Page 95 - tsp1245

Obviously, no response was no required. Not that Lydia waited for one.
“You know how Alicia repaid me? All my kindness? Do you know what she did to me?”
“Mum, please—”
“Shut up, Paul!’ Lydia turned to me. I was surprised how much anger was in her voice. “The bitch
painted me. She painted me, without my knowledge or permission. I went to her exhibition—and there it was, hanging there. Vile, disgusting—an obscene mockery.”
Lydia was trembling with anger, and Paul looked concerned. He gave me an unhappy glance. “Maybe it’s better if you go now, mate. It’s not good for Mum to get upset.”
I nodded. Lydia Rose was not well, no doubt about that. I was more than happy to escape.
I left the house and made my way back to the train station, with a swollen head and a splitting headache. What a fucking waste of time. I’d found out nothing—except it was obvious why Alicia had gotten out of that house as soon as she could. It reminded me of my own escape from home at the age of eighteen, fleeing my father. It was all too obvious who Alicia was running away from—Lydia Rose.
I thought about the painting Alicia had done of Lydia. “An obscene mockery,” she called it. Well, time to pay a visit to Alicia’s gallery and find out why the picture had upset her aunt so much.
As I left Cambridge, my last thoughts were of Paul. I felt sorry for him, having to live with that monstrous woman—be her unpaid slave. It was a lonely life—I didn’t imagine he had many friends. Or a girlfriend. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was still a virgin. Something about him remained stunted, despite his size; something thwarted.
I had taken an instant and violent dislike to Lydia—probably because she reminded me of my father. I would have ended up like Paul if I had stayed in that house, if I had stayed with my parents in Surrey, at the beck and call of a madman.
I felt depressed all the way back to London. Sad, tired, close to tears. I couldn’t tell if I was feeling Paul’s sadness—or my own.