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RACHEL<br />
The immediate aftermath was the first in a series of new body blows.<br />
Nicky swept everything up from the table, all her hard work, gathered it hastily and tried to push it<br />
into her bag. Her movements were rough and clumsy.<br />
‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘Please don’t.’<br />
I felt as though she was falling apart right in front of my eyes. I wondered if that’s what it had been<br />
like when she first went to Esther’s, to live in the cottage, right after it happened, when I was a baby,<br />
when her grief must have been unbearable.<br />
And I realised that in the future I would wonder about everything.<br />
From now on it would be impossible to unpick every detail of my history, every assumption that<br />
had led to me building a sense of my own identity, and of Ben’s identity. My past had been crumpled<br />
up and thrown into the fire, and I would have to sort through the ashes, with only Nicky as my guide.<br />
Nicky, who had lied to me for a very long time; Nicky, who said that she’d lied to protect me; Nicky,<br />
who I needed.<br />
‘I should leave,’ she said. ‘You’re better off without me. You know, I would never, ever hurt Ben.<br />
Can I just say that? I would never hurt Ben.’<br />
Her distress pushed her voice to an acute pitch, and I went to comfort her.<br />
‘I know you wouldn’t.’<br />
She let her bag slide down her shoulder and onto the table, and the papers spilled back out of it.<br />
Her head fell onto my shoulder and her body shook.<br />
Are you surprised at my reaction to her? At my willingness to accept what I’d heard and offer her<br />
comfort?<br />
It wasn’t the end of it. Of course it wasn’t. If I think back to that day I can remember the stages I<br />
went through. I suppose it was like the stages of grief, although this was different. This was the<br />
processing of what felt like a betrayal, this was the seeping away of trust.<br />
After the door had clicked shut behind an adrenalin-pumped Clemo and a Zhang who couldn’t meet<br />
my eye for the first time, that first interaction Nicky and I had was of course a reflex, an urge to keep<br />
Nicky by me, to deny that anything had changed. She’d been my rock, always, and I couldn’t<br />
contemplate any other existence. It wasn’t in my DNA. Or I’d thought it wasn’t.<br />
After that exchange we separated. Nicky unpacking her bag robotically, calling on those massive<br />
reserves of strength to anchor her to my table, to keep her going as she delved deeper and deeper into<br />
whatever the web had to offer her.<br />
I went to my safe place, to Ben’s room, and I immersed myself in him, as was my habit. It was the<br />
only place I felt secure. His bedroom had become my womb.<br />
This was my second stage.<br />
I sank onto the beanbag on the floor of his room and I felt as if I was cast adrift in a small wooden<br />
boat, shrouded by a watery grey mist. And suspended within each of the millions of fine droplets that<br />
made up the mist, was the news, the bombshell that I’d just heard. And in this stage it simply<br />
surrounded me, existing, but not yet understood. And within it I felt baseless, disorientated and lost.<br />
The third state was the inevitable churning of my mind, the processing of what I’d learned, and of<br />
its implications, the moment the droplets of mist began to settle on my skin and permeate it. It was<br />
when the knowledge became part of me and it was irreversible. I had to face up to it.