I can smell petrol and burning and find myself struggling to breathe. Everything changed after that night.
He rubs his face again. I can almost see the conflicting thoughts passing through his head like clouds. Everything I’m trying to tell him weighed up against everything our parents told him for years and years.
‘I don’t know, Lorna. I haven’t seen you in over twenty years. Who do you really expect me to believe?’
The tension in my body is unbearable. I close my eyes slowly then open them again.
‘Me. I want you to believe me, Jack. Because I’m your sister. And because I’m telling the truth.’
He stares at me, his face twisted. I want to reach out for him and run away all at once.
There are footsteps in the hallway and suddenly Alice, Molly and Ella are there, drawn to my old room by our raised voices.
‘Is everything OK?’ Alice asks nervously. Molly and Ella look between Jack and me, at my tear-stained face and Jack’s tense frame, his hands clenched by his sides. He says nothing.
‘I should leave,’ I say, wiping my face with my hands. ‘I never should have come. Come on, Ella.’
‘But I …’
Her eyes flick to her cousin, who looks just as bewildered as Ella does.
‘Comeon,’ I repeat, more firmly this time. We have to get out of here. This has all been one big mistake.
Molly squeezes Ella’s arm and gives a little nod.
‘See you later,’ Ella says quietly to Molly, before turning and storming down the stairs. I follow behind, taking the steps two at a time. There is not enough air in this house. In the kitchen I grab my brother’s car keys from the table.
Ella is waiting in the corridor, her shoulders slumped, her arms tightly crossed. Her eyes flick to the keys.
‘Mum, what’s going on? Did something happen? And what are you doing?’
WhatamI doing?I fling open the front door, rain still falling onto the porch roof with a clatter.
‘Ella, get in the car.’
I’ve never seen Ella look at me the way she does now. It’s as though she is seeing me for the first time and realising that her mother is at best deeply flawed, at worst mad. After a moment she lifts the hood on her coat and follows me into the car, climbing in the passenger seat and slamming the door.
I turn the key in the ignition, the sound of the engine surprising me. So, I’m really doing this. I lift the clutch and press down on the accelerator.
‘Did you and Uncle Jack have an argument? We heard shouting. Is everything OK?’
I know I should answer her but I feel too upset and confused to formulate anything coherent.
The hatchback shakes as I drive down the track, loose stones picked up by the wheels and flung to the edges of the road. When we reach the smooth tarmac of the main road I press even harder on the gas. Puddles of water rest on the surface of the road and as the car drives through them waves spray onto the verge. The rain is so heavy now that I can see only a short distance ahead. The rest of the island is blurred by water and the sea is entirely obscured by mist.
‘Mum, you’re going too fast!’
Headlights flash out of the gloom and I press hard on the brakes, swerving onto the grass to avoid the car that is travelling the opposite direction. Once the car has passed I pull away again, driving slightly slower this time.
‘What’s going on, Mum? What just happened in there?’
My daughter wants me to have the answers, to reassure her with some neatly packaged wisdom, something reassuring. That’s my job. But how can I possibly do that job when I am falling apart?
‘Uncle Jack and I had an argument. Things about the past.’
‘What things about the past?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it, Ella.’
