Knife Edge

3.37 P.M.

She had to get away.

Julie knew that she had to get out of London. Away from her husband, away from the police. Away from the memories.

Could you run from memories?

She picked up a french fry and dipped it into a puddle of tomato sauce, nibbling on the end, watching as Lisa pushed another piece of hamburger into her mouth.

She reached out a hand and smoothed down the little girl's hair.

She had to get Lisa away.

Julie sat back in her seat and took a sip of her milkshake.

All the memories weren't bad, she thought. Not everything she was running from was so terrible.

And what are you running to?

A better life?

She smiled bitterly to herself.

Her life with Neville hadn't always been so intolerable. Most of the time he'd been away. The army.

The army always came first for him. Even after Lisa was born.

But in the beginning it had been different. She had loved him. She was sure she had. She'd felt a depth of feeling but never been certain that it was the all-embracing, enveloping sensation of true love.

She'd told him she loved him. Usually in times of passion and, at the beginning, there'd been plenty of those too but, as the years had worn on, the words had begun to sound more empty to her. Their meaning less valid.

So, why did you marry him in the first place?

Her father had died when she was twelve, her mother two years later. Julie had moved in with her elder sister who'd provided the roof over her head more from duty than philanthropy. It had been an uneventful adolescence for her, apart from what her sister had described as an avalanche of blokes.

Julie smiled to herself as she remembered the older girl's words.

It was true. There had been many boyfriends. Too many perhaps.

The boyfriends appeared and disappeared as quickly as her jobs in those days.

Barmaid. Shop assistant. Supermarket cashier.

Men and work in quick succession.

And what did she want out of it all?

Some security? Some love?

Some hope?

She'd been twenty-five when she met Neville.

There had been a fire inside him. And it had burned in his eyes. That was what she remembered most about meeting him for the first time. His eyes. So hypnotic, so piercing.

She'd looked into those eyes on that first night they'd shared his bed, she'd listened to him talk about the army, about his own background, which was not unlike hers. He too was without family.

He was a way out for her.

Her sister had welcomed Neville's arrival. The prospect of their marriage had been even more welcome.

A little over a year later they did the deed at a register office in Tower Hamlets. Two weeks later, her sister emigrated to Canada.

Julie had spoken to her twice during the intervening eight years.

When Lisa had been born, she hadn't even sent her a congratulations card.

Julie looked at her daughter who was prodding the piece of green gherkin she'd taken from her burger with a chip, as if it were some kind of loathsome fungus.

'Have you finished?'

Lisa nodded.

'We'd better go.'

'Where are we going, Mum?'

Julie wished she could tell her.