The Art of Forgetting (25 page)

She follows Paul to the door. He is saying goodbye to Patrick and the children, hoping the journey back will be easy and thanking everyone for coming. No-one would ever guess what they have been discussing. As he leaves, she puts her hand on his arm.

“Do you think we should …?” she begins, but Paul shakes his head.

“No,” he says, reaching into his jacket pocket as if to stop the letter leaping out into Laura’s hand. “I think we should just leave things as they are. Nothing to be gained now, is there?”

And then he is gone. Striding off down the carpeted corridor and disappearing around the corner to where the lifts are. Laura thinks he is probably a nice man. The sort of brother her mother could be proud of, even if he was a little off the rails when he was young. How sad that they lost touch for all those years and for no good reason. She thinks it would be nice to see him again, to get to know him better. She wonders if that will ever happen.

It is a few weeks later. Laura stands in her mother’s kitchen and listens to the squeals of the children as they play in the back garden. There has been an inch or so of snow overnight, although it is March, and they are destroying the pristine smoothness of it. Such excitement as they ran through the empty rooms and clattered up and down the stairs when they arrived this morning. They know nothing of the significance of this visit.

This is the last time we will ever do this, thinks Laura. The house is almost ready and the agent has tenants lined up. She will never again be here as anything but a visitor or a landlord. It will be somebody else’s home and all those memories will become invisible, overlaid by new ones. New triumphs and disasters. New secrets.

“Right, that’s it,” says Kelly, entering the room. “There’s just that one bed in your old room, and Danny’s coming with his van after school on Wednesday to get that. That leaves this table, Laura. Are you really sure you don’t want it?”

Laura finds it very hard to explain why she prefers not to take the kitchen table. It is ten times nicer than her own, which is a characterless self-assembly creation from a chain store. This one is solid and bears the marks of a family growing up. It positively glows with history and love, but Laura cannot take it. Even though it is all finished with Emil. Even though she stood firm and told him yes, it really had to end when he cried and said she was all he had left. She has agreed to be friends and of course she will continue to see him for a while, but really he is already gone. He will be in her life for a little longer, until she is sure he will be OK, but she needs to block out those memories. This table has one memory too many.

“No,” she says. “I love it, but it wouldn’t go with the rest of our stuff. Let Danny take it if he wants it.”

Kelly runs her hand over the glossy pine surface. It has memories for her too, thinks Laura, but she does not change her mind. Now is a time for looking forward, not back and she doesn’t want those ghosts taking up residence in her own kitchen. That is why she has thrown herself into the task of finding a new job, sending off dozens of applications and copies of her CV. And now one of them has come good and she has an interview in the morning. She knows there is no guarantee she will be successful but she has a positive feeling about it, and hugs herself as a little shiver of anticipation runs through her.

Kelly joins her and they stand together at the window, watching the children.

“D’you remember that day when we found the first bit of Mum’s story?” says Kelly. “Who would’ve guessed her life was so full of secrets? Sometimes I wish we’d never found any of it. It was much nicer when we thought she was our uncomplicated mum, wasn’t it?”

Laura knows what Kelly means. Now her life is complicated too and she can’t change that. It has been very difficult to decide how much to tell anyone. Of course she has told Kelly about finishing with Emil, but she hasn’t told her about Vic. Patrick is adamant about that. He has been great recently. She told him all about Vic and he listened carefully whilst she went through it again and again before they came to a decision. How can they tell Kelly, when her sense of justice may lead her to stir up all those things from the past? Paul could be in trouble for withholding evidence – as could she – and Mum will never be any the wiser whatever they do.

That’s what she has agreed to, but Laura knows it is only for the moment. She is letting things settle, but she has decided that the old Laura will have to go. Laura the Conformer let things happen to her rather than making them happen, and look where that got her. That’s why she is investigating how she could provide a new wheelchair for Gordon Carpenter despite Patrick’s reservations about the expense. That’s why she is only waiting for the right moment to take Kelly over to Hilda’s house before it is too late. She knows there will be risks, but she also knows there are times when you have to take them. Her mother didn’t do that. She kept her secret until it was too late and she is not going to make the same mistake.

Patrick walks up the back path, stomping his feet to loosen the snow. He beckons to the children to follow him and Laura sees that it is time to go. She opens the back door and calls to him.

“Can you take them round to the front? I don’t want snow all over this floor!”

So they disappear again, Patrick laughing and ducking as the children pelt him with their puny snowballs. Laura picks up a cardboard box from the worktop. It contains their mother’s old kettle, a jar of instant coffee and three mugs. One of them has a tiger on the front.

“Come on then,” she says to Kelly. “Time to say goodbye.”

They go through the lounge and out through the front door. Laura pauses before pulling it shut for the last time. For a few seconds, everything is back in place and her mother is in the kitchen making a cup of tea, but then she gives herself a little shake. The lock clicks.

“You alright, love?” says Patrick and she nods and smiles. Blinks away a couple of tears.

“I will be,” she says.

Will she tell him the final secret? Will she tell him about Emil? Will she explain how stressed and unhappy and unfulfilled she felt at the time and hope he understands?

Maybe. Maybe one day, when she is sure their relationship will survive it, but maybe not. Maybe she will do what her mother did after all, and keep this secret until the day one of them dies. Maybe there are some secrets that are better left untold.

The End