Cristy waited and was starting to think no answer was coming when she was suddenly surprised.
NICOLE: ‘We never had any tests done, but I was mostly exclusive with him. Not always, but mostly.’
Cristy glanced at Maeve and saw no surprise, so concluded this was something Maeve had heard before.
NICOLE: ‘No one really understood who we were, how we liked to live our lives, but it didn’t matter. We weren’t interested in other people’s judgement. There was no reason to be when we weren’t causing harm to anyone else. What difference did it make who we slept with?’
She seemed to drift, maybe taking herself back to the heady, halcyon days of her youth that must surely feel more like a dream now than any sort of reality.
She started to laugh softly.
NICOLE: ‘We used to have parties in the woods behindour house. Lauren and I loved getting all dressed up just to go down the garden. Funny the things that excite you and make you laugh when you’re young.’
CRISTY: ‘Dress up in what way?’
NICOLE: ‘Like we were going to a Sunday picnic or to pose for a painting. You know, the kind by Manet or Seurat or Renoir … We used to smoke a lot of weed at those picnics, and we never held onto much in the way of inhibitions – hah! Claude always used to say clothes were just shields hiding perfection, and why would any of us want to hide that?’
Realizing this must be what had sparked Mervyn Wilson’s wild theories, Cristy glanced at Connor, wondering what he was making of all this. What sort of image did he have in his mind of Claude Meyer and the apparent influence he had wielded over his friends. A cult in plain sight? It was what it sounded like to her, and yet Maeve was showing no signs of having had a problem with it.
CRISTY: ‘What happened when you found out you were pregnant?’
Appearing dreamy and reflective again, Nicole ran a hand over her abdomen as if she were pregnant now.
NICOLE: ‘We stopped having picnics for a while because it was winter, but there was always someone’s flat or house to go to. Claude was fascinated by my bump as it grew – he used to stroke and kiss it all the time. So even if he wasn’t officially the father, he kind of acted like he was, and that was fine.’
MAEVE: ‘He came to the hospital when she gave birth … He was the first to hold the babies, and he wasso proud, very emotional … He said he felt like he was holding a pair of miracles … Well, I suppose he was, if you want to look at it that way.’
NICOLE: ‘He used to call them the gifts instead of the twins. He even said prayers to them.’
CRISTY: ‘What sort of prayers?’
NICOLE: ‘Well, I don’t suppose it was that exactly – more like he was honouring their creation. Those were his words: he honoured their creation, and he used to pour these lovely smelling oils over them, rubbing in so gently … They loved it. Always sent them right off to sleep.’
CRISTY: ‘This was happening at the house on Randall Lane?’
NICOLE: ‘No, at his place in Clifton, near the university. We were there a lot after they were born.’
MAEVE: ‘Sometimes, you took the twins, but just as often you left them with me and your dad so you could go out and do the things you were missing out on …
‘Nicole was no saint – we’ve never tried to say that she was – but Noah and Abigail, they were our sunshine, our joy … She loved them with all her heart and soul and did her best to take care of them. No, she didn’t always get it right. Did you, Cristy, as a young mother? I’m sure you made mistakes too. I know I did, but we do our best, and that’s what matters. Nicole was only nineteen, she wanted to start at university, and we were supportive of that right up until … well, until …’
Cristy saw the shadow of grief cross her face. Nicole seemed not to be paying attention, but then she muttered for her mother to stop or she was going to set everyone off. Hervoice was slightly harsher than it had been a few minutes ago. Emotional detachment? More self-protection?
Eventually, Cristy judged it right to start again, but gently, cautiously. She was about to tread on very difficult ground now, and there was no way of knowing how Nicole might react.
CRISTY: ‘Will you talk us through what happened the day the twins disappeared?’
Nicole eyed her curiously, as if she might not understand the question, but then she was talking in a toneless voice, recounting, as if by rote, something she’d long memorized that could be spoken without being felt.
NICOLE: ‘Mum went to Bridget’s like she sometimes did on a Monday. The cat had brought something in the night before … Sometimes, the place would look like a battlefield after he’d finished with his prey … He was a beast, that cat, and there was blood that morning … I promised to clear it up, but after Mum left, I saw that the cat …
‘He was just lying there in the kitchen … He wasn’t moving, and his eyes were open. It was horrible. He’d died, and no one had noticed. I remember it upset me a lot.’
CRISTY: ‘What was the cat’s name?’
NICOLE: ‘We called him George, but we never knew what it really was. He’d adopted us a couple of months before … He kept hanging around our garden, so we started to feed him, and then somehow he kind of became ours.’
MAEVE: ‘He was more of a stray, really, than the family pet.’
