Pip waited for the wave to engulf her, but nothing happened. Neither of them moved. Pip knew she was hollow inside – the last few months had shown her that – but so, it appeared, was Evelyn. She sat still, staring first at Pip and then, when that appeared to become too uncomfortable, at the mountain of cornflake boxes. The tap dripped steadily, the droplets of water thrumming on the stainless steel like the ticking of a clock as the moments passed. It was such an insistent noise that Pip couldn’t believe she hadn’t heard it before, even though it must have been there, punctuating their conversation.
Then Evelyn stood up. This is it, thought Pip. She’s going to ask me to leave now. She braced herself ready to receive the dismissal, but instead Evelyn said, ‘Come with me. I want to show you something.’
She walked stiffly but with purpose across the kitchen to the door. When Pip failed to follow, she stopped and beckoned her to go with her.
She led them into the corridor and towards the stairs, Pip following cautiously in her wake. Where were they going? For the briefest of moments, Pip worried for her own safety, but what could Evelyn do to her? She was so frail, and Pip was young and fit, and anyway, why would she want to hurt her? What Pip had done was awful, but it didn’t impact on Evelyn.
Evelyn started up the stairs. She had to pick her way through the debris that was waiting on either side of the treads, things that must have been left there to be carried upstairs and then ignored and added to until the path through became narrow and treacherous.
Upstairs Pip saw the door to the room that Evelyn must have been in when she had seen her at the window, but Evelyn didn’t take them in there, choosing instead the door to a room at the back of the house.
Evelyn paused slightly before putting her hand out and pushing the handle down. The door swung open, and Pip’s heart fell still in her chest. The room was painted in a delicate pink. In the centre was a bed with posts attached to each corner, also painted pink, and over which white organza had been draped. A multitude of teddy bears and other unlikely creatures were resting on the pillow, each carefully placed as if they were having a conversation amongst themselves.
On the floor between the bed and the window was a single sock, white with the little embroidered pattern running up it that Pip remembered from her own childhood. It lay where it had been dropped decades before, slightly balled and without its partner. Pip didn’t think she had ever seen anything so poignant.
‘This is Scarlet’s room,’ said Evelyn, although the explanation was not required. ‘This is how she left it the day she died. It’s not a shrine to her memory, not like I imagine some people keep for their dead children. I leave it like this because it’s the last place on earth where a part of her still lives. When I come in here, I can feel her with me. Does that sound peculiar?’
Pip shook her head. She didn’t trust her voice not to let her down if she spoke.
‘My sister wanted to clear everything away after Scarlet died,’ Evelyn continued. ‘She said it was unhealthy to keep it all like this, to dwell on what was passed, but I wouldn’t let her. I’m so glad now that I held firm and stood my ground on that.’
Evelyn crossed the room and looked out at the gardens beyond.
‘You see that rose bed?’ She nodded to a circular flower bed in the garden next door. ‘That’s where it happened. That is where my child drowned. They filled it in, the pond, but I still see it every day, the place where my baby died.’
Tears welled in Pip’s eyes and trickled down her cheeks. She put a hand to her face to wipe them away. This was not her grief – she had no right to cry, just like she had no right to cry for the lost life of the boy. Yet the tears still came.
‘The damage done by sudden death is devastating and irreversible,’ Evelyn continued, her voice low and very calm as if she were preaching or delivering a sentence. ‘Attaching blame can only take you so far. Believe me, I know. Just because everyone says it wasn’t your fault doesn’t mean that you can move on. But you do owe it to yourself to try. You’re young, Pip, with your whole life ahead of you. You mustn’t let that one terrible moment blight your entire future. Yes, you’ll feel guilt. That’s only to be expected. It’s misplaced, but it’s unavoidable. But you can’t let it define who you are for the rest of your life. I let that happen to me. At the time, I couldn’t find any other way through the pain, but now I see that it might have been a mistake. I urge you to look at things differently and not to do what I did.’