‘A couple of weeks ago, Roisin Marshall confronted me at the back of the café,’ says Mum. ‘She said she had proof that you had been pregnant.’
‘The photograph,’ I say. ‘The one of me and Niall.’
‘And the words on the back, one plus one equals three,’ says Mum.
‘I gave it to Niall shortly before the accident. We were so happy. We were also very naive. We thought we could get a place, have the baby, and go to work and college at the same time. We really believed we would show everyone, prove them wrong. Christ, looking back, we were living in some sort of dream world.’
‘So you appreciate now how your father and I felt. And Diana Marshall.’
‘I can now, but I couldn’t then.’
‘You can’t put an old head on young shoulders, sure you can’t,’ says Mum.
‘When exactly did Roisin come to you with this photograph?’ I ask, as dates and times whirl through my mind.
‘Do I really need to answer that?’
‘The night of Dad’s accident,’ I say. She’s right. I didn’t really need to ask that. I think I had almost worked this out before. Now it’s all coming together. ‘What happened that night?’
‘Roisin and myself, we got into an argument,’ says Mum. She slips her hand from mine and sits back in her chair. ‘We were arguing at the top of the outside stairs. Your father heard us and got between us. Roisin was shouting things like, “Erin was pregnant. What happened to it? She kept it all a secret.” I was telling her to shut up. Your father was yelling at me to be quiet. Demanding Roisin explain herself. There was a moment when we all stopped fighting and he looked at me. I didn’t say a word but then I didn’t have to. He could tell.’
Mum is looking beyond me, recalling the events as if she’s right back there in the moment. Part of me doesn’t want to know what happened next. I can guess. I wish to God I’m wrong, but something tells me I’m not. I have no choice. I have to ask. ‘What happened after that?’
‘There was a scuffle. Your dad lost his balance. I can remember seeing his heel hanging precariously over the edge of the top step. For one tiny moment he was suspended at the perfect point of balance, where one crucial movement would dictate success or failure, taking him to either safety or danger.’ She pauses for a moment. The faraway look remains as she speaks again. ‘I thought I was going to save him, to grab his hands and to stop him from toppling backwards down the steps,’ says Mum. ‘I genuinely thought that.’
‘What did you do?’ My voice catches in my throat.
‘Somewhere between me reaching out for him and actually taking his hand, somewhere in that split second, I thought of all the repercussions your father knowing would have,’ says Mum. ‘He wouldn’t have let us live the lie. He would have been on the Marshalls’ side. I couldn’t let that happen. So, instead of pulling him, I… pushed.’
‘Oh, Mum.’ The nightmare is becoming a reality.
‘I couldn’t let Diana Marshall have claim over your child, not after she was so against it,’ Mum continues. ‘She didn’t deserve it.’ Her voice is firm and hard. ‘I didn’t want anyone to know Roisin was there. I said we were to make it look like an accident or a mugging. That’s why I kept the key. I think Roisin was frightened at the time. She ran off before the ambulance arrived. I thought Kerry might have seen her hiding behind the bins until it was safe to go, but he never said anything.’
I give myself a minute to take on board what Mum has told me. Roisin confronted Mum. They had a scuffle. Dad fell. They were happy to let people think it might be a mugging gone wrong. All this because of a photograph. How I wish now I’d never given it to Niall all those years ago. A stupid mistake that is catching up with me now.
I think about the picture. Is it really that crucial? ‘You know what, Mum, Roisin only had a photograph,’ I say. ‘That didn’t prove anything. It would only be assumption.’
‘You’re right, Erin. On its own it doesn’t prove anything, but at the time I wasn’t thinking straight. I grabbed it from her, that’s what the scuffling was about. Anyway, I kept it for a while, but later I destroyed it. I didn’t want anyone else seeing it, not least Roisin.’
‘That’s what you were burning in the sink,’ I say, thinking back to how I had taken the milk up to Mum and she was standing at the kitchen sink. She’d got all flustered when she saw me.
‘I thought that would be an end to it, but I was wrong,’ says Mum. ‘It was after, when she came to see me at the hospital. She got me so cross, I’m sorry, Erin, it’s my fault. I let slip you had the baby. After that there was no stopping her. Photograph or no photograph.’