Ghostbird

by Carol Lovekin

  Leaves skittered across the window and Owen thought of his mother.

  ‘The beginning of autumn is such a polite time,’ Ffion used to tell him. ‘It knows its place and gets on with it.’

  In the house on the top of the hill where he had been born, Owen listened for his own ghosts: his father drunk, setting fire to the bed with a carelessly discarded cigarette. Ffion, distraught and with bruises already blooming, smashing the empty whiskey bottle into the sink, the stench of alcohol in her hair and on her clothes. And the following day: Owen’s horror at the state of her face.

  He stood at the back door. A breeze caught in the rain and he reached for the fine feel of it. If I’m going to make it right, I may as well start here. I’ll take the house, Mam, and do my best.

  Walking through the gate, he imagined his father following him. He watched the rain slant across the view. It soaked into his shirt and the feel of it cleansed him.

  Enough, old man, you’re not wanted here. Turning back to the house, he went indoors to call his mother, slamming the door on the past. I’m going with the flow and you can go to hell.

  ‘It’s the right decision, son,’ Ffion said. ‘It’s a good house. There’s nothing wrong with the house. I just gave up caring. I couldn’t cope.’ There was no reproach. She wanted to know if he had enough money. ‘You’ll have your work cut out and it’ll cost a tidy sum.’

  Owen heard the doubt. ‘It’s going to be okay, Mam. I’ll make it up to you.’

  ‘Don’t be soft. Just take care of the house.’

  The line went quiet and he thought they’d been cut off.

  ‘He was a terrible man.’ Another pause. ‘I wish I could have saved you from it.’

  ‘I don’t need saving, Mam, I never did. I needed to grow up.’

  Ffion carried on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘You’ll rattle round in it, mind. It was meant to be a family home. He had three sisters. You never really knew them.’

  He remembered them being clever and funny, not at all like his father.

  ‘I’ve got money, Mam. And I’m a jack-of-all-trades, me. It needs work and time, that’s all.’

  ‘Time.’ Her voice sounded a long way off. ‘I used to wish my life away, bach, and now it’s passing so fast, you wouldn’t believe.’ She sighed and said she wished she could see him. ‘We’re never happy are we?’

  ‘We will be, Mam, I promise.’ He almost told her about Violet and thought better of it. ‘I’ll come and see you, as soon as I can.’

  Some things needed telling face to face.

  Half asleep, Lili heard Violet calling from the kitchen.

  She peered at the clock: half past seven. Pomona hadn’t left until late. It had been one of those delicious evenings when no one wanted to be indoors. They walked for miles and found themselves back in the village when it seemed everyone was out and about, drawn, moth-struck, to the lingering light in the square.

  Boys larked on the bridge, grinning and nudging one another as Lili and Pomona walked past. Gossips gossiped and sidelong-glanced. Outside his shop, taking in a basket of vegetables, Gareth waved. The church bell rang, too many times to keep count, each chime falling like a circle of sound.

  ‘Is it just me, or are we being watched?’ Pomona curled her hand into Lili’s.

  ‘Someone’s always watching me, cariad. Better get used to it.’

  Mrs Guto-Evans and Miss Bevan, watering a trail of flowers in their respective window boxes, stared. Would you ever? I told you so.

  Lili imagined what they saw, and knew from now on, this was how it would be. She felt Pomona’s hand in hers, a cobweb touch, and placed the moment carefully knowing she would want to find it later.

  ‘I was going to ask her if she wanted to come and look at Owen’s house with me tomorrow.’ Violet stood in the doorway of Lili’s bedroom, fighting waves of panic. ‘When she didn’t answer, I went to her room. Her bed’s empty. I don’t think she slept in it.’

  ‘Have you checked the garden?’ Lili pulled her hair into a loose knot.

  ‘She’s not here, Lili, she’s gone.’

  The two women looked at one another.

  ‘Come on,’ Violet said, trying not to sound as frightened as she felt. ‘You know where she’s gone.’

  ‘I have to put on some clothes. Don’t panic, Violet. If she went to the lake then we know where she is.’

  ‘But why would she go there in the middle of the night?’

  ‘I think she may have gone to lay a ghost.’

  Curled into the stone, Cadi slept as if it were a mother bear’s embrace. Dew dampened her clothes and a spider had spun a net across her hair.

  Shaking her, Violet said, ‘Cadi, wake up, you have to wake up. Oh my God, Lili, is she alright?’

  ‘She’s fine, very cold but she’s alright.’

  Shivering, Cadi opened her eyes. Her mother and Lili knelt on the grass.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you. I fell asleep. It was…’ The words were too much for her mouth. ‘Can we go home? It’s going to rain, can’t you smell it?’

  Lili took off her jacket and wrapped it around Cadi’s shoulder. ‘You gave me such a fright.’

  Cadi blinked. Images of owls and glittering water flashed in front of her eyes. ‘Everything’s alright now.’ She opened her hand and the blue ribbon trailed between her fingers. ‘I found her, Lili, like you said.’

  ‘You’re frozen.’ Violet pulled Cadi toward her. ‘Whatever possessed you?’

  Shivering hard now, Cadi leaned into the crook of her mother’s arm. ‘You almost sound like you care.’

  ‘You silly girl, of course I do. Oh my God, Cadi, thank goodness you’re safe.’ Violet stroked her daughter’s hair. ‘Here, take Lili’s arm too, let’s get you home.’

  Cadi took hold of her mother’s hand. ‘You’ll want this.’

  ‘What…?’

  She placed the silver bracelet in Violet’s palm and folded her mother’s fingers over it. ‘You can’t cry yet, either of you. You have to help me walk home before it rains.’

  Eighty-one

  It was time for the weather to become less predictable.

  Birds shook off their feathers and practised September songs. All too soon the swallows would leave and one morning the village would wake to the first breath of winter. For now, the women in the cottages at the end of the lane were content to simply be.

  Lili planted hyacinth bulbs and sowed sweet pea seeds. She fashioned a charm from heather and mistletoe, tied it in a strand of her hair and hung it in the cherry tree for the rainmaker.

  Violet and Cadi sat in Lili’s kitchen, laughing as she made yet another fire.

  ‘It isn’t even cold,’ Cadi said.

  ‘I don’t care. I want us to be warm as toast.’

  She called Pomona and asked her to pick up honey from the shop. It came from the bee man’s hives. He lived in the woods and people said he talked to his bees.

  ‘It’s magical honey, then,’ Pomona said.

  ‘I never eat any other kind.’

  Cadi called Owen. ‘We’re having a tea party this afternoon, do you want to come?’

  He said he’d love to, only he had to make sure Gertie was okay.

  ‘She’s had her puppies!’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Can I come and see them? Oh please, Owen, I’ll be as quiet as anything.’

  ‘Gertie’s an old hand. Square it with your mother first, okay?’

  She hung up and ran to the door. ‘Gertie’s had her puppies and I have to go. You can’t mind.’ Before either Violet or Lili could object, the door was shaking in its frame.

  ‘She’s exhausted,’ Violet said. ‘Do you think she’ll be alright?’

  Lili heard the bicycle on the gravel. ‘She’ll be fine.’ I’ve been saying this since the day she was born.

  Today, the sky was clear and Violet wasn’t smoking. They were almost a family again and even if a lightning bolt were to hit the house, Li
li didn’t think she could feel more content.

  Who knew she would so quickly embrace change? On the other side to the wall, the echoes of old ghosts wrapped themselves in cobweb. As sure as eggs were eggs, Lili knew Violet would go and live in the house on the top of the hill, and Cadi would go with her. Down here, everything was made of water and worn out spells, up on Owen’s hill there was air and space and hope.

  I shan’t go anywhere. I am my mother’s daughter. Pomona’s house, lovely as it was, was far too big for Lili. She could no more leave Tŷ Aderyn than fly to the moon.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  From the top of a stepladder, Pomona waved a paintbrush and said she was taking in lodgers. ‘I told you, I need a job. What do you think? Holiday hideaways for women, with fabulous food: it can’t fail.’

  Lili agreed and grinned. ‘See you later,’ she said, picking up the jar of honey. ‘Don’t be late.’

  ‘You sound funny.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Up to no good, funny,’ Sylvia said. ‘Spill, who is she?’

  ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out.’

  ‘I’ll put the kids in care and leave Joseph some ready meals. I’m on my way.’

  Lili hooted. ‘Brilliant! You can come to the party. I’m making honey cakes.’

  Violet eyed Lili. ‘Are you alright?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You look funny.’

  ‘Sylvia said I sounded funny.’

  ‘That too.’

  ‘I look happy,’ Lili said. ‘You need to take a look in the mirror. You look the same.’

  Violet got to her feet and filled the kettle. I’ve never done this before. Made myself at home in Lili’s kitchen.

  ‘I thought it was my fault when Dora died,’ she said. ‘I deserved to lose her, lose Cadi too.’

  ‘There’s nothing rational about grief.’

  ‘It’s a lousy excuse though.’

  ‘Be gentle with yourself.’

  ‘That’s what Owen says.’

  ‘He’s right. You aren’t alone, Violet.’

  Violet, who had been alone for most of her life, thought about her mother. ‘That letter you gave me. It was about Madeleine.’

  ‘It didn’t have a Canadian stamp.’

  ‘It’s from one of her friends. She’s back. Divorced apparently and she wants to see me.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘Don’t quote me,’ Lili said. ‘After all, what do I know, but mothers don’t forget their children.’

  ‘Not even the bad ones?’

  ‘I don’t believe in the myth of the bad mother. However it seemed at the time, if you say a thing often enough, you can make it sound true.’

  ‘Like her self-centred disregard for me, you mean?’

  Mothers do the best they can, sometimes it’s enough and at others it isn’t. And then they learn, the hard way.

  Violet sighed. The kettle began to boil.

  Lili knelt in front of the fire and poked it. ‘I don’t know; I focus on being an auntie.’

  ‘You know more about mothering than I do. You know more about love.’

  ‘Love’s the easy bit.’ She laughed. ‘It’s the rest that’s hard.’

  Violet’s mother went over the sea and far away. Now she’s back, and if I saw her, could I forgive her?

  Violet wondered: had Madeleine done the same? Cadi’s capacity for forgiveness seemed to Violet the most precious gift and worth emulating. ‘If I don’t forgive my mother, it’s another death, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose it is.’

  ‘We’ve had enough loss.’ Violet got up and made tea. ‘I used to think if you lost love, or love lost you, you could never get it back.’

  ‘Are you certain about Owen?’

  Violet wasn’t sure her version of love was as simple as Owen’s, or his conviction it was all they needed. Nevertheless, she nodded.

  ‘Good. They need you: Cadi and Owen need you.’

  ‘Need is a big word, Lili.’ Violet rolled it around in her mind. For so long it had been a habit not to care, like smoking, and as hard to break. ‘He’s keeping the house. If we want to, Cadi and I can go and live there with him.’

  A new beginning he called it. To Violet it seemed like an old one happening in a different place. Up on the windy hill, at least she might be able to breathe.

  The fire crackled and Violet felt Lili’s eyes on her. ‘Second chances, eh? You’re the witch, Lili, what do you think?’

  ‘I try not to, takes too much energy.’

  They both knew this wasn’t true.

  Violet looked at the clock.

  ‘It’s been less than an hour,’ Lili said. ‘Don’t fret.’

  ‘Enough time to pick a puppy?’ Violet grinned and poured tea.

  Eighty-two

  They were so small, Cadi was afraid Gertie might squash them.

  Three black and white scraps lay curled into their mother’s body.

  ‘No chance,’ Owen said. ‘She knows what she’s doing.’

  The kitchen looked like a building site. Furniture had been pushed against the walls and a film of new dust covered everything. The walls were stripped of wallpaper, cracks in the plaster filled.

  Gertie’s basket sat tucked into an alcove by the Aga. Cadi knew not to pick up the puppies. She stroked their heads and Gertie licked her hand. ‘Will you have her spayed now?’

  ‘I think so. Three litters are enough.’

  ‘Are you keeping them?’

  ‘Well, a mate I know wants one, and I think my mam’s got her heart set on another.’ He gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘I suppose I’ll end up keeping the funny looking one with the black eye patch.’

  ‘I wasn’t born yesterday, cowboy.’ Cadi raised her head from the basket. ‘Now all I have to do is convince my mother.’

  ‘I give in, bird girl. You’re too smart for me.’

  Stroking the eye-patched puppy, she said, ‘Do you think you’ll marry her?’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, I guess that depends on you.’

  When people keep on saying the unexpected, it can take the wind out of your sails. Cadi had grown up accustomed to knowing what Lili and Violet were going to say almost before they said it. And here was Owen, being unpredictable and even halfway cool.

  ‘No, it’s about Mam.’ She tried to sound as if she meant it. ‘Even if I thought it was a good idea, and I’m not saying I do, she might hate it.’

  ‘She might indeed.’

  ‘And that would be the end of it, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  She rubbed her neck. ‘The ghosts have gone, Owen.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t have to be scared of the ghosts anymore. They’re gone.’

  ‘Bird girl, you never cease to amaze me.’

  She knew he wouldn’t ask her how she’d guessed.

  ‘We better get going,’ he said. ‘Don’t want to keep the tea-party ladies waiting.’

  ‘You better not let Lili hear you calling her a lady.’

  He grinned. ‘Hang on, while I get the cucumber sandwiches.’ He opened the fridge and brought out a foil-wrapped package.

  Cadi stared. ‘You’ve actually made cucumber sandwiches?’

  ‘I most certainly have. My mother, I’ll have you know, is a very refined woman.’

  ‘Now I know you’re weird.’

  ‘It’s an old trick, Cadi, trust me. Women can’t resist cucumber sandwiches.’

  ‘If you believe that, cowboy, you are doomed.’ She patted Gertie and dropped fingertip kisses on the puppies’ heads. ‘Your master is destined to be walked over by the women in his life.’

  Gertie snuffled and closed her eyes, and Cadi swore she smiled.

  ‘Won’t be a minute, I need to change my boots.’ Owen winked. ‘Special occasion.’

  He loaded the bicycle into the van and they set off for the village. Behind them, sky
colours marked the land like an enchanted patchwork.

  ‘Looks like sun,’ Owen said.

  ‘You are so weird.’ Cadi turned on the radio and decided she was happy.

  ‘You found her then.’

  ‘She wasn’t Blodeuwedd.’

  Lili frowned. ‘How do you mean, cariad?’

  From where they sat, on Gwenllian’s bench, they could see Violet and Owen arranging an extra table under the cherry tree.

  ‘He called her that, Dad. But it wasn’t who she was. He was a dreamer; I think he wanted people to be perfect, like a made up girl.’

  ‘Goodness, you have been thinking about this.’

  ‘You can’t call a baby Blodeuwedd, and just expect her to turn into a myth come true, can you?’

  ‘No, you can’t.’

  ‘She was Dora, and Mam was right all along.’

  ‘And you found Dora.’

  ‘We found each other.’ Cadi paused. Lili, she could tell, was trying very hard not to ask questions. ‘I will explain, only not yet. You were right too; ghosts do know what they want. All she wanted was to be free.’

  ‘Like Blodeuwedd.’

  Cadi nodded.

  ‘Poor Blodeuwedd.’

  ‘Imagine,’ Cadi said, ‘if she could have told her own story.’

  ‘Now, there’s a thought.’ Lili grinned.

  A car horn sounded.

  ‘Sylvia!’

  ‘You kept that quiet,’ Cadi said, leaping to her feet. ‘And Cerys texted, she’s on her way too.’

  Eighty-three

  The remains of the longest tea party the village had ever known lay scattered across the tables.

  Wine glasses caught the edge of the moon’s light. Owen and Violet wandered between the trees, lighting lanterns. As each flame blazed, flower petal moths danced around the light.

  ‘They’ll burn their wings.’ Violet flapped her hand.

  ‘No they won’t, they’re making for the moon.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘My mother told me.’

  ‘And mothers know best, I suppose.’

  ‘Mine says she does.’

  Would Violet’s mother want the best for her? If she called would Madeleine answer? Surprising herself, Violet thought she might risk finding out.

  ‘Penny for them?’

  She smiled and said her thoughts were worth at least a pound.