We sit side by side, looking down at the beach. I thought I wanted to be alone, but it’s actually comforting to have her beside me. It also pushes aside my thoughts about leaving, if just for a moment.
‘It’s been a great party, hasn’t it?’
But Jean ignores my question and turns to face me, her expression stricken.
‘Lorna, I’ve been wanting to speak to you since the funeral. There’s something I need to tell you.’
Her voice is shaking. Worry flutters in my stomach.
‘What it is it?’
She gasps, suppressing a sob.
‘I need to tell you how sorry I am,’ she says in a shaking voice. ‘What your brother said at the funeral, it brought it all back and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.’
As Jean speaks, I can feel my body tensing. I sit very still, listening.
‘It made me think of the unhappiest little girl I ever taught, a girl I’ve thought about every day since. Of course, it was hard for Jack too. But I saw how he managed to get through it somehow. But you …’
Jean turns away now and glances down at the beach, her eyes misting over. I can hear laughter and conversation drifting up through the dunes but my eyes are fixed on Jean, the woman who taught me to read and write, who told me about the moths in the cottage where she lived and who let me ring the school fire bell myself during drills because sudden loud noises always used to frighten me.
‘I remember the first time you told me you fell off your bike. I decided to believe you. Iwantedto believe you. The next time it happened, I told myself it must have been another accident. But there was part of me that knew that something wasn’t right.’
She takes a faltering breath, a sob escaping her. She turns back to face me now and her eyes fill with tears. I don’t want to hear what will come next.
‘Lorna, Iknew. I pretended that I didn’t but I knew what was going on. I knew that they weren’t accidents.’
I feel as though I’m falling, the ground no longer there beneath me, my body dropping into empty space.
Jean rubs agitatedly at her face. She shakes her head slightly.
‘I thought about saying something, about doing something, but this is such a small island. The people who live here are people I have to see every single day. To accuse someone of something like that … It is a devastating accusation to make anywhere, but in a place like this … I told myself that I had to be absolutelycertainif I was going to say anything. And was I certain enough to not only put a whole family through something like that, but a whole community? Because I knew it would have affected everyone. People taking sides, a division that might tear the island apart. I told myself that I was just imagining things.’
She takes another gulping breath. I remember myself so clearly as a frightened, anxious child and then as an angry unhappy teenager – it’s almost as though my younger selves are sitting beside me in the grass, watching on as this conversation unfolds. What would they say? How would they feel to hear that the teacher they loved and trusted knew? Sheknew.
‘When you left the island as a teenager, that’s when I thought maybe I’d been right about what had been going on. Why else would you choose to leave and not come back? I thought that perhaps I should have said something then, but you were already gone. I hoped that it might be the best thing for you, that you’d be happier wherever you ended up. Saying something then couldn’t have helped you. I kept a careful eye on Jack though and was in touch with the teachers at the secondary school on the mainland to keep a watch on him too. But other than being quiet and withdrawn, they never saw anything to worry about. There were no “falls”, no bruises. For a while it made me feel like maybe I’d been wrong about you too, that I’d overreacted. But the longer you stayed away the more the feeling grew that somehow things had been different for you than they were for Jack. A sense that I’d been right to worry about you.’
She takes a deep breath.
‘I have thought about you and the mistake that I made every single day since you left. You deserved better, Lorna, and you were let down. Your parents let you down, but I let you down too. And I have regretted it every single day of my life.’
My body is shaking again. I wish I could stop it but I can’t. I look into the face of the woman I once trusted, a woman who has become an old woman without being particularly old. I know it shouldn’t matter. So much time has passed now and nothing can be changed. So why do I feel so upset and angry?
‘I felt so safe at that school.’
Jean nods, tears dripping down her face. Maybe I should feel sorry for her, but right now I can’t. Instead I feel hot, pulsing anger. For years I’ve felt immeasurably sad about what happened to me as a child, and at times confused, guilty, embarrassed. But hardly ever angry. Now it takes hold of me, gripping like a fist. I didn’t deserve the things that happened to me. I deserved to be protected by the people around me. I was a child. I was a child and I was let down.
‘They told everyone I was clumsy. I even believed it myself sometimes too. I felt like I was going crazy.’
All those times I doubted myself and whether I was making things up inside my head. And all that time there was someone whosaw, who suspected the truth of what was going on.
‘I’m so sorry,’ whispers Jean. ‘I was weak.’
I stand up suddenly, making her jump slightly.
‘I need to go.’
I turn away from my old teacher, leaving her among the grass and the wildflowers. I just can’t be here anymore. The thought of returning to the beach and the party feels impossible now too. I don’t want to ruin the last moments of Ella’s birthday. So I quickly make my way to the farm. Once I’m back in the stillness and the quiet of the empty house I sit in the kitchen, my body tense and shaking. It takes a long time to calm down. By the time I hear the front door of the farmhouse open then close, I know what I need to do.
