How to Fall in Love Again: Kitty's Story

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘You don’t have to, Kitty, you—’

  ‘Dad, of course. Of course I’m coming home. I’ll speak to you on the way. Just hang in there, I’m on my way.’

  She replaced the receiver and stood for a second, trying to order her thoughts.

  I need to pack for the kids. I need to get fuel. I need to make some calls. Oh, Mum! I hope you’re at peace. I hope you are fixed and happy. I love you. I love you so much.

  ‘What’s the matter, Mummy?’ Sophie crept up behind her and placed her small hand on her waist.

  ‘I’ve just had some sad news, but I’ll be okay in a mo. Can you go and sit with Olly for me? And I promise I’ll come straight in and talk to you, explain.’ She swallowed. ‘I think we might be going on a trip, but you can sleep in the car, okay?’

  ‘Okay, Mum.’ Sophie nodded and trundled off to mind her tiny brother.

  Kitty picked up the phone and dialled Ruraigh’s number.

  *

  ‘Your kids snore.’ Hamish looked at the two children, fast asleep in the back seat of the car, their mouths slack and their heads tipped. He was wedged between Sophie and Olly’s car seat.

  ‘I told you I’d sit in the back with them,’ Kitty reminded him.

  ‘I think I’d still hear them in the front.’ He pulled a face.

  ‘It’s way past their bedtime.’ She looked at the clock on the dashboard of Ruraigh’s Range Rover. It was ten thirty.

  ‘It’s past mine!’ Ruraigh quipped.

  ‘One hour down, only nine more to go if we stop for a quick loo break, coffee and refuel.’ Hamish reached forward and patted his brother’s shoulder. ‘Let me know when you want to swap.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re both here – I can’t believe you’re driving, Ruraigh. I was preparing to fuel up the Golf.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. Of course we’re coming with you.’ He glanced sideways.

  She felt the slip of tears down the back of her throat, finding their kindness, the kinship, a little overwhelming.

  ‘I think I deserve more thanks than Ruraigh – he might be driving the main leg, but I am missing sex night,’ Hamish stated matter-of-factly.

  ‘You have sex night?’ Ruraigh looked into the rearview mirror.

  ‘Yes. We have to schedule it in or we find we can go for weeks without.’

  ‘Too much information.’ Ruraigh sighed.

  ‘I think it’s a good thing,’ Hamish said. ‘Flo and I are so busy, it means things like that slip.’

  Ruraigh laughed. ‘Speak for yourself.’

  ‘You can’t tell me that with two kids you and Tizz still manage to find time for passion?’

  ‘No, I can’t tell you that. I can’t tell you anything because I, like most of the adult population, know that certain aspects of life should be kept private!’ He raised his voice as much as he was able to without waking the kids. There was a beat of silence before Hamish spoke again.

  ‘It’s not the only thing we schedule – we have board-game night, cooking-from-scratch night, reading night, lazy-bath night…’ Hamish looked out of the window.

  ‘Do you ever get them mixed up, Hamish?’ Ruraigh smiled. ‘Do you ever think, oh God, we should be reading, but we are actually playing board games, or, oh shoot, here we are, having sex, but it’s down as cooking-from-scratch night!’

  ‘Sometimes.’ Hamish nodded, unflustered. ‘But we just go with it. That’s how we roll.’

  Kitty laughed despite the heavy yoke of sadness that was weighing everything down. It felt odd to be feeling even a pinprick of joy. Everything seemed a little dreamlike. ‘This is surreal. One minute I’m at home and planning to have a bath and watch Coronation Street, and now here I am in the car with you two, driving home, and my mum’s gone.’

  ‘I can’t believe it.’ Hamish sighed.

  And just like that, the easy banter of the car was replaced with the sound of Kitty’s crying and the snores of her children in the back seat.

  It was a little after seven thirty in the morning when Hamish navigated the car up the driveway to Darraghfield. The winter sun was rising over the stormy glen and the place was befittingly cloaked in bruised grey clouds. Olly gurgled winningly and Kitty felt another churn of deep sadness that her mum had never got to see him. ‘I can’t wait to meet your new little one in a couple of months. I’ll make them a wee jumper too – why not!’ She’d made sure to bring the little blanket with him, at least. She could tell that Sophie wasn’t really sure how she was supposed to behave, trying to find the right pitch between mourning the nana she only knew as a shadowy, withdrawn figure and her excitement at being surprisingly back at Darraghfield on what should have been a regular school day.

  Kitty’s dad opened the wide front door and she could see that he had slept in his clothes. He looked crumpled and bowed and his skin a little grey. She ran from the car and locked her arms around him and it was then that the grief hit her with full force; like a sharp thing, it landed squarely in her breast. The idea of her dad being there at Darraghfield without her mum was just unthinkable.

  ‘Uncle Stephen…’ Ruraigh laid his hands on his uncle’s back. Hamish followed suit.

  ‘Thank you, boys. Thank you for bringing her and thank you for coming home.’ He nodded at them with bloodshot eyes.

  *

  The funeral was small and quick, the chapel cold. This suited all of them; a stuffy, lengthy service full of singing and lamentation would have felt incongruent with the way Fenella Montrose had lived and died. Kitty left Olly with Isla and her kids in the village but decided Sophie was old enough to attend. That was a good decision; staying brave for her daughter and monitoring her throughout proceedings was a helpful distraction. Tizz and Flo had come up on the train and Kitty took comfort from being surrounded by people who loved her and who had loved her mum. Ruraigh and Hamish wept openly and Kitty was glad that her mum’s passing caused such heartfelt sadness; she could so easily have slipped away without making much of a dent in the world. She was to be laid to rest on a hill with a view of Loch Beag, one of her favourite places; Kitty hoped her mum’s spirit would soar up and over the heather-filled glen, with Balla Boy cantering beneath her.

  Angus, to his credit, had written to her dad and sent her a card. He had called a couple of times too, and in truth she hadn’t expected him to travel all the way up on a work day for the funeral of his ex mother-in-law. Besides, emotions were still raw; it was only six months since the split, and her dad and her cousins were hurt, disappointed and angry at what they saw as Angus’s abandonment of her. The fact that he had taken up with a man was neither here nor there. Kitty had decided not to tell them yet that Thomas had in fact dumped Angus within weeks of them being free to live openly as a couple. Angus had been distraught and Kitty wasn’t proud of how little sympathy she’d shown. But no matter, for he’d since found someone else, apparently, a man called Nikolai, and they were now living together in Battersea. With her sight failing, Marjorie looked frail. Her once robust frame was now slight, swamped by the clothes she’d worn when she was a lot larger. She’d slipped down into the seat of her wheelchair and sat at an angle, a thick tartan blanket tucked around her legs. She pulled Kitty towards her with gnarled fingers and spoke directly to her. ‘Never forget, you were her very best thing, Kitty. She loved you so much!’

  Kitty nodded through her tears. Her heart ached with love for their loyal, long-suffering housekeeper, who chose not to recall the bitter snipes her poorly mother had cast in her direction over the years. Marjorie had often borne the brunt of her mother’s suspicious and wandering mind.

  ‘In fact you were everyone’s very best thing, mine included. You still are.’ The old woman wheezed her admission. ‘Leaving you at that school was the hardest thing I ever did.’ She broke off at the memory, wiping her eyes with her white cotton handkerchief.

  Kitty bent low, laid her head on Marjorie’s shoulder and reached around to hug her with her wonky arm.

  After the service,
everyone gathered in the kitchen at Darraghfield, downing the whisky in such liberal quantities that the wake was in danger of turning into a full-blown party. Kitty had no appetite for that and was glad to be out of the house. Wrapping her thick coat around herself, she sat on one of the steamer chairs by the edge of her beloved pool. Lit from the bottom, it sent an eerie glow into the murky, trout-coloured dusk. The wisps of steam that rose from the heated surface seemed to Kitty to be like the dreams and aspirations of her childhood floating into the ether and fading to nothing. The thought made her unbearably sad.

  ‘There you are.’ Her dad ducked through the laurel hedge and came to sit by her side. ‘I thought I might find you here. Your special place.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Olly is still sound asleep and Sophie is earwigging in corners. She is so like you, taking it all in…’ He smiled. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘I don’t really know, Dad.’ She rubbed her face. ‘It feels as if I’ve kept all my hurt inside for a long time and now Mum going has peeled the lid off and everything has come spilling out.’

  ‘You have been through a lot, darling.’ He sighed. ‘He wrote to me, his lordship.’

  She noted the sharp edge when he spoke of her former husband. ‘Yes. He said.’

  Her dad shook his head. ‘I feel torn. Part of me wants to punch him on the nose for how he’s hurt you and part of me feels sorry for him.’

  ‘I agree. It’s sad for us all, and sometimes I wish he’d picked someone else to drag into his whole pantomime. If only he’d had the courage to be honest – to himself, most of all. It would have saved so much heartache, changed the course of so many lives.’

  ‘Are you thinking of that Theo chap – Sophie’s dad?’

  She smiled at her dad, loving how he had always been so accepting of the facts and had offered nothing but support, had never judged her. It was real and unconditional love. ‘A bit… But we were never meant to be. We were friends. It was a one-time thing.’ She smiled awkwardly at the frankness. ‘But I don’t regret it. He is lovely and Sophie is marvellous.’

  ‘She really is. As for Angus…’ There it was again, the sharp edge. ‘Your mum always had her doubts about him.’

  ‘She did?’ Kitty turned to face him.

  ‘Aye, she didn’t like his lack of eye contact – bit shifty. I have asked the boys since and they both said there were rumours. I wish they’d told me.’

  ‘I doubt it would have changed a thing. I’ve been emotionally invested in him since I was a girl, and I couldn’t see a different life.’

  ‘Your mum would have intervened, if she’d been well. She was plucky, and a good judge of character.’

  ‘I can’t believe she’s not here, Dad.’

  ‘She’ll always be here, Kitty.’ He sniffed and closed his eyes, unashamed at the tears that fell.

  She took his hand into her own. ‘I miss her and I feel guilty that I didn’t get up to see her more often. There was always something going on with Angus or Sophie, and I thought I had all time in the world. I was always planning the next trip for the summer or Christmas.’

  ‘She never expected you to come up more than you did, she knew you had a life. And, truth be told, Kitty…’ He paused. ‘It was probably easier for her when it was just the two of us. She struggled when it came to planning for an event or a visit, and the amount of effort she put in to make everyone welcome and paint that veneer of happiness and normality… well, it took it out of her.’ He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘It would set her back and she would close down for weeks afterwards. It was tough.’

  ‘You never told me that.’

  ‘Oh, darling, there’s lots we just got on with.’ He looked out over the pool. ‘It’s not been easy, Kitty, but I would not have changed a day, not a single day. I love her so much.’

  ‘I know.’ She squeezed his hand.

  ‘Patrick and I found her.’

  ‘Up at Kilan Pasture?’

  ‘Aye, she…’ He looked up and composed himself. ‘She died of hypothermia. Officially. She must have slipped out in the night, and by the time we found her…’

  Kitty already knew the details, her dad had gone over them more than once, but she understood his need to repeat them, to try and make them sink in.

  ‘Do you think…’ She paused, trying to figure out how best to phrase the question that had leapt into her mind the instant her dad had called to give her the dreadful news. ‘Do you think that Mum—’

  ‘I think your mother loved us all very much,’ he said, interrupting her. ‘I think she loved us from her first until her last and that any choices she made, like much of what happened over the last few years, were executed with the fog of mental illness as her filter. That wasn’t the real Fenella, the Fenella who danced and laughed and sipped whisky from a hip flask as she rode her horse. No, that wasn’t Fenella, it was the… the…’

  ‘The monster who held her in his grip.’

  He nodded as his chin fell to his chest and his body began to shake with sobs. ‘When she first got diagnosed, I thought there’d be an ending, that she’d come back to me. I tried, Kitty. I tried every day to wrestle her from its grip, but I lost. I lost and now she is gone.’

  Reaching up, she took him into her arms and let him cry as she stared out over the swimming pool. She remembered the night before her wedding when her mum had come out to the pool and, not far from where they now sat, had spoken with such emotion. ‘No matter what, I’ll be there, darling, because I am here.’ She had touched her fingers to Kitty’s chest. ‘And it will be the same for you with your child. Whether I am stood by your side or miles away, I am always here.’

  Kitty cried too now, as she held onto her dad. ‘You did everything you could, Dad. Everything.’

  ‘Yes, but what do I do now? She was part of me and I was part of her and now I’m incomplete.’ He gulped and stuttered out his words. ‘I feel… halved.’

  *

  Kitty, too, was in danger of feeling halved. She wondered why she’d ever agreed to sending Sophie off to Vaizey early. But here they were, in the car, navigating the Dorset lanes, and she was putting on a brave face.

  ‘Did you pack my tuck box, Mum?’

  ‘I did.’ Kitty smiled at her daughter, who was wriggling with excitement on the front seat of the Golf as they passed signs for Jackman’s Cross and Muckleford.

  ‘And have you written down all the telephone numbers I need?’

  ‘I have, darling. Call me or Daddy or Grandad any time, any time at all, day or night.’ She tried to hide the break in her voice.

  ‘I will, Mum.’

  ‘When I was at Vaizey, we didn’t have access to phones and we only got one call a week. Every Thursday night we had to go to the matron’s office and we were only allowed to speak for a few minutes and the matron would listen in, even though she made out she wasn’t, and then she’d cough to let us know time was up and we had to get off the phone as quickly as possible and the next girl would come in for her call. Can you imagine that?’

  Sophie humphed, and Kitty wondered if her daughter might not have minded only having one rushed call a week.

  ‘And have you remembered my swimsuit? I’m going to swim every single day!’

  ‘Oh…’ Kitty sighed. ‘I do envy you that. In my day, the Vaizey pool was less than inviting.’

  ‘We’ve got a new pool and a new gym and an indoor football pitch and a tennis dome for all weathers.’ Sophie recited from the brochure the tantalising facts she had learnt by heart about the school she couldn’t wait to get to.

  ‘And d’you think you might be able to fit in some studying while you’re there? I mean, only if it doesn’t interfere with your sport, of course.’

  Sophie laughed. ‘I might.’

  ‘I’m going to miss you. Olly will too. He’ll miss all those cuddles.’

  ‘I’ll be home for exeat.’

  Kitty smiled at how easily her daughter used the lingo of her new environ
ment.

  ‘You will, and the next six weeks will fly by.’ Even if for me it might feel like a lifetime.

  ‘Daddy and Nikolai called to wish me luck this morning and Daddy has sent a card to my dorm. It’ll be my first bit of mail.’ Sophie grinned.

  It had angered Kitty that Angus had declined the offer to babysit Olly that day – an important golf match, apparently – but Tizz, Ruraigh and their girls would no doubt be spoiling him rotten. She felt a pang of longing for her boy, as she did whenever he or indeed Sophie was away from her. She eyed her daughter and considered how calmly she’d adapted to their unusual family dynamics, taking it all in her stride. Nikolai had simply been made a member of their family and that was that. Kitty was happy to see Angus happy, but there was still the odd night when she sank a few glasses of wine and felt more than a little pissed off at how he had ended up with his new beau, all smiles and easy contentment, while she was the one surrounded by Lego and dirty clothes, alone on a winter’s night.

  ‘Is Olly staying at Tizz and Ruraigh’s tonight?’

  ‘Probably not. Depends what time I get back to London.’ Kitty bent her head and looked up through the windscreen at the grand facade of her old school. ‘We’re here, Soph! It’s beautiful, isn’t it? I always forget.’

  ‘Well, hurry up and park the car then! I want to unpack my stuff!’ Sophie bounced impatiently on the seat.

  Kitty laughed at her little girl, whose first day could not have been more different to her own. She recalled the sick swirl of nerves that had filled her up, even though she’d been several years older than Soph.

  She accompanied her daughter up to her dorm, where girls now slept in cubicles that held only two pupils. They could use their own bed linen and were allowed to put posters up. It gave the place a more homely feel.

  The matron smiled and said, ‘Call me Jayne!’

  Sophie smiled back. ‘Hi, Jayne!’

  It was all very different from the stiff formality of Kitty’s day. ‘I’ll go get the rest of your bits and bobs from the car,’ she said, unwilling to let Sophie see the tears that were pooling.

  Kitty popped the boot of her Golf and rummaged inside, loading a pair of trainers, a cherished teddy bear and a hot-water bottle into the already bursting cardboard box. She placed her hands under the bottom and heaved it upwards.