by Vikki Patis
‘I wanted a daughter really. Is that terrible of me?’ She shakes her head. ‘I would have called her Ophelia. My daughter. The girl I lost.’ She blows smoke into the air, her eyes fixed on the grey sea. ‘All I ever wanted was to be a mother. To have a family that was my own. I wanted what she had.’
‘Who?’
Fiona looks at me, her eyes meeting mine, and I feel my skin prickle at the ruthlessness in them. ‘Fearne. I wanted what Fearne had. And I got it, in a way.’ Flicking the half-smoked cigarette over the railing, she turns on her heel and walks back into the pub, her back straight, her step steady.
All I ever wanted was to be a mother. I think of Leo, the son I never wished for. The son I almost didn’t have. The memory of the clinic flashes into my mind, how I’d sat in the car park for an hour before driving home, the child still inside me, my mother’s voice in my head.
Leonora. I close my eyes and try to remember her as she was. Tall, with long, pale legs that never tanned in the sun. Long auburn hair, usually piled up on top of her head. I am a mixture of my parents, taking my curls and height from my mother, the blonde hair and dark skin from my father. But Patrick is the spitting image of him, with barely a hint of Mum, and I wonder how he can stand it. How he can stand to look in the mirror and see the face of a killer. Sometimes, on bad days, I see him in the mirror, his eyes staring back at me, the eyes my son has inherited, and I wonder if that was the last thing she saw. The eyes of her husband, the man she loved. The man who killed her.
I suddenly need to walk. I take off my shoes and leave them at the bottom of the steps. The sand is hard beneath my feet as I stride across the beach, the salt from the sea stinging my cheeks as the wind flings it towards me, but my mind is full of the past.
We were happy, once. Though my childhood is now tinged with darkness, I can still remember the happy times. The summer days spent in the fields, dogs running alongside us, our bare feet dusty from the dry mud. The berries we picked, juices coating our fingers, our lips stained purple. The weddings, the funerals, the singing. The shared meals, fires lighting up the night. Laughter, tears. The shouts of local children, their words like needles on our skin. The fights, grazed knuckles and bloodied noses. The sound of the rain hammering against the caravans; the lullaby that sent us to sleep. The sound of my brother breathing across the room, the air full of his dreams.
My phone vibrates, and before I pull it out, I know it is him. Patrick took over our family caravan after our father was sent to prison. He had always been desperate to prove himself to the others, but I had never minded having an English mother, had never noticed that we were any different from the others. But Patrick did. Perhaps it was because he was older, perhaps because he was a boy. All I know is that I spent my life watching Patrick grow into the duplicate of our father, and as we grew, our mother wilted.
It took two years for us to leave. The first time, Mum tried to go alone, whispering that she would come back for me and Patrick. But they caught her and brought her back, her voice crying out in the night, snapping me from sleep. The second time, he stole her money before she could go, her frantic searching turning the caravan upside down. She began to descend further into darkness then, her eyes unfocused, her words leaving her, until one night, they found her dangling from a tree, her pale legs glinting in the moonlight.
They cut her down, breathing the life back into her, cradling her head as they carried her inside. My father’s eyes wide with shock, his skin as pale and waxy as hers. The next day we finally left, his guilt too strong to ignore, and two months later, she was dead, but at his hand, not her own.
I try to imagine him in prison, dressed in faded tracksuit bottoms, his hair thinning and grey. I try to picture the man who used to swing me around, lifting me onto his shoulders so I could see the fire crackling, clapping along as the people danced. The man who taught me how to skin a rabbit, his large fingers deftly slicing beneath the fur. The man who my mother fell in love with, enough to leave her home and everything she knew, to live the life of a Gypsy woman. But all I can see now is the man who killed my mother, his hands covered in blood, his eyes wild and terrifying.
This is the secret heritage I have been hiding. From Felix, from Fiona. From Leo. This is who he is descended from, a murderer’s blood running through his veins. But it is not that which scares me most. It is the other father, the man who knew my secrets, which keeps me awake at night. I can only hope they turned to ashes with him.
33
The Deceased
THEN
It started in the middle of the night.
The cry woke Richard from a dream, a nightmare really, full of shadows and blood and fear. He felt disoriented, his thoughts jumbled as he fought against the bedsheets and sat up, gripping the edge of the mattress as images flashed through his mind. Had he really heard something? It had sounded like a woman, a high-pitched cry of agony. He ran a hand over his face, feeling beads of sweat beneath his palm, as he tried to remember what he had been dreaming about. But all he could see were shapes, the silhouettes of ghosts chasing him, haunting him, crying out for him. Crying out for his blood.
‘Felix!’ The scream rang out again and Richard’s head jerked up as if on a string. This time he was certain what he had heard. He ran for the door, banging his elbow on the frame as he threw it open and stepped out onto the landing. Another door opened and Fiona rushed past him, fully dressed.
‘What–’ he began, but she didn’t stop, her hand gripping the banister as she flew down the stairs.
Richard followed more slowly, blinking in the sudden brightness as the hall light was switched on. He saw a figure collapsed on the bottom step, realised suddenly that it was Lexi, her large stomach bare and tanned, her curls loose and wild. He slid past her, finding himself pressed into a corner as Fiona rushed around, picking up a large bag and dumping it by the front door before hurrying over to the shoe cupboard. He barely recognised the young woman sitting in front of him, her face flushed and contorted with pain, her fingers gripping the banister so tightly they had turned white.
‘I can’t do this,’ Lexi sobbed as Fiona crouched before her and helped her into her shoes. Her fingers were gentle on Lexi’s ankle. Richard hadn’t seen his wife like this in a long time; calm, tender. Certainly not towards him anyway. He glanced down and noticed his wife was wearing odd socks as she reached out and brushed a tear from Lexi’s cheek.
‘Yes, you can,’ she said gently but firmly, and Lexi nodded once, her lips pressed together in a thin line as another wave of pain crashed over her. ‘Felix,’ Fiona snapped, getting to her feet and slipping into her own shoes. Richard suddenly noticed his son lurking in the background, his hands tucked into his pockets like a sulky adolescent. He stepped forward, his eyes locked on his fiancée’s panting form. ‘You’re driving. And Richard’ – she turned to him then, and he thought he saw a shadow pass across her face as their eyes met – ‘put that bag in the boot.’
He stopped and lifted the bag, surprised by its weight, and stood aside as Fiona helped Lexi rise and began walking slowly towards the car, gravel crunching underfoot. Skirting around them, he opened the back door for them before lifting the lid of the boot and throwing the bag inside. The sky was dark, a chill in the air despite the season, and Richard shivered as he stared into the boot, memories swirling around his mind.
‘Let’s go,’ Fiona called to Felix, helping Lexi onto the back seat and moving around to the other side. ‘This baby won’t wait for anyone.’
Felix was staring at the keys in his hand as if he had never seen them before in his life. His face was pale, his eyes wide and bloodshot. ‘I-I can’t,’ he whimpered.
‘Can’t what?’ Richard asked.
Felix swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. ‘I can’t…’ he repeated, trailing off, and Richard felt a sudden burst of frustration.
‘I’ll fucking drive then,’ he said, taking the keys from his son’s limp fingers and stomping around to
the driver’s side. He slammed the door shut behind him, cracking the window to let out some of the stuffy air.
‘No,’ Lexi said from the back, but Fiona hushed her and she fell silent. Richard found her eyes in the rear-view mirror and saw the emotion burning in them. He dropped his gaze and turned on the engine.
The baby was born at three minutes past four in the morning, barely an hour after they arrived at the hospital. Fiona was by Lexi’s side throughout, her fingers red and aching from Lexi’s iron grip as she pushed her son into the world. Richard had stayed outside in the corridor, drinking a cup of coffee hardly worthy of the name and reading a discarded newspaper. He didn’t want to be there. He hadn’t been present for any of his children’s births, had been in the pub lifting pints of beer while his wives brought his children into the world. Back when Skye was born, men were discouraged from being in the birthing room, shooed away by formidable midwives. Things were different now, he knew, but he preferred the old days, when men knew what was expected of them. Now things were confusing, the lines blurred, and he didn’t like it one bit.
He thought of Felix then, the way he had panicked, his fingers trembling in the moonlight. He had expected better of his eldest son. Men were supposed to take charge, to seize control of any given situation and lead the way, but Felix had dithered like an old woman, leaving Richard to pick up the slack. Again.
Still, he thought, sitting back and feeling something click in his neck. When opportunity knocks.
A door opened and Fiona stepped out, her hair unusually messy as if she had been running her hands through it. ‘Seven pounds and four ounces,’ she announced, and Richard fought the urge to frown. Was he supposed to understand what that meant? ‘Aren’t you going to come and meet him?’
Him. Another boy in the family. Richard could almost hear the disappointment in Fiona’s voice – she had always wanted a daughter, after all – but this child would be nothing to do with her. She had hardly welcomed Lexi into the bosom of the family; surely she didn’t expect to have an active role in her son’s life?
‘His name is Leo,’ Lexi said when they approached, her voice husky. Probably from all that screaming. Did women usually make so much noise when they gave birth? Richard wondered as he tried to peer at the child’s face. Would he be able to tell with a glance? No, probably not.
As if hearing his thoughts, Lexi turned her upper body away, slipping the front of her gown down and positioning the child at her breast. The movement was so fluid, so natural that Richard wondered if she had done it before.
‘You need to rest,’ Fiona said, shifting beside him. ‘We’ll come back in the morning.’
‘Will you bring Felix?’ Lexi asked, looking up from her son’s head. Her eyes were ringed with purple, lids half-closed as if she would fall asleep any second. ‘He should have been here. He promised he would be here with me, for the birth.’
Richard thought he saw something change in Fiona then, the mother roaring up in her at this slight criticism of her son. Ah, he thought, there she is.
‘Of course,’ she said crisply, flattening her hair with her hands. ‘Of course Felix will come. Leo is his son, after all.’
34
The Mistress
I pull up in a lay-by, my gaze unfocused, my fingers trembling as they grip the steering wheel. I am over the limit, but nobody will stop me here, in this small coastal town. The air is cold; my skin prickles as I open the door and step out, my eyes drawn to the tree on its side, roots stretching towards the sky like fingers. Fragments of glass still litter the muddy ground beneath it, sparkling in the weak sunlight, and a tiny piece of police tape hangs from a branch, flapping in the breeze.
This is where it happened. Where my life turned upside down.
He was late. The clock ticked above me where I sat at the kitchen table, my thoughts a tangled mess, the text messages echoing in my mind. I’d managed to read the latest text on his phone, and I thought I finally knew his secrets, finally understood what I had been to him. A cover. A distraction. Convenient. Until I wasn’t.
I don’t know why I got in the car that night, why I decided to drive to him, to confront him in public instead of the privacy of my house. But I needed to know the truth, and he was late. That night is a blur now, a blur of anger and shock and tears. I drove without thinking, taking the narrow lanes too fast, my mind whirring as I replayed the messages over and over again.
S: But you have her now. You don’t need us anymore.
R: It’s not enough.
I wasn’t enough. I was never enough. I wasn’t enough for my son, whose life was cut short by the cancer spreading through his body. I wasn’t enough for my husband, who turned away from me long before our son got ill, and who wasted no time in leaving after the funeral. I, Eleanor Hart, have never been enough for anyone, and I am destined to be alone.
It took a moment for my brain to catch up with my eyes, to process what I was seeing on that dark November night. Lights, a car facing towards me on the wrong side of the road. A tree splintered and off balance, branches reaching towards the sky. Glass sparkling in the light. And a figure slumped against the steering wheel.
The pain of my memories is intense, making me gasp for breath as I stand now on the side of the road, my eyes fixed on the ground beneath me. I close my eyes, trying to wipe the images from my mind, but all I can see is him. The vision of Richard’s body is burned into my mind. I will never forget it. His head resting on the steering wheel, blood trickling from his nose. His eyes open, staring sightlessly as I screamed at him, begged him to wake up. The fleeing figure, boots pounding against the tarmac as I fell out of my car and stumbled towards them. Black boots, black clothes, a dark red hat pulled over their hair. A shadow fleeing into the night.
I ran towards him, tried to yank open the door but it was stuck, dented by the tree. I slid into the passenger side and checked his pulse. Nothing. Fumbling in my pocket, I dialled 999, sobbed that I needed an ambulance, that he wasn’t breathing. I couldn’t get him out of the car, couldn’t even move him to do chest compressions. I could only sit there and wait, the seconds stretching like hours, until I finally heard a siren wailing in the distance.
From then it was a blur. Paramedics in high-vis jackets gently moving me out of the way. Richard on a stretcher, the blue lights flashing, lighting up the night. The trip to Treliske, my eyes blurry with tears. The waiting room with its bright, unnatural light and lukewarm coffee. The sympathetic smile on the doctor’s face, how tired he looked when he told me what I already knew. Richard was dead.
The taxi ride home. The cold, empty house. The weight of Richard’s phone in my hand as I fell onto the sofa, my heart full of dread and grief. I didn’t want to know; didn’t want to shatter the illusion I had built up in my mind. But I had to.
I open my handbag and pull it out, feeling the smooth case of the phone. The screen comes to life beneath my fingertips. ENTER PIN. Six digits. I’ve tried them all – his birthday, Fiona’s, his children’s, mine. The day we met, the day he married Fiona. In desperation I enter 123456, and am stunned when the screen unlocks. Oh, Richard. How obnoxious you were.
I navigate to the messages, opening them with a tap of my fingertip. The breath catches in my throat. It’s empty, except for one unread message at the top from a number not saved as a contact. The timestamp shows the day he died, barely an hour before I found him.
Good riddance.
Fingers trembling, I unlock my own phone and check the number. It doesn’t match any of my contacts. I hit the contact and bring his phone to my ear, listening to it ring.
‘Hi, you’ve reached the voicemail of Lexi Forrest. Please leave a message and–’
I end the call, my heart racing. Lexi Forrest. Felix’s girlfriend. S?
35
The Daughter
I leave Leo and Fleur happily chatting about dogs and chickens and go outside, suddenly needing to be out of that place. Memories are crowding in, threatening to overwhelm m
e, and I need a moment of calm. I see Lexi walking across the beach, and, for a moment, I see the ghost of my sister dancing along the shore beside her, booted feet kicking up water and wet sand. A thought comes to me, a terrible, unforgivable thought that brings with it a wave of guilt, but it settles about my shoulders and refuses to leave. Saffy was the lucky one. She escaped.
I think of my mother, the years she spent at the bottom of a bottle, hair faded to a russet brown by grease, scraped back into a bun. Her eyes lifeless, her skin dry and so pale it was almost translucent. Her mouth was always pressed into a thin line, never smiling, rarely speaking. At night, I could hear her crying through the wall, pictured her tears soaking the pillow beneath her as she howled her grief into the darkness.
Those lonely years in my grandparents’ house, the cold floorboards beneath my feet, the old pipes rattling as the boiler fired up in the morning. The undercooked toast and sticky marmalade for breakfast, weak tea in chipped mugs. But what I remember most is the silence. Heavy doors kept closed, a finger held to lips – shh, your mother is sleeping – and a hand on my shoulder leading me away. The TV always turned down low while the iron hissed behind me, the scent of fabric softener in the air. Shoes taken off at the back door and placed carefully on the rack, socked feet making no noise on the cold tiles. Whispered conversations, low tones and gentle knocks on my bedroom door to wake me in the morning. The windows shut tight against the usually grey sky, rain pattering softly against the glass, birds calling silently to one another.
At night, when I heard her crying, I would open my bedroom window and peer out into the darkness, counting the stars twinkling above. I would listen to the planes flying overhead, the owls hooting, the lorries rattling past on the dual carriageway beyond. But it was the people I loved the most. Groups of women returning from the pub, their laughter and footsteps echoing around my otherwise silent room. Children shrieking on late summer evenings, the scents and sounds of a Sunday afternoon barbeque.