Before We Met(100)

‘It’s the truth, isn’t it? And she’s married to him; she knows what he’s like. Anyway, it’s not just about being ashamed, I’ve worked that much out. He wants to punish us, too, doesn’t he?’ He directed his question to Hannah.

‘For what?’ she said.

‘For not seeing it, for not understanding about Nick. He did, Mark, from very early on he got it, but to believe that one of your own children could be capable of . . .’ He looked sickened. ‘I hope you never know what it’s like, to have to face your neighbours, see them acting normal when you know they’ve been reading about your son in the papers, every sordid detail of what he did. That they all know what kind of monster you’d been . . . incubating.’

‘It must have been hard for Mark, too, having Nick as a brother,’ she said tentatively. ‘I mean, it sounds like he felt a lot of responsibility for . . .’

Mr Reilly gave a snort. ‘Responsibility? He was never responsible for Nick, never, whatever he might have told you. How could anyone be responsible for . . . that?’ He spat the word off his tongue.

‘It was my fault.’ Mrs Reilly looked up from her lap. ‘The way I handled them when they were growing up. When Nick was born, he was so easy. After Mark . . .’

‘Easy?’ Mr Reilly was outraged.

‘At the beginning, Gordon – when he was younger. That’s all I meant. He was easy,’ she said, directing herself to Hannah. ‘Mark was . . . different. Difficult – there, I’ve said it; he was difficult. Even when he was a baby, I felt like I was battling with him, like there was someone in there, an adult, looking out at me from his eyes, challenging me all the time. Judging me – that sounds ridiculous, I know, but it’s what it felt like.’

‘Elizabeth . . .’

She glanced at her husband, her face anxious, but she carried on. ‘He was so bright – it was obvious right from the start that he was special. And then we had Nick – I got pregnant again almost straight away; they were born within a year of each other – and that’s when Mark started to change. I knew at the time I wasn’t treating them the same but I couldn’t help myself. Mark was . . . he seemed to want something from me that I couldn’t give him. He stopped sleeping, he wouldn’t feed, and then he started having moods, not tantrums like other children but moods – he used to disappear, go inside himself, as if he was trying to punish me. Nick was sunny, smiley, and . . . I couldn’t help it, he was easier to love, he just was.’

‘Elizabeth, stop,’ said Mr Reilly, but she ignored him.

‘Mark saw it,’ she said. ‘I know he did. He saw it and he felt rejected, and then he got angry, and the angrier he got, the harder it was to . . . get through to him. That was when it started – his shutting himself off from me. By the time he was five or six, he was closed, self-contained – like a bubble. He’d taken his world inside himself. He didn’t need me any more, or even want me, but Nick . . .’ She stood up suddenly, her movements much less of a struggle than her husband’s, went to the bureau and tugged open the lowest drawer. From underneath a stack of papers she pulled out a small navy blue photograph album.

‘Elizabeth, for pity’s sake.’

‘No, Gordon, I want to,’ she said. ‘I’m going to. He’s still my son.’

By the fireplace there was a chintz-covered footstool. She carried it round to the side of Hannah’s chair and sat down, avoiding eye contact with her husband, who stayed on the sofa radiating anger. The album was A5-size and covered in leatherette. Inside, the polythene envelopes that held each picture were misty and crackled with age. Mrs Reilly handled them with reverence as if, were she alone, she might caress each one before turning it over.

She paged through several then lifted the book on to the arm of Hannah’s chair. ‘We went camping in Devon, our summer holiday. He’s eight.’

The picture had been taken at the campsite and the background was dominated by a large square tent, inside the pinned-back door of which the silhouette of a man – Gordon, Hannah guessed – was visible leaning over a table. Mark sat in the foreground, just off centre, on a fold-out stool. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and as they protruded towards the camera, his knees were almost comically bulbous above his skinny shins. His expression, however, was deadly serious. The photographer – his mother, presumably – had called his name and he was looking up from the book in his lap with the weariness of an elderly scholar. It wasn’t tiredness, though. When Hannah looked again, she saw exactly what Elizabeth Reilly meant: he was closed off. Having no choice in the matter, he was there in person, his expression seemed to say, but the real him, the part that mattered, was somewhere else, locked up and unreachable, private.