I live on my own . . .
The Old Ways, the ways of women for generations . . .
If this is magic, let people say that this is so . . .
9
To divine the future: During the waxing moon, set a glass outside at night and let it infuse with moonlight. On the very next night, dress your bed with clean white sheets and sprinkle them with the moon water. As you fall asleep, hold your subject or question in mind and let the dream work begin.
– Miss Mary’s Book of Dreams
‘What’s with this witchcraft obsession all of a sudden?’ Billy grinned. Ella was sitting on the floor in the middle of Happily Ever After’s History section, surrounded by stacks of books.
He picked up a thick paperback, pretending to stagger under its weight. ‘The History of Witches and Goddess-Worshippers in North Yorkshire,’ he read. ‘Hm. A little light reading, huh? And here was me thinking you despised this kind of stuff.’ He stopped to peer at the title of another. ‘A Book of Instruction for the Modern Witch. Really? I thought you’d rather be seen dead than –’
‘It’s not an obsession.’ Ella frowned. ‘It’s for that customer. You know, the one I told you about? The one who bought our last Miss Mary? Well, she comes in every week now. She can’t get enough of all this history stuff and witchy stuff. And she wanted me to go on some kind of field trip with her. Up to the Moors. See if she could find the spot where Mary used to live.’
Billy raised an eyebrow.
‘Yes, I know. A bit weird. I think she’s quite lonely.’
‘Sounds like fun, actually.’
‘Really?’ Ella pulled a face. ‘She’s lovely. Absolutely lovely. But I think she might also be slightly nuts.’
Billy laughed. ‘Well, that would make two of you, then. But, seriously, El. When do you ever go anywhere anymore? Apart from this place? It might do you good.’
Ella shook her head. ‘No way. Not my idea of fun at all. But I must admit, it’s been making me think.’ She picked up a book from the pile and shook it at him. ‘I mean, do you know how many women were wrongfully hung or burned as witches, just because they healed people with herbs or saved women from dying in childbirth or delivered a stillborn baby? It’s outrageous.’
Billy was looking at her, his head on one side, with that annoying amused expression. She decided to ignore him.
‘I was thinking, actually, that I could write about it. There’s a book in all this somewhere. But anyway, you can talk. What was it last month? Socio-political movements of the eighteenth century? Bonnie Prince Charlie?’ She scrambled to her feet, poked a finger under his ribs. ‘Obsessed, are you?’
Billy grabbed at her. ‘The only obsession I have is an Ella obsession. Come here. I haven’t seen you properly all week.’
He smoothed her hair from her face and kissed her.
Ella felt Billy’s hands on her waist and quickly breathed in, tensing her stomach muscles. These days, she could hardly bear for him to touch her. She still hadn’t managed to shift the baby weight and the idea of his fingers sinking into the soft roll of fat above her jeans made her flinch. She felt the tears pricking at her eyes again, that empty feeling welling in her stomach. She knew she was her own worst enemy. Why did it all have to be so difficult?
From behind the shelf, Grace came dancing in her new red patent shoes. She held a large square picture book by its corner. ‘Will you read this to me?’ she said, fixing Billy with her most adoring expression. ‘Daddy? You are the best Daddy in the whole wide world.’
‘Competition,’ said Ella, grateful for the interruption, taking the book from Grace and handing it to him. ‘I’d better leave you two to it and go and make something for us all to eat.’
Ella crossed the courtyard and unlocked the door to their flat. She made her way up the narrow stairs, dragging her feet like lead weights. What the hell was wrong with her? She had a beautiful daughter and a husband she adored. She was so damn lucky. Other women – Laura, for instance – would kill for a husband like Billy. Someone who loved her. Someone she could love. So why couldn’t she shift this dark feeling that, on days like this one, threatened to swallow her up completely?
She knew the kinds of things that she ought to be doing. She should be making more of an effort, getting her hair cut, having a bloody makeover, or at least taking Flo on a shopping trip, buying some new tops or something. You were supposed to do that kind of thing, weren’t you, to keep things interesting, to keep the spark going? Every women’s magazine she’d ever picked up told her so. But what if you’d never been into that kind of thing in the first place? What if, in fact, you’d spent your whole life actively resisting getting dressed up? It was all so confusing and every time she tried to think about it, she just wanted to lie down in a dark room. She’d lost herself somewhere – clearly that much was true – but all the advice about finding herself again didn’t make any sense at all.
And she’d spent the last few weeks increasingly distracted, this unsettled feeling inside her growing more urgent, insistent. Now she found herself thinking more and more about Miss Mary and Bryony. Weird things. Things that didn’t make sense.
Again and again, her mind circled back to Mamma, Mamma and her box under the bed, her reluctance to talk about the signals and what she’d always called ‘the gift’. Her insistence that such things shouldn’t be dabbled in too deeply, that what she called ‘everyday magic’ – the ordinary magic that is all around us, if we only stop to notice – was all that anyone should require.
Bryony’s pinched face swam into her mind, those big, grey eyes that always seemed half terrified, that way she had of holding herself as if she were afraid of something.
She sighed and emptied a tin of chopped tomatoes into a pan, adding a handful of oregano from the pot on the windowsill, watching the sauce begin to bubble.
And then there was her book. Such a knot of ideas. Sometimes she thought she would be better abandoning it completely. Starting again. But something – the smallest beginning of an idea – was forming itself at the back of her mind. If she could just let it, if she could stop herself from prodding at it or examining it in any way, she knew that it was just about to surface.
She took the wooden spoon and stirred carefully.
And here were Billy’s feet on the stairs and Grace’s small high voice floating up behind him.
‘Selena. Sel-ena . . . Silly, silly-lena . . .’ she chanted. ‘Is she coming to play, Daddy?’
Ella felt her stomach contract as if someone had punched her there, hard. Selena. Billy’s colleague at work. She’d never met her. Billy’s department was one of the largest in the university. There were at least forty lecturers and researchers. But Billy talked about Selena from time to time. Recently, perhaps, a little too much. Selena said this, Selena thinks that . . . They were working on something together. Some big funding proposal. But why was Grace now chanting her name?
And here was the stupid dream again: ‘Ella, El-la. I came to tell you to pay attention . . .’ Shivers of silver, flashes of green.
She heard Billy’s laughter drifting up the stairs. ‘No, sweetheart. Selena’s not coming to play. Grown-ups don’t do that. Well, at least . . .’ His voice trailed off and he laughed again, softly to himself. ‘Selena is someone I work with, Grace. She called because she just wanted to ask me something. Something about work.’
On a Saturday? Ella thought. Really? Was that necessary? Her throat felt tight. She swallowed hard and jabbed at the tomatoes in the pan. And why was he going to such lengths to explain all this to their three-year-old? Was this all, in fact, for Ella’s benefit?
‘Hello, gorgeous.’ Billy was kissing her now as she stood at the stove, his hand encircling her waist. ‘Mmmm. Something smells good.’
She moved backwards, banging her hip on the edge of the countertop.
‘What’s the matter, El? Are you OK?’ Billy’s face was screwed up in that face he pulled when he was worrie
d. Ella felt a flush begin at the base of her throat.
‘Fine. I’m fine,’ she said, going back to her stirring, squishing a tomato extra hard under the wooden spoon. Was he worried about her or was he worried that he’d just been caught out? She could feel her heart banging in her chest, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.
It was ridiculous. Why did she always have to be so damn insecure? She peered at her reflection in the stainless-steel flashback, and then quickly looked away again.
*
‘Bryony. It’s me . . .’
A voice, like the crackle of dried leaves.
Bryony leant against the kitchen wall, swallowing hard.
‘How did you get this number?’
‘You gave it to me. Remember? When I came to see you in the hospital . . .’
Bryony held the phone away from her ear and let her mind slip backwards. Could that be true? That time was all such a blur – white sheets, soft white pillows, faces that came and went above her bed in a kind of haze. She had the vaguest memory of Selena perched on the edge of her bed, picking pieces of lint from her pristine black sweater, but the image dissolved as soon as she reached for it, got swallowed up in a haze of white. She heard again the rattle of a trolley, the squeak of rubber-soled footsteps in the corridor outside her room and the cold chink of metal on metal.
She breathed hard.
‘So I do still need to ask you for this little favour, Bryony,’ Selena was saying. ‘Just this one time more and then I promise I’ll never bother you again. I’ll disappear. Pouf! Just like that . . .’ Selena made a little laughing sound, but underneath it Bryony could hear the pressure building, her voice forming ridges of scarlet, vivid edges, her barely suppressed frustration.
‘I already told you. I won’t go there again. It’s too . . . too humiliating, Selena. You’ll have to talk to him yourself this time. I can’t keep doing it for you.’
‘Oh, but sweetie.’ Selena’s voice took on a wheedling tone now. ‘You know he won’t listen to me. He thinks I’m just a hard-faced cow. That I’m always trying to get something out of him. Whereas you . . . He likes you. You make him feel . . . well, guilty. You remind him of Mother. That’s what it is. Whereas me, I just remind him of himself.’
Bryony let out a long breath. Sweetie, she thought. Since when had Selena ever called her sweetie?
She heard her own voice, the words a staccato. ‘What about Simon? What’s happened to him? I thought you said he was loaded? Why can’t he help you?’
There was a pause. Then Selena’s voice with the hard edges again. ‘Oh, you know how it is, Bryony. All men are useless in the end. The truth is, he’s buggered off. Left us. Left me in a bit of a spot, actually . . .’
Bryony bristled. She heard Selena’s words from a few days before: You do know how to pick ’em, Bryony. Her throat tightened.
‘Well, you can’t expect me to feel sorry for you, Selena. And anyway, you’re not telling me that there isn’t someone else waiting in the wings? You usually have someone lined up.’
Selena laughed. She likes that, thought Bryony. She’s actually flattered.
‘Well, as a matter of fact, there is someone,’ she said. ‘Someone at work. Gorgeous man. Very sexy. Come to think of it, you’d like him a lot. He’s into your kind of stuff. Social history, folklore. God, even the weird witchy stuff. You know, magic.’ She laughed again. ‘But he hasn’t got a penny to his name. He’s just a poor, old lecturer like me.’
Somewhere at the back of Bryony’s mind, there was a tiny click like a catch. Lecturer. Social history . . .
‘And is he married too, then, this man?’ Bryony couldn’t keep the disapproval out of her voice. ‘Because, you know, maybe that was the issue with Simon, don’t you think? His wife? His three young children? Have you ever thought that perhaps you need to find someone a bit more . . . well, available?’
‘Oh. My. God. Bryony’s giving me advice on men.’ Selena’s voice was knife-edged. ‘For goodness’ sake, Bryony. You were always so, so –’ But then she checked herself. Her voice dropped an octave. ‘Look, it’s not really me that I’m worried about, anyway. It’s Letty. She’s heartbroken. She won’t leave her room. She was very . . . Well, let’s just say that she’d got very attached to Simon. And the bloody landlord’s put the rent up again. I told him, it’s not on. The gutter needs fixing and the boiler’s not reliable anymore. But he’s not having it. And I don’t want to uproot Letty again. She’s got exams, all sorts of stuff going on. School trips and music lessons and so on. And that’s all more expense, of course . . .’
Something inside Bryony softened, as it always did at any mention of her niece.
‘I think you should take her to see Daddy, Selena. Letty, I mean. I think you should tell him everything. After all, she is his only grandchild. Surely there’s been enough water under the bridge by now. I think he’ll want to help you. I really do . . .’
Selena was laughing at her again. The sound grated in Bryony’s ear. ‘Really? You really think so? For God’s sake, Bryony, you can be so . . . so damn naive at times. Do you honestly think he’s going to want to meet . . .’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘The teenage offspring of his wayward daughter and his business partner, his oldest, most trusted friend? After all this time? Do you think he’d even believe me, all these years on? Can you imagine the fallout? All the repercussions of that?’
‘But you don’t have to tell him that part –’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous. I mean, it’s bloody obvious, isn’t it? She looks exactly like her father. The red hair’s a bit of a giveaway, don’t you think? Daddy would cotton on, the minute he clapped eyes on her. And then he’d insist on having it all out with him. You know damn well that he would. And once that cowardly little shit got a whiff of it, my life wouldn’t be worth living, would it? And Letty’s too. He’d want to be . . . involved, wouldn’t he? I’d never be rid of him.’
‘Well, would that be such a bad thing? At least you’d have money, security. I mean, I’ve been thinking, Selena. Doesn’t Letty at least have the right to know who her dad is? And the right to his financial support, too? Perhaps for her sake –’
‘Oh, please don’t start lecturing me, Bryony. We haven’t all got the luxury of a nice little private income, you know.’
Bryony pressed her lips together. She was suddenly acutely aware of her own breathing. She felt the air moving in and out of her mouth, very hard and fast. Was it her fault that Selena had spent the inheritance left by their mother’s death on backpacking around the world, buying herself into a string of dodgy business deals with handsome and usually married older men that had never amounted to anything, whilst she, boring, sensible little Bryony, had stayed in York and invested wisely in a couple of small rental properties? Selena had laughed at her at the time.
And then, when it looked as if Selena was finally settling down a little – into an expensive PhD in the history of women’s health in the nineteenth century, generously funded by one of her unsuitable men – she’d announced that she was pregnant. It turned out that Selena had been having an affair with their father’s business partner, someone he’d known since his Oxford days, a family friend.
Bryony, as far as she knew, was the only person in the world who had this bit of information. She’d pressed Selena to come clean to their father, but Selena wasn’t having any of it. Bryony never could understand exactly why. Perhaps Selena thought he would finally cut her off for good; although Bryony thought it more likely that he’d turn on the man in question.
Anyway, once the pregnancy news was out, Selena’s latest boyfriend hadn’t stuck around for long. Perhaps he’d guessed that the baby wasn’t his. Perhaps he was just running scared. Since that time, Selena had lurched from one ill-fated relationship to another, dragging Letty along with her. You had to hand it to her. In the midst of all this chaos, she’d managed to carve out a successful academic career
. She was sharp, determined and absolutely ruthless when she put her mind to something. Bloody-minded, was what their father called it. For a time, he’d supported her, turning up at her graduation ceremony glowing with pride, offering holidays at his villa in southern Spain with his own new wife and daughter; but when it became evident that Selena wasn’t going to play by his rules, he’d become frustrated, first withdrawing his emotional support and then his money. And all the time, he’d remained oblivious of Letty’s existence. Selena had always kept her fiercely hidden.
Bryony had watched the whole thing from the sidelines, with a mixture of envy and distress.
‘Tell him,’ she’d said, when Selena had yet again managed to hide his granddaughter from him. ‘She’s his granddaughter. It’s all part of the dynasty, isn’t it? Shoring up the great Darwin empire, for goodness’ sake. He’d be over the moon. Just tell him.’
She couldn’t understand it. She’d have given anything to bask in her father’s attention even for just one afternoon. But Selena and her father were just too alike to ever get along peaceably.
‘Stubborn as mules, those two,’ is what her mother had always said. ‘And not at all sensible, either of them. She may have got the brains and the looks, Bryony, dear, but you got all the common sense.’
And that was probably true. Selena was certainly a disaster when it came to money. She spent far more than she earned. Academic salaries weren’t high, Bryony knew, but Selena always had to have three holidays a year, the best clothes, the best . . . well, everything.
‘It’s just how I am,’ she’d once said. ‘I can’t help it.’
Bryony wondered if it was really Selena’s fault. She’d been so thoroughly spoiled by their father as a child. She’d never had to learn the value of money.
Now Bryony swallowed. ‘I’m going to end this conversation now, Selena. I think we’ve both said enough.’
‘OK. But just think about it, will you? Come on, Bryony.’ Selena’s tone was wheedling. ‘And, as you said, just then, it’s for Letty’s sake, not mine. It’ll just help me to tide us over. I’ve got a promotion due. It’s going to happen, I just know it . . .’
Miss Mary's Book of Dreams Page 8