Secrets of the Tides

by Hannah Richell

  ‘That’s nice,’ Dora murmurs, still shocked. ‘I always liked Bill.’

  ‘Anyway,’ says Helen, suddenly brisk again, ‘shall we take our tea in the conservatory? It’s lovely in there at this time of day.’ She’s talking in her polite ‘visitors’ voice and Dora realises her mother must be as nervous as she is. It makes her feel slightly better.

  Helen picks up the tray and Dora follows her out of the kitchen, wandering past the open door to the library, glimpsing her mother’s old oak desk overflowing in its usual fashion with papers and books. She passes a table in the hallway clustered with a collection of family photos, their silver frames dusty and spotted with age. There is one of Daphne and Alfred’s sepia-toned wedding photos, a shot of Cassie sitting sullen and straight-backed in her school uniform and one of Dora as a baby lying on a tartan blanket chewing on her fist. Behind them all is a smaller framed photo she has forgotten all about, until now. She peers at it more closely and sees it is of her, Cassie and their father, down on the beach. Cassie looks lovely; all of about eleven or twelve, with her blond hair blowing in the wind and her serious blue eyes staring straight into the camera. She sees herself running behind, a skinny, young girl lost in a fit of toothy giggles, and behind them both stands their father, his cheeks ruddy and his smile broad as he shakes saltwater from his damp, fair hair. He looks as though he’s just been for a swim and while she can’t really remember the day, she has a vague recollection of a chilly Easter picnic. Still, the image is startling to her. It is the sight of the three of them down by the shoreline – so young and happy and innocent – that makes her stomach twist. She wonders how her mother can stand to look at it. She gives a little shudder and turns away from the photo, racing to catch Helen who has already disappeared down the hallway with the tea tray.

  They enter the brightness of the conservatory and settle themselves in creaking wicker chairs. Her announcement weighs heavily upon her but she daren’t speak just yet. She needs to get it just right so instead she lets Helen continue with her monologue of Summertown life while Dora half listens, keeping one eye on a huge, luminous bluebottle scrabbling in vain at the only shut window. It hurls itself at the glass, desperate to escape the stifling atmosphere. I know the feeling, thinks Dora.

  ‘And so what of you? How is life in London . . . and how’s Daniel?’ Helen’s questions break through her daydream.

  Dora decides to start with the safer topics. ‘Dan’s good. His last exhibition went well and he’s got some new commissions. There’s a lady in Highgate who wants three of his bronzes for her garden. That’s why he couldn’t make it this weekend.’ Dora pauses, wondering if now is the moment, then chickens out. ‘And I’ve been promoted at work.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ says Helen.

  ‘Yes . . . I’ve just been made Senior Account Manager. We won a new client, breakfast cereals. We stole the business from our biggest rivals. I only found out yesterday but to be honest, it’s a bit of a coup in the advertising world – my boss is over the moon,’ she adds, aware that she’s gabbling.

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ Helen says again, taking another sip of tea and Dora pauses for a moment, watching the shadow of a bird flit across the far wall. She is unsure how to continue.

  The bluebottle suddenly stops its agitated buzz at the window and the room falls deathly silent.

  ‘And you, are you well?’ Helen asks, glancing up. ‘You look a little pale.’

  First tired. Now pale. Dora marvels at how her mother’s simple observations can sound more like criticism rather than concern. ‘I’m . . . fine.’ She thinks for a minute. ‘Yes, fine,’ she says again, and then, taking a deep breath, Dora finally says it out loud. ‘Actually, I’m pregnant.’

  There is a heavy silence.

  ‘Only seven weeks or so, but definitely pregnant.’

  Whether it is speaking the words out loud into the charged atmosphere of the room, or the relief of unburdening her news, or perhaps just the sheer terror she is consumed by, Dora doesn’t know, but suddenly she is horrified to find that she is crying. Her body heaves and shakes as she releases noisy sobs into the stillness of the room.

  She cries uncontrollably for a minute or so, a cascade of messy wet tears, before, in a vain attempt to compose herself, she runs her fingers under her eyes to catch the streaks of mascara, wipes her wet face on her sleeve and then reaches across for her cup of tea. She is mortified. This isn’t what she’d intended. She takes a couple of slurps of her cold tea and then looks across at her mother. Helen is still seated, seemingly frozen in her chair, her face tight and suddenly pale. Dora gazes at her searchingly, waiting for the questions, a comment, the slightest registering of concern or joy but Helen remains utterly still, like a statue.

  Dora waits a little longer. The room feels airless and Dora suddenly has the strangest feeling: maybe she isn’t really there at all. Maybe this is just another one of her nightmares. Perhaps she is nothing more than a ghost. She feels lightheaded. Insubstantial. Invisible.

  Finally she can stand it no longer. ‘Mum?’ she asks. ‘Aren’t you going to say anything? Anything at all?’ Her embarrassment is morphing quickly into fury.

  Helen pauses, her teacup midway between her lap and her lips. Then she lets out a small sigh, a sound like a gust of wind passing through the branches of the trees outside.

  Dora stares at her mother. ‘Mum? I’m having a baby. Did you hear me?’

  Finally Helen turns to look at her daughter. ‘I heard you, Dora.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘Well, I’m no expert in these matters, Mum, but “congratulations”, I believe, is still the usual response.’ Dora can no longer keep the anger from her voice. She isn’t used to speaking so bluntly with her mother; in the past she has always been keen to avoid confrontation, to play the peacemaker. But this is too much.

  ‘Congratulations then,’ says Helen, but Dora notices she still cannot meet her eye.

  She shakes her head in amazement. ‘You just can’t be happy for me, can you?’

  Helen remains silent.

  ‘I don’t know why I bothered to come. I hoped things might be different. I hoped we might be able to put everything behind us. I thought my news . . .’ she trails off. ‘But I was wrong, wasn’t I? Nothing’s changed.’

  Helen keeps her face turned to the garden. It feels like a dismissal and Dora wears it like a physical slap to her cheek. The blood rushes to her face. She slams her teacup onto the table between them and stands quickly. And then, unexpectedly, a rush of words comes.

  ‘You know something, Mum,’ she says as she moves towards the doorway, ‘I had almost convinced myself that I was wrong; that I had imagined it all these years. I told myself that deep down you really did still love me but that you just couldn’t show it any more, not after what happened.’ She lets out a bitter laugh. ‘I felt sorry for you. I figured you were . . . too . . . too damaged to show me how you feel. But I see now I was wrong.’ She shakes her head and gives a bitter little laugh. ‘God, was I wrong. The truth is that now that I carry the blame for what happened on that one day we can never go back. You’ll never forgive me, will you? Years later and you can still barely bring yourself to look at me.’

  The room falls silent and finally, Helen’s head turns to meet Dora’s. Even from her distance she can see the flecks of golden-amber glinting in the depths of her mother’s green eyes.

  ‘I . . . I . . . I want . . . I’m trying . . .’ Helen stammers and then falls silent. She gives a defeated shrug of her shoulders and turns back to the garden once more.

  ‘ “I . . . I” what? What is it, Mum? What can’t you say to me? Why are you still punishing me like this? What is wrong with you? Why can’t you talk to me?’ She is at the door. She waits, tearful and wild-eyed, hoping that her mother will tell her she is wrong, that she will stand and pull her into her arms and murmur comforting words in her ear; but her mother’s shoulders remain twisted away fro
m her and her gaze resolutely fixed on the swaying trees outside.

  Dora stares a moment longer as another wave of anger floods through her body, then she turns and stalks out of the room. It takes all of her self-control not to slam the door on her way out.

  CASSIE

  Fourteen Years Earlier

  It was bad news. Cassie knew it the moment Dora sprinted into her bedroom, tripping in her baggy pink pyjamas and bursting with her first burning question of the morning.

  ‘What’s a happy accident, Cassie?’ She threw herself shivering onto the end of the bed and shoved her feet under the duvet.

  ‘Where did you hear that?’ Cassie asked, pulled from a warm haze of sleep by Dora’s words and the shock of ice-cube toes against her skin.

  ‘Mum. On the phone last night to Violet,’ Dora explained. ‘Most accidents end in tears, right? That’s what Dad always says, anyway.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Cassie agreed. Grazed knees, broken limbs, smashed crockery, and crashed cars – she couldn’t think of one accident that didn’t end in upset. Nothing good, as far as she could tell, ever came of an accident.

  ‘Maybe we’re getting a puppy?’ Dora suggested hopefully.

  ‘Mmm . . .’ murmured Cassie doubtfully from beneath the covers. It was never going to happen.

  ‘Do you think the boiler will freeze up again at school and we’ll all be sent home?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dora,’ Cassie sighed wearily. ‘Why don’t you go and bother Dad with your questions. It’s too early.’

  Dora stomped off with a little sniff, leaving Cassie to settle beneath her still-warm duvet; just enough time to try to block out the cloud of ugly thoughts suddenly filling her mind. No, nothing good ever came from an accident.

  Richard and Helen sat the girls down that morning and told them the news.

  ‘A baby?’ Dora exclaimed.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Richard proudly.

  Cassie and Dora looked at one another.

  ‘Is this the happy accident?’ Dora asked, turning back to their mother.

  Helen burst out laughing. ‘Have you been eavesdropping on my phone calls?’

  ‘No . . . Well, maybe,’ Dora blushed.

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ Helen agreed with a smile. ‘We weren’t planning on having any more children. It’s a bolt from the blue. But it turns out we’re rather pleased about it.’ Helen reached over and squeezed Richard’s hand. ‘We hope you will be too.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have used contraception?’ Cassie asked bluntly.

  Richard coughed.

  ‘What’s contraception?’ Dora asked.

  ‘Well,’ said Helen patiently, ‘contraception is something two adults use when they make love, but don’t want to have a baby.’

  ‘It’s what Sharon Tate in Year Ten should have used,’ added Cassie knowingly to Dora.

  ‘Yes, well, like your mother says, sex and contraception are for adults. Adults who love each other,’ Richard stressed. ‘And you’re right, Cassie, we could have used contraception,’ he agreed, trying to cover his embarrassment. ‘But now that your mother is pregnant, we think it’s wonderful. So . . .’ he paused, expectation heavy in his voice, ‘what do you both think?’

  ‘I think it’s wonderful too,’ said Dora with a happy sigh. ‘A baby sister.’

  ‘Or a brother,’ Richard reminded.

  ‘It’ll be a sister,’ said Dora definitively.

  There was silence. Cassie felt the weight of her parents’ expectation pressing down on her.

  ‘Well, Cassie, what do you think? Are you pleased?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Cassie said finally. ‘It’s great.’

  There was a rush of air as Richard exhaled loudly. ‘We knew you’d be pleased. Didn’t I tell you, Helen? I said the girls would be pleased. A baby!’ He smiled broadly at them all. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll have you girls making up bottles and changing dirty nappies before you know it.’

  ‘Ewwww . . . dirty nappies, no thank you!’ Dora giggled.

  ‘A baby,’ Richard said again, shaking his head in wonder. ‘Who’d have thought this old house would see another Tide arrive into the world? Mum and Dad would have been so pleased.’

  There was something about the softness in her father’s face that Cassie couldn’t bear to see. She turned away, focusing her gaze on the scene outside the kitchen window. The ground was covered in frost and above it hung a thin strip of pale sky. Higher up a blanket of dark cumulus lay heavily upon the air, as though trying to press it into the frosted earth below, suffocating it slowly. Suddenly, she longed to escape. Never mind the cold, she wanted to launch into the void outside and run and run until her lungs were bursting and her legs collapsed. Then she would lie on the ground, let the frost from the grass soak into her clothes, crawl over her skin and wrap her in a cloak of ice.

  ‘Earth to Cassie!’ Richard was waving his hands in front of her face, trying to get her attention. ‘Goodness, you were away with the fairies then! Did you hear me? I asked if you wanted another cup of tea?’

  Cassie shook her head and turned back to the window. She couldn’t even bring herself to smile. A baby; it was not good news.

  Pregnancy transformed Helen. Over the coming months she seemed to swell and ripen, like the giant peach in Dora’s favourite children’s story. She had never been one for housekeeping, but she suddenly took to washing, cleaning and, most unfortunately, cooking with a newly found zeal, until Richard gently suggested she might want to conserve some of her energy for the baby’s arrival; but the truth was none of them could stomach another of her elaborate and inedible family meals.

  Her sister basked in Helen’s glow, flitting moth-like around her mother with irrepressible excitement. Helen had told them that the baby could already hear their voices and Dora chattered away to the bump about anything and everything, but Cassie felt self-conscious the one time she had tried and couldn’t think of anything to say, so she left it to Dora to babble idiotically at their mother’s belly.

  Their father too, could barely contain his excitement. He bounded round the house each weekend, preparing for the arrival. There was a new nursery to paint and an old crib to sand and varnish. He built wooden shelves which he stocked with new books and toys, and attacked his projects with vigour, as if by hurling himself into them he could somehow encourage the baby to arrive more quickly.

  It didn’t help that as Helen blossomed and grew, Cassie’s own body was undergoing a strange and uncomfortable transformation. Overnight, it seemed, hair had begun to sprout in awkward places. Her skin broke out in greasy red pimples and she got hot and sweaty at difficult times, particularly whenever Miss Mackintosh, the prettiest teacher at school, addressed her in class. And worst of all, breasts had started to grow where once had only been flat, pink nipples. She studied and poked at them in the bedroom mirror, half annoyed, half fascinated. She wasn’t sure she liked the new additions and felt self-conscious in her too-tight school blouses. Secretly she hoped that Helen might notice and suggest a shopping trip, like the other girls in her class; a mother–daughter rite of passage, it seemed: a new bra, a milkshake, and even her ears pierced if she were really lucky, like Tamara Hopkins. But Helen was preoccupied with her own life, and the new one growing inside her. As the days passed and Cassie’s growth spurt went unnoticed, she grew increasingly annoyed, until eventually she raided Helen’s purse, pocketed a twenty pound note and took herself off to the department store in Bridport.

  All she wanted was a bra. How hard could it be? She drifted round the ground floor on her own for a while, trying to summon the courage to grab something from the bewildering array of lingerie on display. There were little lacy numbers, sporty T-shirt bras, pretty ones covered in flowers and bows, and giant hammock-like contraptions terrifying in their complex construction. Finally, a kindly grey-haired assistant with gold-rimmed spectacles perched high on her nose took pity on her. ‘Can I help you there, love?’ She smiled down at her.

  Cassie would
have run, but she really didn’t want to return home without a bra; it was getting impossible at school. Her shirt was virtually see-through and she’d seen some of the boys staring.

  ‘I need a bra, please,’ she finally muttered.

  ‘Well, you’re in the right place. Let’s get you into a changing room, shall we? I’ll measure you up and then you can try on some different styles. We’ll have you fixed up in no time, all right?’

  Cassie nodded and followed the lady into the changing rooms. The assistant pulled out a tape measure and continued with her small talk as she took Cassie’s measurements. ‘You on your own today, love?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘First bra, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I remember when I got my first bra. My mum and I went to a funny little shop in Exeter. Terribly uncomfortable it was. Not like these things nowadays. So soft and stretchy. It’s the Lycra. It’s revolutionised life for us women. Whoever invented Lycra should be given a bloomin’ medal, if you ask me. Your mum off buying groceries, is she? Left you to get on with it alone, like a big girl?’

  ‘My mum’s dead.’ Cassie wasn’t sure why she said it, but the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

  ‘Oh!’ The woman’s hands froze and the tape measure unfurled into a long tangled heap on the floor. ‘Oh my gosh. I am sorry. There’s me prattling on. Oh you poor dear.’ There was an embarrassed silence. ‘Well, don’t you worry, my love. We’ll get you fixed up and comfy as we can in no time. You’re in expert hands here. Never met a pair of breasts I couldn’t fit.’