The Thin Place

by C D Major

  She couldn’t stop her mouth falling open, a gut-punch of regret and pleasure and sadness robbing her of words. She thought of the petals that had fluttered to the floor. Oh God. And she had been at Overtoun Bridge, lost in someone else’s story, absent from her own.

  ‘That’s . . . that’s . . .’ For the second time that day she felt her eyes fill up, blinking as she tilted her head back, the bright light part-blinding her as she balled up her fists and stemmed the tears. The waiter with her Diet Coke on a tray had gone into reverse, lingering now by the counter.

  Ava felt warmth and looked down at his hand over hers, realising how much she had craved his touch these past few days. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I will make it up to you. That is . . . You are going to come back?’ The breath was suspended in her chest as she waited for his reply.

  Fraser smiled, the gap in the middle of his teeth on show. ‘Of course I will.’

  Ava didn’t have the words to respond. She just gripped his hand, squeezing it as if she might never let it go again. A lifetime. He wanted them to spend a lifetime together.

  She never had her Diet Coke. They left the cafe together, Fraser’s arm around her as they moved down the street, Fraser telling her about his preparations for school, Calum’s gross habits – ‘Left his toenails in a tiny pile on the arm of the sofa, Ava.’ She felt a surge of gratitude as she listened, as they headed back together to their flat. She was still smiling as she reached for her mobile, which buzzed with an incoming call.

  ‘Is that Ms Ava Brent?’

  It was a call to tell her the cost for her tyre being replaced. She thanked the mechanic and was about to hang up.

  ‘It was slashed from the inner side,’ he said gruffly. ‘Deliberate, definitely. It’s trickier to do than you might imagine. Thought you should know.’

  She didn’t remember saying goodbye. She felt almost out of her body as she lowered her phone and Fraser stopped and looked at her. Why would anyone slash her tyres? To stop her driving? Out of malice?

  ‘Is everything alright?’ Fraser asked.

  ‘They fixed my puncture,’ she said slowly. She didn’t want to tarnish the hour with anything more. But something dark settled over her. You are being watched.

  Chapter 45

  AVA

  She threw herself into feeling normal again, determined to keep her future on track. Although busy in his new role as head of sixth form, Fraser found time to erect flat-pack furniture, cart various things to the tip, remind her to take her vitamins, make her a packed lunch for work. He would stop, reach for her, one hand on her growing stomach, not saying anything.

  She planned a week’s holiday up on Skye for October half-term – called it a ‘babymoon’ – booked a two-bed cottage with views across the sea, windy walks. There was tea in flasks, books in front of the fire, the snap and crackle of apple logs, walking arm in arm for meals in a pub with low beams, the smell of spilled beer and the sound of murmured voices – and his low, gentle laughter.

  And the baby was bigger now as autumn swept by, its limbs sticking out at strange angles, a ripple over her stomach, surprising her, winding her, pressing up against her so she couldn’t forget even if she had wanted to. Which she didn’t. The hard, rounded reminder gave her swollen ankles and back ache and searing pain that shot down her pelvis. She bounced on a birthing ball and toyed with names. They had decided to wait to discover the sex. A surprise. The future felt bright and golden.

  Overtoun hadn’t left her, still lurking in the background, a strange silhouette she couldn’t expel. It returned sometimes in her dreams, that vertiginous feeling when peering over the edge into the swirl of water, black, bottomless and loud, the sound filling her up, waking her suddenly – a kick inside as if the baby had been disturbed too. She would turn to see Fraser’s profile in the grey light and calm her breathing.

  Guilt weighed on her when she thought of a wooden ramp, a windowsill, a bone. She had learned so much but knew she risked being sucked into the story, into the place, and it scared her. The diaries should have stopped her wanting to dig but instead she found she had more questions, not less. Something was just out of reach, teasing her from the shadows.

  She didn’t dare talk about it with Fraser. She didn’t want to risk everything she had clawed back. She had so much to lose now. But there were days when she found her mind back there, wanting to get in her car and drive over the Erskine Bridge. She once made it as far as Milton without realising, a grey day at the start of November. The temptation to steer off the road, to bump up that driveway, to pull into that car park and head to the bridge had almost overwhelmed her. She swallowed it down, resisted the strange pull and headed home, not telling Fraser where she had been, the secret a hard stone in her chest.

  At her last GP appointment, her blood pressure had still been a little high. ‘We’ll keep an eye,’ the doctor had said. ‘Is there anything causing you any emotional stress? Is work pushing you too hard?’ Ava had shaken her head too forcefully, glad that Fraser hadn’t been there. He’d only have worried.

  The diaries sat on their bookshelf in front of a modest row of orderly books. They were cracked, peeling and discoloured but, having read the contents, she didn’t feel she could just throw them away. Sometimes she found herself straying, taking one out, leafing through it, staring at the sad entries, pausing at the strange list of fruit, the chart with its numbers, as if Marion had been recording something, re-reading those last terrible words, their letters capitalised and shaky.

  Why had Marion abandoned her diaries? Had she stopped writing them when she had finally given birth to a baby who survived? Perhaps happiness had meant she no longer needed to pour her grief into the pages? And yet she had kept them all her life, in happier times too, and her baby hadn’t been healthy. Her baby had grown up to be a sickly child and that child had died. How? The curiosity tugged at her. She could return, she could find out—

  Ava jumped as she realised she was in danger of becoming lost again, returning the diary to its place in the row. They all looked strange and out of place in their pristine flat with the boxes piled up neatly, flat-pack furniture complete, a pale blue wing-backed nursing chair, a white wooden mobile, a painting of the alphabet.

  In the drawers of the changing table were impossibly small clothes. Pippa had gifted her bags of things: pristine white sleepsuits, thick sleeping bags, swaddling clothes, bibs in every colour, vests, blankets and more. Pippa was pregnant again, too – early days, her baby due in the summer. ‘So I’ll be on different seasons,’ she insisted when Ava protested that she was too generous. ‘I can always take it back.’ She brought more. The thought that they would have children so close together made the whole thing more special. Ava hugged her tight. They shared much more than baby clothes these days; their messages sailed back and forth daily.

  Colleagues had been kind. A few scattered congratulations cards were now propped up next to her computer, one from Garry that had made her eyes sting. He had been quieter since she’d told him; she tried to be sensitive to it, not mention the pregnancy despite a stomach so big it squeezed her lungs and made her catch her breath. Even a couple of viewers had written in, although one unsigned letter had made her blood freeze. It came with the job, she had convinced herself; there was always one nutter; almost all the broadcast journalists she knew joked about a ‘stalker’. It didn’t mean anything. And yet she couldn’t get some of the sentences out of her head and they joined her midnight musings: angry words, reference to a ‘betrayal’. She had handed that one to HR this time.

  There was one person she had barely heard from as the trees were stripped of their leaves and the wind whipped them from the ground and the days grew dark in the late afternoon. She was at Tommy’s party, his second birthday. All of them were crammed into Liam and Pippa’s house, every radiator blazing but her dad still muttering about being cold. They’d sung ‘Happy Birthday’ and given presents. Tommy had missed most of it having a long lunchtime nap.
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  It seemed to Ava that her mum had melted away, always managing to find some task or other rather than talk to Ava. She once found herself standing in the living room, a hole opening up inside her as she watched her mum leave rather than be alone with her. Only a few months before, they had been sending each other daily messages, her mum delighting in FaceTime, which meant she could phone Ava from any hillock on a blustery walk to show her the deer in the distance or some view over a loch. She would sometimes meet her after work for a quick drink, just to catch up. She’d been so proud of her daughters, wanting to be involved in their lives.

  ‘How long now?’ Liam appeared by her side, startling her.

  ‘I’m thirty-two weeks,’ Ava said.

  ‘Oh.’

  Ava wished Fraser wasn’t off helping her dad with the settings of his ‘confounded iPhone’. She never quite knew what to talk about with Liam. ‘Nice party.’

  Tommy appeared, a cupcake in one hand and an apple in the other, cone birthday hat askew.

  ‘Hey, Tommy!’ Ava greeted him with maximum bonhomie.

  ‘Liam!’ Pippa called from the kitchen. ‘Can you grab Tommy’s apple? I need to cut it up otherwise he eats the whole thing.’

  Liam bent down to Tommy. ‘Did you hear that, little man? Mum says we have to cut up your apple.’

  ‘Liam!’

  ‘I’m doing it!’ Liam called.

  Tommy clutched the apple closer to his chest as Ava suppressed a smile.

  ‘Please, Liam.’ Pippa’s face appeared, red-cheeked. ‘I don’t want him eating the seeds. It’s dangerous.’

  Liam looked up. ‘If he digested them whole, it would take around a hundred seeds to have any kind of effect. If he crushed them, then perhaps—’

  ‘Don’t get all science-y about it, Liam, please. Tommy . . . pass Mummy the apple.’

  Tommy held it even closer.

  ‘Apple, please. Or I’ll take away your cake.’

  Tommy handed his apple over grudgingly and then ran out of the room to protect his cupcake.

  Ava watched the exchange as if from afar. Despite knowing that she and Fraser would no doubt be involved in this kind of tussle before long, she still felt one step removed. The other thought came from nowhere, so forceful that she lowered herself onto Pippa’s sofa. The sound of the party faded around her. Liam’s mouth moved but she couldn’t hear the words.

  Was it possible?

  She stood up, wobbling for a second as her centre of gravity readjusted. ‘You know that bone I gave you?’ she said, her voice low.

  Liam glanced across the room and through the open door to the kitchen. ‘Yeah . . .’

  ‘Can you get it tested? Like you were going to.’

  Liam shuffled on the spot, the familiar blush beginning at his collar. ‘I’m not sure . . .’

  Ava followed his furtive gaze into the kitchen, to where her mum spooned fruit salad into a bowl, her other hand gesticulating as Pippa looked on with Tommy wriggling in her arms. ‘She doesn’t have to know.’

  Liam stayed silent.

  ‘Liam, please. It’s been months. I just need to know who it’s come from.’

  ‘What do you mean, who?’

  ‘I mean where it’s come from,’ Ava said quickly.

  ‘OK,’ Liam said, almost a whisper.

  Ava needed to leave; she needed to think. She could feel her pulse quicken, an insistent beat, beat, beat as Overtoun loomed large in her mind. She was there, back on that path, as Bella pawed that ground over and over again, urging them to look. What else would she have found if she had continued to dig? Who had the bone belonged to? Was it an animal at all? Her mum was heading towards them, angling her body towards Liam. ‘Thank you,’ Ava said. Liam was only able to nod once before bowls of fruit salad were thrust into their hands.

  ‘With lychees,’ her mum said, not holding Ava’s gaze.

  ‘Thanks, Frances.’ Liam’s response sounded too loud and enthusiastic. ‘Yum!’

  ‘I need to find Fraser,’ Ava said, melting away. The urgency of what she needed to do overwhelmed her. Things gradually forming from murky thoughts.

  Chapter 46

  MARION

  Hamish leaves for war, a weary look from a man who turned eighteen in 1919. He thought he would never see conflict. We all did. He clung to me in my bedroom the night before, my body pleasing to him again. When he departs, he reaches for me. I take his hand, feeling nothing but a coldness deep inside. He is frightened, that is all.

  I imagine my father if he was alive, what he would think if he saw me watching my husband leave for war, khaki uniform, polished boots, a gas mask tied to his kit bag. History repeating itself – doomed always to repeat itself.

  The house is as unkempt as its mistress these days. We don’t use the dining room any more; the dust sheets are back over the long mahogany table and the other furniture that remains unsold. An inspector visits, but the house is not fit to be requisitioned, unlike some of the other large properties in the district designated to be given over in part for the war effort. I spend my days in the kitchen bundled into layers and layers of clothing that cover the downy hairs on my arms and disguise the weight I am losing once more.

  Miss Kae has left; her sister has had a stroke and she must care for her. The doctor worries that I will be left alone. Miss Kae suggests that her niece, Annie, moves in. She is eighteen and engaged to be married to David Hughes, who is also away fighting in the war. She arrives with bright eyes and stocky legs and I feel even more insubstantial.

  The thought of leaving the house makes me frightened now, when once I longed to roam, to travel, to chat with neighbours in a busy high street. It is as if my ankle is shackled by some invisible chain, looped around the grey stone, entwined in the ivy of my bedroom, lodged in the lines of the ceramic tiles of my bathroom, fastened to the head of the gargoyle on the bridge. Annie queues in the town for our rations, prepares sparse and plain meals, and I visit my babies, talk to them. I take in sewing that is needed for the war effort. I work long into the nights. The house watches me as I move soundlessly across its floors.

  The doctor visits. The migraines are back and I have a pain in my chest. It comes and goes. I have fainted, yes. The chest pain is worse when he returns the following week. ‘Yes, since yesterday, Doctor.’ The thin moustache twitches and I meet his eyes, see something different there. Am I still brave? Special?

  ‘Perhaps,’ he says gently, ‘these maladies are in your head.’

  He doesn’t visit for a month, even though I write to him. I tell him about a new symptom: a metallic taste in my mouth. I don’t leave my bed for two days, I am so sick.

  The war moves on and it seems hopeless. London takes a battering. Mother writes that Susan was killed – a bomb – walking back to her elderly companion from the post office. There is no body.

  Hamish has leave and he doesn’t stay in London. He returns to the estate, walks the gardens that Kemp designed, returns with his hair sopping, clothes stuck to him as he peels off his boots. He visits me one night. Afterwards, he cries in my arms. I can’t even stroke his hair. I just lie there.

  He leaves the next morning with a mournful glance back at me.

  The doctor comes back when I write and tell him that I believe I am pregnant.

  Chapter 47

  AVA

  She had taken her car despite Fraser telling her he’d sort a lift for her. He’d offered to go with her. She’d said no.

  ‘Are you feeling alright?’ Fraser’s face had been full of concern when she told him she wanted to leave.

  She could have said she was ill, had a headache – her hips were certainly aching – but she hadn’t wanted to lie to him. ‘No, I’m fine. But listen . . . and please don’t get angry . . . I need to check something. For work.’

  ‘It’s something to do with that house, isn’t it.’ Fraser didn’t look angry, his response weary and almost resigned, as if he’d been waiting these last few months for just this moment. He’d kn
own it hadn’t gone away.

  She nodded.

  Fraser sighed, furrows appearing on his forehead.

  ‘Tommy won’t even notice.’ She gave him a half-smile.

  ‘Your family will,’ he muttered, barely moving his lips.

  Her sister was hushing Liam and she sensed their mum watching them both as she bounced Tommy on her lap.

  ‘I need to do this, Fraser.’

  ‘I’m not stopping you. Just don’t get . . .’ Whatever he wanted to say died on his lips and he swallowed. ‘Nothing. OK.’ His smile was forced but she was grateful for it. ‘I’ll cadge a lift off someone.’

  She knew what he was going to say: that he’d been worried about her, about the way she’d been affected before, that it might even have triggered her high blood pressure. She leaned forward to kiss him on the lips. ‘Thank you. Will you make my excuses? I don’t want a lecture.’

  He agreed with a good-natured roll of the eyes.

  As she left the party, she could hear Pippa asking him where she’d got to. ‘Work,’ he replied. Fraser could never lie either.

  The sun was already setting as she left the city, though it was barely four o’clock. This November was colder than most and Ava fiddled with the heating in her car, her fingers numb without gloves. She was not absolutely sure what had prompted her, but resolutions to unanswered questions seemed to have inched closer.

  She hadn’t been there for almost three months and, over time, the house and bridge had shrunk in her mind, a summer sunshine softening its features. Although it returned to her in dreams she could dismiss the images as unreal. But as she bumped over the familiar driveway, avoiding the bigger puddles and potholes, the hairs on her arms stood on end. She cut the engine. The wind whipped around her, nudged her, as she stepped out of her car.