One Winter Morning

by Isabelle Broom

  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if tomorrow’s memory was that time I decided to be brave for my daughter’s sake? I owe it to her, after all, and I owe it to Bonnie, too.

  43

  All this time. All these months that I have spent believing Anna was angry with me when she died, that I had hurt her with those horrible things I said to her when we argued, that the residual upset had contributed to the fact that she wasn’t paying proper attention to the road, or to Suki.

  And all along she had found it funny?

  I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I do both, loudly and hysterically and without a thought for how berserk and deranged I must sound to anyone who might be passing.

  How could I have been so stupid? Why did I ever think that Anna was capable of holding a grudge against me, when all logic said she wasn’t?

  I know the answer, but it’s an unpleasant one to admit, even to myself. The truth is so clear to me now: I believed it, because it allowed me to make sense of Anna’s death. When I could levy the full blame for the accident at myself, then I became the reason she was gone – me, not some dumb bad luck, or fate, or anything else intangible, but me.

  If I was at fault, then I could punish myself; I could stop doing the things I love and shut myself away from the world. I thought it would make the grief easier to bear, but my thinking has been so warped by misery. All I did by clinging on to all the blame was prolong the agony.

  And that is what it has felt like: agony.

  David returns with a large paper bag stained with burger sauce and a clanking carrier from the liquor store to find me curled into a foetal position on the bed. The crying has ceased, but my skin feels sore and my throat throbs. Taking one look at me, David drops his purchases on the floor and rushes towards me.

  ‘Whatever is the matter?’

  Numbly, I hand him Anna’s memory book, pointing to the entry I have read and re-read so many times now that I could probably recite it verbatim. David rubs at his eyebrows as he scans the page, his expression softening as he takes in his late wife’s words.

  ‘Oh, Anna,’ he sighs. Then, almost as an afterthought, ‘God, I miss her.’

  ‘I do, too.’ The words are barely audible through our crushing misery. Or is it misery? Perhaps it is no longer that simple. It used to be sorrow at what happened, but now it feels more like frustration. I am so tired of the sadness, so very weary of carrying the weight of such a gigantic loss.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ I tell him, gesturing to the book. ‘She wasn’t cross with me at all, just like you said she wouldn’t have been.’

  ‘Of course she wasn’t.’ David is smiling at me, but I can read pity in his eyes. ‘You were the biggest treasure in her box, Genie – the cause of most if not all her happiest moments. I told you that she would never have held a grudge, poppet. She simply wasn’t capable.’

  I nod because it is too difficult to speak.

  When I confessed the truth about the argument to him on the morning of the barbecue, David had said the same thing – he had told me that I was being silly to even acknowledge such a thought. But still, I had not listened; I had not been able to hear him. I needed to hear it from Anna herself.

  ‘It feels like she’s died all over again,’ I mumble.

  Either David doesn’t know how to reply, or he’s battling with his own emotions, because for a while, neither of us says anything. The smell of burgers is overpowering the scent of shampoo in my still-damp hair, the paper bag still on the floor just inside the bedroom door.

  ‘You should eat,’ I say eventually, shuffling up into a sitting position. ‘You must be starving.’

  ‘I will if you will,’ he offers, and I shrug. Food feels like an impossibility, but I can’t remember the last time I ate. The morning feels like it happened in a different lifetime. The Genie that ate a toasted bagel and drank a coffee all those hours ago is another person – a different girl to the one sitting on this bed now.

  It comes as quite a surprise to me, therefore, that I am ravenous. The cheeseburger is gone in five large bites, and I make short work of the fries, too. David watches on, nodding in approval, and breaks his own dinner up into pieces before popping each morsel into his mouth. It is such a simple thing, sitting and eating a meal together, but it’s comforting, and it doesn’t take long for the food to do its trick. I start to uncurl and relax, one yawn stretching into the next until my jaw cracks with the effort of being open.

  I still have Bonnie’s story to read, but when I say as much to David, he looks at me aghast.

  ‘Why don’t you sleep on it?’ he pleads. ‘Just for tonight. There’s only so much a person can take in one swipe.’

  ‘How could I ever sleep?’ I protest gently. ‘I’m going to make a cafetiere of coffee, and then I’m going to read it. And anyway,’ I call over my shoulder as I head towards the kitchen area, ‘what could possibly shock me more than the things I have already seen – and read – today?’

  It takes me two hours.

  Transfixed as I am by the story unfolding on Bonnie’s scribbled pages, I don’t notice the sky outside lose its glow and turn dark. When David points out that I’m shivering and fetches me a blanket, I barely notice. The coffee goes cold, my hair turns crinkly as it dries, and I bite first one nail, and then another down to the quick as I read about my eighteen-year-old mother’s arrival in London, about how she found a job, met a boy, fell in love, trusted him and others who let her down. I try to imagine what it must have been like to be so far from home – this home – away from parents who had yearned for a child for so long. I picture Bonnie’s loneliness, and her naivety, and her innocence – I find common ground where I don’t expect to, and experience pangs of sympathy, and of understanding.

  When the story takes me inside the house belonging to the professor and his wife, and shows me the shelf of baby books, the truth hits me with such force that I gasp, and looking up I find that David’s gaze is already on me, and that he is waiting to answer any questions that I might have.

  ‘You were a university professor?’ I prompt, and watch as his features contort into an apologetic grimace.

  ‘Yes, for a time. I gave it up before you were born, though – started teaching at a secondary school instead.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask, but before he can answer. ‘No, don’t tell me – you didn’t want to risk any news of me getting back to Seth?’

  He frowns at that, as if puzzled.

  ‘No – God, no. We all tried to find Seth. After Bonnie found out that she was pregnant, I tried everything I could to find him, but he’d vanished into thin air, like Evangeline’s train. We later discovered that he had been using a false surname. He stole a lot of money from Lavender’s family. I’m afraid he was a bit of a crook.’

  ‘Nothing that she didn’t deserve,’ I grumble, but David merely sighs.

  ‘Lavender was very young then, too,’ he points out. ‘Seth was a master manipulator. He had all of us fooled in the beginning – including me.’

  ‘Still,’ I say, ‘she hardly deserves a bloody medal.’

  He chuckles at that, and when I raise an enquiring eyebrow says, ‘You never used to swear – not even a “bugger”. You must have picked that up while you’ve been out here.’

  From Kit.

  ‘So,’ I say, reaching for my coffee, only to recoil when I realise how cold it is, ‘what happened next?’

  ‘You mean, after Seth disappeared?’ David checks. ‘Sorry, I don’t know how far through the story Bonnie got.’

  I pass over the last few pages, watching as he reads. When David used to read me bedtime stories as a child, he would change words and replace them with others that he thought worked better, and I wonder if that is what he’s doing now. Another of those authorly tics over which he has no control.

  ‘How did Bonnie go from getting pregnant by Seth to giving their child – giving me – to you and Anna? She doesn’t say how it happened,’ I say, leaning forwards as David lowers the p
apers into his lap. ‘I know you two were friends, but I still don’t understand the logistics. And what about Seth? Where does he fit into the story? Did he ever know that Bonnie was pregnant?’

  The colour has been slowly leaving David’s face ever since I started talking, and now he looks almost translucent.

  ‘There is another chapter to this story,’ he says, lifting the sheaf of papers. ‘Something that Bonnie did not have time to write down.’

  ‘Right …’ I reply, my skin starting to prickle with unease. I have seen my adoptive father look many things – angry, upset, disappointed, happy – but I have never seen this expression before. If I had to guess, I would say that he is scared.

  ‘This is something I should have told you a very long time ago, but there is a reason I didn’t. There are many reasons, in fact. But now I think it’s time you knew. Really, you should always have known.’

  ‘David,’ I say, hearing the tremble in my voice, ‘just tell me, please.’

  ‘It’s about your father,’ he says, his eyes glistening behind his spectacles.

  ‘You mean Seth?’ I reply, but any confidence I feel is obliterated by the next look he gives me.

  ‘No, Genie.’ It is barely a whisper. ‘I mean me.’

  44

  We ride out together on the second afternoon of the new year.

  Me and Anna would often do the same thing, both of us itching to get back in the saddle after a lazy New Year’s Day spent lounging on the sofa, me recovering from a hangover and her simply happy to flop down beside me, a bowl of crisps or popcorn balanced on the blanket across our knees. The second day of January was when we would tack up, head out, and trade resolutions, making each other laugh with our absurd proclamations that yes, this would be the year that we gave up chocolate, or learned another language, or – in my case – stayed in a relationship for more than three weeks.

  I cherished those times, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take some pleasure from this one. Bonnie may not be Anna, but she is here, and she is willing to talk and to be honest with me. And what a place I am in, too. Even on its most glorious days, Cambridgeshire has no hope of competing with the awesome beauty of New Zealand, and today the sun seems to be shining even brighter than usual, just for us. Bonnie wrote in her story that she craved an escape from this place, but I cannot imagine ever feeling that way – even as a teenager. Maybe there was a deeper reason for her wanting to go?

  This is just one of the questions I want to ask her – and will ask her – but I am waiting for the right time. Being here in New Zealand has reminded me of the importance of slowing down, and of allowing things to take place when they naturally should. My time with Anna may be over in one regard, but my memories of her are as far-reaching as the unblemished sweep of sky above the mountains – she will only ever be lost to me if I stop letting her in.

  ‘Thank you for agreeing to this.’ Bonnie throws a timid glance in my direction. She has pulled her long dark hair into a braid, the rest squashed under a skull cap, and rather than jodhpurs, she is dressed in a pair of grey leggings that are streaked with dirt, and a sweater bearing the logo of the Rolling Stones. The overall effect is thrown-together, slightly chaotic and charmingly reminiscent of Tui. Bonnie is up on a large bay called Brian today, while I have been permitted by Tui to ride her beloved Keith.

  ‘Just take good care of him, OK?’

  I had promised that I would, although in truth, the robust little pony is doing a sterling job of looking after me. Despite my Grand National-style race through the undergrowth on Ekara two days ago, it still feels strange to be up on a horse again, and Keith seems to realise this. When Bonnie and I rode through the river a few minutes ago, he didn’t even stop to splash me with his front legs, which I know is his party trick.

  ‘That’s OK,’ I tell Bonnie, ducking to avoid an overhanging branch. ‘It feels good to be out – I was starting to get cabin fever in the apartment.’

  After David and I had talked the other night, I had been so overwrought that I didn’t feel able to face the world – at least not for a while. I had shouted and raged at first, then cried yet more tears. I felt as if I had both lost and gained, and I am still struggling to make sense of how I feel about it all.

  ‘After I had you and came back here,’ Bonnie says, clicking her tongue against her teeth to distract Brian from eating the grass, ‘I rented a room in Auckland for a month and spent almost the whole of it completely alone. I don’t think I have ever felt so lonely, or so utterly bloody miserable.’

  I get the impression that she wants to say more, so I remain quiet, and for a few moments the only sounds are the birds in the trees and the horses’ hooves on the stony path. Keith has been noisily blowing the dust from his nose since we left the yard, and now he stops to rub his handsome head along an outstretched foreleg.

  ‘I couldn’t go home right away,’ Bonnie explains, looking down at her reins. ‘I needed time to heal, both physically and in here.’ She taps the side of her hat. ‘I was an idiot, though, because I thought that I was strong enough to cope by myself, and I wasn’t.’

  ‘That sounds familiar,’ I allow, thinking of how I hid indoors after Anna’s accident.

  ‘Do you know what my single biggest regret is, after leaving you behind?’ she asks, and I shake my head.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It was not telling my parents about you. By the time I had grown up enough to realise that they would have supported me – and you – no matter what, it felt like it was too late. They would have insisted that I fly back to England and bring you home, and I couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to go back on my promise to David and Anna.’

  ‘Do you think they would have liked me?’ I ask, my voice so small that I am amazed she hears me.

  ‘Loved you,’ she says sadly. ‘I’m not religious or anything like that, you know, but I like to think that if there’s any way of them looking down on me, then this would make them happy – seeing us together in this way after all this time.’

  ‘And Anna, too,’ I agree, whereupon Bonnie gives in to a deep sigh.

  ‘Anna was such a darling,’ she says.

  ‘You must have been close, the three of you,’ I guess, and Bonnie nods.

  ‘We were. David was a saint and Anna did everything for me. I never doubted for a second that she would be an amazing mother – a far better one than me.’

  I start to say something, only for my words to falter, and Bonnie brings Brian to a standstill, waiting until I have caught up.

  ‘Go on,’ she urges.

  ‘I can understand why you wanted to help them,’ I begin, ‘but I still don’t get why you didn’t want me. Why didn’t you want to keep me?’

  It is such a big question that my voice cracks, and I fight for several seconds to keep the tears at bay. I cannot cry any more – there has been too much of that already.

  ‘I was scared,’ Bonnie confesses. ‘I know it sounds pathetic – and it is – but it’s the truth. I was scared of letting down my parents, scared of proving everyone right when they warned me that I wasn’t cut out to take on the big, wide world. I was scared that I wouldn’t be a good mother, and that you would be unhappy. I was even scared that I wouldn’t be able to love you in the way that I should, but of course I did. I loved you from the first second that I felt you kick.’

  ‘Did you ever think about me?’ I ask.

  ‘Every day,’ she says simply.

  ‘And did you ever think about coming back?’

  ‘Every day.’

  ‘But you never did.’

  ‘I told myself that you were happy, that you were better off with the parents that you had. I watched as David’s career skyrocketed, and I imagined the life you must have, all the opportunities and the nice things. I thought it would be cruel of me to disrupt all that. It was only when Tui came along that I realised how much I had given up, how much I had lost. But by then you were a teenager, and I was a world away, with a new baby – it felt i
mpossible.’

  ‘Anna was going to suggest that I meet you,’ I say. ‘Right before she died – in fact, the day before. She wrote about it in her diary. And she gave me your ring on my twenty-first birthday, although I never knew then that it belonged to you.’

  ‘The jade-stone ring?’ Bonnie says, perking up.

  ‘Yes. But I lost it. It fell off in the river when I waded in to rescue Beavis.’

  ‘Well then,’ Bonnie flicks her eyes in my direction, ‘I guess it found its way home, then.’

  I know she’s waiting for me to add a ‘just like me’ to the end of that sentence, but I can’t. Not yet. There are still too many things that I need to have clarified.

  ‘Is there somewhere we can stop for a bit?’

  In the end we double back on ourselves and pick a spot not far from the river, where the horses can have a drink and there are plenty of trees under which to shade from the sun. Pulling up our stirrups and unbuckling the girths, we ease the saddles off Brian and Keith and spread the thick cloths on the ground to sit on. Mine is dappled with sweat and covered in chestnut hairs, but it saves me from getting white dust all over my jodhpurs.

  Bonnie pulls off her boots and socks and dangles her bare toes in the cool water, telling me a story about a film crew who flew a crowd of white stallions all the way over from America to shoot a dramatic scene for a movie, only for every single one of them to come to a stubborn halt at the river’s edge. They had learned not to enter water back in Florida because of alligators, and no amount of clever coercion would convince them otherwise. In the end, she explains, they had to paint some of the local horses white and use those instead.