Free What She Never Told Me by Kate McQuaile Page B

it’s no longer just in my mind’s eye. It has somehow moved beyond me so that it’s almost in front of me.
    And now I have two images and each one is as real to me as the other: the green postbox that is so much taller than the little girl who has to stretch to reach the slot and the green postbox that I am standing in front of. I look down and see that my arm is stretching out towards the slot, that my hand is touching it.
    And I shiver, because I feel afraid.
    I’m shaking now and I begin to run, away from the postbox, away from the square. I run until I’m exhausted, filled with dread and not knowing why. I have no idea where I’m going and I’m vaguely aware of people making way for me as I flee in panic. And when I can’t run any more, I sink to the side of the pavement, curl up like a foetus and howl.
    I have no recollection of being taken to the hospital or how many hours I’ve been there. I can’t explain to the doctor what happened to me, what made me turn into an exhausted, shivering wreck on the pavement, but I tell him that I’ve been under a lot of stress because of the breakdown of my marriage and the death of my mother.
    The hospital won’t let me leave without an adult who can take care of me for a day or two, so I call Angela and ask her to come and fetch me.
    Her face has an anxious look on it as she and the doctor move out of earshot to talk, but otherwise she’s as calm as a ship in stormy seas. She settles me into the car and, as we leave the hospital, she tells me that if I want to talk about whatever happened, that’s fine, but that if I don’t want to talk about it for the time being, then that’s fine, too.
    ‘I don’t think I can face talking about it right now,’ I say. ‘Maybe later.’
    But when we get back to Angela’s house, all I want to do is lie down and close my eyes. She puts me in one of the bedrooms, where I fall asleep in seconds. I sleep all evening and all through the night and late into the following morning without waking up. And if dreams have managed to invade my sleep, I don’t remember them.

Chapter Nine
    Angela is in the kitchen preparing lunch when I wander in from my long sleep, wrapped in one of her dressing gowns and feeling like death warmed up.
    ‘How are you feeling?’ she asks, putting down the vegetables she’s chopping and wiping her hands on a piece of kitchen paper.
    ‘Never felt better. Can’t you tell?’ I joke. But even as I laugh, the thought of what happened the previous day grips my mind and chills me. I’ve never felt as fragile and helpless as I do now and, before I even realise it, I’m shedding big wet tears and gasping between sobs.
    Angela is beside me in a second, holding me tightly and telling me, ‘There, there, just go with it, let it all out.’ And I do. I cry and cry until I have no more tears, and then Angela loosens her grip on me and guides me to the big, comfortable sofa that has been relegated to the kitchen because it’s so old and scruffy.
    ‘Maybe it’ll do you good to talk,’ she says.
    So I tell her everything in the order it all happened, about my visit to Dalkey, about the photographs, about Richard being unable to tell me anything about my father and advising me to put any thoughts of finding him out of my mind. I tell her about my trip to the library and discovering that the brewery still exists in England. She nods a lot, taking it all in but saying nothing.
    And then I get to my trip to Crumlin and what happened there and I feel myself shaking again.
    ‘I can’t explain it, Angela. It was . . . terrifying. I’ve never been so afraid of anything in my life. Do you think I’m going mad?’
    ‘Ah, no, not at all. You’ve had a desperate time of it these past few months, what with your mother and with Sandy. I wonder whether that’s churning up an awful lot of things you’ve stayed away from before.’
    ‘You mean you think I’ve been avoiding stuff?’
    ‘Not intentionally, no. What I’m