Gilly Macmillan - The Perfect Girl

Tess will be absolutely shattered because she thought that marriage was saving her sister.

I try her mobile, which goes to voicemail, so I have no choice but to brave the landline.

I don’t know if I’m going to tell her about my diagnosis, but I want to know how she is, and what’s happening and I want to hear her voice, and tell her how sorry I am and that I’m thinking of her. And, if I’m honest with myself, I also want to know when she’s going to be able to see me again, because I need her.

We sit in the garden after everybody has left. It’s evening, and it’s still hot and we want to escape the confines of the house that’s had us trapped all day, and which feels sullied now, as it’s where we had to learn what Chris did to Maria.

There are some generous patches of shade that have appeared as this awful day day has progressed and the shadows have inevitably lengthened, but the sun still pours across the garden fence in places and heats up our patch of ground.

I sit on the bench with Richard. Around my ankles the parched grass feels prickly and beside me on the bench Richard sweats, and is mostly silent. We are both profoundly shocked.

My sister walked into a new marriage to escape her old life. She was vulnerable and I should have protected her more.

I say this to Richard.

‘She was also ambitious,’ he says. ‘And you weren’t responsible for her happiness.’

‘I should have done more, I should have known her better.’

‘She didn’t want you close, I think she knew what she was doing.’

‘But what must she have been going through?’ We’re speaking very quietly because the children are in the garden with us, all three of them. ‘It’s such a high price to pay.’

‘The highest,’ he says.

The kids have spread out a rug in the shade a few metres away from us, and filled the washing-up bowl with water, and they’re playing with Grace. Philip Guerin is sitting with them.

On another day, it would be a perfect scene.

Our apple tree is dying. The trunks splits into two near its base and, while one side has produced a decent crop of apples this year, the other is barren.

Philip Guerin is sitting close to Zoe, but not very close. I know he doesn’t want her to live with him.

She shifts position on the rug and is backlit by the sunshine, her hair a cascade of white, which so reminds me of my sister when she was young. The golden light silhouettes and burnishes Zoe’s delicate arms and slender shoulders, and makes the drops of water sparkle in the air when Grace splashes.

Something is bothering me, a detail.

I look at my lovely niece. I see her point out something to Grace.

It’s a butterfly, the source of Zoe’s nickname.

And, as I watch it, I work out what’s troubling me.

It’s the injury to Zoe’s hip, because I am fairly certain that I remember her hip clashing with the piano as she fled from Tom Barlow in the church. Fairly certain, but not positive. I wonder where the film of the concert is, because that would tell us. I wonder whether I have the stomach to watch it, and whether I even want to know, because Zoe told the police that Chris did it, that he pushed her.

Amongst the evening midges, the butterfly flutters on, looking for somewhere to feed. I recognise it as a fritillary and I think that it’s a beautiful creature. Its wings are patterned in shades of orange and black that look magical in the wash of sunlight and against the intense blue evening sky, which the sunset won’t tint for at least another half-hour. Fluttering amongst the flaxen stalks of our dried-out lawn the butterfly brings to mind more exotic locations than this.

The lavender spikes along our garden path are mostly desiccated by now, but I know where the butterfly will go, and so it does. It continues on its path, crossing the grass. It flutters right up to the children, causing Grace to pump her arms with excitement, and then past them and towards the corner of our garden where a rogue buddleia seed has over the years grown into a huge, magnificent plant. It’s bathed in sunshine. Huge sprays of dark purple flowers arc away from it, and it’s covered with butterflies and insects.

I watch the fritillary approach the buddleia, its path undulating yet somehow preordained, and sure enough it finishes there, alighting weightlessly on one of the generous racemes. It settles there. Its wings close, and it begins to feed.

It will bathe there in the honeyed sunlight and feast on the nectar until dusk begins to nudge away the daylight, and then it will find somewhere to settle in the dark, close by, and it will wait there until the light rises again in the morning, warming its wings and its body, so that it can make a foray out into another day.

This is the way of the world, I think. It’s the natural order of things that so fascinated me as a child, and still does. But there will be only so many new daybreaks for this butterfly. It has a short lifespan. Some species can hibernate through the winter, but not this one.

Richard puts his arm around me, and I let him.

And I think, if Sam told me he wanted me, would I ever be able to leave now?

I say to Richard, ‘Philip won’t have Zoe, you know.’

‘I know,’ he replies. ‘I know he won’t.’

Richard is crying; he does that a lot. His depression is severe.

Our telephone rings.

There’s an image that feels as if it’s just within my grasp; it’s an idea that’s forming and then wavering, threatening to disappear, as if it’s a mirage floating in the hot evening air.

I have not had a drink today, and this means that the idea is real, even if I can’t quite make it solidify.

The idea is this: that Tessa and I will take on these children. I’ve spoken to Philip Guerin and he wants to go back to Devon without his daughter. He’s met a new partner and she’s from the local village, close to the families who lost children because of Zoe. Their relationship will not work with Zoe in their midst, and Philip will not consider moving away and starting again.

I expect we could try to persuade him, but why would we, when an alternative might be available?

Mentally, I remove him from the scene in front of me and I reimagine it.

There is Tess, and I, on the bench. I have my arm around her and she has remained in her seat, and not squirmed out from under my touch, as usual. In front of us there are three children on a rug: two blonde princesses and a dark, clever boy.

They are two damaged teenagers and a perfect baby girl who will never remember her mother, and we are looking after them. They will fill our days and nights and we will fill theirs. I will cook for them and organise them, and drive the older kids to music lessons, while Tess works as normal. We’ll give them patient care and love and help, and their lives will be as good as they can be. We’ll give them ordinary, we won’t be seduced by their talent or upset by their histories.

There’s only one thing that makes this mirage shimmer, and threaten to dissolve into the air.

It’s what I thought I overheard while Zoe was bathing Grace earlier.

It was Lucas saying, ‘It was an accident,’ and ‘I’m going to tell them everything.’ It sounded like a confession, but maybe he was just talking about what they witnessed. It must have been.

I won’t mention this to Tessa, but I expect that if I did she would say, ‘Well what does that mean? Are you sure you heard it right? Had you had a drink?’ So I won’t.

I’ve already cleared up the broken model that I found in my shed. If one of them smashed it they would be doing nothing worse than I’ve done in the past, when all the sadness I’ve felt has occasionally driven me to an act of destruction like that.