Silent Voices

not they’d be able to adopt her. She was moved. When she was three and a half I signed the consent form, but by then it was too late. Adoption never happened for her. There was no stability throughout her childhood. That was all my fault.’
    ‘More likely the fault of that soft bloody social worker who talked you out of signing the consent form!’
    Ashworth thought his boss was going to give them her usual rant about social workers, but she managed to restrain herself.
    ‘Matilda came on visits,’ Vera said. ‘During that time when you were making up your mind. She remembers.’
    ‘Does she?’ Veronica said, and Ashworth couldn’t tell if she was terrified or delighted by the information. ‘She was so young that I didn’t think she would. I remember every detail, of course. What she was wearing, what she said. She was so small. Very pretty. And good. An obedient little girl.’
    Ashworth thought: So obedient that she went on to do whatever men told her to.
    ‘She told Jenny Lister about the visits to you,’ Vera went on. ‘But Jenny would have had access to the records anyway. She must have known you were Mattie’s natural mother.’
    ‘I hated thinking about that,’ Veronica said. ‘I kept expecting Jenny to say something. I thought she might tell Simon. He never knew he had a sister.’
    ‘Why would she have done that? Confidentiality was important to her.’ Vera paused for a moment, looking at the woman, seemed to give the question more significance than it deserved. ‘Did she tell you she planned to write a book?’
    There was a silence. ‘Simon mentioned it one day,’ Veronica said at last. ‘Hannah had told him of her mother’s dream to tell her clients’ stories. As if that were a noble thing to do.’
    ‘She would have changed names, of course, if a book did get written, but people close to you might have guessed.’ Vera looked directly at the woman opposite. ‘Is that why you were so against the relationship between Hannah and Simon? You thought Jenny might share your secret if she got too close to him.’
    ‘Elias Jones was my grandson,’ Veronica said. ‘Those women let him die.’
    ‘You let Patrick die,’ Vera said, her voice quiet and matter-of-fact.
    There was a shocked silence; again the sound of the river running high intruded into the house. Ashworth imagined a young child being swept away by it, rolled by the current until his face was under the water, being carried all the way to the sea.
    ‘That was an accident!’ Veronica cried at last. ‘Not the same at all.’
    ‘One child given away,’ Vera said, as if Veronica hadn’t spoken, ‘and one child lost. And the child that was left fell for your enemy’s daughter. Is that how you saw it?’
    ‘Simon could have done better for himself,’ Veronica said. But the reply was automatic and meant nothing.
    ‘Where did you take Connie Masters?’ Vera demanded.
    Veronica ignored the question. It was as if each woman was hardly aware of the other’s words: each was pursuing her own line of thought, a monologue occasionally interrupted. It seemed to Ashworth that it was like watching one of those odd modern plays his wife took him to see at the Live Theatre sometimes. Two characters rambling on without making any connection.
    ‘Did Matilda really remember those visits?’ Veronica’s question came suddenly from nowhere.
    This time Vera did answer. ‘Aye, she talked about them. To Jenny and to Michael Morgan. I went to see him this morning to check I had it right. They meant a lot to her.’
    ‘How much can she remember?’
    ‘The social worker bringing her in the car. She talked about a house with its legs in the water. That must be the boathouse by the lake? The place in the picture in your hall? The one at Greenhough.’
    ‘I always met her there,’ Veronica said. ‘My parents wouldn’t have her in our house. It was still a shameful secret.’ She looked up and asked the most important question. ‘Did Matilda remember me?’
    But Vera had already leaped to her feet, almost tripping in her haste. ‘And that’s where you took Connie and the child. God, I have been such a fool! But why? Couldn’t you stand seeing them happy together?’ Then she fell silent and was still, her body twisted towards the woman, like a massive granite sculpture, and when she did speak it was quietly and to herself. ‘No, of course that wasn’t it at all.’
    Ashworth was standing too. He wasn’t sure what Vera expected