I’m not going to say it out loud because there’s no knowing what she’ll do, but I can tell you: Vivien’s gone completely doo-lally. You can’t have intuition sitting in London about someone being murdered in Dorset. You either have the facts or you don’t—I’m sure you’ll agree with me. Besides, I’m a scientist and I’m afraid I don’t work with intuition.
Vivien flops onto the cushions on the window seat, bringing her legs up to rest them on a stool in front of her.
“For a while I thought it was you who had done it,” she says, more calmly now, like the opening of a great story.
I’m astounded. I’m shocked. I’m mortified. “Me? Oh, for goodness’ sake, Vivien, you’ve gone bonkers,” I blurt out. But she ignores me and continues, in a calm, even tone, as if the story must go on whatever the audience’s reaction.
“I thought Clive and Dr. Moyse knew and were covering up for you.” She is looking at her legs stretched out on the stool in front of her as she speaks. I am standing a yard or so away, towering over her with my hands on my hips and, I’m sure, my jaw dropping. “Dr. Moyse had officially told the police not to interview you. He got a court injunction so they weren’t allowed to. He said you had some sort of disorder, that you were unstable.”
“Oh, Vivien, the things you think of! It’s absolute nonsense. It was nothing like that at all.”
“I know. I know,” she says, relenting. “I worked out later that you couldn’t have known anything about it or you would have told me.”
“Exactly,” I say indignantly.
“You would have told everyone.”
“Of course.” But even as the words form in my mouth I already feel the tightening of a trap.
“So then I realized it was Clive who’d pushed her and you’d been covering up for him.”
“What? Vivien, I’m afraid you’ve gone quite mad.” I’m more than a little irritated now. Why she has to keep throwing in ridiculous theories and casting all sorts of doubts over our beloved parents’ memories is beyond me. “Clive didn’t do it and I didn’t cover up anything for him,” I tell her firmly, but as I say it, I know my efforts to change her mind are in vain. “This has all been festering for years in your head, but can’t you see it’s nonsense?”
“You weren’t aware that you were covering up for him,” she trudges on. “You still aren’t aware of it. The police were banned from interviewing you, even though I kept telling them they had to.”
“Oh, rubbish, Vivien. Even if the police had talked to me I wouldn’t have told them anything differently. Maud fell down the stairs.”
I can’t take this any longer. She’s the one who doesn’t know what was going on. I look down at my watch and fiddle with its face with my thumb and forefinger, blocking out whatever Vivien is saying, trying to decide if this is it, if I have finally to tell her the secret I’d promised myself and Maud to keep from her for the rest of my life. Suddenly I can see how dangerous such secrets can be. You keep them to protect people, but in the end they are even more destructive. I took away the truth, so over the years Vivien has filled the void with ludicrous ideas. Surely the truth will stop her raving about Clive or me murdering Maud and put her mind at rest.
“Vivien,” I say, gathering my resolve, “I have to tell you something.” She doesn’t answer, but gets up, slides her footrest over, and sits on it beside me. She’s very quiet and I know she’s ready to listen. What I am about to tell her will be a shock, a revelation to her, and I close my eyes so that I don’t have to see it on her face, the disbelief, the anger, or whatever else it might cause.
I say it fast and plainly: “Your mother was an alcoholic. That’s why she thought it was the kitchen door. She used to get so drunk that she didn’t know what she was doing or where she was going.” I keep my eyes closed, waiting to hear what she will say or do. But she’s utterly silent. Then, after a long pause, I feel her hand on my arm, squeezing it gently, willing me to open my eyes. She looks sad, defeated, even, and for a moment I think she’s about to burst into tears, which, I admit, is not a reaction I was expecting. But what she says next is far worse.
“I know that,” she says simply. “That’s why he murdered her.”
That is it.
“Stop it, Vivien, just stop it!” I’m shouting. “You’ve spent your whole life ripping this family apart and you waltz back here and start doing it again, even when they’re all dead.”
“Me? Ripping the family apart? I spent my life trying to hold us together.”
It annoyed me that she could switch our roles like that. “That was me, Vivien. I was the only one trying to hold us together. You fell out with Maud and then you fell out with Clive, and then you didn’t speak to me for forty-seven years. How can you dare think you tried to hold us together?”
“I fell out with Maud because I was trying to stop her beating you.”
“You knew?” I’m incredulous.
“We all knew, Ginny. Arthur told me what she was doing, and that you were too ashamed to say anything. And it had taken Clive too long to face up to how bad it had got. He couldn’t bear it. None of us could, and we’d all agreed we had to stop her.”
I’m struck dumb.
“And I fell out with Clive because in the end the bastard went for the most convenient solution. He pushed her down those steps to stop her beating you. Because she nearly killed you, because she probably would have killed you. But he didn’t have the patience or the time to sort out her drinking. He discarded her as if she were a specimen he didn’t need anymore.”
The whole world is flying round my head. Nothing seems to add up. How does she suddenly know all these things I thought she never did? I have so many different reasons as to why this is nonsense, but they all want to be shouted at once. They won’t line up in order and wait their turn.
“But—But, Vivien, even Clive didn’t know how bad her drinking was,” I stammer.
She shakes her head.
“And,” she continues calmly, “I fell out with you because I couldn’t help thinking it was all your fault. I couldn’t help thinking you’d ruined my life, all our lives—whether you knew it or not. But I wasn’t allowed to think that. Oh, no. Clive never allowed us to think that. You were always above blame, exempt,” she says. “We couldn’t rock the boat. We weren’t allowed to upset your delicate equilibrium because you might not be able to cope with it. Too much emotional disturbance wouldn’t be good for you. You had to be made to feel as normal as possible to build your confidence. We could never make any mention of your…peculiarities. Well, I think it’s all rubbish. I don’t blame you, no, but I think they were wrong about you. I think you can handle a little truth. It’s about time you knew, so you can accept some of the responsibility for her death.”
Responsibility? Vivien’s either gone mad or she’s trying to make me think I’m mad. I’m amazed that she’s believed this for her entire life. Poor Vivien. I can’t move a muscle. My back is resting against the wall, my hands making fists, pale and bloodless. I can’t even blink. Instead my eyes focus on the thick air in front of them, following the floating black specks reflected from the retina that dart back and forth through my vision. I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to have to listen anymore. I start to run, run away from here, away from myself, down the tunnel with the ball of muddled words rattling behind me, gaining, faster and faster I run, pursued by questions and words and torment until I reach the door to that place in my head. I heave it open and skip behind it, just in time to shut out the thunderous ball of noise and squall and disarray behind me. I know that Vivien is still talking, but it doesn’t matter anymore because I’m not with her. I’m slamming the bolts on the door into their catches. Alone at last.