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‘I wouldn’t know,’ Prue said. ‘And, uh?—’
‘I haven’t seen Nicky, no. He’s still at Anselm’s. Senior lecturer.’
‘He must be mad. How could he stay?’
‘Why did you leave?’
Prue gave him a long look. ‘Why do you think?’
‘I don’t know. I thought I knew some things, and I chose not to know the rest, and I think all that was wrong. One of us killed Toby.’
‘Yes,’ Prue said.
‘And we all knew, and we didn’t say.’
‘Yes.’
‘And we colluded in an alibi, which?—’
‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘I agree with all of that. So?’
‘I want to know who it was. I want to know what happened to us.’
Prue’s face distorted. It was just a brief second of something uncontainable, her mouth opening into a wide, ugly, agonised shape like a theatre mask of tragedy, and then her features smoothed again.
‘I can tell you what happened to me, Jem. The people I had thought my best friends were monsters, and I ran away. I came back here. I married John. I tried to forget everything about Oxford, every lie it told me about who I was and what I might be and who my friends were. I washappyhere.’
‘Is that your son in the pictures?’ Jem asked.
Prue’s mouth tightened. Jem could see the pulse beating in her throat. ‘He was.’
‘Oh. What—what was his name?’
‘Joseph. Joe.’
‘When—’
‘Last November. He was climbing a tree and fell. He loved to climb trees.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Jem said. ‘Oh, Prue. I am so sorry.’
‘He was the one good thing—’ Prue stopped short. Jem could see the sheen in her eyes. ‘He was my boy. All mine. He was marvellous in his lessons, and so good at sport, and he wasn’t even nine yet, but he said he’d soon be taller than me and he’d be able to help more then. He was looking forward to that. And then he climbed the willow over the brook, and he must have lost his grip. He hit his head on a rock and drowned before anyone was there to help. Nobody’s ever there to help.’
‘Prue…’ Jem reached for her hand. She jerked it away.
‘It’s true.’ There were tears trickling down her face that she made no effort to stem or conceal. ‘We thought we had such wonderful friends, didn’t we, you and I? Didn’t we believe they cared? Didn’t we believe we were more than pets to the rest of them, with our funny little voices?—’
‘That’s not true.’
‘After what Nicky did to you? Did you really think he cared for you, or for anyone except Toby? Do you think Ella cared for anyone at all? Even Aaron—he lied for her, and she still wouldn’t marry him, not in the end. She never—she didn’t—We were all lied to, Jem. It was one great foul game they played, telling us there might be something different. I wish I’d never left Aldbury. I came back here, and John married me. He was decent and kind. I loved him. He loved Joe. We were happy for a little while, and then—I could have had more if I’d never tried to leave. I could have had more children, more time with John,bettertime. Oxford took it all away. I hate it. I hate them all.’
Jem sat poised on the edge of his seat, muscles tight. Prue sat, equally tense, for a second, and then flopped back as though her strings had been cut, and hunted for a handkerchief. She wiped her eyes. Jem didn’t dare move.
‘Well, that’s what I think,’ she said at last. ‘I lost my wonderful, interesting future and my so-called friends and my husband and my child. I don’t have anything left. I dare say I’ll keep going to school and coming home to this for another thirty years. That’s something to look forward to, isn’t it?’
‘You could move, perhaps?’ Jem ventured to suggest. ‘If you’re not?—’
Her eyes blazed. ‘Don’t give me thatnow you’re freerubbish. Don’t youdare. Joe wasn’t an encumbrance to me, he was my son!’
