Chapter Twenty-Three
Cristy looked up as Maeve and Honey returned, and over the next few minutes, as teas and sugar were handed around, she took the time to work out where she should go next in this complicated tangle of memories and emotions that Nicole was apparently trapped inside.
When everyone finally had their tea, Nicole said, ‘Let’s record now, shall we?’
Still not entirely comfortable with it, Cristy looked to Honey for guidance.
Maeve said, ‘As long as you don’t use it before we’ve found the twins.’
Cristy wondered if Maeve was aware that Claude Meyer might know where they were – presuming Nicole was to be believed, and right at this moment, Cristy had no idea what she thought about that. She gave Connor the signal to begin.
Her eyes were on Nicole as she considered the best way to continue their chat. In the end, she decided to go back a way, rather than pick up from where they’d left off – it would be interesting to see if she got the same answers.
CRISTY: ‘We were talking about Claude Meyer just now …’
There was the smile again: a breaking through of the young girl she used to be, a connection with something inside that clearly made her feel good, even seemed to free her in a way. Her voice was warm and steady as she spoke; her eyes focused elsewhere.
NICOLE: ‘His visits were what kept us both going. We couldn’t have carried on without them.’
CRISTY: ‘Can you tell me what you talked about when he came?’
NICOLE: ‘I can’t use words the way he does, but everything he said …
He could take me out of my surroundings, smooth away all the pain, so that I didn’t see or feel where I was any more.
When he’s with me, all I see is him or what he’s describing: the places, the people, the music, the paintings …
He can be very funny when he talks about the animals. I’m longing to see them for real.’
CRISTY: ‘What sort of animals?’
NICOLE: ‘All sorts.’
CRISTY: ‘Do you know where they are?’
NICOLE: ‘For the moment, they’re safely stored up here.’
She tapped her head, and the look in her eyes, though still distant, seemed oddly joyful.
Cristy glanced at Maeve, hoping she might say something, but she didn’t. It wasn’t even clear from her expression whether or not she was listening, but of course she was.
NICOLE: ‘Mum visited me a lot too, didn’t you? And Dad before he died. That was the most awful time … I never got to see him, to say goodbye … There’s a lot of cruelty in prison – rules that only hurt people and never do any good. That’s one of the hardest parts … I don’t want to go back …’
She began crying, and Maeve went to comfort her.
MAEVE: ‘We’re very grateful for her release, but there are still so many restrictions on where she can go, who she can talk to, how often she has to report to the authorities. It’s really not possible for her to restart her life. Not yet, anyway.’
CRISTY: ‘How long will it have to be like this?’
MAEVE: ‘Possibly for the next two years – until her sentence is complete.’
CRISTY: ‘Will you stay here the whole time?’
MAEVE: ‘We’re not sure yet. We just take one day at a time.’
CRISTY: ‘What about Claude Meyer? Will you see him?’
MAEVE: ‘He’s not in the forty-mile radius.’
CRISTY: ‘But you know where he is?’
MAEVE: ‘Not exactly, no.’
Cristy didn’t challenge her, although she did wonder if that was true.
NICOLE: ‘If he wants you to know, he’ll tell you.’
Cristy watched as Maeve dried her daughter’s cheeks, pressed a kiss to her forehead and returned to her chair.
What, Cristy wondered, were Maeve’s feelings towards the man who’d clearly had such an enormous impact on her daughter’s life?
Cristy sensed no animosity, but it was hard to get a feel for anything when Maeve was giving off so little in the way of emotion – apart from great tenderness for her daughter.
NICOLE: ‘Lauren comes to visit me too, now and again. When she can. Mum doesn’t know that … Sorry, Mum, but you’d only tell Bridget, and Lauren doesn’t want her mum to know.’
Maeve shook her head – more in exasperation, it seemed, than surprise. Whatever her true feelings about this news, she apparently wasn’t going to share them now.
CRISTY: ‘Do you know where Lauren is?’
NICOLE: ‘Not exactly, but Claude does. She’s happy, I think. It’s nice to see her when she comes.’
She broke into a girlish laugh that seemed unrelated to anything or anyone in the room, and when she spoke, she sounded much as she might have as a playful teen.
NICOLE: ‘You haven’t asked how I met Claude, but I’m going to tell you anyway. It was at a nightclub in Bristol … You look surprised, but it’s true. Lauren and I could hardly take our eyes off him … There was something about him that made it hard not to stare …
‘He was older than us, not by much, and the way he was standing there, at the end of the bar on his own … He says he wasn’t alone, but that’s how I remember it.
Everyone was trying to get him to dance, and he kept laughing, saying he was no good, but he danced with me, and we moved together like we’d been dancing forever. ’
Cristy watched her closely and realized she could be witnessing something else the psychologist had mentioned: some trauma victims show signs of being mentally stuck in the era before the trauma occurred.
It’s a safer space for them, where they don’t have to think about or fear what comes next because they don’t know.
There can also be a lot of fantasy involved, a creation of how they want things to be rather than how they actually were.
NICOLE: ‘It was me who asked him if we could see one another again, but it didn’t matter because we knew right away that we would. It was like we had to because … We had to.’
CRISTY: ‘You said he’s Swiss, so what was he doing in Bristol?’
NICOLE: ‘He was lecturing at the university, just for a year at first, but he ended up staying a lot longer than that.’
CRISTY: ‘What was he lecturing in?’
NICOLE: ‘Psychology.’
CRISTY: ‘And he stayed. Because of you?’
NICOLE: ‘And his other friends. They were special too, in their own ways, and I always felt as though I belonged with them. It’s hard to explain that, but it’s true. I want to go back to them.’
CRISTY: ‘Are they all still together?’
NICOLE: ‘Not all of them, no. Some have gone their separate ways.’
CONNOR: ‘Maeve, how well did you know Claude Meyer? Do you still know him?’
MAEVE: ‘I haven’t seen him for years, but he – and his friends – used to come to the house back in the early days.
They were a nice group to have around, always polite, a lot of fun …
Ronnie and Claude used to get into such debates, going on into the night …
They could talk about anything: politics, religion, rocket science – nothing was off the table for them. For any of them, actually.’
NICOLE: ‘I used to say they could bore for England, and Claude would remind me he was Swiss, so I’d tell him he had both countries covered. I’ve always loved being able to make him laugh. I still can.’
CRISTY: ‘Did they carry on coming to the house after the twins were born?’
NICOLE: ‘Of course. Everyone loved the twins.’
CRISTY: ‘Is Claude their father?’
Nicole frowned deeply, as though trying to decide whether or not this was a trick question, or perhaps she was wondering whether or not to be truthful. More signs of traumatic effects: sudden bouts of wariness, suspicion, an inherent need to self-protect even when no harm is threatened.
Cristy waited and was starting to think no answer was coming when she was suddenly surprised.
NICOLE: ‘We never had any tests done, but I was mostly exclusive with him. Not always, but mostly.’
Cristy glanced at Maeve and saw no surprise, so concluded this was something Maeve had heard before.
NICOLE: ‘No one really understood who we were, how we liked to live our lives, but it didn’t matter. We weren’t interested in other people’s judgement. There was no reason to be when we weren’t causing harm to anyone else. What difference did it make who we slept with?’
She seemed to drift, maybe taking herself back to the heady, halcyon days of her youth that must surely feel more like a dream now than any sort of reality.
She started to laugh softly.
NICOLE: ‘We used to have parties in the woods behind our house. Lauren and I loved getting all dressed up just to go down the garden. Funny the things that excite you and make you laugh when you’re young.’
CRISTY: ‘Dress up in what way?’
NICOLE: ‘Like we were going to a Sunday picnic or to pose for a painting. You know, the kind by Manet or Seurat or Renoir … We used to smoke a lot of weed at those picnics, and we never held onto much in the way of inhibitions – hah! Claude always used to say clothes were just shields hiding perfection, and why would any of us want to hide that?’
Realizing this must be what had sparked Mervyn Wilson’s wild theories, Cristy glanced at Connor, wondering what he was making of all this.
What sort of image did he have in his mind of Claude Meyer and the apparent influence he had wielded over his friends.
A cult in plain sight? It was what it sounded like to her, and yet Maeve was showing no signs of having had a problem with it.
CRISTY: ‘What happened when you found out you were pregnant?’
Appearing dreamy and reflective again, Nicole ran a hand over her abdomen as if she were pregnant now.
NICOLE: ‘We stopped having picnics for a while because it was winter, but there was always someone’s flat or house to go to.
Claude was fascinated by my bump as it grew – he used to stroke and kiss it all the time.
So even if he wasn’t officially the father, he kind of acted like he was, and that was fine. ’
MAEVE: ‘He came to the hospital when she gave birth … He was the first to hold the babies, and he was so proud, very emotional … He said he felt like he was holding a pair of miracles … Well, I suppose he was, if you want to look at it that way.’