‘She had her heart broken. Pomona. Her other girlfriend died.’
Cerys lowered her voice. ‘Wow.’ She nodded, slowly. ‘Even lesbians can’t escape drama. I was counting on them.’ Pushing her glasses up her nose she opened her umbrella. ‘Here we go again.’ She linked her arm through Cadi’s. ‘Make sure to tell me the instant you have news of a note.’
‘I will.’ Cadi wasn’t altogether sure this was true and crossed her fingers.
Not telling Cerys about the ghost was another matter entirely.
A secret’s only a secret until two people know…
Cadi wondered if she might have told Lili too much. Her mother may not believe her about the ghost; Lili did. The last time she’d seen Lili she’d lied to her and been rude. By now, Lili would want to make up and Cadi did too. It didn’t matter which of them was in the wrong. It would mean questions though, and Lili had an uncanny way of peeling back the layers.
There was no point in worrying. Her sister was as real as the air Cadi breathed and her new memories had begun: sitting at a table with a mother who stroked her hair, and told her about the day her little sister learned to walk.
Seventy-three
Violet’s erratic memory meant the scenes fitted together like pieces of a mended jug.
As she spoke, she heard something new in her own voice. Mostly puzzlement, as if she couldn’t believe such things had happened to her.
To Cadi’s question about a note, Violet said, no there hadn’t been one. ‘If there had, it might have helped. I looked, I think Lili did too.’
Each time Violet said she was sorry, Cadi told her not to be. Violet couldn’t stop – she was a snake shedding her skin. Waking up full of words she needed to be rid of.
Cadi insisted there was no hurry. ‘We can be normal now.’
‘You’re quite grown up, aren’t you?’ Violet looked at her daughter in wonder. ‘I can’t believe I haven’t noticed.’ She paused. ‘Will I be enough for you?’
Cadi smiled. ‘Don’t be soft. It’s like Lili says: one twig at a time. Like a bird making a nest.’
‘You love Lili very much, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I love her?’ Cadi sighed. ‘She only wanted the best for me, Mam. It wasn’t a competition.’
Violet needed time to work out where Lili fitted into this new story. Where they all fitted: Lili and her magic, Owen with his careful presence.
‘I thought I’d come back for the house,’ he told her. ‘I couldn’t think about you.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘No.’ He looked like a boy and it made her shy.
‘How did we happen? We only did it twice.’ Needing to be sure, some of the things she said were deliberately blunt. She shocked him and knew it.
‘Love isn’t just about sex, cariad.’
Violet pretended not to notice. Her reality had become Cadi: she wasn’t about to risk their fragile love by trading it for romantic declarations. She’d had her fill of superficial promises. It didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of the way he seemed to see into her. In the sunlight, his hair shone like a crow’s wing, she noticed how much leaner he was, with sharper angles. Although he was becoming more familiar, she still saw glimpses of the younger man she used to meet in the woods.
If Violet had liked anything about the village, the ease with which she could get lost might well have been it. She perfected the art of disappearing, memorising paths less well trodden.
The rain maker had seen Violet and bent on mischief hadn’t shied away from an opportunity.
Hurt and drifting, Violet and Owen met in the woods too many times for it to be a coincidence. Running their eyes over one another, feeling the heat like flares, until one day he spoke to her.
‘You’re Violet, aren’t you?’
‘How do you know my name?’
‘I know everything about you.’
Madness and lust wrapped in need: Owen believing he could save this sad woman. How envious he’d been of Teilo Hopkins – married to a girl with wild pale hair who looked like an angel – and the man not seeming to realise his luck.
And there she stood, as if meant.
Then all at once it had been over and she couldn’t bear the sight of him.
Now she reminded him, asked how he could still care for her.
He said, ‘I fell in love with you, Violet. I didn’t realise it, not then. And I think you love me.’
All Violet knew was her daughter didn’t hate her.
‘Do you now?’ she said. ‘We’ll have to see.’ Her words were as deliberately vague as her smile.
Seventy-four
On the threshold of autumn the trees began to throw off leaves, to see if they remembered how.
Even though the rain continued to fall each day there was something less inevitable about it.
Violet gave Cadi a photograph of Dora with the sun behind her and her fair hair a halo of curls.
‘It’s perfect.’ Cadi hugged her mother. ‘Thank you.’
Feathers began appearing in her room again, drifting through the window and filling up drawers, gathering in heaps under her bed. However many times she scooped them up and flung them out, the next day they would be back, making the house feel unreal, as if it might float away. Her bed would be dotted with meadowsweet and the scent made her eyes water. She swept it up too, threw it out with the feathers, knowing it would be back.
She woke up with her face pressed against the rag doll. Dora’s face looked out from its silver frame.
What do you want? And where had she gone? Cadi picked a sprig of meadowsweet out of her hair and draped it over the picture.
Behind her sister’s smile lay a new secret. She still didn’t know the shape of it, only that it was there as if sewn into her skin. If she waited, it would make sense.
Lili watched Cadi drifting between the cottages. She banished Pomona and conjured a cake from chocolate and reassurance.
‘I might be a bit starry-eyed, cariad, I still love you best.’ Lili cut the cake, offered Cadi a slice on a blue plate edged with silver fish.
‘I know,’ Cadi said. The cake tasted dreamy. ‘What with you two, and Mam and Owen, it’s like an edition of Heat magazine.’
‘Do you think they’re an item?’
‘It’s only a matter of time.’ Cadi took another bite.
‘Is it weird?’
‘Everything’s weird, Lili.’
‘You and your mam, though, you’re talking?’
‘Now she’s started, I can’t stop her. I wish she didn’t feel so guilty though. I’m still mad at her, but I don’t want to punish her. I’m still mad at you too.’
‘Do you want to punish me? I wouldn’t blame you.’
‘Lili, it’s only ever been about the truth.’ Cadi hesitated. ‘I want to ask her something else, about my other grandmother.’
‘The only thing I know about Madeleine is what Teilo told me.’ Lili licked her fingers. ‘Madeleine went off with some man, around the time your mam and dad met. She disappeared. She did a terrible thing, but then, so did Teilo.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Whatever happened between Violet and her mother, Teilo didn’t help matters. He gave your mam false hope, told her what she wanted to hear. Maybe Madeleine’s new man did the same?’ Lili sighed. ‘Teilo wanted her. It was about him, cariad, not her. Violet was lost and Teilo found her, and I don’t think he took proper care of her.’
‘Do you think that’s why she had a fling with Owen?’
Lili’s mouth moved, although no words came out.
‘I’m not dumb, Lili.’
‘Does it make a difference?’
‘Nobody said Teilo was perfect and he didn’t have to be.’
Lili smiled. ‘Everyone messes up and we were all scared.’
‘I wonder if Madeleine will ever come back.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘She must have been very troubled, to go o
ff like that. And people do change. They mess up and they learn.’
And now she really is growing up. ‘Perhaps Violet ought to look for her?’
Cadi frowned. ‘Not yet. I only just got her back myself.’
‘And you’re sure everything’s alright?’
‘Don’t worry. I like Owen, he gets me.’
‘Good.’
‘There is one thing I can’t work out.’
‘Yes?’
‘The ghost. She’s close and far away at the same time.’
Lili said she thought ghosts only appeared to the living if they thought it was worth their while. ‘If I was a little ghost and I wanted to get close to my big sister, I’d want her to tell me how.’
‘So what would you do?’
‘I’d go and find her.’
I am wild and beginning to forget.
The ghost who is a bird sits in the tree, watching her sister.
I want you to tell me how my mother misses me so much; when I died she stopped crying for fourteen years.
Listen…
Rwyf am i chi i hedfan… I want you to fly…
Seventy-five
Lili decided Cadi was ready for wherever her search led her. I have to trust her.
She went for long walks with Pomona, and they told one another their own secrets.
‘If I help you, will you teach me about plants,’ Pomona said. ‘I’ll be your apprentice.’
Lili’s garden ran riot, bursting with goodness and weeds. ‘Lesson one: weeding is about backache and broken fingernails.’
‘I can do that, I don’t have any fingernails.’
Lili handed her a bent kitchen fork and a basket. Pomona pulled up chickweed and picked tomatoes; Lili dug up potatoes and leeks.
‘I have to find a job,’ Pomona said, ‘otherwise I’ll starve.’
She cooked for them in the kitchen of her big white house full of windows and light.
Lili adored it. ‘It’s like the sky came indoors.’
Pomona made lasagne and sponge cakes, piled raspberries onto meringue.
‘Cooking’s creative,’ Lili said. ‘Maybe you could be a cook.’
She made Pomona a posy.
‘What this for?’
‘Marjoram’s for money.’
Delighted, Pomona laughed. ‘And the lavender?’
‘The lavender’s for love, of course, what did you think?’
‘How should I know? You’re the witch.’
‘Yes,’ Lili said, ‘I suppose I am.’
‘Is everything alright?’
‘You sound like Sylvia.’
Pomona sniffed the posy. Money and love – they made the world go round. ‘You know what I mean. Are Cadi and Violet alright?’
‘When I find out, I’ll tell you.’
Later that evening, Violet found Lili picking sweet peas.
‘Want some?’ Lili said.
‘I need to say something.’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘Please, Lili.’ Violet sat down under the cherry tree. ‘Come and sit with me.’
Sunlight shimmered on the daisy-patterned grass.
‘I’m going to have to learn how to be happy again,’ Violet said.
Lili laid the sweet peas on the table. ‘The secret got impatient?’
Startled, Violet said, ‘You do have a way of creating the most extraordinary tangents.’
‘Hark who’s talking. And it isn’t a tangent.’
‘No.’ Violet pulled her cigarette packet from her pocket and lit one. ‘I’ve been tied to my grief, Lili. Frightened I couldn’t love my living child enough because I loved my dead one too much.’
‘Love’s never too much.’
Violet rubbed at the scar, realising it had become automatic now rather than a reaction to stress. ‘I need to know how you feel.’
‘Me?’ Lili laughed. ‘I don’t pretend to know what it was like for you and Teilo. I did know my brother though and I could have been kinder to you.’
‘You weren’t unkind.’
‘I think I was. Sometimes.’ Lili trailed a sweet pea under her nose. ‘We’ll be fine, Violet. It’s different now, don’t you think?’
‘I hope so,’ Violet said. ‘And are you happy?’
Lili grinned.
Violet puffed on her cigarette. ‘I need to talk to you about Owen as well. He isn’t fickle, Lili, he’s a dreamer. He’s like Teilo in that way.’ She looked at Lili. ‘Not as selfish though. He knew I was the wrong woman because I was married. He saw I was unhappy and he was jealous of Teilo. And he couldn’t bear it when I rejected him, even though he knew I was right.’ A blackbird demanded their attention and Violet paused. ‘Good men are as predictable as rubbish ones, aren’t they?’
‘Finally, she gets it.’
‘I don’t mean to hurt your feelings; I’m just trying to explain.’
Lili said she couldn’t see what needed explaining and Violet was full of surprises. ‘You sound almost assertive.’
‘I feel clearer in my head, that’s all.’
Lili nodded.
‘Owen talks to me about me. He flatters me with too much kindness really. He’s right though, I am worth more than Teilo’s casual indifference.’
‘The only person who knew my brother better than I did was my mother. She wasn’t completely blind to his faults; she just did a good impression. Mothers love their sons in a different way to their daughters.’
‘Do you think the truth sets us free?’
‘Not sure,’ Lili said. ‘I think the truth can screw us up as much as secrets do. At least we’re screwed up from a place of knowledge.’
‘I should never have asked you to keep mine.’
No, you ought to have told your daughter the truth and changed the direction of all our lives. Did Lili really believe this? It no longer mattered. ‘It’s okay, Violet. I’m not holding on to anything.’
Violet stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Do you think Cadi will be alright?’
‘Cadi will be fine, she’s brave.’
‘And you and me?’
‘Oh we’re that brave, Violet, dragons are scared of us.’
Seventy-six
Darkness lay across the village.
As the last chimes of the church bell echoed, Cadi’s mind turned to magic. She thought about her sister, buried before they knew one another, all trace gone. Apart from Violet’s tentative memories, there was little left to discover. And yet, she knew it wasn’t over.
Ghosts only appear to the living if they think it’s worth their while… I’d go and find her…
Cadi recalled her charm falling into the lake: a question conjured from stones and seeds, feathers and hope. She needed to believe in lost and found, in happy ever after. Even if the lines were blurred, the story she shared with her sister was real. She wanted to find Dora and tell her she didn’t have to stay lost.
Cadi couldn’t bring back her sister, but maybe she could free her. ‘You have to let go, Dora. And if you let me, I’ll help you. You’re part of me and who I am and I can remember you now.’
She fell asleep and the whispering night merged into the silence.
For once there were no feathers and no meadowsweet. Cadi woke early; her first thought of Blodeuwedd, the flower-faced woman. She decided she would read the story. If she paid attention this time, she might begin to work out what came next.
Although Lili owned a copy of the Mabinogion, Cadi wanted to read her father’s book and asked Violet where it was.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Violet said. A deep sleep had left her disorientated making her late for the bus. ‘Will you be alright?’
Cadi raised her eyebrows. ‘Just try and remember where the book is, Mam. Okay?’
‘Why, is it important?’
‘Yes.’
On the other side of the window, the ghostbird shivers in the morning mist. Her wings open and close, casting a shadow.
Listen…
The spot on the back o
f Cadi’s neck prickled. She looked out of the window, down the empty lane. The minutes ticked away and she relaxed. Violet was on the bus.
Her grandfather’s books stood in dusty rows. She ran her fingers along the spines until she came to the fairytales: worn books flecked with faded gold lettering. Twm Siôn Cati and The Shepherd of Myddfai, The Brothers Grimm and something called The Violet Faery Book.
Could Iolohave known that one day his son would marry a woman called Violet?
There was no sign of the Mabinogion.
It has to be here, it has to. Trailing her fingers along the top of the books, feeling into the gap behind them, her heart flipped.
At an angle behind the row, her hand brushed the edge of a hard cover. She moved a couple of books out of the way and there it was. The pale green dust jacket was frayed and fragile, decorated with a stylised woman surrounded by white flowers.
Cadi held the book on the palm of her hand. The prickle on her neck intensified and in her mind she saw a flock of bats.
He was terrified of bats…
The book felt dusty warm and Cadi sensed him. Her father.
I’m here…
Lonely people learn to listen. Once again, Cadi knew she heard something as real as her imagination would allow. ‘I know you are, baby girl and it’s going to be alright. I’ll find you, I promise.’
She sat on the sofa. The pages of the book fell open and for a second she thought one of them had come loose. A piece of creased paper fluttered to the floor. Cadi laid the book to one side and reached down, knowing, as sure as she knew her own name, what she had found.
Teilo Hopkins, the sky falling in on him, drunk and scrabbling in the glove compartment for a scrap of paper; writing a last letter to his love.
While Violet sleeps, Teilo stumbles through the door, and in between the pages of a book dressed with a picture of a flower-faced girl, he slips his note. The book lives on the table. She will be sure to see it – see the note and read his heart.
Violet sees only the despised book, full of men who make her afraid. In her blind grief, she snatches it up, pushes it to the back of the bookcase; feeds it to the spiders.
The corners of the folded page felt sharp enough to cut.
Through the window, Cadi heard music from Lili’s house. A woman singing about running up a hill and Cadi thought, if only she could she would make it so her mother would never have to run anywhere again.
Ghostbird Page 26