by Ruth Dugdall
You look concerned, for me rather than you, and this more than anything breaks my heart. ‘Daniel isn’t God, he isn’t even a doctor. It’s leaving things so long, trusting him, that has left so few options for me.’
‘No, you’re not ill! Doctors, they make mistakes all the time.’ I’m shaking from toe to tip, cold all over. You try to still me, but I’m gone too far for that.
‘Cass, love, this is why I didn’t tell you. Please calm down . . .’ Through the window, I see a group of men in the distance, guns broken over their arms, voices loud. You notice too and run a hand through your hair. ‘Look, love, there is a new treatment that’s available. But it’s only available for high-priority cases and at my age . . . Well, the bottom line is, it’s only available if I pay privately.’
‘What treatment?’
The men are outside now, in the yard. I see Dad speaking with Ash. There are other men, who I can’t identify.
‘Proton therapy.’ You sigh. ‘And out there is an official from the Port, Dave Feakes. Your Dad and Phil Godwin are trying to show him what the countryside means to us, trying to make him withdraw his offer for the greater good.’ You laugh then, harsh and ironic, and it scares me.
‘Mum, I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t you, Cass?’ you say, so gently. ‘That little PR stunt out there has come at the perfect time. What with me needing treatment, and Daniel up to his old tricks . . .’
‘Mum, no, Daniel’s done nothing wrong. I’m sick, it’s me who needs help!’
‘We’ve all been sick, Cass. It’s time we started to get better.’
I hear a honking voice outside, and lift my head to see a distinctive ruddy face. ‘That’s not Alfie Avon, the journalist?’
You grimace. ‘Phil Godwin thought of everything, didn’t he? Get the Port Authority on our side, and get it covered in the newspaper at the same time.’
‘I can’t believe you’ve let that man on our land – you really have gone crazy. You know he has it in for Daniel.’
‘Well,’ you say coolly, ‘this isn’t Daniel’s farm, it’s mine.’
‘But it will be his,’ I say, still struggling with all the swirling in my brain. ‘When the farm becomes Samphire Health Spa.’
Your face is stony. You take the appointment letter from the table and carefully fold it back into squares, returning it to your pocket. A shiver of fear runs through me.
‘Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve said, Cass? Samphire Health Spa was just a fantasy.’
‘What the fuck does that mean?’
You try to reach for me, but I shove you away so violently that the sugar bowl falls from the table with a crash. I stand up, knowing I should leave, but too angry to move. My future, all our plans, feel as though they’re slipping from me. Samphire Health Spa isn’t only a career ambition, it means Victoria would come home to live. No, Mum, you can’t be ill, it’s not fair.
‘Cass, calm down . . .’ You try to reach for me again, but I won’t let you touch me.
‘You can’t change your mind!’ I’m shouting now, but I don’t care. ‘You promised Daniel the farm.’
‘And he promised me my health,’ you say, so coldly that it freezes me to the core. ‘Don’t you see, Cass, I’m going to save myself, but I’m going to save you too. Do you really think you can run a business? Look at you, stood shrieking like some lunatic!’
Lunatic. ‘I have rights! My daughter, my future . . . Why, you bitch . . .’
The back door opens.
Janet stands still for a moment, staring at us: me standing, you seated, the hard words still in the air. Ignoring the tension in the room, she scampers over to the kitchen worktop and says, ‘Don’t mind me, I just need to get the afternoon tea ready for the men.’
Poor Janet, she looks frail and scrappy, so different from you. You’re defiant. Proud, chin up, with your dark hair and clever eyes, your smart shirt, so smug. You don’t look ill, Mum, not at all.
Janet pauses to cough, her dull hair comes loose from her ponytail and hangs down the sides of her face. Ignoring us, she melts into the background, sets a saucepan to boil for the eggs and starts to butter bread. It’s mesmerising, comforting too, to watch her continue on like a wind-up doll when my world is imploding.
‘You can serve the food outside, Janet,’ you tell her decisively.
She looks up, obediently, at your order. ‘Won’t the men mind?’
‘I don’t want them in here. Tell them they can eat in the barn if they want a real taste of the countryside.’
Janet begins to wipe her hands on her apron, the eggs are boiling noisily, and I’m suddenly desperate to be out of the oppressive kitchen, and away from your scrutiny.
I need to get away and make a dash for the back door.
But at the farm there is no respite from suffering. Outside, stood in the cold October air, I hear the noise before I see anything. The screams of birds dying.
Dad is in the barn, alone, reaching into a squabble of hens who are corralled together by a metal grille. His hands are encased in thick black rubber gloves up to his elbows and he grabs for a bird. When I was a child he’d tease me, prod me with a rubber finger until I screamed. He thought it was funny, but I knew what happened when he wore those gloves. I always hated those gloves, but since his stroke they’re necessary, to give his right hand the support it needs to wring birds’ necks.
Jet runs towards me, jumping up and barking as I pat his ears and scruff his neck, and then he finally lets me pass. Dad is bent over, a hunched man, but between his legs are feathers, a moving shape. The black gloves hold the shape fast, despite its desperate struggles, and I see the black rubber twist, the gloves turn against themselves once, hard and sudden. I marvel he can do this when, without that glove, his right hand is useless. He tosses the bundle of limp red feathers out of the pen and onto the pile of carcasses, all feathers and flesh, but no life. His daily work, the chicken order for the supermarket.
In a second pile are dead pheasants with green and purple feathers and useless wings, the spoils of today’s shoot. The bloodied mass of slack bodies makes me want to heave.
‘What you doin’ here, girl?’ he shouts at me, without looking up, already reaching for his next victim.
‘I came to see Mum. Dad, did you know she plans to sell the farm?’
Now he looks at me, the live chicken caught by the glove, its beady orange eyes glittering with fear, wings flapping. ‘Over my dead body. What do you think this whole day has been about?’
I hear the distant voices of the other men returning from the copse, and start to walk away. ‘Janet will bring food out to you soon.’
He looks back at the terrified bird. And with a deft move, he breaks its neck.
Back in the kitchen, Janet has almost finished preparing the food.
She’s put cream and jam on scones and is mixing gin with prosecco for the boozy drinks. You’ve disappeared. I climb the backstairs to find you. The door to your study is closed, so I know you’re in there. I wonder if you’re phoning Clive, right this minute asking him to come and assess me for admission to the Bartlet. I wonder if you’re looking again at your letter, thinking about all the money you’ll need. After all you said, Mum, about natural treatments. Publically, on the radio. You’ll make Daniel look a fool – worse, you’ll make him look a fraud. I open the door.
You’re on the floor, knelt in front of the safe. You look up, startled. ‘Get out!’ you scream. And I turn to go, but as I do, I see that you’re sliding something into the base.
The men are now assembled in the barn, high from the murder of pheasants. Godwin’s voice is booming, ‘Ah, Cassandra! Come and meet Dave Feakes, from the Port Authority.’
‘Hi, I hope you’ve had a good day.’ I shake the man’s hand. Does he know how much rests on his offer?
‘Excellent, thank you.’ His face is flushed from the adrenalin of the shoot, but he looks kindly, with soft white hair and gentle eyes huge behind bif
ocals. Alfie Avon is watching, hunched like a vulture over his swollen notepad. He gives what may be a smile but is really a show of teeth and pink gums. ‘Evening, Cassandra. How are you?’
I don’t reply. I can’t bring myself to be civil to him. He’s hounded Daniel ever since he took over the Friday-evening slot on Radio Suffolk – before that, it was Alfie All About Town.
Ash is collecting dead birds – no doubt each man will leave with a gift of a brace and the rest will go to the butcher.
Dad reaches for a scone and I see how without the black rubber glove to add strength to his right hand, he can’t grip the plate properly. I try to eat too. I take a morsel in a bid to look normal, but I can’t even swallow for thinking about Victoria, who will be packing for her trip home. I want to turn back time, pretend I never imagined I heard Daniel fucking another woman, pretend I never heard you say that your cancer has returned.
I want my life back, the one I had just two hours ago. I shouldn’t have come to the farm. I’ve ruined everything.
‘I’m going to fetch something from my car,’ I say, excusing myself from the boozy gathering.
In my car, I rummage for my mobile phone in the glove box, among tissues, a half-eaten bag of sweets and hidden bottles of trazodone. I call home and Daniel picks up after the first ring.
‘Cass?’
‘Yes.’ My voice is uneven, as though I’ve been silent for a long time.
Then, quickly and too loud, he says, ‘I’ve been so worried – where the hell are you?’
‘The farm.’
Daniel pauses. ‘I saw the cake.’
‘It’s for Victoria and Dawn . . .’
‘When did you bring it home?’ I can hear the beginnings of suspicion in his voice.
‘I popped home at lunchtime.’ Lie.
‘When will you be back, love?’
‘I don’t know. Look, Daniel, it’s Mum. She acting so strange, says she’s sick . . .’
‘Tell her to go back to the juices for twenty-four hours and I’ll give her some reiki healing. Samphire and wheatgrass shots and we’ll get on top of it in no time.’
‘No, Daniel, you’re not listening. She changed her mind. She’s not giving us the farm, she’s going to sell it to the Port. There will be no Samphire Health Spa.’
The pain of the moment snaps me back to the kitchen.
‘Samphire Spa? What’s that?’ Holly asks. She’s listening so intently, and I need her to understand what a terrible thing it was, for you to change your mind. How it triggered everything that came later.
‘Daniel has cured many people, but Mum is the one everyone knows about. When she went into remission, she became his most famous success story. She’s been on his radio show loads of times. I let him believe that her health was the problem, when really it was me.’
‘I’ll come over straight away, talk some sense into her.’
‘No, I don’t think you should. It’s best to let her calm down.’ I can hear him moving around, maybe collecting his keys. ‘She’s gone to lie down anyway – she’ll probably sleep right through. There’s no point in you coming over tonight.’
I don’t want to see him. I need time to recover, to get the bad thoughts out of my head.
‘Well, if you’re sure that’s the best thing to do,’ he says, doubtfully. ‘I’ll come over first thing with a Samphire Sunshine for her breakfast and I can give her a reiki treatment. Hopefully she’ll have seen sense, but if not, I can talk to her before we drive to fetch Victoria. Can you be ready for me?’
I say I can and hang up. But I’ve ruined everything: Samphire Health Spa won’t happen, and it’s my fault. If only I hadn’t come here, with my doubts, opening up a can of worms . . .
I take a bottle of trazodone from the glove box and open it. For the first time in two years I swallow one, and hope it works fast. Then I tip the rest of the bottle onto my palm. Suddenly this feels like the only option open to me. There’s a bottle of water on the passenger seat, and I grab it, bring it to my mouth and swallow the tablets.
Time passes, minutes, I’m not sure how many. I close my eyes and sleep comes quickly.
Then, in an abrupt jolt of violence, the car door swings open, and there you are, Mum, your face purple with rage.
‘What have you done? Cassandra!’
The empty tablet bottle is in my lap. All business, you yank me from the car by my arm, and haul me back inside the farmhouse. We walk past the men, still drinking in the barn and eating Janet’s scones, oblivious to the drama going on just yards away.
Upstairs, to the bathroom. I see the white porcelain of a toilet bowl and feel your fingers scratch my throat. There is no softness, no tears.
‘What a stupid thing to do! You’re so selfish, Cass. And you think you could run a business? There’s no way. Simply no way you’re capable.’
After you’ve made me empty my stomach of the foaming tablets, you tell me again that there will be no more Samphire Health Spa, and Victoria won’t be coming home.
You saved me, Mum. I’m not sure I wanted you to.
Holly breathes deeply, taking in everything I’m saying to her. She’s started making notes.
‘You tried to kill yourself, Cass?’
‘I panicked, don’t you see? I’m not strong, I have a history of illness. It’s why no one believes me about the shooting. It’s why I need you to help me.
‘After Mum had made me sick, she went to the barn and told the men she was selling the farm. Godwin was livid, of course. Dad was angry, and Ash cried. He could see his life, everything in it, being ripped away by Mum’s decision. I believe that on Saturday morning her attacker was searching for that contract, but Mum wouldn’t say where she’d hidden it. Don’t you see, her hiding it means she was afraid of someone close to her?’
Holly says slowly, ‘Then that contract is what we need to find.’
I kneel on the floor, and realise how crazy I must look, with my bare feet and bedraggled appearance, like a mad Alice trying to get into Wonderland. The place you were crouched, that afternoon, when I disturbed you.
I look around for the heaviest thing I can see, and there you are, staring back at me in your wedding dress. I grab the wedding photo in its heavy oak frame, praying this will work. Holding it like a hammer, frame against the panelling, I begin to bash, hard and repetitive, until the frame cracks and the panelling falls away. There’s a hollow space inside the clever mock cupboard you had made years ago. I pull out a white folder containing a thin but official-looking document with a company logo on the cover.
I pass it to Holly, and wait, your crumpled wedding picture clasped in my lap.
DAY 5
WEDNESDAY 5 NOVEMBER
20
Holly
When she arrived at his office, the door was open and Jon was at his desk, bent over some notes. She tapped lightly on the door and waited for him to look up.
‘Hi, Holly,’ he said, smiling. ‘Everything okay? You’re not on shift until this evening, are you?’
‘That’s right. I just wanted to have a word, if it’s okay? Something’s bugging me.’
‘Of course, take a pew.’ He put down his pen and leaned back, waiting for her to take the seat on the other side of his desk. ‘So what’s the problem?’
Jon had been on the interview panel when she got accepted as a trainee. He was her supervisor, and she moved into the room, his presence enveloping her in a powerful sensation of calm and safety. Jon wasn’t much older than her, maybe in his mid-thirties, but he was steady in a way that made him seem of a different generation. Married, with kids, the photos tacked to his noticeboard showed a family growing together, travelling a bit, enjoying life. As his children grew into teenagers, Jon’s brown hair had got sparser and the glasses appeared more frequently, but the smile was the same. She had seen, with every patient, how he always took such care. That was why she was here: because he was a good man, with good sense. And she needed some perspective.
‘
It’s about that call-out we had on 1 November.’
‘The suicide attempt?’
She hesitated. ‘Well, I suppose you’ve just cut to the crux of it. I told you that the daughter, Cass, has doubts about that. Do you know if the police have found anything conclusive?’
Jon scratched his scalp and leaned back in his chair, his fingers lightly tapping the edge of the desk. ‘Since I submitted my report, and passed on what Cassandra said to you, I haven’t heard anything. Maya’s stable, that’s all I know.’
Holly had seen Jon’s report. It detailed the time they had attended the scene, the medical attention they’d given Maya. It didn’t give any opinion, just facts. She wanted to tell him that she’d been at the farm with Cass, that at that very moment she had the contract Maya signed in the glove box of her car and she didn’t know what to do with it. No, she couldn’t tell him the full extent of her involvement.
‘I told you that I used to live near the farm, that I went to school with the victim’s daughter? Well, since the shooting I’ve sort of become friends with her again. I’ve been supporting her.’
Jon removed his glasses, wiped them on his green tunic. ‘Okay, and how is she?’
‘She’s troubled, convinced that her mum was shot and that the police aren’t taking it seriously.’
‘Well, I doubt that’s true,’ he said reasonably. ‘The police are trained to be thorough with this kind of thing, and they cordoned off the farm straight after we took Maya to hospital.’
Holly knew he was right. Leif had been the officer guarding the place. And the police were certainly investigating – they’d interviewed Ash. Away from Cassandra, things seemed so much clearer: the police were doing their job, Cassandra was being paranoid. But then there was her own belief that the gun was too long. More than that, there was the contract. Maya was signing away the farm and several people would have been very angry indeed about that. Both of them had understood this, and there had been an intense discussion about where to keep it while they decided what to do. Cassandra was adamant she couldn’t take it, and though neither explicitly acknowledged it, Holly knew this was because Daniel and Hector were two of those people, hence it being in her glove box. She was in deep, and she knew it.