by Lisa Hall
I hear the shrill beep of the alarm coming from the spare room – from Rav’s phone – a short while later. I haven’t slept, I haven’t even tried, but when Rav stumbles in, creases on one side of his face from the pillow, I fake stretching, yawning, rubbing my eyes as if well rested. Rav eyes me warily.
‘Did you sleep in the end?’ he asks, his voice hoarse. He coughs and reaches for the glass of stale water on the table.
‘Yes, like a baby.’ I give a small laugh. The baby had only woken once for a feed, but he stirs now as if sensing I am awake. ‘Did you?’
‘Hmmm.’ Rav looks washed out, his skin sallow. ‘A little. Can I use the bathroom first? I have an early meeting.’
I glance at the clock – it is barely six thirty. Early even for him. I hear the shower run, and the baby starts to grizzle so I lift him gently from the cot and pull up my nightshirt. I am still feeding when Rav comes back in.
‘I’m off. I won’t be late back this evening.’ He leans over and kisses the baby’s head but doesn’t kiss me. He smells of tangerine shower gel and a fresh citrusy aftershave. There is nothing odd that I can tell in his tone, it’s as if it’s business as usual. The only way I know he isn’t his usual self is his failure to mention our evening out last night – he always thanks me the day after, whenever we have an evening meal or drinks out, and he has done ever since our first date, on a hot, sandy beach in Goa. Instead, he says, ‘Don’t forget you have a doctor’s appointment at eleven thirty.’
‘I won’t.’ I keep my eyes on the baby’s face as I feel Rav pause in the doorway.
‘See you later then.’ And a few seconds after, the front door slams.
I hurry Mina to preschool as she grumbles and whines alongside me. On the way home, I rush past The Daisy Chain, the buckets already outside. I would have stopped usually, but I keep my eyes down, hoping that Naomi doesn’t come out and see me. Once inside, I lay the baby down to sleep and step out into the garden, to where the flowers of the oleander tree almost glow in the bright sunshine. Ragged stems show where the flowers have been snipped, and I feel a hot gush of tears sting my eyes as I look over the bush. It wasn’t me. I’m sure it wasn’t me. There is a dull throbbing at the back of my head, an ache that thuds with each beat of my pulse. I step away, my chest tight, as my eyes rake over the disturbed earth where I buried the bones. I can still feel them, beneath the soil, can still feel a thick malevolence pulling me in and I step back, towards the pond, my arms wrapped tightly across my body. Turning my back, I look out across the pond. It lies at the very edge of the woods, half of the water covered by shade from the trees, the other half sunlit but still murky, reeds growing from the clay edges, the mud drying and cracking around it from the long spell of warm weather. Rav should have filled it in, months ago. I asked him to when we moved in, afraid the children would be drawn to it, but this morning it offers a sense of peace. I have a strong urge to feel the cold water and the cool mud beneath it on my skin and I glance towards the house. The baby monitor is silent, the house quiet. I slide my shoes off and sit on the grass, inching forward until my toes sink under the water. Closing my eyes, I lean back on my elbows, letting the water lap around my calves and let out a long breath. What am I going to do? The message on Rav’s phone from Naomi burns brightly behind my eyelids and sticks in my throat. They both think I’m mad. They think the children aren’t safe. They want to take the children away. I feel it again then, the breath on the back of my neck and sit bolt upright, catching my foot on something hard under the water.
‘Shit.’ I breathe, raising a shaking hand to my mouth. I’ve never felt her outside before, only in the house. She’s everywhere. I hear the words in my head as clearly as if they were spoken directly into my ear. I scrabble to my feet, still in the water, my toes sinking into the mud just as I imagined they would, when I feel it again under the water. Something smooth and hard. Reaching down, my fingers disappearing into the silty water disturbed by my own movements, I fumble around until I find it, my hand closing over the cold surface and I slowly draw it up. A silver baby’s rattle. The handle is an ornate twist of silver, the top a smooth oval. I rub at the metal, wiping away the mud to reveal an intricate pattern of flowers and swirls, before giving it a small shake. There is the thin rattle of a bell, as though water and mud have found their way inside to dull it. Holding it tightly in my fist, I have an overwhelming sense of grief, a sadness so strong that I sit back down on the grass to steady myself. A wave of rage follows this, an anger so fiery that I have to close my eyes against the red mist that descends. It’s hers, I think, the image of a small girl rising in my mind, dressed in white, calling for her mother. This belongs to Agnes’s child. I don’t know how I know, but I know that it does. Clutching it tightly I get slowly to my feet, my head thumping and nausea swirling in my belly. You have to stop them. The voice in my ear comes again, clear and knowing.
I clean the rattle, running my fingers over the intricate pattern, until the crushing sadness and following rage that descends every time I touch it becomes too much and I wrap it in a tea towel and hide it in the pantry. Then I go to the laptop and click on the icon for Rav’s screen. A lock screen comes up with a password box and I falter for a moment. Would he have changed it? It was always AllieVero2 – my first and middle names, Vero for Véronique – and 2 for the fact that there was just the two of us when he set it up. I type in the words and wait anxiously, suddenly convinced that he will have changed it to try and keep me out. After a few seconds, the screen changes and I am in. The screen fills with a picture of the two of us, taken on the beach at Colva on our last day there together. Before we were married, before the children. His arm is slung over my shoulder and I am looking up at him, laughing. Rav is laughing too, his eyes crinkled, his hair swept back by the sea breeze. I think of the way we were before we moved here, before all of this. Before he was caught up in cases he is desperate to win, too busy to spend time with his family, before I felt constantly watched, before Agnes. I resist the urge to lay my head in my arms and cry. Instead, I look to where the baby lies in the Moses basket, his breaths deep and regular as he sleeps. Passports are sorted. Rav’s message to Naomi is illuminated in my mind. They are planning to take my children, I think, certainty making my senses feel sharp and alert. They are going to take them away from me. I pull up Safari and open up Rav’s search history. I hit the jackpot straight away, he hasn’t even tried to hide his tracks. Why would he? I think. He doesn’t know that I have any idea what he is planning. The website for the airline is the first one that comes up, and thanks to cookies on the laptop, I can see exactly what he has been searching for. Flights to Goa, to Dabolim Airport, for two adults and two children, leaving on 18th June. He hasn’t entered a return date, only one-way details. The breath is knocked out of me, and I feel winded. How could he – the only man I have ever loved – do this to me? Take our children from me. I wonder whose idea this was – Rav’s or Naomi’s? Maybe this is what Naomi wanted all long. Rav is a good man. Maybe this is why she has planted the idea in his head that I am going crazy. I picture the way she is with the children, the way she always goes to Mina when she falls, jumping up before I can even realize something is wrong. I imagine Naomi being the one taking the baby to his first day at school, talking to Mina about boys, sitting beside Rav in a fancy hat as Mina walks down the aisle. My fingers are cold, so cold they feel numb and I rub them together to get some life back into them as I stand and start to pace the sitting-room floor. Does Avó know about this? Was she trying to warn me the other day, when she said that I looked as if something was wrong, that I looked unhappy? A scratch comes from the chimney, making me jump. Dialling with shaky fingers, I call my mother’s number, even though I know she won’t pick up.
‘Mum, it’s me. I need you. I … I need to talk to you. Please.’ I hang up and scrub my hands over my face. I can’t let this happen. I can’t let them take Mina and Leo.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s all wrong and I jumped to c
onclusions. These are the things I am running over and over in my head, mumbling them to myself as I hurry towards preschool to collect Mina. I am late again, but if I hurry, I think I can make it.
‘Allie? Al, wait!’ A voice calls as I enter the High Street in the village, and I turn to see Tara headed towards me. ‘Where are you off to in such a rush?’
‘To collect Mina,’ I say in confusion. ‘Aren’t you late for James? We’d better hurry.’
‘We still have fifteen minutes,’ Tara laughs. ‘I’ve left Karl at home with Rufus – he’s been really unwell, a gastro thing, we had to take him in to the William Harvey last night.’ She looks tired as I look more closely at her. There are dark circles under her eyes and her mouth looks drawn. ‘I just wanted to get out for a few minutes, you know.’ I realize now for the first time, she has no pram with her.
‘I’m sorry. I hope he feels better soon.’ Something chimes in the back of my mind when she mentions a gastro thing, but I can’t put the pieces together. All I can see is the screen on the laptop: two adults, two children, Dabolim Airport.
‘Oh, he’s on the mend,’ Tara says, flicking her keys in her hand. My eyes are drawn to the keychain that dangles there. ‘He’ll be right as rain in a day or two.’ The keychain is a silver pentacle, identical to the one Naomi has on her keys. As if summoned, Naomi steps out of the doors of The Daisy Chain, her purse in one hand as she walks towards the supermarket next door.
‘You know her, don’t you?’ I nod in Naomi’s general direction and Tara turns to see. I watch her to see her reaction, but she gives nothing away, no sign of guilt.
‘Naomi? Yeah, I know her a little. Not terribly well though.’ Well enough to invite her to your house, I think. ‘Isn’t she a friend of yours? I thought you two were quite close. Good friends.’
‘We are,’ I say. Were.
‘I thought so.’ Tara starts walking towards the preschool as Naomi disappears inside the shop. ‘I knew I knew her from somewhere, and then I saw her and Rav having a drink in the pub not long after the baby was born. Wetting his head, no doubt,’ she laughs.
‘Really? Which pub?’ There is a roaring in my ears and I suddenly feel very hot.
‘The village pub. The Black Horse. Must have been, oh … last week sometime?’ She looks at my face. ‘Oh shit, have I put my foot in it?’
‘No, not at all.’ I rearrange my features, leaning down and fussing with the baby before pasting a smile on and straightening up. ‘I sent Rav out for a bit, told Naomi to meet him so he wasn’t a billy no mates. Just celebrating this little one, that’s all.’
‘Oh, phew.’ Tara pretends to swipe sweat from her brow. ‘You should have seen your face – I thought I’d put my foot right in it!’
Tara chatters on about everything and nothing as we walk the last few metres to the preschool, but I don’t hear a thing she says. All I can see is Rav telling me he was working late, that the case was a nightmare. And now I know he was with Naomi, just like he was the night Mina was ill. I wonder if that was when they first decided that something wasn’t quite right. I wonder if that’s when they decided they were going to take the children.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Rav is home early, just as he said he would be, but I busy myself with the children and at dinner the air between us feels crackly and tense. I don’t trust myself to speak, so I don’t, not directly anyway – I find myself doing that awful thing that I swore I never would – using Mina to talk to Rav. Rav opens his mouth as if to say something a few times, and I can feel his eyes on me as I rinse the dishes before scooping up the baby and taking him up for a bath. Once Mina and the baby are in bed, I head outside to the garden while he is still reading to Mina, stepping outside into the cool May evening and finding myself breathing more easily as soon as my feet touch the lawn. Fussing with the border, I prune back the dead leaves and stems, even though it is the wrong time of year to do it, and march backwards and forwards with the watering can in an attempt to revive the wilted plants. I don’t look at the pond, where the columbine grows, and I avert my gaze from the oleander tree as I splash loosely around it with the water. As the soil beneath the tree turns dark and damp, I think of the bones and feathers buried beneath it, the idea of them a solid and heavy weight, the malevolence I felt from them only slightly dulled by the dirt. I should have burnt them, I think, although the idea of breathing in the smoke they would give off makes my stomach roll.
‘Here, I brought you some tea.’ Rav appears beside me, a mug in each hand. He has changed out of the suit he wore to work this morning, but he somehow looks older. The lines around his eyes look deeper, and tiredness radiates from every pore. It must be exhausting plotting against your wife. I take the cup, peering into it suspiciously. ‘It’s chamomile,’ he says. ‘Mum gave it to me for you, she said it might help you to sleep.’
I take the tiniest sip, floral steam swirling around my head. It tastes slightly bitter and I run my tongue over my lips in an attempt to dispel the taste.
‘How did your appointment go at the doctor’s?’ Rav watches me as he sips from his own cup. His thick, dark brows knit together in something I assume he thinks is concern, and I imagine dark horns sprouting from his forehead, his tongue split like a snake’s. I blink, and they are gone.
‘Fine,’ I lie. I had forgotten all about the appointment in the event of what I had discovered on the laptop, although deep down, I know I had no intention of going anyway. ‘He said it’s just normal postpartum hormones. That everything will settle down soon enough and not to worry. Shane O’Neill, known to everyone as Blackie.’ The words trip easily off my tongue as if practised.
‘Really?’ Rav looks sceptical. ‘I don’t remember you being … like this when you had Mina.’
‘Well, it’s easier with one child, isn’t it?’ I say brightly. ‘Less to juggle. I told you I was fine, Rav, and now the doctor has said it too, so maybe you’ll believe me.’
He moves towards me, and my pulse flutters, although not in the way it used to when he moved closer to me. Then, it was the very idea of him that set my heart racing, now it is fear, the fear of what he is planning that makes my heart thud and my breath come short in my throat.
‘Well, if the doctor says you’re OK …’ Rav pulls me to him with his free hand. I lean against him, slightly stiffly, as he strokes my hair. ‘I guess you’re OK. Finish your tea.’
I feel drowsy, the motion of his hand in my hair running tingles across my scalp. My eyes are heavy, and I stifle a yawn. ‘So Avó brought me tea,’ I say, my tongue feeling clumsy in my mouth. ‘Avó never brings me things, she must be worried.’
‘We all are.’ Rav’s voice is quiet, his breath tickling my ear. ‘Come on, time for bed.’ I follow him on leaden feet, a dull ache in my twisted ankle. In the bedroom, I can barely lift my arms to pull off my T-shirt I am so exhausted, my limbs feeling languid and heavy, and it comes as a relief when my head finally hits the pillow, the cotton cool on my cheek. I don’t think about the vision, or Rav and Naomi, letting sleep pull me under.
Mummy! Mina’s voice is shrill, pitchy with fright and my eyes snap open. Mummy! I hear it again, and I am fully awake now, my feet already on the chilly floorboards, the duvet thrown to one side.
‘Mina, I’m coming.’ I can hear her crying, the sound growing fainter as if she is moving away from me. I pull on a jumper that hangs over a chair in the bedroom, not bothering with shoes as I hurry out onto the landing.
Mummy! Her voice floats up to me again, laced with panic, and I stumble towards the top of the stairs, a glimpse of white appearing in the landing window. I pause, my pulse crashing in my ears, my breath steaming in the icy chill of the hall. It is cold out here, abnormally so, and I shiver, my muscles tensing in reaction to the change in temperature, but I don’t move, frozen for what feels like hours but is probably barely seconds. Out in the garden, the shadowy branches of the trees at the edge of the woods reach out, long, bony fingers cutting into the glow cast by t
he moon overhead. A small figure, dark haired and wrapped in white fabric runs towards the trees, dangerously close to the edge of the pond, before disappearing behind the tall reeds that decorate the edge of the water.
‘Mina, no!’ My hand slaps against the icy glass of the windowpane, my eyes straining to see her, to see the white fabric of her nightdress as she runs, but there is nothing, just the branches swaying gently in the wind. Ignoring the dull ache in my still slightly swollen ankle, I hurry down the stairs in the dark, fumbling with the keys to the back door, Miranda’s words running on a loop in my brain. Legend says, Agnes still haunts her old home to this day. Finally, I manage to slot the key into the lock and, yanking the door open so hard it bounces back on its hinges, I run out into the garden. I am not Agnes. I will not lose my child.
‘Mina!’ I call out, desperation causing my voice to come out ragged and sharp. ‘Mina? Where are you?’ Turning in a circle I scan the garden, barely aware of the dampness beneath my bare feet, the air that grazes my cheeks so much warmer out here than it is inside the house. ‘Mina?’ Quieter now, I start to follow the path I saw her run along, around the pond and towards the woods. Did she see someone in there? A flash of white? Perhaps she thought it was me. She isn’t calling for me anymore and my entire body trembles as I creep towards the darkened edges of the trees, my heart in my mouth.