Lydia’s house has changed. I look out of the windows that stretch along the whole of the wall but there is no sign of the river. As I turn back into the room, I see that this too has altered; the red and green velvet sofas have gone and the huge, open-plan room is stark. It’s devoid of colour, except for glass sculptures that glitter in the sunlight. My stomach dips to my shoes as I realise something’s wrong. I think of it as time folding, it’s the only way I can make sense of it. I am so desperate to see things in straight lines again; everything is wavy now. There is a woman in the room who must be Lydia’s mother. Her hair is showing signs of grey and there are lines on her face. I touch the skin of my hand; it’s cold where it should feel warm and there are creases where there should be none.
‘Are you Lydia’s mother?’ I ask. Except she can’t be. Didn’t Lydia’s mother die when she was small?
The woman looks at me as if I’m stupid. Perhaps I am. Then she says, ‘I’m Lydia,’ with such irritation that I want to hide. Instead, I look out of the window, but the river isn’t there.
‘We sat by the river, on Lydia’s birthday,’ I tell the woman.
The sun shines through the very long windows. The coloured sculptures glisten.
I must have fallen asleep because it’s dusk when I wake up again. I’m on a sofa, feeling stiff. There is a grey throw across my knees. I look out of the window. Even in the semi-dark I can see the river isn’t there.
Lydia says, ‘Can you stay for dinner?’
I nod. Where’s the river gone? I should have taken a photograph, then I would remember it. A photograph. Yes, I came to ask about a photograph.
‘There was a photograph. You gave it to us. Do you remember?’ I ask.
Lydia nods again, almost imperceptibly. She gets up to make cheese omelettes. Is it lunchtime?
I am trying to recall the photo Lydia gave us. I know it was important even though I don’t know what it was a photo of. ‘Do you want me to peel some vegetables?’ I ask as I stand beside her at the sink.
‘If you like,’ she says, handing me a knife and a bag of red onions.
‘Who was in it?’
‘In what?’
‘Who was in the photograph?’
‘What photograph?’ she says.
‘We were here on your birthday. Someone else was here, someone we used to know.’ I look around the open-plan room as if this will give me more clues, but it is featureless – minimalist. There is almost nothing here, except for coloured-glass sculptures with smooth, round edges. ‘Where are all your things?’ I ask. There used to be lamps on dark wood tables and big, velvet sofas.
Lydia doesn’t answer.
This isn’t really Lydia’s house. I go to the window and look out again. I picture Penny, walking across the grass – Penny? ‘Who’s Penny?’ I ask.
‘Do you mean Adam’s wife?’ Lydia replies, turning from the sink to face me.
Adam sits at the table in the garden. He talks about playing the race card to Zora, me and Harriet. He thinks he has the right to do it.
Penny waves her hands at us. ‘Calm down, everyone,’ she says.
In the House, at the dispatch box, Adam Russell says he is not and has never been a racist.
‘There should be a fire in here,’ I say to Lydia. There was a fire at Christmas. One of the children nearly burnt himself, the younger one, who’s named after a bear, but I can only think of Paddington and he can’t be called that.
Lydia gestures to radiators that stretch from the floor almost to the ceiling and says, ‘I can turn on the heating if you’re cold.’
‘I’m not cold.’ It’s just that there ought to be a fire in here.
Lydia pours coffee into a red and black cup – some colour at last. She asks me if I’d like some too. I decline. I am declining, but then that’s true of all of us. Lydia is also declining. Even Harriet is aging now, though I expect she’ll always be a child to me. She keeps protesting, when I tell her off, or ask her why she hasn’t done something, that she isn’t thirteen anymore.
‘Did Adam do something to Harriet?’
Lydia takes her coffee to the long table by the wall and sits on one of the bare white chairs that doesn’t look comfortable. She shakes her head, but I know she is lying to me. It’s there, on the edges of my memory, I just need to reach out and draw it in.
‘Adam did something on your birthday. He said things.’
‘Adam was always saying things,’ Lydia replies with a short laugh, as if she can fob me off.
‘I came to see you. It was a little while after your birthday. You phoned me. I think you were expecting to speak to Zora but it was me.’ I join Lydia at a table that is more like a bar or a counter. The hard edge of the chair pokes into my thigh. ‘You were drunk, very drunk. You said Michael was leaving you. He was trying to take Rupert and Amy with him to America. You asked me to come over.’
‘I don’t remember,’ Lydia replies.
‘You gave us a photograph. Who was in the photograph?’
‘It was years ago, Selina, why rake that up now? Adam paid for what he did.’ There is a long pause. Then Lydia adds, ‘We all pay for everything in the end.’
‘Did he hurt Harriet? I’ll keep on asking until you tell me.’
Lydia gazes into the distance. ‘Not Harriet,’ she replies. Then, in a tone that suggests she no longer has the will to evade the questions, she adds, ‘I was so drunk that night, I barely remembered the conversation the following morning. How am I supposed to remember it now after so many years?’ She picks up a packet of cigarettes and removes one, lighting it with the box of matches she finds by the sink. She returns to the table but sits several seats away from me now, once again trying to distance herself.
Adam stands at the dispatch box. ‘I am not and I have never been a member of any far-right organisation.’ But there is a photograph. It is published in The Guardian and Adam’s words are contradicted irrefutably.
‘You gave us a photograph of Adam in a uniform.’
‘That photograph,’ says Lydia, narrowing her eyes as if trying to shut out the memory. ‘You wanted me to help you, so I helped. That picture was one my father kept. I found it when he died. I should have thrown it out there and then, but I didn’t. I gave it to you instead. And even though I did all that to help you, you wouldn’t forgive me, you and Zora. Harriet hated me too. I haven’t seen my daughter for years and years. She won’t see me. I’ve asked her to visit repeatedly, but she won’t.’
Harriet is stubborn. When she decides something, there is no moving her. I tried to get her to stay in touch with Lydia, if only to ensure that she still saw her half-siblings. I thought she might regret it one day if she didn’t. But she has always refused.
Lydia stands up as if she is going to leave the room, but then she sits down again. ‘You don’t know what growing up was like for me, living with my father and Joyce. You and Zora have always had each other – every minute of every day there was someone you could share things with, somebody to love, somebody who loved you. I didn’t have that.’
There is silence. No sound at all. ‘Why does Harriet hate you?’ I ask, hardly daring to breathe.
‘She hates me for keeping quiet – do you really not remember?’ Lydia speaks with bitterness. ‘You all hated me for knowing what Adam did to Cal, but keeping quiet about it.’