Honestly.’
Maggie knew there was a ‘but’ in there, and that she was going to have to wait for it. She smiled her encouragement.
‘When Daddy opened it, I was standing right next to him. There was a picture. I only looked at it because I thought it was you.’
A picture? Of me?
Josh couldn’t mean that. He must have got it wrong.
‘It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m not cross with you. Tell me what you saw when you looked at the screen.’ She relaxed her hold slightly, certain that Josh would be able to feel the thumping of her heart, and turned to look at him.
‘A photo of a lady with red lipstick and long dark hair – spread out like yours sometimes is on the pillow.’
It sounded as if the woman, whoever she was, had to have been lying down.
Why would Duncan get a picture of a woman lying down – a woman that looks like me? Is he having an affair? Has he left me for this woman?
She felt a solid ball of despair settle deep inside her.
‘I thought you’d sent a selfie to dad,’ Josh said, ‘but I kind of knew it wasn’t you.’
‘What made you change your mind?’ she said, stroking his hair gently in an attempt to calm his anxiety.
‘They weren’t your eyes. The lady in the picture had eyes like that doll of Lily’s – the one Auntie Ceecee bought her.’
Maggie felt a chill. He didn’t need to say any more. Her aunt had bought a Victorian doll for Lily when she was three – a strange choice because Ceecee said the doll was too expensive to play with. So the doll, named Maud by Lily, had sat on a shelf in her bedroom, to be looked at but never touched. Then Lily had started to have nightmares.
‘What were you dreaming about, baby?’ Maggie had asked after she had brought a terrified Lily into bed with her and Duncan.
‘It’s Maud. She watches me.’
‘What do you mean, Lil?’ Duncan had asked. ‘She’s just a doll.’
‘Does that mean she’s dead, Daddy?’
‘No, sweetheart. Somebody made her, like we sometimes make things out of Play-Doh. She’s never been alive.’
‘Is that what people’s eyes look like if they’ve never been alive?’
The doll now lived in a cupboard, but Maggie knew exactly what Josh meant about the eyes.
6
12 years ago – May 7 th
Sonia Beecham almost didn’t recognise the eyes staring back at her in the mirror. They were still pale blue, of course, but the pupils were slightly dilated with excitement, and the eyelashes were tinted with grey mascara – an unusual indulgence, but she wanted to look her best because today was special. In fact Sonia thought it was her best day since starting at Manchester University six months previously. She had always found it difficult to make friends and the eagerness on her parents’ faces when she came home each night was painful to watch as they waited to hear whether she had met new people. She knew it was out of love for her, but they didn’t understand the pressure it put her under
.
She was shy. Painfully, embarrassingly shy. If anybody spoke to her, she blushed bright red. It was an instant reaction, and one that made her turn away. Never in her wildest dreams could she imagine starting a conversation with anybody. She would rather stick her head in a vat of boiling oil, if the truth were known
.
She had heard her parents talking once, a few years ago. They wanted to know what they had done wrong – why their daughter had grown up the way she had. So now she had that guilt to bear as well. If only she could make some friends so they would know they had done nothing – nothing, that is, except love her and shelter her from anything and everything that would be considered by most people to be a normal experience
.
Now, though, things were changing. Her mum had been so concerned that she’d persuaded Sonia’s father to stump up for some counselling. Sonia had been horrified. The idea of sitting in a chair telling a complete stranger how embarrassed she was to open her mouth in company made her