The Parentations

by Kate Mayfield

  ‘Elísabet. How lovely of you to come undisguised.’ Her delivery is chilling.

  Elísabet looks into her sister’s eyes with an equal coldness.

  ‘There is one missing,’ Clovis says. ‘Where is the magical boy?’

  ‘You will never see my son again,’ Elísabet says evenly.

  ‘What a display of self-control.’

  Clovis inches closer as if to threaten Elísabet, and both Stefán and Finn move to restrain her.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Elísabet assures them. ‘She’s not that kind of fighter.’

  ‘I have married your lover and I have raised your son. Those are facts that will never change,’ Clovis hisses. ‘You’re a coward. You have always been a coward. Content on a stinking sheep farm; a small patch of shitty frozen land. And so pleased to be praised for your knitting. Knitting for God’s sake.’ Clovis, aware of her audience, pauses for effect. ‘But there was eventually a crack, an imperfection at last. You were quick to open your legs for a lusty foreigner.’ She laughs at her memory. ‘The result of that went wrong, didn’t it? So elegantly discarded on your hands and knees.’

  Elísabet conceals her reaction, but Clovis is quick to see the change in her sister’s face and rolls her eyes.

  ‘Oh how tedious of you Elísabet! Of course it was me,’ Clovis says.

  Puzzled, Finn glares at Clovis. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Clovis ignores him, inching closer to Elísabet. Her voice is even and chilling, ‘I could not let you free yourself from that life and leave me there. You did not deserve rescuing. So I left you, and I took him. And it was easy, so easy. Even pregnant with his child, he forgot you. Didn’t you Finn?’

  The taste for violence rises in the acid in Finn’s gut. He is willing to go through another hellish redemption if he could have one good go at her with a knife and cut her fucking tongue out. Mockett is tugging at him, whispering for him to gain his composure.

  Clovis moves on to the crux of the matter.

  ‘It was … interesting … to watch your son cry himself to sleep.’ She laughs unnervingly again. ‘You must have known – you must have seen. To think of your daily pain while you were ridiculously disguised will be … quite comforting. You will not hinder me now, Elísabet. None of you will stand in my way.’

  Clovis swaggers towards the door.

  Stefán pushes her down into the chair.

  ‘Take your hands off me.’

  ‘Silence!’ Stefán roars. Then he nods to Elísabet.

  ‘Clovis Fowler, formerly known as Koldís Ingólfsdóttir,’ Elísabet begins. ‘For the murder of Nora Mockett, for the murder of Jonesy Ling, for the attempted murder of Willa Robinson and for the abuse of Rafe Jónsson, there is a strong consensus amongst several of our people that you should be put to death. However, it is decided that you will be taken from your home and this country with no more than the clothes on your back and you will be escorted to Iceland …’

  ‘You are quite mad …’

  Elísabet talks over her. ‘… where you will remain under our auspices, a prisoner of our people. We are spread far and wide across the country. Stripped of all your rights, you will be moved from one remote place to another, never knowing when or how the transport will occur. You will work at menial tasks in the most isolated areas of our country. If anyone should ever show you any kindness, or the slightest sympathy, or should you be successful at manipulating your keeper, you will be removed to a new location. You will have no access to any form of outside communication. Any clothing, or personal items that you need to remain clean and healthy you must earn or make yourself. The only relief you will have from your punishment is the four weeks a year that you fall into your sleep.

  When you reach your first location you will be given a phial. The choice you removed from others for so long will always be offered to you. If you wish to take your own life, you may do so at any time. For someone like you, Iceland will be an unbearably lonely place. One way or the other, you will die in a remote valley in the country that sits at the top of the world.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  ‘She’s here!’ Verity whispers to Constance. ‘I’ll go out and open the gate.’

  ‘Who is it, Auntie Very?’ Rafe asks.

  ‘Someone who has been waiting a very long time to meet you,’ Constance tells him.

  Rafe stands at the windows where the garden of his childhood extends, redolent of a lush valley. Two enormous, marble sea-dragons guard three tiered terraces, connected by stone and wooden steps. His old swing still hangs from the massive London plane at the heart of the garden. A turkey oak, a soaring beech, tree ferns, and palms deaden traffic noise. Agaves cast a blue glow. Water splashes down stepped ponds. Beyond the legacy of the canal wall at the bottom half of the garden, the sisters have sown a wild flower meadow. A square pool by the kitchen window reflects light from the cream-coloured walls of the house. A variety of seating options hide in their own secluded nooks including the old stone bench from where his aunties read aloud to him on warm summer evenings when the light was kind. The garden speaks to him. They have been here all this time, it says. They have waited for you.

  ‘Rafe,’ Constance says gently behind him.

  He turns to see his aunts’ arms entwined around the waist of a beautiful woman. Her face is familiar. Her hand goes to her heart. She searches his face and then nods her head. Yes, I am here now. Here with you.

  One look at her face and he knows.

  ‘Mother?’

  ‘Yes, son.’

  Constance and Verity steal away, quietly shutting the doors. In the kitchen they work silently with their own thoughts between them as they cut and slice, brew and stir.

  After some time, the sisters find their voices again.

  ‘I’m so happy for them,’ Verity says.

  ‘It’s wonderful.’

  ‘The other one. Is she gone now?’

  ‘Yes. This morning.’

  ‘Good.’

  The sound of the gate opening has them scurrying to the door.

  ‘Ava. I’ll head her off so she doesn’t go barging into the sitting room,’ Constance says.

  A few moments later they put Ava to work with them in the kitchen and update her on all the latest events.

  ‘Willa must have been terrified. I don’t think I could have done it,’ Ava says.

  ‘We should do something for her, sister.’

  ‘Yes, we must, Verity. Surely she won’t want to stay in that house.’

  ‘Perhaps some sort of property for her work and a nice flat.’

  ‘Ava, would you make some enquiries?’

  ‘Of course, after you ask her permission to change her life.’ She smiles.

  ‘Do you think it’s all right to go in now?’ Verity asks.

  ‘Let’s give them a little more time,’ Constance says.

  ‘Oh, please, I’m like a child at Christmas hiding in here. I want to see them happy and laughing. Ava, pop your head in and offer tea. Sister, let’s have champagne. Just a wee glass.’

  Ava knocks softly on the doors to the sitting room.

  ‘Yes, do come,’ Rafe says, expecting his aunts.

  Ava opens the doors.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he says. ‘Hello again!’ He finds that he can’t stop smiling at her.

  ‘Hello again.’

  ‘Mother, this is the woman I told you about. This is Ava.’

  ‘You did?’ Ava asks.

  ‘He did.’ Elísabet smiles at her warmly and beckons her to come near.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  At dusk Stefán collects the water from the pool behind the waterfall. The liquid has no preference – glass, wood, plastic, it performs its inexplicable work sloshing in any sort of carrier. He rides Glossi today, forsaking his car for the innate intelligence of his eternally beautiful horse. He bows his elegant neck down towards the pool, but does not drink. The drops sustain him as well.

  His old friend makes an appearance
this evening. Long arms droop from his shoulders, his fingertips reach his knees. A lean torso and the alarming length of his legs create a rail for his homespun clothing.

  ‘Stefán, son of Hilmar. The day may come when a foreigner drinks from the pool.’

  Stefán smiles. ‘You mean a tourist? Perhaps, though they like the west of our country best of all. Tourists pass here but rarely stop.’

  ‘My point is that there must be no complacency. Especially now that you are to become a father again.’

  ‘I won’t ask you how you know.’

  ‘There are those who still believe in the old people’s existence. Remain watchful.’

  The man’s serious tone cuts Stefán. ‘We will. It takes only one. How well I know that now.’

  ‘You, Stefán, will become the Watcher one day. You alone will judge the stranger who stumbles on this pool. You will decide who should be given instruction and who should not. And on that day, you will see me no more.’

  The tall man stretches his legs. Another year has passed in a blink of his eye.

  Finn Fowler and Owen Mockett sit at a table in a riverside pub with a window view of the Thames. It is rare that they would miss an evening out in ever-sprawling London. They speak of business and the weather. They don’t speak of her. Perhaps they will one day, but for now, the topic is too raw.

  Finn destroyed all of her belongings. He removed the keys from her chatelaine before he destroyed her talisman of their imprisonment. One item, however, was curiously missing. The small picture frame on her dressing table is empty of their faded images of 1914. The photograph had always made him uncomfortable, but the thought of her concealing it in Iceland sends a shiver through him.

  Finn and Mockett share a half-pint, their daily allowance, while they wait for their food. Often on these nights the same unspoken thoughts join them for dinner. They think how damned lucky they are to have survived. The fearsome Icelandic men who took her away and escorted her to her punishment scared the bejesus out of them. Finn and Owen were unable to form a defence to present to their accusers, who were also their judiciary. When they were pardoned for their culpability, Willa said that she had never heard men weep like that before.

  No one in the pub pays much attention to them. They seem to meld into the polished woodwork; their voices mingle with the screen announcing the football scores.

  The odd ship and barge pass their view in the rising tide.

  Ancient waste will return to the Thames’s anaerobic mud, and its power to tell of the past is buried once more, until the moon releases its pull again.

  Iceland.

  England.

  Perhaps elsewhere.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My thanks for the support, energy, creativity and not least, the patience of my brilliant agent, Oli Munson. Thanks to all at A.M. Heath, including Florence Rees and Jennifer Custer. And a special mention for Becky Brown, for early reading and suggestions.

  Great appreciation and respect for my editor, the stellar Jenny Parrott, whose care and attention coaxed more out of me than I thought possible, and whose close work helped bring the manuscript to more vibrancy. She did all that with amazingly good humour. Thanks to Paul Nash and all the dynamic team at Point Blank/Oneworld including the wizard Mark Rusher, and James Jones, Margot Weale, Thanhmai Bui-Van, Cailin Neal, Kate Bland and James Magniac. Kudos to my copyeditor, Emily Thomas, whose eagle-eyed, thoughtful and face-saving (mine) attention to detail was remarkable.

  Warm thanks for her encouragement and expertise to Denise Stewart, who kindly and generously drew upon her impressive, vast experience to steer me away from pitfalls.

  How fortunate and grateful I was for the facilities and staff of the British Library, the Wellcome Library, the Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre, and to the London Metropolitan Archives. For their particular help with other aspects of research I am grateful to Neil Handley, curator of the British Optical Assocation Museum, Michael Ridpath and Brian Parsons. Paul Talling and his Derelict London guided walks in Limehouse and Wapping opened my eyes and spurred my imagination. Thanks, Paul.

  For friendship, hospitality and wise counsel thanks to Kate Colquhoun, Lisa Highton, Britt Berge, and Jason Hewitt, for communing over bottomless cups of tea and coffee. To the gracious Eveline Carn, thank you for allowing a stranger to visit your home. Admiration for and thanks to the taxi driver, who, when I said, ‘Follow that taxi!’ did not hesitate or ask questions.

  Finally, heartfelt thanks to Malcolm for his unwavering support and understanding.

  After KATE MAYFIELD was born she was taken directly to a funeral home. Her father, an undertaker, set up shop in a small town in southern Kentucky where the family resided in his funeral home for thirteen years. This is the setting of her memoir, The Undertaker’s Daughter. Kate attended Western Kentucky University before moving to Manhattan where she graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After living in New York and Los Angeles, she now makes London her home.

  A Point Blank Book

  First published in Great Britain and Australia by Point Blank,

  an imprint of Oneworld Publications, 2018

  This ebook published 2018

  Copyright © Kate Mayfield 2018

  The moral right of Kate Mayfield to be identified as the Author

  of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved

  Copyright under Berne Convention

  A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-78607-242-9 (hardback)

  ISBN 978-1-78607-243-6 (export paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-78607-244-3 (eBook)

  This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions

  and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places,

  and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination

  or are used fictitiously.

  Oneworld Publications

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  United Kingdom

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