Next to my dad, she was the person I loved most in the world, and after the accident I knew, in spite of everything, she would stand by me.
When I ran away from home and was living rough I sometimes went to Lorna. She would let me have a bath while she washed and dried my clothes. Then she’d feed me and sometimes persuade me to stay the night.
As always her words came at just the right time, and she’d added her mobile number too, so I texted her straight away.
So good to hear from you. I’m fine. I’d love to see you soon. Working this morning, but will give you a ring asap. XXXX
I switched on the TV, curled up on the sofa, and dozed till it was time to shower and dress for work.
I was swallowing some toast and coffee when the phone rang. I let the machine answer, expecting it to be Nicola for some reason.
‘Clare, my love, I just got your text…’
I grabbed up the handset. ‘Lorna, oh thank you for calling.’ I explained I was working that morning and couldn’t talk for long and, as usual she read my thoughts. ‘But you’d like to see me. Well how about this afternoon? I’m free as a bird and I’d love a jaunt down to the seaside. I’ll come on the train. Not sure about times, but I’ll try to get there for about 1.30. Meet me at the station and I’ll buy you lunch.’
Somehow, just the thought of seeing Lorna meant that, despite everything, I didn’t find the morning too difficult. Stella and Harriet left me in charge of the shop, as they made up bouquets and Stella drove back and forth with deliveries. The open back door allowed splashes of sunlight to fall on the counter, and the warm breeze carried the scent of flowers and the murmur of their voices into the shop.
There were plenty of customers, but they all seemed so absorbed in their own business that they hardly seemed to notice me. I was very glad about that, and I had no time, either, to worry about making mistakes. The morning passed quickly and Stella seemed happy enough too, laughing that, if I could cope with a summer Saturday morning, then I could cope with anything.
Outside, as the sun shone down on me, I almost felt ordinary again: someone with a job, a home, and a friend to meet. Even the calling seagulls seemed tuneful, and I stood for a moment breathing deeply, my knees a little wobbly with something close to happiness.
Down at the seafront the water shone like crinkled foil. The clear air showed me Bexhill a few miles down the coast and, further away still, the white cliffs of Beachy Head near Eastbourne. I felt I could easily have walked there.
Lorna was standing outside the station. I hadn’t seen her for a few months because she was having trouble with her knee and needed an operation. Knowing I’d soon be out, we’d agreed she wouldn’t keep doing the journey to the prison, and I was shocked to see how much she had aged. She was as neat and elegant as ever, but although her eyebrows were still dark, her hair, twined into a gleaming knot, was streaked with grey. She patted it as she caught me looking. ‘You have to stop dyeing it at some point, you know.’
‘It suits you.’
She smiled; her face a spider’s web of tiny lines. Though she was still slender, I noticed she breathed heavily as we wandered down to the Old Town. It was obviously not easy for her to walk, but she insisted she was fine. At the little tapas bar we chose for lunch she exclaimed, ‘My goodness, Clare, it’s so cheap! I hardly ever eat out in London anymore. All the places I used to love are out of my league now.’
Lorna ordered a bottle of wine and as I sipped I felt a shiver of anxiety. When I was living rough, I’d spent plenty of time out of it on cider or cheap vodka, but once I straightened myself out, got married and had the twins, I found it easy enough to drink sensibly. But I’d been happy then. There had been times in prison when I’d longed to get smashed out of my skull, to forget everything for an hour or so, and the way my life was at the moment I knew I should be careful – I’d drunk too much wine in the last day or so and enjoyed it too much.
Lorna nibbled an olive and looked at me with dark eyes that sparkled as brightly as ever. ‘And how are you, sweetheart? You look thinner, but…’ she held up a blue-veined hand, a large gold bangle encircling the elegant wrist, ‘…it suits you. Just don’t go too far will you?’
‘I won’t.’
She smiled up at the waitress unloading the little dishes of food, then said a warm, ‘Thank you’. Lorna always gave her full attention to anyone she was with, whether it was an important client of the firm or the scruffy little girl I had been. Now she turned the full beam onto me. ‘So what do you think of your handsome son?’ She forked a few slices of tomato and chorizo onto her plate and began peeling a prawn, leaving the words to do their work, but I was wise to her technique and in any case I didn’t want to keep anything from her.
‘Oh he’s wonderful, and you were right all along. I should have let him visit me. I was so stupid.’
She smiled. ‘I’m not going to argue with you there, but you’ve spent enough time letting past mistakes get in your way. I think you owe it to Tom to start afresh.’
‘The problem is he doesn’t want to believe I was to blame for the accident.’
‘Don’t forget, it took you a long time to come to terms with it, and Tom’s still very young. You have to help him.’
‘That’s what Alice says, and I’m beginning to think the only way is to try to find out the whole, ugly truth myself.’
‘Regain your memory, you mean?’ She placed the piece of bread she had been eating, very carefully, on her plate, and looked at me. ‘Is it possible after all this time?’
‘Apparently it can happen. The doctors say this kind of amnesia is sometimes a way for the mind to protect itself from something traumatic – something that’s too painful to face.’
‘Do you have any memories at all?’
‘I have dreams that seem to have something to do with it. A dark road and trees, a flash of light, clouds spinning, flames and… oh I don’t know, it may all be something my mind has put together from what I’ve heard since.’
Lorna drank some wine, looking around the little restaurant at the rough white walls covered in Spanish-style plates and bright paintings. She turned back to me. ‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I think I have to go back to where it happened. To see if anything sparks.’
‘And see Emily and Matt?’
‘I’ll have to. Although, it’s not going to be easy to talk about the accident with them.’
She touched the coil of hair at the nape of her neck. ‘You do realise that delving into the past may only mean more pain and guilt?’
I couldn’t answer.
Lorna wiped her hands and scrunched up her napkin. ‘Come on, I’ll pay for this if you make me coffee at your flat.’
We walked slowly, without talking. Lorna was limping quite badly, although she said she was fine. I could only hear those words of hers: more pain and guilt, over and over in my head. That was what I feared so much; that I would find out something even worse than I knew already. Not just that I had taken the speed deliberately, but that I had wanted to harm my family. If I had, then that would be the end. I could never try to be a real mother to Tommy again if I knew he might not be safe with me. And I couldn’t bear to live if he had to know that.
‘And what about Alice? How’s it going with her?’ Lorna asked.
I pointed to a bench and Lorna headed towards it. ‘Yes, let’s sit for a minute. This wretched knee.’ I was aware of her twisting to face me. ‘So, you and Alice? Are you getting on all right?’
I looked down, fiddling with a loose thread on my skirt. ‘She’s been wonderful, as always.’
‘But…?’ The hint of a smile in her voice.
‘I’m