nor unreliable. It is inconceivable that she would do such a thing.
Officially, the incident is never mentioned again. In fact, it gets several more mentions over the years, most of which Jo and Neil know nothing about. Amber keeps track of the references, like a sort of unofficial verbal cuttings agency, which is both appropriate and easy because Amber is often the person who brings it up. Two years after the event, she finds herself alone with Sabina and dares to ask her if she knows any more than the rest of them do. ‘No,’ says Sabina. ‘In Italy, I would know. English families don’t talk about anything.’ Amber believes her.
About a year later, Amber confides in Pam, her mother-in-law, that she still often wonders what really happened, still wants to know. ‘Well,’ says Pam, wrinkling her nose as if Amber has raised a distasteful subject. ‘You do and you don’t, really.’ Amber thinks this is a ridiculous thing to say. What on earth is it supposed to mean?
Luke is the only person with whom Amber can talk freely about Little Orchard, though it annoys her that he often appears to be humouring her. He is no longer interested. As he puts it, ‘The moment’s passed. It was a blip, that’s all. Neil and Jo have been fine ever since. What does it matter any more?’
It matters to Amber. So much that she has even considered asking William, now twelve, if he can remember anything of that night. Why?
Amber is reluctant to claim sole ownership of her curiosity. She suspects everyone is secretly desperate to know; certainly all the women who were there. Hilary and Sabina have both wondered ever since that night – they must have; how could they not? – whether the happy-seeming surface of Neil and Jo’s relationship is nothing more than an optical illusion. Pam, before she died in January from liver cancer, must have wondered too. And is Amber really the only member of the Little Orchard party who still listens carefully whenever William and Barney open their mouths, in case they let a clue slip out? If something strange is going on between their parents, or in their home, there’s no way that, bright as they are, they’re unaware of it.
Why doesn’t Amber simply ask Jo straight out, if she’s so curious? Maybe, after all these years, Jo would simply laugh and tell her. And even if not, surely the worst that would happen is that Jo would say, ‘I’m sorry, that’s private.’
When Amber thinks about it, she realises that she knows the answer to this question, and, as answers go, it’s a baffling one. It isn’t that she is worried Jo won’t want to tell her. On the contrary, and odd though it sounds, it is Amber who doesn’t want to tell Jo . She feels as if that would be a terribly impolite, almost a violent thing to do. Jo appears to have erased the incident from her memory entirely. She walked out of the lounge at Little Orchard on Boxing Day 2003, having made her announcement, and immediately – instantaneously – created an alternative version of the universe, one in which it did not happen . That is the world in which she now lives happily, and for Amber to ask her about Little Orchard would be to drag her out of it. ‘Like going up to someone you see having fun at a party and telling them that you happen to know they were a victim of genocide in a previous life,’ says Amber to Luke, who thinks she is being melodramatic. His take on it is different: ‘I still don’t see why they didn’t just make up a plausible lie, if they didn’t want to tell us the truth,’ he says. ‘That’s what I’d have done.’
Which rather goes to prove my point: that there’s nothing most of us love more than a plausible lie. A good story, in other words.
2
30/11/2010
It was nearly over. Detective Constable Simon Waterhouse grinned to himself. It hadn’t started yet – the emergency meeting he’d called, with no authority to do so, was still waiting for him to arrive – but Simon could taste
Officially, the incident is never mentioned again. In fact, it gets several more mentions over the years, most of which Jo and Neil know nothing about. Amber keeps track of the references, like a sort of unofficial verbal cuttings agency, which is both appropriate and easy because Amber is often the person who brings it up. Two years after the event, she finds herself alone with Sabina and dares to ask her if she knows any more than the rest of them do. ‘No,’ says Sabina. ‘In Italy, I would know. English families don’t talk about anything.’ Amber believes her.
About a year later, Amber confides in Pam, her mother-in-law, that she still often wonders what really happened, still wants to know. ‘Well,’ says Pam, wrinkling her nose as if Amber has raised a distasteful subject. ‘You do and you don’t, really.’ Amber thinks this is a ridiculous thing to say. What on earth is it supposed to mean?
Luke is the only person with whom Amber can talk freely about Little Orchard, though it annoys her that he often appears to be humouring her. He is no longer interested. As he puts it, ‘The moment’s passed. It was a blip, that’s all. Neil and Jo have been fine ever since. What does it matter any more?’
It matters to Amber. So much that she has even considered asking William, now twelve, if he can remember anything of that night. Why?
Amber is reluctant to claim sole ownership of her curiosity. She suspects everyone is secretly desperate to know; certainly all the women who were there. Hilary and Sabina have both wondered ever since that night – they must have; how could they not? – whether the happy-seeming surface of Neil and Jo’s relationship is nothing more than an optical illusion. Pam, before she died in January from liver cancer, must have wondered too. And is Amber really the only member of the Little Orchard party who still listens carefully whenever William and Barney open their mouths, in case they let a clue slip out? If something strange is going on between their parents, or in their home, there’s no way that, bright as they are, they’re unaware of it.
Why doesn’t Amber simply ask Jo straight out, if she’s so curious? Maybe, after all these years, Jo would simply laugh and tell her. And even if not, surely the worst that would happen is that Jo would say, ‘I’m sorry, that’s private.’
When Amber thinks about it, she realises that she knows the answer to this question, and, as answers go, it’s a baffling one. It isn’t that she is worried Jo won’t want to tell her. On the contrary, and odd though it sounds, it is Amber who doesn’t want to tell Jo . She feels as if that would be a terribly impolite, almost a violent thing to do. Jo appears to have erased the incident from her memory entirely. She walked out of the lounge at Little Orchard on Boxing Day 2003, having made her announcement, and immediately – instantaneously – created an alternative version of the universe, one in which it did not happen . That is the world in which she now lives happily, and for Amber to ask her about Little Orchard would be to drag her out of it. ‘Like going up to someone you see having fun at a party and telling them that you happen to know they were a victim of genocide in a previous life,’ says Amber to Luke, who thinks she is being melodramatic. His take on it is different: ‘I still don’t see why they didn’t just make up a plausible lie, if they didn’t want to tell us the truth,’ he says. ‘That’s what I’d have done.’
Which rather goes to prove my point: that there’s nothing most of us love more than a plausible lie. A good story, in other words.
2
30/11/2010
It was nearly over. Detective Constable Simon Waterhouse grinned to himself. It hadn’t started yet – the emergency meeting he’d called, with no authority to do so, was still waiting for him to arrive – but Simon could taste
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