‘About the roof?’ said Saskia. ‘I know that he likes his own way but it does seem a bit extreme that he would not visit you again because you argued about repairing the roof.’
‘Not just the roof. That was the catalyst to spark his anger.’
‘What then?’ And as Alessandra did not reply, Saskia went on, ‘It’s really very important for me that you tell me, Alessandra. I am almost an adult. I know my father has faults and perhaps you don’t like to discuss them with me. But this is something that I need to sort out.’
‘He was angry with me,’ Alessandra began hesitantly, ‘because I would not invest more money in his business. I had done so in the past and he automatically expected me to do so again. But I had not enough money, although I don’t think he believed me.’
‘So he did not come back to visit you because you would not lend him more money? How horrible!’ cried Saskia.
‘No, I don’t think that was the whole reason,’ said Alessandra. ‘He said that you insisted that they never came back.’
Saskia was angry. ‘He avoids truth,’ she said. ‘You must know that if you know him at all.’
Alessandra shook her head. ‘Maybe so, but your mother also said this quite emphatically. I’m sure that she would have returned and brought you with her. She enjoyed her holidays here. You and I played together every day and it gave her time to paint. Your mother said that it was she you told, not your father, that they must never return.’
Alessandra’s face had such a look of regret that Saskia wanted to cry. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I have no idea why I said that. I am so sorry.’
At the end of the week Saskia’s mother phoned her.
‘I’ve just got back from my painting trip and your father tells me that you have decided to stay in Scotland for the summer?’
Saskia closed her mind to her mother’s implied accusation of desertion. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to come up and join you at all.’
‘I think I might manage on my own.’
‘Really?’ Her mother’s voice sharper now. ‘You know you took a big dislike to that place when you were a child.’
‘Actually, Mum, I wanted to ask you about that. Dad and Great-aunt Alessandra say that when I was six years old I told you I never wanted to come back.’
‘That’s right. You did.’
‘Did I say why?’
‘Not specifically. Something scared you so much that you said you didn’t want ever to go back there.’
‘What?’ said Saskia. ‘What could it have been?’
‘I don’t know. The last year we were there a freak gale nearly took the whole roof off.’
‘My memory is that I thought the storm was very exciting. Why would I say that I did not want to return?’
‘Maybe you just grew out of that kind of holiday. At that age Disney would be much more attractive.’
‘I don’t think that was the reason, Mum. There’s something else that I just can’t quite remember. When I said I didn’t want to come back, why did you and Dad listen to me anyway?’
‘Because, darling, you were terrified. I don’t know why. You made me promise never to speak of it. It was when you were ill.’
‘When I was ill?’
‘You had screaming nightmares. It was awful. You were sleepwalking all over the house.’
‘I was sleepwalking?’
‘Yes. We thought you were having some kind of breakdown.’
‘Tell me more about it,’ said Saskia.
Her mother paused. ‘Your illness was a great strain for your father and me, you know.’
‘I do know,’ Saskia said coldly. ‘You have told me many times.’
‘Really, Saskia. I dislike your tone. A child never knows what sacrifices a parent has made to bring them up.’
Well this one does, thought Saskia, because she has been reminded often enough. Instead she spoke firmly. ‘Yes, but I was a child, with a limited reasoning and power, and it was not my responsibility to bring me up. Dad and you were, are, the adults, and in any case,’ she added quickly, ‘I don’t want to get bogged down in that old, old story. I want to know why it suddenly happened that we did not return here, to Cliff House? What happened to me?’
There was silence.
‘Tell me.’
‘All I know,’ her mother spoke tersely, ‘is that we never came back after you caught meningitis.’
Meningitis!
That was the word she had heard whispered in the night when she had been ill. The name of her illness. She had been too young to understand, too young to remember clearly.
‘You were close to death. I think your father blamed Alessandra. He said her water supply was not fresh or there were pollutants on the beach.’
‘What year was that?’
‘Nineteen seventy-seven.’
Saskia replaced the receiver. She had a lot to think about. She took a piece of paper and wrote out the years. This was 1988. From her great-aunt’s photograph albums she knew that she had last visited Cliff House in the summer of 1976. She had been six years old. And she had been taken ill in 1976 – but it had been the winter of 1976, November and December. In the bookcase, beside books on fish and shells, she found a medical dictionary. Saskia looked up meningitis.
The information was clear. There was no way she had been exposed to meningitis at her great-aunt’s house. Her last visit to Alessandra’s house had been in the summer of 1976 and she had not become ill until November 1976. But that did not explain why she herself had not wanted to come back. Her mother had said that it was she, Saskia, who had insisted they should not return.
Little threads of recollection trailed loose, and she shuttled across the loom of her memory trying to weave them together.
It came to her that she had been frightened, very frightened, all through the autumn of 1976, but . . . that meant she had been frightened before she had caught meningitis. It hadn’t been the illness that frightened her. She had been too young to know how seriously ill she was, only aware of being in hospital, that there were doctors and nurses around her. One nurse . . . in the night, by her bed in the hospital, a woman standing consoling her mother, saying, This is not the worst case we’ve seen in this outbreak. In this outbreak. She could check the local newspaper files when she got home but Saskia knew now that there must have been several cases of meningitis in their area when she was young. That was proof that her illness had nothing to do with Alessandra or Alessandra’s house.
But her father, with his own fear of the sea and having had a huge row with Alessandra, was probably secretly pleased that Saskia had said she did not want to return to Cliff House. And he had not really needed her great-aunt’s money at that time. His business was able to cope without Alessandra’s investment.
But now . . .
Of course! Saskia’s mind filled with the lines of the business accounts book. In particular the book he had snatched out of her hand. He dealt with ingoings, he told her. But there were no ingoings. His income had dwindled to nothing over the last few years and he was too proud to tell anyone about it. She should have picked up the signs before this. He had sold her pony when she was in Nepal, and their holiday cottage in the Lake District had gone the year before last. It had been the source of a major row with her mother, who went there to paint any time Saskia was away from home. He must be running short of money. That’s why he had let his accountant go. Her father’s story about his accountant emigrating was just a device to avoid the truth.
When she had first looked over her father’s books, Saskia had phoned the accountant for information and, during the course of the conversation, had asked him when he was moving to America. He’d said that he wasn’t going anywhere at the moment. When she had asked her father about this, he had replied quickly, ‘Oh, maybe I got that wrong. His wife is having a baby, I think, and then they’re going to Canada, land of opportunity – wish it were me. Don’t worry about it anyway
. I’ll get a new accountant soon.’
A few weeks later she had met the accountant by chance and asked if they’d had their baby, and when they were leaving for Canada.
‘Is that what your father told you?’ he said, and smiled.
A slow insinuation began to insert itself into Saskia’s mind. Her father’s business was in much more trouble than he was prepared to admit. He’d told her that he wanted her to make friends with Alessandra again so that Alessandra would invest in his new project. But he wasn’t thinking of how much profit Alessandra would make. Alessandra’s money must be essential to this business venture. He wanted to ask his aunt for money but could not do it while they were still estranged. And her mother knew or suspected this was the reason he’d encouraged Saskia to travel north. When they had talked about it, Saskia now remembered her mother looking across at her father and saying,‘Not us. You.’ Her mother knew that he had some scheme in his head even if she did not know what it was exactly. Her father’s business crisis was why he had engineered her visit to her great-aunt Alessandra.
And, Saskia saw, none of what her father had said was a complete lie, but at the same time it was not quite the whole truth.
Towards the end of the second week of Saskia’s visit she and Alessandra went out together on their bikes. They took one of the coastal pathways and stopped to photograph a huddle of ruined cottages above a stretch of beach. Apart from a man walking his dog there was no one else in sight for miles. Alessandra’s manner was becoming more relaxed in Saskia’s company and they worked well together, photographing and writing up the information on the fishing villages. This part of Alessandra’s heritage project was almost finished, and Saskia had made arrangements with the Marine Research Station to begin work there on Monday.
As they cycled home Saskia’s mind was caught up with different thoughts. Ben had phoned. They had arranged to see a film in Aberdeen together at the weekend. So he must be interested in her not just as a volunteer for the seal crisis. Unless – she smiled to herself – the film turned out to be one about whales rather than the thriller he’d suggested. Even if the movie was about marine life their outing could still be looked on as a proper date. Saskia was already sorting out in her head what she might wear and regretting only having packed very casual clothes.
Saskia was cycling a little ahead and was first to reach the top of the road at Cliff House. She dismounted and turned round to watch her great-aunt, who was cycling more slowly as the road became steeper. Alessandra looked up and saw Saskia. She raised her hand to wave, and as she did so her bike began to wobble. In the next instant, Alessandra lost control and the front wheel twisted inwards. She was propelled across the handlebars and both she and the bike crashed down into the ditch at the side of the road.
Saskia threw her own bike aside and ran back down the hill. When she saw the way her great-aunt’s body was twisted under the bike Saskia’s heart gave a jump of fear.
‘I’m going to phone for an ambulance,’ she cried. Alessandra was conscious but moaning in pain. ‘Don’t try to move,’ Saskia added. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
The ambulance came from the local cottage hospital and within half an hour Alessandra was being examined by the doctor on duty there.
Saskia sat in the waiting area until a nurse came and called her through. ‘The doctor has just told Miss Granton that it looks like a bad ankle break. We’re waiting for a radiographer. It will be a few hours at least before we’ve checked everything out.’ She looked at Saskia. ‘We’ll admit your great-aunt to a ward so that she can have a rest. You might want to go home and get something to eat and come back later.’
Saskia took in how pale and nervous Alessandra appeared. ‘I’d rather not leave my aunt on her own.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Alessandra. ‘This will take hours. I’ll probably sleep for a little while and I would be happier if you went home and rested too.’
On her way out of the Casualty Department, the nurse who had admitted Alessandra to hospital spoke to Saskia. ‘When you come back this evening, would you bring some night things for Miss Granton, please?’
‘I didn’t know that she would have to stay in,’ said Saskia.
‘She might not have to, but . . .just in case she does.’
At the bus stop opposite the hospital Saskia caught the Aberdeen bus, which went through Fhindhaven, and the driver dropped her at the pathway leading to Cliff House. She put her own bike away and then went back to the ditch where her great-aunt’s bike still lay. The wheel was badly buckled and she had to hoist it onto her shoulder and carry it to the cellar. It gave her a strange feeling to look at it.
After she’d eaten she phoned Neil Buchan to tell him of Alessandra’s accident. With Fhindhaven being such a small town, and as Neil was the taxi driver, Saskia thought he might know already. He didn’t, and she was surprised at how upset he sounded on hearing the news.
‘This is not good,’ he said, ‘not good at all.’
‘Hopefully it’s only a broken ankle,’ said Saskia.
‘Still it’s not good,’ said Neil. ‘She’ll go crazy if they try to keep her in.’
‘Well, I’ll find out more when I go back later today,’ said Saskia. ‘They said they might want her to remain there overnight so I’ve got a few things to look out for her.’
‘You’re all right being in the house by yourself?’
‘Well, yes,’ said Saskia.
‘She’ll hate it if she has to remain in the hospital for any length of time,’ said Neil. ‘Be warned.’
‘Warned about what?’ Saskia laughed.
‘If they keep her in, she’ll . . . she . . .’ He paused. ‘It frightens her.’
‘What frightens her?’ asked Saskia.
‘Being away from the house.’
Saskia began to gather up some night things for Alessandra. She collected various toiletries from the downstairs bathroom that her great-aunt used and then crossed the hall into Alessandra’s bedroom. There were no curtains or blinds in this room. The sea filled Saskia’s eyes and ears and mind. A huge double-fronted window from ceiling almost to the floor looked straight out towards the east, where the sun rose each morning. Some drawings and sketches and colour washes lay stacked against one wall. They seemed faintly familiar, and then in surprise Saskia saw that her mother’s signature was on them. Apart from that the room was frugally furnished. A great triple wardrobe took up the space along one wall. It was locked. A key was in the lock of the single door. Saskia hesitated. Perhaps she would find what she needed without having to unlock anything. She went to the old-fashioned dressing table, with its central mirror and column of drawers on either side. There was nothing on it, no photograph or perfume bottle, no comb or hairbrush. She thought of the clutter of her own room at home, her styling gel, hair spray; her mother’s elaborate array of night creams and nail varnishes. Feeling slightly like a thief Saskia pulled out a drawer or two and found underwear, socks and a nightdress. Finally she took a dressing gown from the back of the door and set out for the hospital.
When Saskia reached the hospital she was directed to the ward where Alessandra was resting. The sister there took her aside.
‘Before you speak to your great-aunt I think you should know that she became a bit agitated when we told her that she might have to stay in for a couple of days. She’s been asking for you.’
‘I thought you said it was only to be overnight,’ said Saskia.
The ward sister smiled easily. ‘Her ankle is broken and she shouldn’t really put any weight on it at all for a few days. We’ll take good care of her.’
Alessandra was sitting up in bed, the whiteness of the hospital nightgown throwing the lines of her face into high relief.
‘I must go home. I cannot stay here.’
‘But you need to have your ankle seen to and everything else checked out,’ Saskia said.
Alessandra shook her head.
Saskia gave her great-aunt an encouraging smile. �
�It’s only for a couple of days. They’ll keep you in for observation and then discharge you.’
Alessandra twisted her fingers tightly together. Her voice was barely above a whisper. ‘I don’t want to stay here, Saskia.’
Saskia leaned closer. ‘Alessandra, your ankle is broken,’ she said gently. ‘The nurses seem very nice. They’ll take care of you.’
Alessandra glanced around her. ‘I have to be careful.’
‘Why?’
‘They might take me . . . away.’
‘Who?’ asked Saskia, and as her great-aunt did not answer, she persisted: ‘Who might take you away? Why would anyone want to do that?’
Now Alessandra’s eyes were darting here and there. She looked around the ward as if searching for someone.
‘No one can force you to go somewhere you don’t want to go,’ said Saskia.
Alessandra laughed, a shrill sound. ‘They can. I told you. For a while I wasn’t well . . . After my father . . . and all the rest . . . died. I wasn’t well. Mentally.’
‘That might have happened in the past,’ said Saskia, ‘but it won’t happen now.’
Alessandra turned her head away sharply.
‘It’s quite normal to be like that after someone close to you has died. But there’s nothing wrong with your mind now,’ said Saskia. ‘You get upset easily, but surely you don’t need to be hospitalized.’
Alessandra shook her head again. And then Saskia realized that the movement was not voluntary. Her great-aunt was in the grip of some kind of nervous twitch. Her head jerked from side to side.
‘Please calm down,’ said Saskia in alarm.
She took the water glass and held it to her great-aunt’s lips. Alessandra’s body shook with a continuous tremor and water slopped over her chin.
Saskia's Journey Page 11