ugliness either, and didn’t take the appropriate steps to avoid it – we’d only ever bought ugly houses.’ Nigel tried to sound light-hearted as he reeled off the list of his son’s insults, but Simon could hear the hurt in his voice.
‘And of course we’d made Kit suffer, because he’d had to live in those ugly houses with us,’ Barbara contributed. ‘He said we were like animals, we didn’t understand about aiming high and only accepting the best. What did we know about anything? We’d chosen to live in three awful, barbaric places one after another: first Birmingham, then Manchester, then Bracknell – all places that should be wiped off the face of the earth. How could we have made Kit live in them? How could we have lived in them ourselves?’
‘From the moment Kit set foot in Cambridge, nowhere else was good enough,’ said Nigel. ‘We weren’t good enough any more.’
‘Though Kit was so skilled at concealment, we had no idea we’d gone down in his estimation – not until we wouldn’t give him the money he thought it was his right to take, and he was angry enough to tell us that everything we’d ever done was wrong.’
‘The list of our crimes was endless.’ Nigel started to count them off on his fingers. ‘We should have moved to Cambridge when Kit started at university – moved our home and our business – so that he wouldn’t have to leave the city in the holidays and come back to Bracknell . . .’
‘. . . which he described as “the death of hope”. Imagine saying that about your home!’
‘We should have helped him when he finished his degree and the only job he could get was in Rawndesley – should have offered to support him financially, so that he didn’t have to move, didn’t have to leave Cambridge.’
‘At the time he’d told us he was thrilled with his new job in Rawndesley and really looking forward to a change of scene!’
‘His usual tactic,’ said Nigel. ‘Pretending that what had happened was what he’d wanted all along, so that he could come out looking like the winner.’
‘He was very convincing. Kit’s always convincing.’ Barbara stood up. ‘Would you like to see his room?’ she asked Simon. ‘I’ve kept it exactly how he left it – like a dead child’s room, everything just the same, and me the grieving mother, curator of the museum.’ She let out a bark of laughter.
‘Why would he want to see Kit’s bedroom?’ Nigel snapped. ‘We don’t even know why he’s here. It’s not as if Kit’s missing and he’s after leads.’
Simon, on his feet now, waited to be asked about the reason for his visit.
‘He might be missing,’ Barbara told her husband. ‘We don’t know, do we? Might even be dead. If he isn’t, then he’s of interest to the police for some other reason. Anyone who wants to understand Kit needs to see his bedroom.’
‘We’d have been told if he was dead,’ said Nigel. ‘They’d have to tell us. Wouldn’t you?’
Simon nodded. ‘I’d like to see the room, if you don’t mind showing me,’ he said.
‘The more the merrier,’ said Barbara, her tone flirtatious. She stretched out her arms, inviting a non-existent crowd to join them. ‘Though I warn you, I’m rusty. I haven’t done my tour guide bit for a while.’ Out came the voracious maudlin smile again; Simon tried not to recoil.
Nigel sighed. ‘I won’t be joining you,’ he said.
‘No one asked you to.’ Barbara slapped down her response like a trump card.
Simon followed her out of the room. Halfway up the stairs, she stopped and turned to face him. ‘You’re probably wondering why we don’t ask,’ she said. ‘For the sake of our emotional survival, we can’t give in to our curiosity. It’s much easier if we hear no news.’
‘It must take a lot of discipline,’ said Simon.
‘Not really. No one likes to suffer unnecessarily, or at least I don’t, and Nigel doesn’t. Any new information about our ex-son would knock three days off our lives. Even the most insignificant detail – that Kit went to the shop and bought a newspaper this morning, that he wore a particular shirt yesterday. Even if that was all you told me, I’d be in bed tomorrow, unable to do anything. I don’t want to have to think about him in the present tense – does that make sense?’
Simon hoped not, hoped it didn’t make the sense he thought it made.