Cuckoo

by Julia Crouch

  Polly got up and undid the bolts on the back door, then turned to face Rose again, her eyes burning.

  ‘You know, Christos was never the same after you visited Karpathos, Rose.’ Then, with a sudden, violent force, she spat on the floor. ‘Never.’

  She opened the door, and went out into the garden.

  Trying not to look at Gareth, Rose got up and peered through a chink in the curtains. She watched as Polly went over and gathered up the children. She was smiling and talking to them as if nothing had happened at all. Something she said to them even made them cheer.

  She seemed very practised at subterfuge.

  Two years later

  ‘MAMAN!’

  Flossie toddled across the scrubby grass, her little hands held out to her mother. Anna caught her and tumbled her to the ground. Both girls laughed as they rolled together down the flower-dotted slope that brought them to their mother, who was sunning herself on a rug underneath a cherry tree.

  Rose smiled and swept them up, hugging them to herself, breathing deep their scent of salt and sea and sky. They lay back and looked up at the dancing blossom above them. Rose closed her eyes and listened to the distant crash and roar of the waves as they coursed into the sand a few yards from where they lay, discharging energy picked up over the vast swathes of water that lay to the west.

  ‘Maman.’ Flossie, who had got to her feet again, was leaning over Rose, brushing her nose with a long stalk of grass. Rose reached up and tickled her tummy and the little girl squirmed in pleasure, her sharp eyes dancing.

  Anna looked on, smiling. ‘No, we say Mummy, Flossie, Mummy.’

  ‘No, it’s Maman!’ Flossie insisted.

  For the fourth time in so many days, Rose thanked the sky for this brightness that had flown back into her daughters, and into everything around them. It hadn’t happened overnight, but here they were at last.

  ‘There you are.’ Andy appeared round the orchard fence, wiping his hands on an oily rag. He had been working on the boat for the last couple of weeks, since the weather had turned. He was planning to spend the summer mornings out there again, on the waves, catching fish for the local restaurant. Rose supplied the same place year-round with eggs, preserves and vegetables from the little garden that she had somehow managed to coax out of the wild soil of this small island off the west coast of Brittany.

  Despite the money Rose got from the sale of The Lodge, she, Andy and the girls lived a consciously pared-down existence here on the Ile d’Ouessant, and it suited them fine. They were almost self-sufficient and had no TV, no phone, no internet, and very few visitors, except for Frank and Molly, who came over every couple of months with Johnny, Rose’s little grandson. Rose was so pleased that she had been able to help them in their very young parenthood by buying them a house in Brighton. It was reparation, of sorts.

  She had, at last, found peace.

  ‘Look at you lot, lying around,’ Andy smiled.

  ‘Can’t a bird take a rest once in a while?’ Rose looked up at him. He was so handsome in this light. Happiness suited him.

  He scooped up Flossie and, swinging her round onto his knee, he joined Rose on the rug, putting his arm round her and the girls.

  ‘Beautiful day,’ he said. ‘Fancy a swim later?’

  ‘You’re on.’ Rose leaned over and kissed him on the nose.

  He held her gaze for a moment, then broke away and reached into his pocket.

  ‘Oh yeah. You completely made me forget why I came to find you. This arrived.’

  Rose took the letter from him and opened it. She recognised the writing instantly.

  Album done. Wiped out. Need a break away from temptations. Boys v. excited about seeing you all. When can we come? Send ferry details etc. Polly xx.

  So, then. It had been bound to happen some day. Rose felt a little sick. She folded the letter over and smoothed it in her lap. Shielding her eyes with her hand, she looked out over the orchard fence, at the blurred line of the horizon, where the sea met the sky.

  How could she refuse?

  A sudden, brisk breeze pushed itself in from the shore. The cherry tree shuddered. A flurry of blossom tumbled down around Rose, Anna, Flossie and Andy, and Rose shivered.