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Don’t you ever feel guilty, Frances?
I do. Every day. It’s time for me to pay for what I did.
108
AFTER
When Frances comes in I barely recognise her. She’s let her golden hair go grey and she’s barely wearing any make-up. Maybe some tinted lip gloss; that’s it. She sits in a chair attached to my table.
‘Hi,’ she says.
‘Hi,’ I say.
It’s been four years since that day in the forest. All the many court hearings took up over one and a half years. My lawyer says Frances did four months in low-security and two months of community service.
Was that enough? For hiding evidence which would have averted all of this so very long ago? That might have meant I could have grown up and got over it? That would have stopped Tristan from preying on every female with whom he ever came into contact?
But she was only sixteen when she made that choice. And Tristan told her he’d been attacked. And we all seem to have chosen to believe that Frances never watched that tape.
If only I’d reported the bullying the first day I looked at Jenna’s phone. If I had just told the truth when Neil told me she was missing. Jenna might not have that scar snaking across her wrist, to match my own.
I failed her. So in some ways I failed myself.
Jenna will always know that she gave everyone around her all the clues to what she might do, and no one did anything to stop her.
Can that void of loneliness ever be filled?
Okay, so maybe I have a few regrets.
Now, Frances and I sit looking at each other. She’s wearing a chunky blue jumper and a simple gold necklace. I’m wearing jeans I made myself. In prison I’ve become very crafty.
‘How long have you got left?’ she asks.
‘Twelve years.’
She winces and toys with her necklace.
‘Who else have you been to visit?’ I ask. ‘Lydia?’
She nods.
‘She okay?’
‘As well as can be expected.’
Lydia will be out soon. I believe Rose is living with her father.
‘Anyone else?’
She swallows and glances around the room. ‘My mother.’
‘Ah yes, of course.’ I can feel myself bristling as I see again Dot smashing my mother’s head on the floor.
‘I-I know. But she’s my mother and…’
I wait for her to finish the sentence, but she doesn’t. ‘What about Tristan?’
She studies her nails on the table. They’re shiny with clear nail varnish. ‘Just once.’
