Adam was back in his sister’s house. Was he now ready to try and manifest himself to her? After Claire’s scornful remarks to Serena about his visit to Julie, he couldn’t wait to see her face if he did manage to appear to her in the non-flesh. How exactly would he do it, though? What was it that had meant he had suddenly appeared to Julie, but couldn’t even get through to Eva, whom he cared about so much more?
Claire was upstairs in Maya’s colourfully decorated bedroom. After her chequered romantic career, and then Dan’s problems with committing, she had come so close to not having children that Adam found it sweet to see her there, cuddled up with her miracle in vitro child, reading her a bedtime story.
‘So what happened about the maths test?’ she asked Maya when she’d finished the chapter, had a little fight about reading another one, then closed the book carefully on its cloth bookmark (a worn green and gold one that Claire had herself had as a child).
Maya laughed. ‘Everyone failed.’
‘Everyone failed?’
‘Apart from Grace. And she only just passed. Rebecca was really cross with us. Said she was disappointed with us.’
‘I’ll bet she did,’ Claire muttered.
Downstairs, half an hour later, she was arguing with Dan about the school. ‘Everyone failed the maths test. What does that tell you about the teaching?’
‘Sounds like the teacher set too hard a test.’
‘But how, why, would you set a test you clearly hadn’t taught to?’
Dan shrugged. ‘Perhaps she’s trying to raise standards.’
‘That school is rubbish.’
‘It’s the best in the area.’
‘What does that mean? You never go there, so how would you know.’
This jibe prompted a furious response from Dan. He did go there, he said, he went there a lot. In fact, he went there so much that one of the mums had suggested he join the PTA.
‘Which mum was that?’
‘Sasha.’
‘Typical!’ Claire snorted. ‘What does Sasha know about anything? She’s never there either. She waltzes in for the quizzes and brings her lovely dish for International Day, but that’s it. So are you joining?’
‘What?’
‘The PTA. They could do with another man besides drippy Gareth.’
‘Who’s Gareth?’
Claire sighed. ‘A hopeless weed of a stay-at-home dad. So keen to please he’s virtually vanished up his own arse. Okay, so what are the names of Maya’s teachers?’
‘Amanda,’ Dan replied, after a pause worthy of Mastermind.
Claire gave him a flat smile. ‘Form teacher, very good. And?’
Dan was unable to name another.
‘I rest my case. Do you even know the name of the head?’
‘Martin.’
‘Brilliant. Surname?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Fiddledick.’
Another bark of laughter from Dan. ‘He’s called Martin Fiddledick? Seriously?’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Not the greatest of surnames for a primary head.’
‘Dan! You’re being silly. And gross. It’s a perfectly good English name. What’s his favourite topic?’
‘His favourite topic?’ Dan repeated.
‘If you ever went to one of the assemblies, you’d know the answer, because it’s all Martin ever talks about.’
‘I don’t know… climate change?’
‘Close, but no filthy polluting cigar, I’m afraid. His favourite topic is growth mindset. Do you even know what that is?’
‘Yes.’
‘What is it then?’
And so they went on, baiting each other about their commitment to their daughter’s education. Despite her principled defence of his unusual name, Claire couldn’t bear Martin, couldn’t bear the fact he insisted that all the teachers be called by their given names, yet refused to act over the obvious bullying by the boys in Maya’s class; that he’d banned all nut products, and yet had been found, by Lana Tillotson, one of the feistier mums in the PTA, scoffing pistachios out of a jar in his office; that he’d decided to treat the fox that had made a den on the edge of the school’s celebrated ‘rewilded playground’ as a pet not a pest, right up until the moment when it had eaten the Reception class’s pet rabbit, Dolores, and he’d finally allowed the Polish builders to take it away and ‘liberate’ it on Tempelsham Common; that he’d equivocated disastrously with the Muslim parents who’d objected to LGBTQ + History Month, leading to an exodus of the same and consequent reduction of important diversity. Eventually, she reached the point Adam knew she was building up to. Why couldn’t they just pull Maya out, send her to Heathcote House, the independent school up the road?
‘You know the answer to that,’ Dan replied coldly. They couldn’t afford it and, more to the point, it was against his principles. As well she knew. So why did she even bring it up? No, he was sorry, he was not prepared to buy his child an unfair advantage. Anyway, there was zero diversity at Heathcote.
What was he talking about? Half the sixth form was Chinese. There were Africans.
‘Posh ones.’
‘So what?’
They ranted on. Claire brought up Dan’s beloved convertible Audi A3, a much more expensive car than your average Joe Bloggs would ever be able to afford.
‘It’s a car, Claire. Not an education.’
‘What’s more important? Our child or your fucking middle-aged fantasies of being James Bond? If there’s one thing we can’t afford, it’s that car.’
At this Dan strode over and grabbed her by the collar. ‘Don’t aggravate me, Claire.’
‘Dan, back off.’
His face was crimson and the tendons in his neck were quivering. Was he about to hit her?
‘You know what happens if you don’t,’ Claire said, slowly and with practised purpose.
Adam watched, appalled. Could he intervene? Not in this state.
But then, just as another surge of powerlessness swept over him, his brother-in-law dropped his wife like a dog might drop a ball and stepped back. God. Adam knew there had been issues about Dan’s temper, but Claire had always said they had been resolved in couples’ therapy. This was ugly.
‘Dan, I’m sorry,’ Claire said, after they had stood staring at each other, breathing as heavily as if they’d just had sex. ‘I’m not trying to provoke you. But this is our daughter we’re talking about here. I know you think we can’t afford it, but being blunt, now that Adam’s gone, we have Larks Rise, which is potentially worth a fortune, and in any case we stand to get a whole lot more from Mum anyway. When she goes.’
‘She might hang on for years, Claire.’
‘She’s ninety-two.’
‘With all her marbles. Maya might be in college before she pops her clogs.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘In any case, Robin’s Lane is a perfectly good school.’
They were back to it; and it looked like a battle Claire wasn’t going to win. Dan didn’t want a ‘lady of the manor’ for a daughter. He wasn’t impressed by the huge sports fields at Heathcote House. He certainly didn’t want Maya playing lacrosse, even if it was a game invented by American Indians (and where had Claire got that delightful titbit from?) Eventually Dan stormed off upstairs and Claire collapsed into an armchair, sobbing. Adam’s non-existent heart went out to her. She was always so loyal to Dan in public; and here, now, was the private reality he had glimpsed so often, but never been privy to. Should he, could he reach out and offer her sympathy? His earlier desire to scare her had melted away completely.
‘Now, now,’ he said, tentatively. Just for luck, and as an experiment, he put his hands together in the prayerful namaste.
His sister’s head turned. Her pink, lightly-veined cheeks were gleaming with tears.
‘What?’ she muttered. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s okay,’ he said gently.
‘What? Who’s… this?’
‘It’s your brother. Adam.’
‘Adam! How? Where?’
‘I’m here. Just across the room.’
‘I’m imagining it. Stay calm, Claire,’ she was telling herself, out loud in her typically practical way. ‘It must be an aural hypnagogic state. You’re not going mad. Or having a panic attack. You’re fine.’
‘I’m not sure you can have an aural hypnagogic state,’ Adam replied, and as he did so, he realised he had materialised. Just like that. No slow fade in. There he was – in best hologram mode.
‘Oh my God!’ Claire cried. ‘Julie was right. Adam, is that really you? What… how… what are you doing here?’
‘Just keeping an eye,’ he replied. ‘Seeing that you’re all right.’
‘But… how long… have you… been here? Did you just see that… our little row?’
‘Afraid so.’
‘How much of it?’
‘All of it. I was here when you were reading Maya a story.’
His sister walked across the room and sat down in the armchair, as if exhausted by her own fright. ‘Dan’s being such an arsehole,’ she said. ‘It’s not as if we can’t afford it now. I mean…’ She broke off.
‘You mean what?’ he asked.
She was staring at him. ‘How do I even know it’s you?’
‘Look at me. What do you see?’
‘A 3D image of my dead brother. But, but… why should I assume it’s you? Perhaps I’ve got so stressed I’ve started seeing things.’ She slumped back in the chair and began to sob again.
‘Claire, please stop it. I’m real.’
‘I’m clearly going mad.’
Adam floated towards her, then back, not wanting to freak her out. He planted his spectral feet carefully in line on the floor to one side of her.
‘Ask me something about our childhood,’ he said gently.
His sister’s tears slowed. She pulled out a handkerchief from her jeans pocket and blew her nose. Then: ‘Okay,’ she said finally. ‘What was the name of my first pet?’
‘Very funny. You didn’t have a pet. Daddy hated animals.’
‘I was allowed a goldfish for a bit, though.’
‘Were you? I’d forgotten about that. What was its name?’
‘Goldie.’
‘Original.’
‘Don’t you remember, Adam? Goldie. I won him as a prize at a fair, and he had a little glass bowl and everything. The cat got him and you very sweetly helped me bury him in a shallow grave. Okay, another question. What was the name of the club you had, with your friend Roland, that you wouldn’t let me join because I was too little; that met in the summer house at Larks Hill, whose mascot was a stuffed animal you found in a junk shop?’
‘Did we find it in a junk shop? I don’t remember that bit.’
‘Come on, no bluffing,’ Claire insisted. ‘What was the name of the club?’
‘The Ferret Club.’
‘It is you.’
‘D’you remember his sharp teeth? You scratched my leg with them, you horror.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes, Claire.’
There was silence – bar the sound of the old clock on the mantelpiece. It was an heirloom that his sister had been given ‘on permanent loan’ by his mother. This meant that whenever Patricia came to her house she said, ‘Are you looking after my lovely mantel clock? I might have to take it back one day.’ Tick tock, tick tock. It was one of the sounds of their mutual childhood. There was no getting away from that; even if there had always been the five-year age gap and they had latterly grown rather apart, they had grown up together.
‘Where are you?’ Claire asked. ‘What are you?’
‘I don’t know. It’s just, I’m still here, somehow.’
‘So you are.’ She was shaking her head in continuing disbelief. ‘So are you in some kind of… what… purgatory?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t feel much different, to be honest. Only that I don’t have a body.’
‘I can still see you.’
‘That’s an illusion, obviously.’
‘I almost feel like I could hug you.’
‘You can’t do that, sadly. My physical body is somewhere else.’
‘In the ground, yes. Unless that coffin was empty. Which it wasn’t. Adam, did you really kill yourself?’
‘No.’
‘I knew you didn’t. Dan doesn’t agree with me. His point was that you were in that garage with the hosepipe. You left a note on the car seat. They went through it all at the inquest.’
‘You went to the inquest? What was that like?’
‘Very thorough. Impressively efficient female coroner. Asked a lot of questions. Julie broke down.’
‘Of course she did.’
‘The note was the decisive thing. It was so final. If you didn’t kill yourself, why did you leave a note?’
Adam explained about ‘Suicide Note’; also the troubling fact that he had shown the poem to Julie three years before.
‘So if she knew it was a poem, then…’
‘She claimed not to remember.’
‘But it was signed,’ Claire said.
‘Not by me. I never write my name by my poems.’
‘So someone must have forged your signature.’
His sister was looking at him pityingly now. Did he know, she went on, that Julie had been seeing someone. Adam laughed bitterly. He did now, he said. He’d caught them at it. No! his sister exclaimed. What had that been like? Interesting, Adam replied. Actually horrible.
‘I’ll bet,’ Claire said. ‘Did they say anything revealing?’
‘They didn’t realise I was there. I was invisible at the time.’
‘So how does that work?’ Claire asked. ‘Can you just choose to be visible or invisible? At any time?’
‘It’s not that simple. I’m learning as I go. It’s almost as if I can only appear if my feelings for the person I’m with are strong enough. Like you, just now. I just felt… you know… you were sobbing…’
‘And then there you were…’
‘There I was,’ he agreed. ‘But how, or why, I have yet to understand.’
So what did he want her to do, she asked, suddenly. Should she contact the coroner? Tell her about this conversation.
‘I’m not sure a coroner’s going to believe you, Claire.’
‘But you can’t be the victim of a miscarriage of justice. If you didn’t kill yourself, Adam, you were murdered.’ His sister dropped her voice to a whisper, even though there was no one else in the room. ‘We need to find out who did it. Whoever it was, they can’t be allowed to get away with it. Can they?’