Carla’s chin dropped to her chest. “That has nothing to do with me,” she said.
“It has everything to do with you,” Irene cried, her voice echoing through the empty house. “You saw what he’d drawn, in his notebook. You can deny it, it makes no difference. I saw the pictures. I saw what he drew . . . what he imagined.”
“Imagined?” Carla hissed, her eyes narrowing, her face suddenly vicious.
Irene took a step back, away from the stairs and closer to the front door. There, in the middle of the empty hallway, she felt unmoored; she wanted desperately to sit, to rest, to have something to hold on to. Steeling herself, biting her lip and holding her handbag in front of her like a shield, she inched closer to Carla once more. “I saw what he drew,” she said. “You saw it too. So too did your husband, before he threw the pages into the fire.” Carla flinched at this, narrowing her eyes at Irene.
“Theo saw?” she said, her brow knitted. “But the book is here, it’s . . . oh.” She sighed, huffed a sad little laugh as her head dropped to her chest again. “It’s not here, is it? You gave it to him. You showed it to him? Why?” she asked. “Why in God’s name would you do that? What a strange, interfering woman you are, what an utter pain in the arse. Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“What have I done?” Irene demanded. “Come on, Carla, tell me!” Carla closed her eyes and shook her head like a truculent child. “No? Well in that case why don’t I tell you what you have done? You saw those pictures that Daniel had drawn and you decided that he was guilty of killing your child, and so you took his life. The knife you used was in the bag that Laura stole, which is how it ended up in her flat. And then your husband, your ex-husband who loves you more than life itself, for some reason I haven’t yet worked out, he stepped in and he took everything upon himself. And you! You just sit there and you say it has nothing to do with you. Do you not feel anything? Are you not ashamed?”
Carla, hunched over her medal, her shoulders bowed, muttered, “Do I not feel anything? For God’s sake, Irene. Do you not think I’ve suffered enough?”
And there, Irene thought, was the crux of it. After what Carla had endured, how could anything else matter? “I know that you’ve suffered terribly,” she said, but Carla wouldn’t have it.
“You know nothing,” she hissed. “You couldn’t possibly conceive—”
“Of your pain? Perhaps I can’t, Carla, but do you honestly think that because you lost your son in that terrible, tragic way, that gives you the right?” Before her, Carla crouched as though ready to spring at her; she was trembling now, with grief or with fury. But Irene would not be cowed. She went on, “Because you suffered that terrible loss, do you think that gives you the right to lay waste to everything, to do as you please?”
“As I please?” With one hand on the banister, Carla pulled herself to her feet; standing on the third stair, she towered over Irene. “My child is dead,” she spat. “My sister, too, and she died unforgiven. The man I love is in prison. You think there is some pleasure for me in all of this?”
Irene took a small step backward. “Theo doesn’t have to be in prison,” she said. “You could change that.”
“What good would it do?” Carla asked. “What—oh—” She turned her face away in disgust. “There’s no point in trying to explain to you—how on earth could you possibly understand what it is to love a child?”
That again. What it always came down to. You couldn’t understand, you’re not a mother. You’ve never experienced love, not really. You don’t have it inside you, whatever it is, the capacity for limitless, unconditional love. The capacity for unbounded hatred, either.
Irene clenched and unclenched her hands at her side. “Perhaps I don’t understand love like that,” she said. “Perhaps you’re right. But sending Theo to prison? Where does love come into that?”
Carla pursed her lips. “He understands,” she said, chastened. “If Theo did see Daniel’s notebook like you said he did, then of course he would understand why I had to do what I did. And you, standing there, outraged, consumed with self-righteousness, you should understand, too, because I didn’t just do this for Ben, I did it for Angela.”
Irene shook her head in disbelief. “For Angela? You’re really going to stand there and say that you killed Daniel for Angela?”