The Beauty of the End

by Debbie Howells

  All the time she’s been speaking, I’ve been numb. Then suddenly the realization hits me—this is my child she’s talking about, mine and April’s baby—and I feel a searing pain, deep inside, of raw flesh being ripped open and human suffering exposed.

  “She was distraught. Will signed the death certificate. . . .” I try to listen, but Bea’s voice seems to come from far away. As I try to focus through the hot tears that fill my eyes, she pauses. “I was never sure why she called him. But everything was so surreal then, so completely devastating, I didn’t question it. Then after, I didn’t want to bring the subject up.”

  She’s thoughtful. “You know how a child who loses its parents is an orphan? There’s no word for a parent who loses a child.”

  Bea goes on. “It was weeks later, because April couldn’t bear to do it, but we took his ashes to one of her favorite places. She insisted we go to the top of Reynard’s Hill. I remember the fog. So thick you could barely see in front of you.”

  She pauses, then looks me in the eye. “You must remember, Noah. We saw you.”

  45

  1997

  By now in my second year of university, I’d resented the trip back to Musgrove for my father’s fiftieth birthday. It was January, and after spending Christmas at home, I was impatient to be back among my friends. It didn’t help that I knew what the occasion would be—dull people, the same boring food my mother produced for every gathering—but I knew in my sinking heart, I had to be there.

  It was a particularly bleak January, I thought, as I stepped off the train into deadly suburbia. Grey but not frozen, the hills shrouded in mist, with that biting damp that chilled you through. Weather for cozy pubs and lively student bars, not my parents’ front room full of my mother’s canapes and a whole bunch of neighbors I didn’t really have anything to say to, but here I was anyway.

  I’d like to say that I’d been taken by surprise—that it had been a great day. Fun, even. It wasn’t. A dozen times I was asked how I was getting on at school, while Mr. Selway who lived across the road droned on about the dent in his car and my mother flitted around offering trays of her dreary food. As soon as people started leaving, I seized my opportunity.

  “I said I’d meet Will,” I told my mother’s disappointed face. “I won’t be long.”

  It was a lie, of course. I’d no idea whether Will was at home. Even if he was, I had no intention of seeing him. I’d recently taken up smoking and my body was craving its fix. I stopped at the news stand to buy cigarettes from a disapproving Mr. McKenna, wondering why just because someone had known you forever, they felt they had the right to judge you. Then after lighting up, I walked.

  I suppose I walked the streets of my old life. I passed Will’s family’s house, the darkness through the half-drawn curtains telling me no one was home, then the North Star, which beckoned me in. Then after buying a pint, not unexpectedly I found myself thinking of April.

  As I sat at a table in the corner, I knew I was over the indignity of being unceremoniously dumped, but I couldn’t help wondering how my life would be if she hadn’t written that letter, if I’d followed her and gone to work in London. Would we have stayed together?

  I decided we probably would, just as the door swung open and in they came.

  At first, I couldn’t move, just felt familiar embarrassment engulf me and the rush of heat to my cheeks, as I watched them unbutton their coats, their hair obviously damp from the mist.

  I saw Bea say something to April, then April shake her head. As she spoke again, Bea’s hand went to April’s arm. I waited for one of them to smile, or laugh loudly the way they often did together, but they were oddly subdued.

  It was as Bea went to the bar, I got up and made my way over.

  “Hi. April?” Her back was toward me, and as I spoke, I would have sworn she jumped.

  She spun round. “Noah! What a surprise!” She glanced around for Bea, but not before I noticed the forced brightness in her voice and the agitation she was trying to hide.

  “How are you?”

  “Good.” She smiled, only that was forced, too, not reaching her eyes, as Bea’s voice came from behind me.

  “Noah?”

  “Hi, Bea. What are the chances?” I couldn’t think what else to say.

  “What a coincidence.” But Bea’s voice, too, lacked its characteristic brightness.

  Then April looked across at Bea. I couldn’t see what passed between them before she forced another smile. “I thought you’d be back at uni.”

  “A dutiful visit only for my father’s birthday.” I raised my eyebrows. “You’re the last people I expected to see here.”

  It was true. As far as I knew, April was still in London.

  “We came back to see my mother,” Bea said unexpectedly. “Didn’t we, April?”

  Again, I thought I saw a hint of something between them, but it vanished. I thought nothing more of it, because visiting Bea’s mother seemed perfectly reasonable.

  We’d sat together for a while, the three of us, talking with awkward self-consciousness, about how we couldn’t wait to get away from Musgrove back to our respective homes. How it was the same small place it always had been. Then before I knew it, I’d finished my pint, and in the absence of any suggestion I should stay, I got up and walked away.

  46

  2016

  I’m dumbstruck. When I saw them, they’d just scattered Theo’s ashes. The baby I’d fathered. It’s a bombshell that blows me apart, so that I no longer know who I am. As the world dissolves around me, I need time to take this in, because inside, I don’t know how to feel.

  * * *

  It’s beginning to get dark when I feel Bea’s hand on my arm.

  “Are you okay?” Her voice is quiet.

  I nod. I am. “I can’t believe I didn’t know.”

  Bea’s silent. Then she says softly, “It was always there, Noah.”

  “Her past? She was a victim, Bea. But it shouldn’t have been like that.”

  “I wasn’t talking about April.”

  I turn to her. “What are you talking about?”

  “You, Noah. The way you only ever saw what you wanted to see. Couldn’t think of her as anyone other than this perfect girl, or woman, who you wanted to live happily ever after with. She wasn’t that person.”

  “That’s not true.” I pull away, stung. “None of us are perfect.” But suddenly I’m remembering the bird April rescued and took to the woods, where she wove a spell so it could fly away. But since the last time I’ve thought of it, the memory’s changed. She doesn’t heal the bird. It doesn’t fly away. In a swift, twisting motion, she breaks its neck.

  Then I see the tree hung with tiny carcasses. Grotesque, truly a death tree, which I’d convinced myself was a tree of life.

  Then the lies that were always there clear away like a layer of mist, revealing the truth. And it’s painful. Life’s been no harder to me than anyone else. Daisy, Lara, Nina, and all the others, they’ve truly suffered, while I’ve been a victim only of myself.

  “Did you know,” Bea’s voice breaks into my thoughts, “April believed that there were thin places?”

  I’m frowning, shaking my head, trying to keep up with her, as Bea goes on. “They’re places where the door between this world and the next cracks open, letting the light in. Reynard’s Hill was one, she always said.”

  As she speaks, I consider for a moment whether maybe the same thin places had let her demons in. She’d never mentioned them to me. Maybe she thought I wouldn’t understand. And so often I couldn’t reach her; there’d always been too much we hadn’t said.

  In recognizing my failure to confront her, I accept my own part in what happened—with the exception of one thing.

  “I wish she’d told me about Theo.”

  “She was struggling, Noah.” Bea pauses. “After he died, April disappeared for a while. Next time I saw her, we talked about him, but only briefly. She said she’d never forget him. He was in her he
art, her every waking thought, but somehow she had to find a way to go on living. She felt she’d be a better counselor for knowing what it was like to lose her child. We only talked about Theo that one time.”

  Bea’s eyes are full of sadness. “I tried to mention him again—when you got engaged. I told her that I thought she should talk to you. That marriage was hard enough without ghosts. But she said she didn’t think she could carry your grief, too.”

  We stand, in silence, watching the sun slide toward the horizon, listening to the birds. Such peacefulness, it wraps itself around me.

  “Thank you for telling me,” I say at last, but something’s niggling at the back of my mind. I turn to face her. “Will used everything within reach to get to me. He knew about Theo—you’d think he’d have loved the chance to tell me. So why didn’t he?”

  Bea’s brow is furrowed. “I really don’t know, but once the investigation started, he must have realized there was always a possibility you’d find out.”

  I’m thoughtful. “Or maybe not. With April silenced, with you on his side, there was no reason I ever would.”

  “After he signed the death certificate,” Bea says quietly, “Theo was cremated. April wanted it done quickly.”

  “But Will was a student.” Suddenly I’m frowning, trying to work out the timing as I remember the legalities of reporting a death. “There are laws, Bea. I’m fairly sure, if Theo was at home, and if he wasn’t under the care of a doctor, which from what you’ve said is how it was, his death should have been reported to the coroner. So why wasn’t it?”

  Bea looks startled, but it’s the million-dollar question. Will’s audacity is at once breathtaking, terrifying. He’d been playing by his own rules even then.

  “He never should have signed it,” I insist. “Or maybe he faked someone else’s signature. Either way, he’s broken the law.”

  At the same time condemning himself to silence.

  “He probably thought no one would find out,” Bea says.

  “Until now, they haven’t.” My words are bitter. “But it’s so easy, Bea, to check out.”

  “I know. Ella ordered a copy of her birth certificate,” she says quietly. “Online. Only there wasn’t one, not for the name she’s always known. It’s how she found out.”

  Suddenly my thoughts turn to the daughter April must have wanted the world for. Who had Will for a father.

  “I’d like to meet her.”

  Bea nods. “I thought you might. You should meet Julia, too—she’s Ella’s therapist. She’s just joined the clinic where I work. She’s wonderful. Ella completely trusts her.”

  * * *

  The following day when I go to the hospital, for the first time there is no police presence in April’s room and I wonder if Will has confessed. I’m standing in the doorway, uncertain after all this time as to whether I’m allowed in, when I hear footsteps behind me.

  It’s Luisa.

  “I need to thank you,” I tell her. “What you found out was really helpful. I hope it didn’t get you into any trouble.”

  “You’re welcome.” She smiles, but it quickly fades. “I’m so sorry, but she’s not doing well. The drugs she took have affected her liver. The police won’t be coming back. You can go in. Take as long as you like.”

  Slowly I go inside, trying to digest what she’s said, as behind me she pulls the door so it’s almost closed. Then, for the first time in many years, I’m alone with April. I push the chair as close to her bed as it will go, then sit down, sliding one of my hands under hers, gently closing my fingers around it. And suddenly there’s so much I want to say.

  “April? I know about Theo. I wish you’d let me share him with you, even for those short months. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. But I understand.”

  Pausing for a moment. “I know about Will, too. What he did. The police have him now.”

  For a moment, I imagine she responds, as I listen for the faintest change in her breathing, the tiniest fingertip pressure that doesn’t happen.

  “Bea met Ella. She said she’s exactly like you.”

  Her hair is like yours. She has her own scars, just like you have yours.

  “I want to say I’m sorry,” I tell her quietly. “I wasted so many years. And I failed you. You deserved so much more.”

  Then I just sit there, for some time, in silence.

  I catch Luisa as I leave. “What you said earlier, about her liver. Can you treat it?”

  “We have tried.” She hesitates. “I’m so sorry. The doctors have done everything they can, but after her overdose, there was too much in her system. I really don’t think she intended to be found.”

  The kindest, most softly spoken words can bear the most brutal news, as Luisa explains that with acute liver failure, it’s unlikely April will regain consciousness. That most likely it won’t be long now. I think of her clients, then Ella, of the nurses who have cared for her—are still caring for her—while I watch her for the last time, hoping that when the end comes, it’s just an extension of where she is now. That her breathing gradually slows and there is no pain; that Theo will be waiting for her; that there’ll be no more suffering.

  47

  I manage to persuade my landlady to let me stay until after the funeral. I’m expecting a handful of people to be there. Myself and Bea, and maybe one or two others, because Ella’s insisted she’s coming, with Gabriela, their housekeeper. Rebecca, her adoptive mother, is away on a tour of Russia, which Ella says is probably a good thing.

  But, to my surprise, a small crowd steals in behind us. As I glance back, I start to recognize faces—April’s neighbor, Lara; Daisy Rubinstein; the Miltons; and so many others, to all of whom April made a difference.

  And this time the service is personal and full of love, and there are tears and there are flowers.

  * * *

  A week later, Bea collects April’s ashes. Then on a day where a veil of cloud dulls the sun’s glare, she picks up Ella and the three of us take a walk up Reynard’s Hill.

  “You okay with this?” I ask Ella, clumsy, trying to remember how fifteen feels; how brave it makes you, but also how scared.

  Glancing at Bea, Ella shrugs. “It’s kind of weird. I mean, I don’t remember her, but she was still my mother.” She pauses. “My birth mother.”

  She falls silent.

  “You’re very like her.” I add quickly, “To look at,” aware that though she’s April’s daughter, she’s her own person. One I don’t yet know, though would like to.

  “Ella’s going to board for the next couple of years, until she finishes A levels.” Bea gives me a sideways look. “And I’m really hoping, when Rebecca’s on tour, she’ll come and stay with me during some of the holidays. If she wants to.” Glancing at Ella.

  “I’d like that.” Then Ella’s silent for a moment. “It’s weird knowing what happened,” she says at last. “But it’s kind of cool, because I can sort of get to know April from what you both tell me. I think that’s okay.”

  I’m guessing it’s not quite that simple, but she has her mother’s courage. Then the implication of her words sinks in, that Ella can see a place for myself and Bea in her life. Another layer of the ice around my heart cracks. And as it starts to thaw, I can believe that with luck, and with love, maybe she’ll have what her mother would have wanted for her.

  We walk to the edge where the ground drops away and Bea points out where Theo’s ashes were scattered. Then we sit on the grass and wait until the hikers and dog walkers leave us alone. When the sun briefly flares before it sinks below the horizon, we scatter April’s in the same place.

  As Ella steps forward, the wind catching her long hair, suddenly the years fall away and I’m fifteen again, remembering my goddess. Closing my eyes, remembering the touch of her lips and how alive she made me feel. No longer running from the past, but embracing it, as in Ella, I’m reminded there is hope. As April’s did, her parents have failed her, but she has strong people in her life, who love her, who
will ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself. That the past stops here. She isn’t alone.

  * * *

  With the evidence Ryder already has, Will is held in custody, and faces charges of forging a death certificate and failing to notify the coroner, as well as abuse of his position in the treatment of his patients. He’s guilty, too, of blackmailing April and taking Ella from her. But he continues to deny Norton’s murder, even though all the evidence points to Will setting April up, stealing her phone, even calling his home number twice, before leaving it in the car when he murdered Norton.

  There’s a further twist when a glove matching the one from Norton’s car is found stuffed between the seats in Will’s car. Put together, it’s enough for the police to hold him, and enough to keep Ryder digging for more.

  * * *

  Now that April’s ashes have been scattered, there’s nothing to keep me here, at least until Will’s trial starts. I think of the isolation of my cottage, the miles of fields and rolling hills, which feel like another world, as I pack my bags and check the room in case I’ve forgotten something.

  But it isn’t over. I’m outside, loading up my car, ready to leave, when my mobile buzzes. I glance at the number, which is unfamiliar. Hesitate, remembering the call that started all of this, that brought me here from Devon. Then answer it, because what the hell, and anyway, I’m going home. As it began, so it ends, in the strangest of coincidences, with Will.

  48

  “Noah, I need to talk to you.” Will’s voice is low, urgent.

  “There’s nothing you can say I want to hear,” I tell him bluntly. “You killed a man and framed April. Sorry, Will, but you deserve everything you get.”

  “No! You’re wrong. Not about the patients,” he says. “But everything else. But mostly, you’re wrong about April.”

  “She’s fucking dead, Will. Can’t you leave it?” Then seeing alarm on the faces of passersby, I lower my voice. “It’s over. Accept it.”