by Vikki Patis
‘Ready?’ Fiona says, reaching down to scratch behind Zeke’s ears. His tail wags furiously, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth as he smiles up at her.
‘Ready.’
We set off across the headland, leaving the house behind. It still feels new, though I have lived here for almost two years now. But it is perfect. Waking to the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, seagulls crying overhead. Children laughing as they run down the road towards the beach, buckets and spades in hand. I take a deep breath, relishing the crisp March air. Soon the clocks will go forward, the days lengthening and the evenings warming up, but it is still chilly today as we walk above the cliffs at Chapel Porth, the sun sending golden rays across the sea.
‘How’s the ankle?’ Fiona asks when we pause on a bench, Zeke sniffing the headland nearby.
‘Still a bit stiff.’ I unscrew the flask and pour myself a cup before handing it to her. ‘It’s always better after a little exercise though.’
‘Swimming tomorrow?’ I make a face and she laughs. ‘Don’t you know it’s good for the joints?’
‘I’m not arthritic yet, thank you very much.’
I reach up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, thinking, as I often do, of my other lucky escape. The lump in my breast was benign, the fears shrinking as the doctor spoke, James’s hand squeezing mine as tears of relief filled my eyes. I am lucky. I am lucky to be alive, and I am lucky to have found my way again.
We sit in contented silence, Fiona and I, smiling hello at the other walkers as they pass by on the path. It is so beautiful here, so full of nature. Bees buzz atop the spring squill, birds circle overhead, and the sea washes lazily against the shore below. I come here every day, rain or shine, Zeke trotting along in front. Sometimes we stop for a coffee or an ice cream at the beach café; sometimes we go further, exploring the ruins of the tin mines or wandering into the village of St Agnes for a cream tea. And sometimes, more often than not these days, Fiona comes with us.
It was a surprise when she turned up at the hospital with Skye and Lexi, leaving Toby to apologise to the rest of the mourners and explain to the pub staff. I remember their shocked faces when I was dragged back into the pub, soaking wet and groaning in pain, to wait for the ambulance to arrive. Lexi left a blood trail on the floor from where the rocks sliced her hip, and Skye was shivering uncontrollably. The pain in her eyes was enough to make me reach out to her, to take her hand in mine and squeeze it as the three women stood by my bedside, united for the first time. I saw the darkness in her that night, the shadow of her father reaching out from beyond the grave. I saw then how hard she had fought it, all throughout the years she’d spent away trying to outrun his legacy. But life leaves its marks on us, and we cannot run from it. We can only embrace it, and strive to do better.
That is what Fiona is doing now. She is atoning for her sins, for the secrets she kept, the pain she caused. And I am attempting to do the same. All else aside, I had known Richard was married when we started seeing one another, and despite the intensity of my love for him, I should have known better than to become the mistress. Fiona might have forgiven me, but I have a way to go before I can fully forgive myself. At least now I am no longer known by my link to Richard. I am no longer the mistress. I am Eleanor once again, and I am embracing her with a renewed ferocity.
We set off again, tucking the now empty flask back into my rucksack and following Zeke down the coastal path. On the beach, three children are climbing the rocks, their father watching them from beneath, calling out for them to be careful. A small group of ramblers trudge past, walking sticks held aloft as they head for the café on the beach.
Fiona finds a stick and throws it for Zeke, laughing as he splashes into the waves to fetch it. I watch, smiling as a wave crashes into them both, soaking Fiona up to the knee. I close my eyes and breathe in, tasting the salt on my lips before tipping my head back and staring up into the sky. All is right with the world. I am finally at peace. I am finally enough.
52
Lexi
‘Come on, Mummy!’ Leo gestures impatiently as I gather up our bags.
I laugh. ‘All right, bossy. I’m coming.’
‘Train!’ he exclaims as we board. An older woman smiles indulgently at him, and I return it, the usual pride flowing through me. Leo is five now, and he is still gentle and kind and loving, and has absolutely zero tolerance for dithering. He walks a few steps ahead while I stow our bags in the baggage area, searching for our seats.
‘Forty-six and forty-seven,’ I remind him, hefting my handbag onto my shoulder and following. He finds them and jumps up and down, pointing. ‘Well done! Let’s sit down then, these people want to get past.’
I settle Leo beside me, reaching into my bag and pulling out his book. He’s a voracious reader, devouring every book he can get his hands on. I once caught him with a battered copy of Comes the Blind Fury by John Saul, and had to explain that it was slightly too old for him. I’ve tucked it away in my suitcase, for when he’s older. I’m taking it with us, for I have no intention of ever coming back to England. Our story here is finished.
Ten minutes later and we’re moving, Leo watching with awe as the train leaves the station. I kiss the top of his head, breathing in his scent. We are going the long way to France; instead of catching the ferry from Plymouth, we are leaving on the Eurostar from London. After the funeral, we discovered that Richard had left his entire business to me. For Leo, he’d written, and Felix had left the room, trembling with fury. I’d signed it over to Fiona without hesitation, ensuring that Leo would inherit a share from her when the time comes. She of course handed over the running of the business to Felix, who is enjoying his time at the helm, for now.
It was a relief when he told me he never wanted to see me again. Shortly after the funeral, Leo and I packed our things and left that house for good. Fiona had softened since everything, her sharp edges rounded by the events of that day, and she waved us off with tears in her eyes. ‘Please visit,’ she whispered as she hugged me goodbye. ‘Please stay in touch.’ And I promised that we would. We will.
I’d decided to find my brother and his family, but we stayed in Cornwall for a while, helping Eleanor move into her new home. Leo happily kept her rescue dog Zeke occupied while we tore down wallpaper and laid new flooring. Eleanor was still a little unsteady on her injured ankle, though too proud to say anything, and I was glad when James turned up with bags of shopping, and started making batches of Bolognaise, curry, and chicken soup, freezing them for later. Soon he began to stay longer, spending the spring evenings with us in the front garden, a gin and tonic in his hand as we watched the sun descend towards the sea in the distance. He is a kind man, with a lot of love to give, and I was happy to leave Eleanor in his capable hands.
We caught up with Patrick outside Bristol. Leo was in his element, spending the hot summer days running around with the other children. He was smitten with Patrick’s children, twin girls and a baby boy, and I was glad to see my brother so happy. I spent time with his wife, a Romani woman called Kezia, helping her with the children and baking bread in the early morning. A strong, formidable woman with tight black curls and a quiet but commanding voice, Kezia reminded me of my grandmother, who died when I was three, but of whom I have fond memories. Patrick and I would tap on her caravan door, one long knock followed by three short ones, and she would call out for us to enter. Inside, there would always be warm biscuits and freshly brewed tea, and we would sit beneath her blankets while she told us stories.
During those months, I remembered how hard that life is, and how rewarding, and I wondered if Leo and I should stay. But when winter came, the snow cold and bitter, I knew it was time to leave.
From there we took a detour to Birmingham, where my father is serving the rest of his life sentence for the murder of my mother. For the first time in years, I sat across from him and watched him weep.
‘I’m so sorry, Lex,’ he whispered, wiping his nose on his sl
eeve. ‘I wish I could explain it to you. I wish I could tell you how sorry I am.’
‘There’s no need,’ I said, my back straight, my chin lifted. ‘There’s nothing you could ever say that would make me forgive you for what you did.’
He nodded, slowly at first, his eyes on the table before him. ‘Why have you come then? Why now, after all this time?’
I glanced over at Leo, playing quietly with another little boy in the corner. ‘So you could meet your grandson,’ I said, turning back to my father. ‘And to say goodbye.’
I will never forgive him for his brutality, for taking my mother away and setting me on a path that I never would have chosen for myself. But if all of that hadn’t happened, I would never have had Leo, and so that is what I cling to. My light in the darkness.
The train leaves the tunnel and Leo’s eyes widen. He squeals when we plunge back into darkness, and I tell him that we are travelling underwater. ‘And then,’ I say, putting an arm around him and holding him close, ‘France.’
And his aunt. Aunts, I suppose, if Fleur wants the title. Leo will gladly give it to her. He is the most loving of children, opening his arms to anyone who needs it, and sometimes when I look at him, I can easily picture the man he will become. A man I would be proud to call my son.
53
Skye
The sun shines high in the cloudless sky, the breeze just enough to take the edge off the heat. It is moving towards the end of summer, and Fleur’s hand is warm in mine as we walk through the village, smiling at our neighbours and enjoying the peace.
Lexi has been with us for a month now, trading her life in Cornwall for the cottage across the road from our house in Brittany. It took a while for probate to go through, and, having left the day after the wake, we weren’t around for the reading of the will. But I knew what it would say. Along with the letter my father left for me was a copy of his will. He left the business to Lexi, the house to Fiona, and sizeable assets to me, Felix, and Toby. He was a rich man, and in death he gave more generously than he ever had in life.
Toby took his inheritance and has been travelling around Australia, living the backpacker’s dream. He found himself caught up in the bush fires last year and stayed to help. His Instagram feed is full of pictures of the koalas he saved, and the people he’s met along the way.
Tomorrow, we’re moving into a house we’ve bought, Lexi and I, with the money left to us. Leo, now five and more energetic than ever, is about to start school in the village, and Lexi has been making soaps and candles to sell locally and online. There’s a garden office just big enough for her, with a backdrop of trees and flowers and birds calling out to one another. I gave up my job at the magazine and finally unearthed the paintbrushes I’d brought with me to France but had kept hidden in a box, untouched. The reception room at the front of the house will be perfect as a studio, with the soft morning light filtering through the large bay window.
Fleur smiles as I place a cup of tea on the table beside her. She sits on the floor, sorting through her CD collection, stacks of them blocking her in. She’s one of those who prefers a physical copy of everything – books, music, films – but she’s having a clear-out before the move. I drift into the bedroom, where all but the bed and the necessities for tomorrow have been packed up. Boxes line the walls and I lift one down, opening it to find a photo album from my childhood. The photo album full of Saffy. I refuse to shut her away any longer. I find the photo I’m looking for and slide it out of the album. I’m going to paint it, this scene of me and my sister running into the sea, arms above our heads, hair flying behind us. This is how I want to remember my sister. This is how she deserves to be remembered. The sky in the photo is a bright cobalt, the sea tinged green and gold from the sun, reminding me of Lexi’s eyes. Leo’s too. How alike they are, I muse. How alike we all are, underneath it all.
I turn to the next box, smiling at Fleur’s words scribbled on the side. WEDDING STUFF, IMPORTANT. Next spring, Fleur and I will tie the knot in the beautiful garden of our new home. We’re hiring a bandstand and have chosen our dresses; cream lace for me, sea-green for her. I picture Lexi in her own dress – lilac, her choice – and Leo in his matching shirt. Toby and his friend Liza, a woman he met in Sydney, will be staying in the annexe, making the most of a free bed for a while. Fiona and Eleanor are coming too, and James has agreed to officiate. Felix, though invited, has declined to join us. Since discovering that Leo is not his son, he cut contact with all of us except for his mother. None of us mind very much.
Eleanor forgave me almost immediately. After we carried her up to the pub and tried to keep her warm until the paramedics arrived. She was freezing; the sea had got into her bones, and her lips were turning blue. But her eyes were full of warmth, her hand reaching out to mine as I stood by her bedside in the hospital, shame coursing through me.
Fiona forgave me too, and I her. It was Fleur who talked some sense into me in the end. I suppose that’s why I never told her about what I discovered from Toby, or my plan to confront Fiona. She would have talked me out of it.
‘Cherie,’ she said, cupping my face in her hands. She had seen us coming across the beach, opened up the doors to let us through. Tears slid down her cheeks and she hugged me tight, stroking my hair. ‘You are poisoning yourself with your sister’s memory. All this hatred. Only you can set her free.’
And I did. Through shaking off the fingers of my father’s ghost, I set my sister free. And myself. I held out a hand to Fiona, helped her stand from the bottom step where she had been waiting, unsure of her role, unsure of her place in the aftermath. She held Leo in her arms, our eyes meeting above his head, and she nodded once, taking my hand. And so we began to heal. For Leo. For all of us.
After his first three years living beneath the shadow of Richard, Leo will be brought up in a house of women. He will be free to do whatever he chooses; to dance, to play football, to laugh. To just be a child. Despite our child-free life, we love him, though Fleur is a little more rigorous with the cleaning these days, forever rubbing away sticky fingerprints. Leo is special, and his mother has become like a sister to us. We are a family, in an odd sort of way. And it’s everything I ever dreamed of.
Besides, I know her secret. I saw her that night in November, overheard the argument she had with my father in the darkness of the pub garden. I watched them drive off, followed them to the place where it all ended. From my place in the trees, I saw Lexi flee the car, believing my father to be dead. But he wasn’t. Not then, anyway.
Epilogue
A row of urns sit gathering dust in a lightless room. Funerals and cremations mark the passage of time, slowly turning from weeks to months to years. Mourners pass through, the rooms filled with kind words and stories of the deceased. And still they sit, waiting for someone to remember them.
‘We really must do something about them,’ the funeral director says. ‘All these people, just waiting to be collected.’
‘Maybe there’s nobody to collect them,’ remarks the receptionist without looking up from her keyboard. The funeral director frowns, turning towards his office and promptly forgetting about the dark, dusty room. For a while, at least.
James stands outside the crematorium, his eyes surprisingly dry. He has shed his tears already, has mourned his mother in the quiet of their front room, after watching her become someone he barely recognised. He has no more left to give, but he has surprised himself by wanting to read a eulogy today. Memories of his last funeral, that of Richard Asquith, remind him that he is the best person to give his mother a proper send off. And so he does, once more standing at the front of the room, addressing the small group of friends she had left. He tells them about the kind of woman she was, how she embodied the British spirit of stoicism. She hated the term keep calm and carry on, but it was what she was good at. Keeping everyone calm, organising life around them, helping them to carry on when they didn’t think they could. It was his mother who pulled him from the depths of grief after Tom died
, and it was his mother who has kept him going these past years.
What will he do without her? He often wonders this, has found it difficult to shake the habit of getting two mugs out of the cupboard in the morning in the weeks since her death. She held on for so long, much longer than any of the doctors expected, and he is not used to being alone.
After, James places a yellow rose on top of his mother’s coffin, and with a nod from the celebrant, pushes the button to send her off. He stands at the door, shaking the hands of the mourners as if he were the celebrant again, and he smiles to himself. In a way he feels lighter, as if today was the final hurdle, and he has overcome it. He is glad that his mother is no longer suffering, that he doesn’t have to see the pain and humiliation in her eyes when he washed or fed her. He did it gladly, with love and patience, but it was not what she wanted for her son. She always wanted the best for him, a full, happy life, and he has let her down by living a life of grief. But no more. Today marks the beginning of his third chance at life. A chance to start again.
‘James?’ A voice from behind him, a hand stretched out to shake his. ‘I thought it was you. My sincere condolences for your loss.’
‘Thanks, Derek,’ James says, shaking the funeral director’s hand. ‘It was time.’
Derek smiles sadly and turns to go before pausing. ‘Actually… I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something. This probably isn’t the time…’
James smiles. ‘Go on.’
Derek moves to one side, creating a confidential air. ‘Well, you know the last funeral you did? Mr Asquith?’ James nods. ‘His ashes, they’re, ah, they’re still here.’
James is surprised. ‘Still here? After all this time?’