later, to deliver our respective charges to bed. Dinny goes into the night with Henry; I walk up the stairs with Beth. She cried for a long time and now she’s quiet. I think her mind is rewriting itself, like mine had to, and that she needs time. I hope that is all she needs. Her face looks raw. Not just red, not just rubbed. Raw like it is new-made, like it has yet to be shaped, yet to be marked by life. A childlike delicacy. I hope I see something wiped from it, some of her caginess, some of the shadow and fear. Too soon to tell. I pull the blankets up to her chin like a mother would, and she smiles a half-mocking smile.
“Erica,” she says, and sighs a little. “How long have you been in love with Dinny?”
“What?” I shrug one shoulder to dismiss her, realize too late that it’s a gesture of his that I’ve picked up.
“Don’t deny it. It’s written all over you.”
“You need to sleep. It’s been a rough day.”
“How long?” she presses, catching my hand as I move away. I look at her. In this light her eyes are unreadable. I can’t lie, but I can’t answer.
“I don’t know,” I say shortly. “I don’t know that I am in love with him.” I walk to the door, stiffly, feeling betrayed by every line of my body, every tiny move I make.
“Erica!”
“What?”
“I… was pleased, when you said you didn’t remember what had happened. I didn’t want you to remember. You were so young…”
“Not that young.”
“Young enough. None of it was your fault, I hope you know that. Of course you know. I didn’t want you to remember, because I was so ashamed. Not of throwing a stone back at him, but of running. Of leaving him there, and never telling Mum and Dad. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I did that! I’ve never known!”
“It wasn’t-”
“It was a thing to be decided on the instant. That’s what I’ve come to think, as I’ve got older. A decision made in an instant and once it’s made you can’t go back on it. Do you face up to a mistake, even one so terrible, or do you run away from it? I ran. I failed.”
“You didn’t fail, Beth.”
“Yes, I did. You only ever did what I did. I was the leader, the eldest. If I’d spoken up straight away he could have lived.”
“He did live!”
“He could have lived normally! Not been so damaged…”
“Beth, there’s no point to this. He lived. It can’t be undone now. Please stop torturing yourself. You were a child.”
“When I think of Mary, and Clifford…” Tears blur her eyes again, spill over. I can think of nothing to say to this. Clifford and Mary. Their lives were ruined more completely than ours. The thought of them settles like lead around my heart.
I am awake in the clinging darkness before sunrise, and creep quietly to the kitchen. That odd state, exhausted and electrified at once. I make coffee, drink it strong and too hot. The cold of the floor numbs my feet through my socks. The little clock on the microwave tells me it’s half past seven. Silence in the house but for the creak of the heating as it fights its losing battle. I fetch yesterday’s paper, stare at it blankly and fail to do the crossword. The caffeine bustles my brain awake, but it doesn’t help me think. How can we not tell Henry’s parents that he’s alive? How can we not? We can’t not. But they will want to know what happened. Even placid Mary, so broken, will want to know what happened. And Clifford will want justice. Justice as he would see it. He will want charges brought against the Dinsdales for kidnapping, for withholding medical treatment. He will probably want charges brought against Beth and me, although these would be harder to bring. Grievous bodily harm, perhaps. Perverting the course of justice. I have no idea what charges apply to children. But I can see him clearly, with the three of us in his teeth, shaking and shaking. So how can we tell them?
Outside the sky lightens slowly. Beth appears, fully dressed, at ten o’clock. She stands in the doorway with her bag on her shoulder.
“How are you doing?” I ask her.
“I’m… OK. I’ve got to go. Maxwell’s dropping Eddie off after lunch tomorrow and nothing’s ready, and… and I need to get to a hairdresser before he arrives. I’ve got him until he goes back to school on Wednesday.”
“Oh, right. I thought… I thought we were going to talk about it? About Henry?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I’m just not ready to talk about it yet. Not yet. I feel better, though.”
“Good, good. I’m glad, Beth. Really, I am. I want nothing more than for you to be able to put all this behind you.”
“That’s what I want too.” She sounds lighter, almost bright; smiles in readiness to depart, grips her bag convincingly.
“Only… I don’t know what we should do about Clifford and Mary. What we should do about telling them…” I say. Her face falls. She is on the same train of thought as me, I think, only I am some hours ahead of her. She licks her lips, quickly, nervously.
“Right now I have to go. But honestly, Rick, I don’t think I should have any say in what happens next. I don’t have the right. I don’t want the right. I’ve done enough to him. To them. I don’t think any idea of mine would be a good one.” Little shadows chase across her face again.
“Don’t worry about it, Beth. I’ll sort it out.” So sure of this, I sound. She smiles at me, diaphanous and wonderful as new butterfly wings; comes over and hugs me.
“Thank you, Erica. I owe you so much,” she says.
“You don’t owe me anything.” I shake my head. “You’re my sister.”
She squeezes me with all the strength in her willow-switch body.
It starts to sleet from a flat gray sky as we get into the car, and I have just started the engine when Dinny appears from beneath the trees, knocks on the window.
“I was hoping I’d catch you. I guessed you’d be off this morning,” he says to Beth. Just the faintest hint of a rebuke, but enough to put a line between her brows.
“Beth has to catch the next train,” I say. He flicks his eyes to me and nods.
“Look, Beth, I just wanted to say… I just… when I said last night that you’d killed him, I didn’t mean that… that you’d done it deliberately or anything,” he says. “I used to ask my parents why Henry was such a bastard. Why he was such a bully, such a vicious little git… They told me over and over again that when children behave that way it’s because they aren’t happy. For whatever reason they’re full of fear and anger and they take it out on other people. I didn’t believe them then, of course. I thought it was just because he was an evil sod, but I believe it now. It’s true, of course. Henry wasn’t happy then, and, well, he is happy now. He’s the happiest, most peaceful soul I know. I just… I just thought you should think about that.” Dinny swallows, tips his chin at us and steps back from the car.
“Thank you,” Beth says. She can’t quite look him in the eye, but she’s trying. “Thank you, for what you did. For never telling anybody.”
“I’d never have done anything to hurt you, Beth,” he says softly. My knuckles on the steering wheel are white. Beth nods, her eyes downcast. “Will you ever come back this way?” he asks.