Like This, for Ever

need to answer that. Overcome with shame, Lacey dropped her eyes to the Formica tabletop. When she finally looked up, the face opposite hers was that of a crestfallen child.
    ‘I really screwed you up, didn’t I?’ said the prisoner.
    A damp film was swimming across Lacey’s vision. Tears were very close. ‘I think I managed that one by myself,’ she answered.
    ‘Ten minutes, ladies!’ called the officer on duty. There was a general flurry around the room as people began the process of getting ready to leave.
    ‘How’s Mark?’ asked the prisoner.
    Lacey sighed. ‘Avoiding me. I haven’t seen him since – well, since he found out I’m not as tough as he likes to believe. I don’t know, maybe he thinks I had something to do with the murders as well. He started out believing me guilty of everything, maybe he’s just reverting to form.’
    ‘Ever thought of telling him the truth?’
    A long silence. Visitors were starting to leave the room. Prisoners were filing out of a door at the back.
    ‘No, you’re right. You can’t. And you can’t be with someone and keep a tiny piece of yourself back.’
    ‘This is not a tiny piece we’re talking about,’ said Lacey, keeping her voice low, as people passed close by. ‘It’s who I am. And not with him, no. For some reason, he’s the one person I can’t hide anything from. Apart from you, of course.’
    ‘You really do love him, don’t you?’
    Lacey leaned back in her chair. Love him? Did that really, honestly, come anywhere close?
    ‘If I wasn’t around, you could be with him.’
    All the light had left the other woman’s face. Lacey knew instinctively she was deadly serious. She sat upright again.
    ‘I’m not sure where you’re going with this, but I think you need to stop,’ she said.
    Simultaneously, both women stood. ‘Maybe we need to face facts,’ said the other. ‘If I disappear, you’re safe. Nothing to tie you to what happened before. Nothing for anyone to find out.’
    ‘I’m not listening.’ Lacey bent to pick up her bag, blood pounding in her ears.
    ‘I’ll do it. For you. I’ll do it gladly.’
    ‘Stop it. Now.’
    Around them, faces were turning their way. Violence erupted so swiftly and suddenly in these situations, everyone was constantly on their guard.
    ‘You are the one person I can be myself with,’ said Lacey, not caring who heard, as long as the girl in front of her got the message. ‘If I didn’t have this time with you, I’d be lost.’
    ‘If you lost me, you could have him.’
    A heartbeat. A decision, made years ago, never articulated before.
    ‘Then I choose you. Do you hear me? I choose you.’

52
    ‘ABBIE, DO YOU remember my mum?’
    Abbie Soar, Harvey and Jorge’s mum, put down the chopping knife and gave the smallest, saddest shake of her head.
    ‘I don’t, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘It was just you and your dad when you first arrived at pre-school.’
    The kitchen door opened, Jorge’s strong, clear voice rang throughout the house and Harvey appeared, tugging at the waistband of his school trousers.
    ‘Mum, can you get me Tommy Hilfiger’s boxer shorts?’ he asked, heading for the counter, nose in the air, like a hound sniffing out truffles.
    ‘Possibly. But what would Tommy Hilfiger wear?’
    Harvey pushed his body against that of his mother. ‘You know what I mean,’ he said, looking up into her eyes and digging his chin into her breastbone in a way that looked pretty uncomfortable but which Abbie didn’t seem to mind. She wrapped her hands around his middle and worked her fingers inside his waistband. Then she bent her head and nuzzled her face against Harvey’s neck. It was the sort of physical intimacy of which Barney had no personal experience.
    He turned away, fixing his attention instead on the photographs on the wall. They were in black and white, all taken by Abbie inforeign countries: black kids dressed as soldiers, who might have been playing a game except for the hollow look in their eyes; women with dark headscarves and startlingly pale eyes, watching out over arid landscapes for men who would never return; people limping from a burning hospital.
    It was pretty depressing stuff. Not a single picture on the wall made you feel good about life. But the picture he could see reflected in the glass of most of the photographs was disturbing him even more. A mother, treating her child’s body like an extension of her own; her son nestling against her as though they were