‘An hour . . . maybe more. I’d have to take the car. It’s further by road, but quicker than walking across the moors at night.’
‘There’s no time,’ groans Freya. ‘It’s coming.’
Simon appears at the bedroom door, a large pan of hot water in his hands. ‘Carla told me to bring this up.’
Freya lifts her head off the mattress and bares her teeth. ‘Get out,’ she screams.
Kat turns to Simon. ‘Here, give it to me. It’s probably best if you leave us to it.’
Simon runs his hands through his hair. It’s the first time Kat has ever seen him look scared. ‘Is she going to be OK? Will the baby be OK?’
‘I don’t know, Simon,’ she snaps. Everything feels too primitive and dangerous. She never should have listened to him. Freya should be with doctors and nurses who know what they’re doing, in a sterile hospital environment, not lying on a dirty mattress in a dingy old room. This isn’t good. This isn’t safe. She feels uncontrollable terror rise up and forces herself to take a breath and swallow it down.
‘Get him out of here,’ cries Freya. ‘I don’t want him here.’
Kat gives Simon a look and he shuffles out of the doorway, his footsteps creaking back down the staircase.
‘I want to move . . . need to . . . turn over.’
Kat helps Freya shift onto her hands and knees on the mattress, her face burrowed into a pillow. She stifles a groan.
‘Do you want to push now?’
Freya nods and moans.
‘OK.’ She lifts her sister’s dress and sees her bare thighs slick with sweat and her body opening up like a flower in bloom. It’s all so primal, so graphic. Kat can’t believe what she is seeing. Freya stretches and groans again. There is the curve of a little skull pushing at her insides. She cries out in agony.
‘I think I can see a head,’ Kat says. This is good. Head first is good, she’s sure of it. She feels Mac move to her side. She had forgotten he was in the room with them but suddenly she is pleased to have him there next to her. She glances up at him and he gives an encouraging nod.
Freya screams, and then, with a slithering trickle of scarlet blood, a head pops miraculously from her body. It is purple and covered in white stuff, the faintest fuzz of fair hair on its scalp. Kat is repulsed. It doesn’t look like any baby she’s seen before, but she knows she must help. She moves across and, driven by instinct, holds the head gently in place.
‘The head’s out, Freya. Can you push again?’
‘Wait,’ says Mac, suddenly. ‘You have to check the cord. You have to check that the cord isn’t wrapped around the baby’s neck.’
Kat gapes at him. ‘How?’
‘Put your fingers in, feel for it.’
Kat shakes her head. ‘I can’t.’
‘Yes you can. You have to.’
‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’
‘Try.’
But this time it’s Kat who is paralysed with fear.
‘Move out the way,’ says Mac.
Kat steps back and allows Mac at her sister. She watches as he gently feels around where the baby’s neck should be. Freya whimpers. ‘I’m sorry,’ says Mac, ‘nearly done.’ Then he steps back. ‘It’s OK, Freya. You can push . . . on the next contraction, OK?’
Freya seems to know what she’s doing now, basic instinct driving her on. She waits and pants and then on the next contraction she screams and pushes the body of the baby out in one slippery move. The baby is quick and wet but Kat manages to catch it in a sheet. She stares down at the small purple body and tries to control the shaking in her legs. It’s a baby. A real baby. ‘It’s a girl,’ she says.
‘The afterbirth,’ says Mac, ‘we have to deliver the afterbirth.’
‘What do we do with the baby?’ asks Kat. She looks down at it helplessly. A little girl. Still purple. Not moving. Not making any sound. ‘Is it OK?’
Mac comes across and takes the baby in his arms. He holds her in the sheet and Kat watches in amazement as he puts his finger gently into her mouth, then massages her delicate chest with the palm of his hand. It is ominously quiet in the room. Kat helps Freya move onto her back and on the next contraction her sister moans and the afterbirth slithers out onto the mattress between her legs. Freya barely notices, her eyes are fixed upon Mac and the baby. ‘Is she OK?’
‘Hold on,’ says Kat. Her eyes dart to Mac’s. He continues to massage the baby. ‘What are you doing?’ she asks.
Mac doesn’t speak. The silence is electrifying. Kat holds her breath until the silence is shattered by the piercing wail of the baby. She opens her mouth and her screwed-up eyes and takes a great gulp of air, then wails again.
Mac and Kat smile at each other, the relief evident in their eyes as Freya sobs gently into the mattress, ‘She’s OK. She’s OK.’
Mac takes a pair of scissors, washes them in the hot water Simon brought up and then cuts the umbilical cord. Then he moves across to Freya and hands her the tiny newborn wrapped in the sheet. She is no longer a frightening purple but pink and alert, her little hands flailing at the air, her mouth opening and closing like a fish taking her first breaths on land.
Freya peers down at the tiny bundle in her arms. ‘Hello,’ she says and the tears fall down her face, a steady stream of joy and pain flowing onto her bloody dress. ‘Hello, little girl.’
‘How did you know to do that?’ asks Kat, still astonished at Mac’s miracle. ‘How did you know to check the cord . . . and to massage the baby like that?’
He shrugs. ‘I saw my dad do it once with a calf.’ He can’t seem to take his eyes off the baby and Kat remembers what Freya told her all those months ago; how she couldn’t be sure about that night. It’s always been assumed that the baby is Simon’s, but she wonders now about Mac. Could the baby be his?
Kat smiles. ‘Well, you did a good job. Well done,’ and Mac hangs his head, embarrassed by her praise, then slips quietly from the room.
The baby is tiny, with tufts of fair hair and flailing limbs that grab at the air. Her face is scrunched closed, like the bud of a flower waiting to bloom. Now that the horror and noise and mess of the birth are over, Freya seems calmer. She holds the baby close to her breast and murmurs quietly, soothing words Kat can’t quite make out. In the space of a few minutes it seems her sister has been transformed, no longer a girl but a mother now. With high spots of colour on her pale cheeks and her eyes glittering like diamonds Kat thinks she looks beautiful. She wonders if they should try to take Freya and the baby to a hospital, get them checked out, but looking at the two of them together, it’s hard to believe mother and child could need anything but each other. The visceral chaos of just moments ago seems like a lifetime away.
There is a loud clearing of a throat. Kat turns to see Simon standing in the doorway. He is gazing at Freya and the baby in awe. ‘Mac told me the baby had arrived.’
Kat nods and watches him warily from the edge of the bed as he steps into the room.
‘I’ve brought you something,’ he says, not to Kat, but to her sister and he steps closer, his shadow falling over the bed. Kat sees her sister draw the infant closer.
‘It’s a Moses basket,’ Simon continues. ‘I found it ages ago. I’ve cleaned it up . . . for the baby.’
Freya nods but she doesn’t say anything.
‘So, a baby girl?’ Simon smiles. ‘What will you call her?’
‘Lila.’ She throws the name at him like a challenge.
‘That’s lovely.’ He smiles and bends down, reaches out a finger and draws back the purple knitted blanket from around her face. ‘She’s beautiful.’
Freya softens slightly, her heart already filled with a mother’s pride. ‘Yes,’ she agrees.
Simon peers more closely. ‘She has my nose, don’t you think?’
And just like that the tension is back; Kat sees Freya’s shoulders curve around the baby as she stares daggers at Simon. It is the first time he has vocalised his paternity, his responsibility, and both sist
ers understand at last what he is doing there: Simon is staking his claim. ‘She won’t want for anything. You’ll see,’ he says.
‘I . . . we don’t—’ Freya fumbles for the words.
‘Shhhhh,’ soothes Simon, rising up from his crouched position, blocking Kat’s view, ‘you must be tired. Nothing matters now but you and Lila. You must get some rest.’ He turns to Kat. ‘You must be tired too,’ he says. ‘I’ll stay here a while. Why don’t you go? Take a break.’
Kat understands the dismissal – she feels it like a slap to the face. She nods once and stands, moves towards the door then turns back for a final look. Simon shifts and behind him, cast in shadow, she sees Freya’s panic-stricken look. ‘Wait,’ she says to Kat, ‘don’t you want to hold her?’
Kat hesitates, one hand on the door latch. She has never held anything so small or precious in her life. ‘No, it’s OK. I’ll come back later.’
‘No, please,’ urges Freya. ‘You’re her auntie.’ She offers the baby up and Kat sees what she is trying to do. She is trying to include her in some way, trying to keep her involved; but Kat shakes her head. Can’t she see? She will never be part of this now. Auntie. Not mother. Not wife. Not even Simon’s lover any more. She looks at the three of them there before her, the image of a perfect, newly made family and she feels her grief well up for everything she has ever lost. She swallows. ‘Maybe later,’ she says, and she ducks out of the room before the tears can begin to fall.
The sun blooms on the horizon, a peach-coloured dawn illuminating the hills and glimmering upon the still lake. Although Kat is exhausted, her mind is buzzing and she knows she won’t sleep. In the space of twenty-four hours everything has changed. There’s a baby in the house. Baby Lila: Simon and Freya’s daughter.
For some reason Kat had thought that things might be better when the baby came – that it would all be over; but the infant’s physical presence, the sound of its crying, its undeniable, needy presence only seems to be evidence now of things really just beginning. For all Simon’s idealistic posturing, Kat knows that their life at the cottage is nothing more than a house of cards that has begun to crumble spectacularly all around them.
She hears a wail from upstairs, followed by Freya’s gentle shushing. Kat is dizzy with tiredness but she knows she cannot be in the house. She sees Ben curled on the sofa and Carla slumped at his feet on a beanbag, both of them dead to the world. Gently, she extricates a sweater from beneath Ben’s feet, then pulls on her boots and slips out the back door.
She starts at the sight of Mac slumped on the back step, his head resting on his knees, something silver dangling between his fingers where it catches the light.
‘Hey,’ she says, ‘are you OK?’ When he looks up she sees the fresh red welt beneath his left eye, the skin already beginning to swell and bruise. ‘What happened?’
Mac shrugs. ‘Simon. Seems he’s a little less forgiving than the rest of you.’
Kat nods. The tension has been building between them for weeks; it has always seemed like a matter of time. ‘You should put something on it. It looks nasty.’
But Mac just shrugs. ‘Is Freya OK?’
‘Simon’s with her.’ She looks again at the object glinting in his hand. ‘What’s that?’ she asks.
He lifts it to the light and Kat sees it is a necklace, a fine chain with a silver pendant in the shape of an oval hanging from the loop. ‘It’s for Freya,’ he says, ‘for her baby.’
Kat nods. Poor Mac, even if the baby is his he will never stand a chance against Simon, not now he has laid claim to her. Anyone can see that. She peers more closely at the necklace. The pendant is paper-thin with three little marks at its centre. It looks familiar but in her foggy state she can’t quite identify it.
‘It’s honesty,’ says Mac, seeing her puzzled look. ‘An honesty seed head. Freya likes them so much . . . I thought . . . I thought . . .’
Kat can’t help it; her laugh is a harsh bark. Honesty. Mac is giving the gift of honesty, at long last. That’s priceless.
‘God, Kat, this is all so screwed up,’ says Mac. ‘How did we end up like this?’
She nods but she has no words of comfort for him. It is – it’s all so screwed up. She could stay there with him. She could ask him the barrage of questions that buzz in her head: why he lied when he first brought them to the lake all those months ago. Why he never told them his mother owned the cottage, or that she knew they were there. That it was her who had gifted them the chickens, the pig, the Christmas turkey. But then perhaps the signs were there? Perhaps it was just that none of them had cared to look for them, far too comfortable as they were, living out their naive little fantasy. No one thought to delve below the surface of their existence . . . no one except Freya.
‘You must have been laughing at us the whole time,’ she says, her voice flat. It’s ridiculous. She’d always thought that Simon was in control, making decisions, leading the group, but perhaps all along it was Mac. It’s too confusing. She can’t think straight. She’s too tired.
‘No,’ says Mac, ‘I wasn’t. I only ever wanted us to be together. To be friends. I only ever wanted to be accepted.’
She leaves him crouched beside the back door and heads down to the edge of the lake where the boggy ground squelches and sucks at her boots. Her fingers trail across the feathery tops of the reeds. Now that she has seen Freya with the baby and the proprietary way Simon hovered over them both she knows that it will never be over. Nothing she can do will sever the connection between them. They will always have the baby, the bond between them that can’t be broken. Simon will never let them go.
She knows it’s twisted, but she doesn’t even care that their connection may have been born from something ugly and violent and – if Freya is telling the truth – from something she never wanted, because she is still jealous. Freya has what she wants most deeply of all: Simon’s child and a family to call her own. Her sister has been anointed queen, and even in a crumbling house of cards, that makes her the winner. Kat looks out over the choppy surface of the water and sighs. Who would care if she took off right now and never came back? Who would care if she just filled her pockets with rocks and waded into the lake until the water closed over her?
A breeze is picking up. The reeds seem to whisper to her, dark secrets. She reaches for a handful of the sharp green blades and pulls them, like knives, through the clenched palm of her hand. She feels her own warm blood fill her fist. The wind murmurs. It rustles through the treetops and shivers through the tall green stems of the deadly water hemlock at the edge of the lake. Kat studies the plant for a moment, remembering Mac’s warning. Carried on the breeze comes another high-pitched wail; shrill and needy, it echoes out across the valley. Kat reaches out and pulls a stem of hemlock clean out of the ground. Pale roots hang like limp fingers at her side as she carries it back up to the house, her face turned to the wind and a thin trail of blood dripping from her clenched fist onto the grass behind her.
23
LILA
June
Lila is paying for groceries in the village shop when her mobile phone rings. ‘Is that yours or mine, love?’ asks Sally from behind the till.
‘Mine, sorry.’ Lila looks down at the screen and sees MUM MOBILE flashing on the display.
‘I don’t mind if you answer it,’ says Sally, watching her with obvious curiosity.
Lila shakes her head and returns her phone to the bottom of her handbag. ‘No, it’s OK.’
‘Not a lover’s tiff, I hope?’ Sally places a packet of butter into the canvas shopping bag.
Lila gives her an enigmatic smile. ‘Something like that.’ She knows Sally is bursting to know more but she can’t get into it, not here.
‘You must be entertaining?’ she says, packing the fruit cake and a packet of shortbread at the top of the shopping bag where they won’t be crushed.
‘Yes, I invited William over for afternoon tea, as a thank you. He’s been teaching me to swim,’ she adds, seeing the
woman’s eyebrows shoot skyward.
‘He was in here just the other day,’ she says. ‘He was telling me you’ve done wonders with that cottage of yours.’ She grins at her.
‘He’s very kind,’ says Lila. ‘I’ve just tried to make it a little more habitable.’
‘Well, it’s nice that you’ve met some of the locals . . . made a special friend.’
She senses a lingering question in the woman’s words. It’s hardly surprising; a blossoming friendship between a pregnant woman and a brooding farmer would definitely make for interesting village gossip and it doesn’t take a genius to work out where Sally’s mind is going. Lila shrugs it off. Some things are just too hard to explain. She reaches for the shopping bag. ‘Come and visit me,’ she suggests. ‘Join me for a cup of tea sometime. I’ll show you round the cottage myself. You’d be very welcome.’
‘Oooh,’ says Sally, ‘I’d love that. Thank you, dear.’ She leans across and pats her on the hand. ‘You take care of yourself,’ she looks meaningfully at Lila’s growing bump, ‘and that baby of yours, OK?’
Lila smiles. ‘I will.’
Fast-moving clouds shift spotlights of sun over the surrounding hills. Lila takes it slow along the country lanes, enjoying the huge sky and the rolling green pastures on either side. Her mother has been calling every day since their disastrous pub lunch but Lila just can’t bring herself to speak to her. She knows now that it was her who’d been there at the time of her fall. She knows that she lied about being in the house. But none of it makes any sense. Why would she do that? What was her mother so afraid of? And even if she didn’t push her, even if it was, as she’d said, a terrible accident, that doesn’t explain why she would lie about it. There are three words still ringing in her head: just like her. What do they mean? Just like who? She knows they form the missing piece of the puzzle, but to get the answers she must see her mother again, and that’s something she’s not prepared to do. Her biggest and most overwhelming desire is to protect her baby and returning to the cottage had felt like the most natural thing in the world, this time with Tom’s blessing.
The Shadow Year Page 36