‘We haven’t done that for ages, and . . . I need to tell you something.’
Christ. Something in me plunges to the ground. What? Is she seeing someone else? Is she pregnant? The idea cuts a swathe through my innards. As she slips away, I try to stop my imagination bouncing off the walls: Jane pregnant, a little piece of Reuben shrapnel burrowing into our future. I need to tell you something. At least she doesn’t need to ask me something.
Jane returns with a bottle of chilled Chardonnay, gripping a pair of Waterford Crystal glasses by the stems. She bears a stern warning from Mother: ‘We must not stay up here all evening, she says. It’s anti-social.’
‘Tough shit.’ I take a glass from Jane, hold it by the stem as she splashes wine into it. The scent teases me, makes me long for dark nights and someone to hold. Arthur, maybe? She sweeps aside a porcelain trinket box and sets the bottle down on my dressing table, remaining there, her hips braced against the furniture, rather than lounging next to me on the bed. We used to lounge a lot as kids, swapping confidences, making jewellery, writing stories. In laying our bodies open to periods and spots and boyfriends, a coldness must have seeped in. And now I’m afraid to share anything with my sister, in case I let my guard down and the secret escapes.
‘You’ve never asked about me and Reuben.’ She swigs her wine in a most un-Jane-like way. An angry way.
I gaze at the carpet. ‘I – I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t want to – add to your pain.’ Add to your pain? Jesus, I sound like Jane Austen. I sound fake. A big fat fake.
Jane gives a harsh laugh. ‘Believe me, you couldn’t make it any worse.’
Oh, I could. I sip from the crystal glass. The rim is chipped and I feel the sharp, warning edge against my tongue. I swallow. Take a deep breath. ‘So what happened, exactly?’
‘This fucking happened.’
This is not good. Jane seldom swears; her language is teacher-perfect. She leans forward a fraction and produces a piece of paper from her back pocket. I take it from her and the plunging sensation gets so bad I can barely breathe.
It’s folded into four neat squares. The creases are sharp, the paper smooth, warm from her body. When I open it out, it wants to cling to itself. I proceed carefully, as if this is an ancient, precious manuscript.
It isn’t. It’s my love poem, the one I scribbled in Mac’s study with her husband’s old pencil.
Scanning the first two lines, I go weak with horror. I recognise my own handwriting. I experience that sick jolt you get when you see the boy you’ve fancied for ages snog your best friend. Betrayal. I have betrayed myself.
Hot shameful sweat pools in my armpits, under my thighs. My top lip beads with it, and the wine glass in my hand grows slick. In my other hand, the red-hot note begins to shiver with a life of its own. In my head it is vibrating, like the papery wings of birds. It has its own music, singing my guilt. This will betray me.
Silence stretches out between us. My thoughts tumble over themselves. How did she get this? Hadn’t I tossed it in Mac’s bin? What’s it doing here?
On my birthday, you wish me all the best,
and I act restrained,
as if I couldn’t care less,
but inside
I am waiting for another chance to be alone
with you, to memorise you all over again.
That’s still love, isn’t it?
‘What do you think?’ she says eventually.
She’s watching my reaction. And I, unable to lift my eyes from those mortifying scribbled lines, can only manage a weak shrug. Has she recognised my handwriting? I try to recall all the times she will have seen it – birthday cards, Christmas cards, school jotters – but my brain refuses to compute.
Jane makes an irritable move away from the dressing table, as if she can’t bear to be still. She pauses beside the window, staring out, arms clasped tight about her body, her wine glass poised. Beyond her, the sky is growing dark, and the top branches of the apple tree bluster violently. As if by stealth, the season is changing; the year is drawing in on itself. She puts the glass down on the sill and hauls at the sash window with so much force I can see every muscle straining in her back beneath her striped Breton top. Evening air floods in. It smells bitter, like bonfire smoke.
‘I knew it,’ she’s muttering. ‘I knew it.’
I place my glass on the carpet, rest the paper on my knee. If I breathe slowly enough, my heart might stop banging. ‘Knew what?’
She swings back to me. ‘That he was seeing someone else! Didn’t I say that? When I was staying with you? I told you I thought he was cheating on me.’
‘You had no proof.’
‘But I do now.’ Triumph flares briefly in her eyes.
When did I write the poem? It’s hard to think, skewered on the end of my sister’s rage. And how did she get it? Could she have gone into Mac’s study and found it? There’s only one way to find out.
‘Where did you get this?’ I smooth out the note across my sweaty thighs.
‘I was in the car with Reuben, shortly before we broke up. I dropped my phone down the side of the seat. At first, I thought it was a receipt – maybe from a hotel or something – and I started thinking all kinds of crazy things. I was scared to look at it in case it was – oh, you know, a double room at a place where we’d never been together. Such a cliché, isn’t it? But I was expecting something. After all my suspicions, I was waiting for something to blow my world apart. And it did. It’s worse than any hotel.’
‘Has Mum seen this?’ It matters. Mum would certainly recognise my handwriting. Fresh waves of dread wash over me.
She scowls at me as if the question doesn’t make sense. ‘Don’t you think she worries about me enough?’ The ‘me’ pricks me like a needle. ‘No, I haven’t gone into any detail with her. I just said that it wasn’t working out.’
‘The best thing you can do with this’ – I hold the note by a corner, as if it disgusts me – ‘is destroy it. Burn it. You know, the ritual flame. Cleansing and all that.’
‘Mmm.’ She takes the paper from me, refolding it carefully, like a treasure map. ‘Get rid of the evidence, you mean? Maybe. Or perhaps I’ll just keep it for now. Something might come to light.’
Black letters form in the dark spaces. A nightmarish word search that won’t keep still. I struggle to read the words, reciting them in my head like a child with a difficult book. I can’t make out the meaning. And there’s water, too; so much water, a deluge from above, and I realise I’m underneath the waterwheel. I can see the creaking elm buckets beginning to tip. I’m in danger. I need to get away, but I’m trapped in the wheel as it starts to move. I begin the clamber round the wheel, like a hamster or a rat. I need to collect the words but they elude me, always just out of reach. The wheel is gathering pace and I can’t climb down. I’m in a world of water and wood, of groaning and creaking and thumping. Gears and cogs whine in my ears, snap at my limbs. If I look down I can see blackness, and something else in the corner. Eyes. Blood-red and unflinching. The dark is gaining on me, and I’m out of my depth.
I wake gasping, as if I’ve surfaced from some cold, dark pool. The dream tastes rank in my mouth, like day-old bedside water. I sit up, scrabble for the lamp. The sudden light brands my eyes, and I press the heels of my hands tight against them. The cold has got into my bones and I’m shivering so much my teeth chatter. Jane must have left the window open and the breeze is tugging at the curtains.
Pushing back the jumbled covers, I pad across the cold floor. Rain coats the windowsill. I struggle to bring down the sash, to block out the elements. As I turn back to the bed I catch sight of wet footprints on the floorboards. For one terrifying moment I think they look like hoof prints, but not those of a horse – more like a cow or a goat, with that deep cleft between the two halves. The breath leaves my body. I can’t look at them. I dive back beneath the duvet and will myself back to sleep. When I wake up, it’s fully morning. Everything is dry. Everything is normal. I�
�m no longer sure of the division between waking and sleeping.
Jane hugs me at the station. It’s unexpected and catches me off guard. I submit to her soft pat pat in the region of my shoulder blades, holding my chest, my belly apart from hers. I can smell shower gel and breath mints. Even for an early morning station drop-off she’s thought about lip gloss and a selection of thin bangles. They jingle as she steps back and briefly drops her hand to mine.
‘Take care, Lucie. Keep in touch.’ My eyes slide away from hers. She’s thinking things I don’t want to see.
My train snakes into view. We watch it, falling silent as it crawls to a halt. Travellers surge forward. I pick up my bag, breathe in the diesel fumes, let myself be caught up in the urgency. Jane and I become separated, limit ourselves to safe waves and promises, and then I’m on board, alone, squeezed into a single seat beside the toilet. I keep my bag on my lap and close my eyes. As we depart, another voice, another tannoy: This train is bound for King’s Cross, stopping at . . .
I have a sudden urge to stay put, to remain on the train and wash up in some strange, anonymous place.
But I know the mill hasn’t finished with me yet. And neither has my sister.
Things have altered in my short absence. The track down to the mill seems narrower, the trees loom larger. Standing water shivers in the ruts, black as oil.
‘We’ve had a lot of rain,’ Arthur says, shifting down a gear. The car slops through the puddles. Long grass chafes the under-carriage, and I stare out of the window, my fingers knotting together in my lap.
I hadn’t asked him to pick me up from the station. I’d ignored his last few texts, but he was there anyway, standing on the platform, eating a KitKat. ‘You needn’t have bothered,’ I’d said, and he’d shrugged and reached for my little suitcase. Suddenly unburdened, I’d fallen into step beside him. He didn’t ask how things had been. We didn’t speak until we got to the car. Arthur had stowed away the case and closed the boot, and he’d turned to me and said, ‘It’s good to see you.’ Nothing fancy; no expectations. Just the truth. My throat had closed up, tears building behind my eyes. When he opened his arms I bumped against his chest, letting him hug the breath from me. I hid my face in his shirt, escaped chest hair tickling my nose. I felt more at home than I’d done in a very long time.
We pull up in front of the cottage. It’s only lunchtime, but everything looks dark, as if the light has gone somewhere else. The mill is brooding, its windows carefully blank. When I get out of the car I can hear the faint creaking sway of the wheel, the twitch of something not quite extinct. Arthur hears it too. He’s unwound himself from the driver’s seat, but he’s still clinging to the door. He seems in a hurry to be off.
I look at the cottage, rummage in my handbag for the key. I don’t really want to be alone, and I turn to him and smile stiffly.
‘Do you want . . . a coffee?’ As I’m saying it I’m remembering the slick heat of him in my bed, smooth skin, searching lips. He’s remembering too. His eyes gleam hot and quick and when he grins back it makes my insides curl deliciously.
‘Later, perhaps. I have to get back to the cafe.’
‘Of course. Later then.’ I watch him take my case from the boot. He sets it at my feet, pulls up the telescopic handle so that all I have to do is curl my fingers around it. I meet his gaze. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’ He kisses my brow. ‘I’ve put some milk in your fridge. Ma would have done it but she’s not very well, actually.’
‘What’s wrong with her? Is she pissed off with me because I left in a hurry?’
‘She thought you’d gone for good.’
‘It crossed my mind.’
‘But something pulled you back.’ He winks at me. He’s hoping it was him, and I wish it was. But there’s something more, something deeper at work here. I squeeze his arm and turn to go.
Even though I’ve been gone for only a couple of days, the cottage feels cold. There’s a smell of sour milk and mildewed logs, and when I rest my hand on one of the chair backs, it comes away clammy. A primal urge to re-establish myself hits me, a need to take the place back. I make myself busy – switch on the heating, light an almond-scented candle, fill the kettle. The radio is soon blasting out chart music.
My favourite mug, abandoned in the sink, has been rinsed and placed upside down to drain. There’s an unopened packet of digestives on the table. The fridge yields a carton of fresh milk, wafer-thin ham, some tomatoes and a couple of bridge rolls. Everything will be okay. Arthur thinks of everything. I take a deep breath, let it out slowly, relax my innards. It’s okay. But something is niggling at me like a remembered headache.
The love poem. The study. How did that piece of paper get from the bin to the floor of Reuben’s car? Logic tells me that Jane must have recognised my handwriting, that she’s playing with me, enjoying watching me squirm. Then I go into denial, tell myself that the thick, clumsy pencil would disguise my true hand, and anyway, your writing alters over the years, like your politics or your dress size. I try to recall the last card I sent her. A birthday card, probably, with a brief greeting and my name scribbled in haste. No resemblance to any love poem I might have written . . .
I wander to my bedroom, full of memories of a few nights ago. The duvet, which probably still smells of Arthur, is turned down and the window ajar. My laundry is scattered around the floor and the bin is full. There are tissues and a condom wrapper beside the bed. My body floods with heat. Sighing, I sag against the windowsill.
The wind has changed. It’s forcing its way in with an exasperated sigh, bringing with it the tang of wild green things. The great trees behind the mill breathe in and out in some mesmerising dance. Their light and shade flickers across my vision.
I’m bone-weary. I stretch out on the bed and find myself thinking about Mary Poppins, who could only ever stay until the wind changed. In my head I recite the lines from the film: Wind’s in the east, mist coming in, like somethin’ is brewin’, and ’bout to begin . . . I adored Bert the chimney sweep; didn’t care about his dodgy accent. I still love that film. Jane, who disapproves of the Disneyfication of literature, loved the books.
A memory comes to me: Mum sitting on Jane’s bed, reading Mary Poppins. Jane is about six. Their heads are bowed, Mum’s voice low and soothing, Jane cuddling her pillow. The glow from her My Little Pony lamp is as cheery as Christmas tree lights. I’m standing in the doorway, clinging to the handle, half-in, half-out of the room. I’d been sitting on the bed too, but I’m a fidget. I wasn’t listening. I was spoiling the story. If you can’t behave, Lucie, then leave. Just go. The china doorknob is sweaty beneath my hand. I want to twist it off, hurl it at them as hard as I can.
I close my eyes, swallow hard. Memories jumble into dreams.
Mac
Floss is the first to hear Lucie. I’m still in bed, although it’s past noon; covers pulled up to my neck, with a hot water bottle at my back and the spaniel tucked into the well between my knees. I don’t encourage the dogs on the bed. Beds are for humans, and there’s nothing worse than a bottom sheet full of grit and dog hair. However, it’s keeping her quiet. The other two are curled up on the rug.
I rose early to let them out, dissolving against the door frame in my insubstantial nightie as they rootled through the weeds in the kitchen garden. I still haven’t found a man to do the garden; the rosemary is waist-high and you can’t see a damn patch of soil between the nettles. Still, another month and it will all start to die back. The thought made me shiver. There’s a change coming. I can feel it.
I boiled the kettle and filled a hot water bottle as I contemplated all my various niggles: lower back, right hip. My left armpit – was that glands, or something sinister? And the old ticker, of course, skipping away like a vintage clock powered by a cheap battery.
I let Floss up on the bed because she knows she shouldn’t be there. It keeps her docile. She’s afraid to sniff the sheets or lick her paws or wriggle around with a full bladder i
n case I remember that she’s there and ditch her unceremoniously onto the floor. I hear Lucie coming up the stairs. She seems more hesitant than usual. Her steps are measured, almost reluctant, as if she knows I’ve rumbled her. She’d seemed such a quiet little thing. I have to be careful how I play this though – I suspect my son has a soft spot for her, and I don’t want to antagonise Arthur, to cause a rift. Besides, we have unfinished business, Lucie and I. Time is marching on, and the miller’s story is bursting to be told.
‘I’m in bed!’ I call out. My voice is pleasingly frail. I realise Lucie hasn’t been up here before, but the door is open, and sure enough, the footsteps pause and her face appears. She looks glum.
‘I’m not well, Lucie.’
‘I know. Arthur told me.’
So she’s seen Arthur already? This little intimacy makes me wince. The girl is unreliable, dashing off like that.
She checks out the room. It must seem very grey to her: dull velvet curtains, dusty furniture, worn-out carpet. Those huge, inherited mirrors, on the dressing table and the wardrobe, magnify the greyness and cast it into infinity. I can see myself in them; pale hair, pale skin, drab blankets, waiting to be cast heaven knows where.
Shy as a parlour maid, Floss beats the eiderdown with her tail until dust motes rise into the air. The girl comes to stand at the foot of my bed. She’s wrapped in an oversized cardigan I don’t recognise. Maybe she’s been swapping clothes with Jane, and confidences, the way sisters do, and all the while she’s been having it off with the boyfriend. I experience an intense burst of anger. I motion the girl closer, coughing as I struggle to sit up.
‘You might get me some water. Or tea. I think I could manage a cup now. Very weak. Just milk.’
‘All right.’
‘And a biscuit. A water biscuit. They’re in the bread bin. Better make it two. And a couple of slices of cheddar.’
She quirks her mouth at me in a way I don’t like and then turns to leave.
‘Wait a minute, missy.’ I wonder if it’s still going on, this affair with Reuben? ‘Are you here to work? I can’t have you running off like that.’
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