by Beverley Lee
Published by Ink Raven Press
Copyright © 2016 Beverley Lee
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13 978-0-9935490-0-7
ISBN-10 0-9935490-0-7
DEDICATION
For Joshua and Violet, with love.
Always follow your dreams.
Part 1
Chapter One
She dreamed in grey, the colour of misery.
The pall bearers lowered her coffin into the ground. She banged on the lid, bloody fingers clawing at the wood. But she wasn’t trying to get out. She was trying to get in.
Beth Davenport stared at the ceiling, the dream hovering at the edge of her consciousness. A thin light filtered in through the small gap between the bedroom curtains. It had meanness to it, an après holiday middle finger salute by a callous bully.
Stu lay beside her, seemingly oblivious to anything strange. The dream hung in her mind, stuck there as if her sleep-fogged brain had pressed pause. She wouldn’t sleep now, she knew it. Time to fix the first tea of the day before Gabriel woke and demanded her attention. Her beautiful baby boy. In six short and sleep-deprived months, he had filled a place inside her that she never knew existed.
The floorboards were cool under her bare feet as she slid out of bed, the dawn light now apologetic in its colour. She grabbed a sweatshirt from the wicker chair by the window, shrugging herself into it as she padded past Gabriel’s room. She smiled at the silence. He had cried nearly all the way home in the car last night, which was strange, as the movement normally lulled him to sleep.
Downstairs, the silence hammered against her ears—and there was something else. A knot of unease tightened in her stomach and she shivered, despite the sweatshirt.
She went about her morning routine. Kettle. Water. Tea bag. Habit forced her hand to open the cupboard door under the sink, where the dog biscuits were. She paused, glancing to the window. An image of the goofy Labrador chasing his tail on the lawn flashed into her mind. But Jake was gone. Taken too soon. An inoperable tumour, the vet had said. Maybe she should talk to Stu about getting a puppy?
Steam drifted across her line of vision. She readied herself to pour a much needed caffeine fix but stopped dead. A small beetle scuttled across the kitchen counter and disappeared between a gap in the tiles. The knot uncurled itself and slithered around her gut. Her heartbeat thudded against her ears. Had she imagined it?
There had to be a logical reason for this. The common sense part of her brain demanded some attention. She must be getting sick. That would be typical right after the holiday, with Stu working long hours and Gabriel’s two new teeth coming through.
Beth grasped the side of the farmhouse sink. Shutting her eyes didn’t sound like a very good idea but she did it anyway, willing some sturdy governess to wander in and save her sanity.
Only her reflection stared back from the window when she opened her eyes, showing a woman with dark hair gathered into a rough top knot. A woman with the beginning of frown lines and yesterday’s mascara smudged under one eye. It also showed her mother as she remembered her as a child. She gasped, an ‘oh’ of surprise exhaled in the next breath. A lump swelled in her throat and she fought back the urge to cry. Already she recognized it as one of those life-defining moments that jabbed you in the ribs—youth taking a backwards step while life becomes, somehow, shorter. She knew all the ins and outs, had written about it at length (flippantly) in her magazine column last year. Life doesn’t end when you hit your thirties, but it certainly quickens its step.
She wanted Stu’s arms around her, or the sweet, early morning smell of her son. This must be the after-holiday doldrums or some kind of bug; she would feel much better after a cuddle and maybe a long, hot shower if Gabriel played nicely.
A patch of sunlight thrust a golden glow on the wooden handrail of the staircase. She let her hand run through the comforting light. Her mind raced ahead, wondering if sliding into bed beside Stu and waking him in the nicest possible way was an option. She grinned.
The staircase led to a long hallway with uneven whitewashed walls she desperately wanted to change. But they had only lived here for six months before their short holiday and they’d spend those six months in a whirlwind of unpacking and exploring, baby milestones and sleep-deprived routine. When Gabriel arrived, they both wanted him to grow up somewhere with space, so they sold their little brick box at the edge of suburbia and moved across two counties to this old farmhouse the estate agents lovingly called ‘a forever home’. They must have told the mice too, as three days after dropping anchor, they’d had to call in pest control.
Four doors led off from the hallway. Their bedroom, which was to the right and next to the bathroom. Gabriel’s room next to theirs and a final door at the end, which they planned to turn into their study/sewingroom/playroom/sleepover den. Right now, it was their drop-anything-and-run room, which held a rickety spare bed and minimal storage.
She paused at the top of the stairs, trying to ignore the fact that the spare room door stood open a little. They always made a point of closing it because she hated all of the clutter. And if it stayed shut, she could pretend the mess didn’t exist.
The feeling that everything was out of kilter ran down her spine like iced water. If this was a dream, she wanted to wake up now.
But all she had to do was walk up to the door, grasp hold of the handle, and close it. She could do this. The no-nonsense side of Beth Davenport, aged thirty-three, wife, mother, journalist, and all-time best Scrabble player nudged her into action.
A cool draught crept around her bare feet and laced its icy fingers around her ankles. She approached the door as if it might bite back, reaching for the handle with an outstretched arm. Her hands shook.
Through the few inches of space, she could see their suitcases stacked by the bed. Stu must have brought them in as she’d settled Gabriel. Two cases—one large, one small—even though they had only been gone a week. Sitting on top of the smallest suitcase was a box. A box they had bought in the antique shop on the high street in Oakenshaw. What a bargain, Stu had whispered to her as the man behind the desk slid it across the counter. She remembered he had thrust his hand into a white cotton glove beforehand, as though he hadn’t wanted to touch it.
It was the simple gesture of a careful shop owner, she had reasoned. ‘Preserve the precious’. A ridiculous image took root in her mind. A Gollum character, complete with white gloves.
She needed strong coffee. And quite possibly a good talking to.
***
An hour later and the contents of a jug of coffee drunk, Beth’s earlier jumpy mood seemed like the obvious aftermath of an unsettled night—and a far too acute imagination. Stu was changing Gabriel upstairs and she smiled. He wasn’t typically home until long after Gabriel had gone to bed, so he insisted on doing the early morning routine. She loved him all the more for it.
The familiar jarring tone of Stu’s Blackberry buzzed, interrupting Gabriel’s giggling.
A few minutes later, he appeared in the doorway with Gabriel in his arms. Her son gurgled in excitement as she held out her arms. She tickled his cheek and he burst into a toothless grin.
‘Hey, gorgeous. Did you tell daddy what fun you’re going to have today?’
‘Sorry, Beth. I’m going to have to go in. It was Dan—that big prospective client I told you about. He’ll only speak to me.’
She knew he was genuinely sorry, but she couldn’t stop the disappointment showing in her face. ‘Can’t you do it on Skype? I’d hoped we could get one more day before you had to jump back into the lion pit.’
Stu sighed. ‘You know I would if it was possible. But there’s a snow storm coming through late
r, and our internet connection is crap already. I’ll try and be as quick as I can. Maybe we could go to that new French cafe in Crickley? You can pretend you’re not really sizing it up for next month’s issue.’
He was teasing her, trying to make the best out of a bad situation. And that made her feel worse. She was a breath away from throwing a ridiculous tantrum.
‘Don’t look so sad, darling.’ He slid his arm around her shoulder and for a moment, the comfort of his touch was almost painful. ‘You two have fun. And who knows, if we do get that snow we can build Gabriel’s first snowman.’ He kissed her lightly and Gabriel grabbed hold of his hair. ‘Look after Mummy, big boy,’ he whispered.
The tread of his work shoes sounded on the wooden stairs. Then the creak as the horrendously orange pine wardrobe opened. It had been left by the previous owners, ‘too damn heavy to ask anyone to shift, dearie’.
Part of her wanted to run upstairs and plead with him to stay, but how stupid that sounded to the independent woman inside her. Maybe she was going down with some kind of bug. Gabriel whimpered and she held him close, rubbing his back with her hand. His little mouth gummed down on the edge of her sweatshirt.
She pulled open the fridge door and hooked out his giraffe teething ring. Stu moved about upstairs, the old floorboards groaning, and Gabriel looked up at the noise, his clear blue eyes baby curious.
‘It’s only daddy,’ she said. At once, a thought formed and hovered over her like a thundercloud. Just who else would it be?
Chapter Two
Beth watched until the Range Rover disappeared down the lane. Occasionally she caught glimpses of it through the winter bare hedges as it moved towards the main road, into town. The snow-heavy sky suffocated the morning light. The forecasters might actually have been right for once.
By 11 a.m. Gabriel was tired and grizzly, his mood in tune to the miserable day. He usually didn’t sleep for long, only enough to gain some energy for lunch. She lowered the blind on his window and glanced up at the sky. The first flakes of snow began to fall. They floated down and melted into the ground, the dark, twisted branches of the trees, the old railway sleepers stacked by the apple tree. Beth had hopes to build a vegetable garden in the spring. Suddenly that seemed a long, long way away.
Softly, she crept out of the nursery, the room watched over by orange lions. It was her choice of décor and everything matched: the cot bedding, the changing unit, even the lightshade. Stu had said it reminded him of the Serengeti—that it would make their son want to be a zookeeper. She remembered the night they had finished it, both of them splattered in cream paint, with Gabriel fast asleep in his Moses basket in their bedroom. That had been high summer, as the drone of tractors gathering hay murmured in the distance and the swallows darted in and out of the eaves, busily feeding their growing brood. The house had dozed, warmed by the sun, and sleepy shadows cut across the floors from the odd-shaped roof and internal walls. Everything had been soft and golden and safe.
She shivered as she closed Gabriel’s door. A cold draught licked at her ankles again and she didn’t have to search to know where it had come from. Maybe Stu opened the window before he went off to work. But she couldn’t come up with a reason why. It was mid-January with temperatures hovering barely above freezing, and the house had far too many air gaps and quirky openings.
This was the ideal time to empty the suitcases and sort all the things they had bought on their holiday. The time management part of her brain whirred into action.
She paused outside the door and listened. Silence. She couldn’t even hear the hum of the old back burner that heated the house. She wanted to back away—go watch over Gabriel as he slept. Her fingers closed over the old, iron handle. It was like touching something made of ice. She snatched her hand away as though it had stung her.
‘Get a grip on yourself,’ she whispered.
It took all the resolve she had to close her fingers over that handle again. Slowly, she pulled it down. It was stiff, unyielding, as though it didn’t want her to go inside. She tried to remember if it had always been like that. With her heart hammering in her chest, she flung the door back. It opened easily. She glanced quickly at the window—shut. The draught around her ankles was gone.
Their suitcases and carrier bags lay on the bed, alongside her wool coat and the golfing umbrella Stu had bought in the charity store next to the antique shop. She had laughed at him—he didn’t even play golf—and he tried to look hurt. ‘We’re country folk now. We’d better get with the programme. Next thing will be green...’ And that’s when his eyes had first seen the box, sitting unobtrusively at the rear of the window, hidden from view by an ugly gilt-framed hunting print.
And now here it sat, on top of the smallest case, an ordinary, dirty wooden box with some kind of worn away emblem on the lid. It was about the size of a tissue box, but it might as well have been as large as a blanket chest. She wished she’d voiced how much she’d disliked it before Stu had handed over the money.
She could hide it. The thought slid into her mind as cleanly as a scalpel blade. She chewed the edge of a fingernail. It was the best idea she’d had all day.
Carefully, she edged towards the bed. Dryness coated her tongue, turning it to sandpaper. Her arms were lead weights. She closed her fingers around the box, feeling both sick and shaky. But as she picked it up, it felt like a normal piece of junk. She studied the emblem on the top. Age had faded any detail from the dirt-ingrained wood.
Glancing around the room, she wondered where to stash it. Out of sight, out of mind, right? And Stu was a busy man. He wouldn’t come back into this room, probably for weeks. She scanned the possible hiding places. Under the bed? No, too obvious. The only other piece of furniture was a bookcase left over from her student days, but that wouldn’t hide anything.
Floral curtains hung at the window. They were too narrow; the farmhouse windows were wider than any they’d had before. Like everything else, the curtains were a work in progress. She tucked the box behind the curtain on the left and stood back. They were old, but just thick enough to do the trick.
A murmur sounded from the nursery as Gabriel awoke from his catnap. A lunch demand would follow. With the box hidden and whatever qualms she’d had about it quashed, Beth’s mood was notched up about ten degrees. A weight lifted from around her shoulders. Closing the door behind her, she smiled. Mission accomplished.
Snow fell steadily as she carried a still sleepy Gabriel down the stairs and slid him into the highchair. He rubbed his eyes with both fists, and then let out a plaintive yell.
‘Okay, little man, just hang on a minute.’ She grabbed a jar of baby food from the cupboard and clunked open the lid. ‘Chicken and butternut squash. Yum.’
She sniffed the jar and wrinkled her nose. Why did all baby food smell the same? Sliding open the cutlery drawer, she scooped up his favourite lion head spoon and pulled up a chair.
‘This is when I go into guilt trip mode, baby boy. About how I’m feeding you processed gunk and not a proper, wholesome, home-cooked meal.’
Gabriel grinned and banged the tray noisily. The chicken gloop was a definite hit, probably more so than her homespun attempts. He wolfed down the whole jar in less than five minutes.
Throwing the spoon in the sink, she filled his plastic beaker with water from the filter and handed it to him. He grabbed both handles and, with concentration, brought the spout to his mouth. She rinsed the spoon under the tap. Outside, the sky had taken on a steely colour that meant it was going to throw white stuff down all day. The flakes covered the ground now, with only the tops of the stones and a few sprigs of green poking through. Soon it would be a carpet.
Beth found herself holding her breath and making a wish. It was a childhood habit, along with not standing on the pavement cracks if she really wanted her wish to come true. I wish Stu would come home soon. If it snowed until nightfall, the side roads would be hell, and all it would take would be one car to slide off the road and cause a tail ba
ck; even their Range Rover wouldn’t be able to get through at that point.
At least the fridge was fairly full of essentials; they had stopped at the local garage on the way home. She didn’t want to risk going out in her car. Deep down, she knew the accident still played on her mind in bad weather.
The last heavy snow had fallen about three years ago, at the end of March. Everyone thought they had made it through another winter unscathed, so it was a shock to wake up to find everything white over. No one was prepared. She had a meeting in London with her editor and his boss and she didn’t want to reschedule it. She was a careful driver as it was. That day, she drove along the side roads at a near crawl. But just as she hit the main hill, which wound down to the station in a half-moon curve, a car backed out from a hidden driveway in front of her. Instinctively, she stepped down hard on the brake pedal. The car lurched across the ice as it scrabbled for grip, and then, slowly, slid sideways. She shut her eyes, which probably wasn’t the most sensible thing she could have done. After what seemed like forever, the car came to a sudden juddering halt as it hit the side of the stop sign at the end of the road. She was lucky. It had only grazed the pole, the passenger side taking the bulk of the impact. She cut the engine and stared at the steering wheel. Outside, a figure in a khaki green padded jacket and a black beanie hat trudged towards her and tapped on the side window. She’d pressed the button to lower the glass.
‘Are you okay? That was a very elegant slide.’ The driver of the other car had peered in. ‘I’m Stu. What can I do to help?’
***
The box dozed in the grey half-light from the window. An oak tree, branches winter bare and dusted with snow, stood sentinel. Beyond was the ramshackle wooden shed held together by luck, and the cottage garden, its lawn hidden beneath a soft white sheet. In the distance, a huddle of fleece-heavy sheep sheltered by a snowy hedge.
Idyllic. That was the word to describe it. But what use was there for such a word when it could all be swept away? Innocence tasted sweeter when it could be gnawed upon.