They had attended the scan together in London just before she’d left. It had been the twenty-third, exactly a year since her fall and Milly’s premature birth. When they’d realised the coincidence they had been nervous; they’d watched in anxious silence as a fuzzy picture of their baby, nestled in the soft curve of her body, had appeared on the screen. In the centre of the image had been a rapid black and white blinking. ‘There’s the heartbeat,’ the technician had told them.
Tom had squeezed her hand and leaned over to kiss the side of her cheek where the tears streamed down her face. ‘See?’ he’d said. ‘Everything’s OK.’
She’d nodded but known she would still be nervous, jumpy at every twinge, every kick, every flutter. ‘I know. But how do I stop worrying?’ she’d half cried, half laughed.
It had been the technician who had answered her. ‘You don’t,’ she’d smiled. ‘That’s what being a parent is. Alongside all that hope and all that love comes the worry. It’s normal.’
‘Yes,’ Tom had nodded, ‘this is just the beginning,’ and Lila had smiled at him then and known that whatever came next, they would face it together, their relationship weathered now, but somehow stronger than before.
He has promised to join her as soon as he can for a couple of weeks together at the lake, a much-needed holiday. She will figure out the mess with her mother after that. She doesn’t have the energy for anything else right now.
Lila bumps her car along the dirt track, no longer boggy with spring rain but dry and dusty, baked hard after a week of early summer sunshine. She winds down the window and enjoys the breeze in her hair, listens to the low hum of bees buzzing around the dog rose blooms and the sweet song of a blackbird as it warbles in the hedgerow. Whenever she drives up the track now she has the overwhelming sensation of coming home and she knows, deep down, that she doesn’t want to part with the place. She’s hoping to persuade Tom when he’s next up that they should keep it on. She wants it to be their bolthole, a place for them to retreat to when London gets too much. And when they’re not using it they could loan it out to friends. It’s still rustic and remote, but it has its charms.
As she rounds the bend, the sight of a sleek navy blue car parked beside the old wooden gate makes her slam on the brakes. The force sends her lurching forwards in her seat. She recognises the number plate at once: it’s her mother’s Volvo. Lila stares at the car in horror. How on earth has she found her? Tom is the only one who could have possibly given her directions. Bloody Tom, she’d told him she didn’t want him talking to her mother. She’s going to kill him when she next sees him.
The car ahead is empty so she pulls up behind it, grabs her shopping bags and makes her way through the gate and into the high grass of the meadow. By the time she has stomped to the shade of the alder trees she’s decided to let her mother say her piece and then send her on her way. No drama, no arguments. As she cuts her way through the tall trees she wills herself to be calm. Think of the baby, she tells herself.
She is almost at the cottage and still there is no sign of her mother. She looks around. She isn’t waiting at the front door, or lurking in the garden. For a moment she wonders if she has imagined the Volvo parked on the track, wonders if she has finally lost her mind, but when she squints out across the lake she sees her, a silhouette seated on the collapsed tree down by the lake. She has her back to Lila and sits gazing out over the water, one foot raised up onto the trunk and her hands clasped around her knee, her blond hair catching in the breeze. She looks comfortable, somehow at home, and the thought brings another surge of anger. How dare she come here? This is her place.
She dumps the groceries up near the cottage and makes her way down the bank towards the lake, the swish of her feet through the long grass giving her away. Her mother turns and watches her approach, her face blank, her eyes masked behind dark sunglasses. Lila studies the disconcerting black orbs of them but refuses to drop her gaze. This is her terrain – she won’t look away. Eventually, when she is just a couple of metres away, she stops with her hands on her hips and regards her. ‘How did you find me? Was it Tom?’
Her mother shakes her head. ‘A lucky guess.’
Lila is confused. ‘A what?’
‘When I saw your necklace everything fell into place.’
‘My necklace?’ She reaches up and rubs the thin silver disc between her fingers. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘The honesty, it grows all around here, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, but how did you know I was here?’
She ignores the question. ‘Did Mac give it to you?’ she asks, nodding her head at the pendant.
‘Mac?’ Lila shakes her head.
Her mother removes her glasses. ‘I’ve been having nightmares ever since I saw you last . . . about how you might have come to own that necklace. For one awful moment I thought she might have given it to you. But I knew that was impossible. It has to be Mac. It’s the only explanation.’
Mac? Who is Mac? Lila touches the pendant. It feels warm and solid beneath her fingers.
‘I wasn’t sure I’d remember my way here, but it came back to me immediately: the hidden turning for the track, the gate into the meadow, even the wet-mulch smell of the woods hasn’t changed. I haven’t been here in thirty years and yet it feels like it could have been yesterday.’
Without her sunglasses on Lila can see her mother looks different; no longer polished and immaculately groomed, but somehow unravelled, dishevelled. There are dark shadows beneath her eyes and the first hint of her roots growing through the pale blond highlights of her hair. Lila realises she has never seen her mother so sunken in on herself, not even in those early days after her father died.
‘I dream about this place, you know.’ She says it so softly the words almost don’t make it to Lila’s ears before they are whipped away on the breeze and carried out across the lake.
‘This place?’ Lila stares at her mother, still utterly bewildered. She feels as though she’s fallen into one of her more disturbing dreams.
‘I peered through the windows,’ she adds, indicating the cottage behind them with a jerk of her head, ‘before you arrived. You’ve done a wonderful job. Out here it’s virtually the same but I wouldn’t have recognised the cottage from the interior.’
‘Mum, you’re not making any sense.’ Lila wants to shake her. She wonders if she has finally cracked under the strain of losing her father, if the grief has somehow sent her mad. She is just about to press her to explain when the sound of a barking dog shatters the silence between them.
She spins around and sees the black and white flash of Rosie burst over the crest of the bank. The dog sprints towards Lila and comes to a grinding halt at her feet. She pants and grins and waits for Lila to pat her. Moments later, William appears at the top of the bank. He raises his hand to shield his eyes from the sun and gazes down at them. She can’t be certain but when he sees her with her mother, she’s sure she sees him take a step backwards, as if he would turn around and disappear the way he has just come, if it wasn’t already too late. Oh no, thinks Lila: afternoon tea.
William makes his way slowly towards them, the sound of his boots thumping on the dry ground as he goes. ‘You’re early,’ says Lila, offering him a weak smile. ‘I should introduce you to my mother.’ She’s about to do the proper introductions but her mother gets there first.
‘Hello, Mac,’ she says, greeting him with a thin smile.
William shuffles uncomfortably by the fallen tree. He looks from her mother, to Lila, then back to her mother. There is something inscrutable in his face. ‘Hello,’ he says at last.
Lila glances between them, confused. ‘You two know each other?’
Her mother doesn’t seem to hear. She only has eyes for William. ‘So,’ she says with a harsh laugh, ‘you thought it was time, did you? Thought you’d step in and intervene, after all these years?’
William clears his throat. Lila can see he is nervous. He shifts his weight from foot to f
oot and gazes out over the lake. ‘Simon’s gone.’ He seems to be having trouble looking at her mother. ‘I think it’s time we were all honest with each other. Lila deserves to know the truth, don’t you think?’
‘What do I deserve to know? What are you both talking about? Who the hell is Mac?’ Lila stares from her mother to William and back to her mother in bewilderment. ‘Will one of you please tell me what’s going on here?’
William scuffs one of his boots across the ground.
Lila turns to her mother but she doesn’t say a word, she just continues to stare at William through narrowed eyes.
‘Don’t you think she looks just like her?’ he manages, finally. ‘The resemblance is striking.’
Her mother nods and Lila is shocked to see a single tear slide down her drawn face. ‘She does.’
‘If you’re not going to tell her, I will,’ says William, the faintest hint of a threat in his voice.
‘Little Mac,’ says her mother, ‘all grown up and finally taking charge.’
Lila stamps her foot like a child. ‘If one of you doesn’t tell me what’s going on right this minute I’m going to leave you both here and drive straight back to London.’
‘Come and sit down, will you?’ Her mother pats the trunk beside her.
‘I don’t want to sit down. I want you to tell me what’s going on.’
‘Please.’
Lila stomps across the grass and sits at the far end of the log. She glares at her mother, wills her to speak.
‘This old tree nearly killed me, you know?’ Her mother reaches out to smooth the puckered grooves of the tree’s weeping eye with her fingertips. She rubs the knotted wood then looks to Lila with a faint smile.
Lila shakes her head in irritation. ‘What?’
‘I was right here when it came down in a storm. It missed me by a metre or two.’
‘When were you here? Why were you here?’
But her mother doesn’t answer. ‘You think I was weak staying with your father all those years, don’t you? You accused me of being too passive, for putting up with his affairs, his indiscretions, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t a victim. I was happy to make sacrifices for your father . . . and for you, Lila. We were a family.’
She reaches out to take her hand but Lila pulls away. She doesn’t want comfort from her; she wants an explanation. Out of the corner of her eye she sees William settle himself on the ground, Rosie curling companionably at his side. He is a distance away but she can tell from the tension in his shoulders, the way he holds his head, that he is listening to every word her mother says. Somehow, she feels reassured to know that he is there. ‘Go on,’ she says.
‘Your father and I had to make a lot of difficult choices . . . you might never truly know what we gave up, but it’s important that you understand that we both loved you, always. All I ever wanted was for us to be a family.’
As if from nowhere, a gust of wind swirls across the lake and scuttles on through the alder leaves. The air fills with the sound of the whispering trees. Shadows dance across the water but Lila barely notices, so intently is she focused on her mother’s words.
‘I am your mother, Lila. I’m the one who raised you and loved you, fed and clothed you, nursed you when you were sick and dressed your cuts and bruises when you fell. I was the one that was there for you – no matter what.’ She swallows hard and Lila can see she is fighting tears. Then finally, she raises her head to look at Lila. ‘But my name isn’t Freya.’
Lila gapes at her mother.
‘My name is Kat – Katherine. Freya was my sister. She was your birth mother.’
Lila wants to laugh. The words leaving her mother’s mouth are nonsensical. Ridiculous. She sees her mother glance again at the pendant hanging from her neck.
‘That necklace you’re wearing once belonged to Freya, your real mother. It was hers. Mac gave it to her.’ She stops and corrects herself. ‘Sorry, William gave it to her.’
Lila looks across to William. He lifts his head to meet her gaze and gives her the slightest nod, half affirmation, half apology, before dropping his eyes down to the ground, fixing them on a stray clump of daisies. She can’t process what her mother has just told her so she focuses on the incidentals. Mackenzie Farm. William Mackenzie. Mac, to his friends? The cogs turn in her mind and one small piece of the puzzle slots into place.
Lila stares at William, then back to her mother where she sits on the fallen tree, her eyes glistening with tears. Somewhere high above them a kite wheels as a dark silhouette in the sky. Beside the cottage the honesty shivers in the breeze. After all that has happened, after all the murkiness of the past and the strange dreams and fragments of broken memories, Lila understands that she is about to hear the truth – at last.
She turns away from the cottage and the honesty and back to the woman sitting on the tree trunk. ‘Tell me,’ she says, challenging her with her gaze, ‘tell me all of it.’ And as the sun shines down on them and the trees rustle and whisper their secrets to the lake, Lila listens intently as her mother reveals the final, hidden chapter of their story.
24
JUNE
1981
Ben and Carla are the first to go. They steal away in the dead of night like teenage runaways, taking nothing but their rucksacks, Ben’s battered guitar and half the cash left in the money tin. Simon is furious to discover them gone. ‘How dare they? What about friendship? What about loyalty? What about the bloody vegetable garden?’ He takes the gun outside and vents his anger at the unsuspecting ducks drifting on the lake. Shots ring out angrily across the valley and Kat’s shoulders tense at every echoing boom. Upstairs the baby begins to cry.
Kat pretends to share Simon’s indignation. To his face she nods and declares Ben and Carla’s actions a gross betrayal, but secretly she is relieved. She understands that finally it is happening. The house of cards is crumbling. There are just four of them left at the lake now – five if you count the baby. It seems as though the last few pieces are being moved into place on a chequerboard and Kat feels sure that the game they have played for almost a year is drawing to its conclusion.
There are complications though. Freya won’t get out of bed. She lies on the mattress in the corner of the upstairs room, her gaze fixed to the clouds drifting past the window as the baby sleeps beside her, snuffling and gurgling in the Moses basket beneath the knitted purple blanket. When she cries, Freya reaches for her and silences her at her breast. Kat hears her singing lullabies, her soft melody reminding her of something from her childhood; something from a long, long time ago; the sour smell of vodka and the soft-crooning voice of their own mother.
Kat climbs the stairs with fresh nettle tea and toast and finds her sister crying into her quilt. ‘Shhhh . . .’ she says, ‘it’s OK.’
‘I can’t do this.’ Freya’s voice is flat. ‘I can’t stay here.’
‘You’re tired. You need to eat something. Here.’ She tries to hand her the plate of toast but Freya ignores it.
‘What about Evelyn? Will she come?’
‘We’ll see. She’s a busy woman. You know she has a farm to run.’
‘But you’ve asked her?’
Kat nods but she can’t hold her sister’s eye. Even though Freya has been asking for Mac’s mum, she and Simon have privately agreed not to invite her. They don’t want her – a virtual stranger – poking around in their business and, for the time being at least, Mac seems to be following their lead.
Freya visibly slumps. ‘I suppose you know that Simon wants the baby. He says he wants to help me raise her.’ She swallows and then looks up at Kat with panic-stricken eyes. ‘He’s written to his parents. He’s told them about me . . . and Lila. He’s asked them for money . . . so we can . . . so we can carry on here.’ She buries her face in the pillow.
Kat feels a surge of bitterness. Of course, she thinks, of course he’d ask them for help now. She tries to swallow her anger. ‘Shhhh . . .’ she says to Freya, ‘you’re overwrought. You have t
o keep your strength up, for the baby.’
Freya doesn’t respond, she just sniffs into the pillow, so Kat leaves the plate of food on the floor beside the bed and moves across the room. It’s so quiet she’s assumed the baby is asleep, but when she peers over the edge of the basket she sees that Lila is wide awake and staring up at her with her huge navy eyes, lips sucking at her fist. She stares down at the baby, gazes into her knowing blue eyes, studies the tiny curve of her nose and the sprouting fuzz of hair on her head. She looks and looks but she can’t see anything of either Simon or Mac in the baby’s features. She’s just a baby – small and wrinkled. She watches her for a moment longer, then turns on her heel and leaves the room.
‘God,’ she says, jumping at the sight of Mac hovering at the top of the stairs, ‘I wish you’d stop doing that. You made me jump.’
‘Sorry.’ He shuffles on the landing, hands in his pockets. ‘How is she?’
Kat shrugs. ‘She’s tired.’
‘The baby’s OK?’
Kat nods and the sound of Freya’s soft weeping escapes from beneath the door.
‘I’ve heard . . . that sometimes . . .’
Kat shifts impatiently.
‘. . . some women can get depressed, you know, after a baby.’ He eyes Kat. ‘Do you think she’s all right? Are you sure we shouldn’t send for my mum?’
Kat is tired. She hasn’t been sleeping well either, not since the night the baby was born. The cottage is too small and the baby’s frequent crying disturbs them all. ‘Tell me something,’ she sighs, ‘why do you all seem to think I have the answers?’
‘Because you’re her sister.’
‘Well maybe someone should have told her that before she slept with my boyfriend.’
A pink flush spreads across Mac’s cheeks but he continues anyway. ‘I could help. I could take her somewhere – somewhere far away.’ He doesn’t need to say from whom; it’s plainly clear.
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