by Josa Young
He came over and dropped on to the bed, pulling her forward awkwardly into his arms. She stiffened, but then put her arms around him. There was a pause.
‘Sarah, there’s something I have to tell you. You’ll need to be very brave,’ he said after a while. ‘As brave as you’ve ever been.’
Sarah didn’t feel brave, she was terrified. She began to shake.
‘Darling, there’s been an accident. Melissa.’
‘What – what – what are you saying?’
She could feel herself beginning to pant, her heart speeding up, her forehead furrowing into painful folds. She wanted to push him away, get out of bed, run to her daughter, make it all right.
‘I’m afraid Melissa has had an accident.’ Now he was sobbing into the shoulder of her bed jacket.
‘How – why – what do you mean?’
His tears terrified her. This man who had never cried before in her presence.
‘What’s happened to Melissa?’
‘She’s dead.’ Arthur’s voice was muffled in her shoulder.
She pushed him quite sharply away from her. ‘What did you say?’
‘Melissa has died.’
‘Melissa has died? How?’
Unbelievable. Her daughter dead? She began to shake.
She took him by the shoulders with her trembling hands, digging her fingers into him, feeling a kind of rip inside her as her heart was damaged beyond repair. She wanted to hit him. There were no tears just this aching shock that lodged inside her stomach like a cold ball.
‘Why is she dead? What happened? What has that man done to her?’
She realised she was shouting and Arthur’s head was rocking back and forth. She was shaking him and he did not resist, his eyes screwed shut. His hands came up and covered hers on his shoulders. She stopped the dreadful shaking, let go of him and fell back on her pillows, darkness peeling consciousness from her mind.
‘Sarah?’
She could hear him calling. Then he pulled her upright, swung her legs over the side of the bed and pushed her head between her knees. She wished he wouldn’t. The darkness had been welcome.
Sarah sat feeling dizzy her head still down. Not knowing how to be in a world where her child wasn’t. She knew she should ask, make sure, make it clear, but she thought she would say nothing. If she ignored the world then Arthur and everything would leave and she could push this terror away from her to somewhere distant where she didn’t have to feel.
Now Arthur was beside her telling her this terrible thing about her daughter. Her beloved Lissy Lamb with her little hoof for whom she had crossed an ocean.
Bravery, yes, that was needed but it seemed inadequate. There was no room for the thought that Arthur had lost Melissa too. She started to sit up, and she felt Arthur’s hand tense and then relax, his arm curving around her shoulders as he pulled her against him. Her arms came up around his neck. Not looking at him she pressed her face into his shoulder that shook from time to time with sobs coming from so deep within.
She asked, dreading his answer: ‘What happened?’
‘The police just came. I thought it was about one of the patients. They told me Melissa had died. Darling, you’re going to have to be very strong.’
‘Why did she die? Was it something to do with the baby? Is the baby all right?’
‘Yes, darling, the baby is absolutely fine. Completely safe. It’s just that we didn’t realise Melissa wasn’t very well in herself. She did something irrational and dangerous early this morning which I’m afraid was fatal.’
‘What did she do? What went wrong? She seemed fine when we saw her.’
Her strong husband, used as he was to the realities of disease and death, was crying helplessly now. She could detect his guilt and it flowed into her as well sending her mind hunting wildly for clues. As doctor and nurse surely they should have known something was wrong? At that moment they were both suspended, dangling above an abyss of guilt, grief and blame together like the corpses of betrayers glimpsed in newsreels.
Pushing her hot face harder into his shoulder, she said, ‘How?’
‘What did you say?’ He hadn’t heard her.
‘What did she do?’
‘I believed from Miss Smith’s letter that she might have a touch of the baby blues, but it didn’t seem serious and I wanted to get you better so you could go and help. But it was clearly much more serious than we understood or it came over her very quickly.’
‘What came over her? What are you talking about?’
‘I’m so sorry, darling, but I think it must have been puerperal psychosis.’
The words hissed between them. Sarah gasped. He was still talking.
‘She didn’t seem to have done anything on purpose at all. She was found in the lake. She couldn’t be saved. The police said it must have been an accident in the end. We are going to have to be very strong.’
She hadn’t cried. She couldn’t cry. Once the dam broke she knew she would drown. A voice in her mind told her that many and many a mother had survived far worse. Every home was full of the echoes of children who’d never flown the nest. Now she and Arthur had joined that uncountable commonplace army of bereft parents.
Her back straightened and into her mind came the baby girl left behind. Something to hold on to like a pale perfect lifebuoy bobbing on black waves among the wreckage. Damson. Her shattered mind sent out little feelers towards the motherless baby girl.
The tears came then and Arthur silently passed her his damp handkerchief. She wept in great gasping torrents, on and on and on. Held quietly, mutterings of meaningless comfort transmitted from him to her.
‘Where was the baby?’ she sobbed.
‘The pram was on the edge of the lake with the baby safe inside. That’s one of the things that makes me think she didn’t mean to hurt herself. She probably imagined she was taking Damson for a walk. Poor darling Melissa.’
She made a decision then not to ask any more questions, to let Arthur tell her what he would. He went over the medical details of what had probably happened to Melissa, and she could feel her heartbeat slowing. She knew about cases like this. Some poor demented mothers took their babies with them. Sarah breathed a prayer of thanks that they were spared that at least.
‘You’re sure Damson is all right?’
The name, which she’d found strange to begin with, felt comforting and familiar.
They were interrupted by a knock on the door. ‘Dr Reeves, I brought up what you asked for. I’m so sorry, Mrs Reeves.’
It was Nurse Gregory from downstairs who did all the vaccinations. She handed Arthur a syringe.
‘Do you mind, darling? I think we need to give you something to help you get through this. I don’t want you relapsing.’
She nodded, desperate to escape from the all-consuming grief that threatened to derail her completely. There was a prick in her thigh. She sank away into sleep without any dreamy transition.
When she awoke, she lay for a minute or two wondering what was so awful, before the memory of what had happened to Melissa came crashing back into her consciousness. She curled on to her side in a ball trying to understand that she wouldn’t hold her daughter in this life again.
After a while she got up shakily and went over to the chest of drawers. She hadn’t thought about it for years but she went straight to where it was hidden under seldom-worn blouses at the back of the bottom drawer. The Waffen SS dagger – her trophy. She’d looked it up since to find out who and what her attacker had been. She reached under the soft cotton and silk and her hand touched cold steel. She carried the knife back to the bed and climbed under the covers.
The dagger had a theatrical look. A toy dagger for men who had never grown up, posturing in their black, skull-strewn uniforms and killing for real. She pulled up her nightdress and looked at the scar in the top of her thigh. It was quite white now, a little shiny mark about an inch wide. A wider scar than it should have been because it had never been stitched. She
glanced back at her younger self, dealing with smashed limbs and boys dying in her arms without breaking down. But she had loved none of them and everyone else had been in the same boat.
She examined the clip that had held the dagger to the officer’s belt and tested the sharp tip with her finger. Along the blade were engraved the words in Gothic script Meine Ehre heißt Treue. A torment of remembering Melissa crashed into her and her mouth dropped open in helpless grief. The pain was appalling. A noise came out of her mouth. It frightened her and she pressed her lips together trying not to scream.
It would be so easy to stop the pain. To slip the blade between her ribs and let it out forever. Except it wouldn’t slip. It would have to be shoved, and there were no guarantees. A stupidly clumsy way to end her life. But to go to Melissa where she was now and comfort her? There was no certainty though that they would meet.
‘No.’ She could hear her voice echoing in the room. ‘No.’ She could not go to that place where Melissa had gone she had to stay here. For Arthur, for Melissa’s baby. For the boys.
She scrambled out of bed to put the dagger back before anyone came in, feeling weak and faint as she did so. Then she lay against her pillows letting the memory of her lost Melissa wash over her. Into her mind came words: ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.’
Melissa was so young, only twenty. How cruel was it to take her now, away from her baby and her mother as well? She hadn’t realised she had any tears left. She lifted the edge of the sheet to wipe them away. Crying was all she could do, she was so weak. After a while, her consciousness eased away from her again and she let it go, thankful for the release.
Forty-two
Damson
April 2009
Damson couldn’t move as Hari was still sucking his bottle. She was overrun by wave upon wave of shock, grief and horror. In her mind, she had always placed her dying mother in bed, or possibly in hospital, shying away from the details. Not this tormented scene in the lake.
‘Why didn’t I guess? Everyone was always so weird about it.’ Her voice rose, and Hari’s eyes snapped open. She calmed herself.
‘I think you know the answer to that. I am sorry now though that we didn’t tell you. I don’t think your mother did it on purpose. I’m sure in the end it was an accident. That’s what the inquest found.’
Her grandmother came over and sat down on the sofa beside her. Damson’s eyes filled with tears for the young woman who had died of a frightening disease and very nearly taken her baby with her. Puerperal psychosis crept up at her out of the misty lake like a monstrous thing, dragging her down. Why had no one realised she was so ill?
‘Do you think she was trying to kill me as well?’
‘No, I don’t, not at all. Pauline told me you were safely in the pram, with the hood up and the waterproof cover attached at the sides.’
Hari, replete now, was drowsing dreamily on her lap, his eyes half closed.
‘It was a long time ago and she’s at peace now.’
‘But she was so young. And I never knew her. She must have suffered so much.’
‘I know.’ Sarah looked stricken.
‘No wonder Munty always looked so crushed.’
‘He genuinely adored her. He was devastated.’
‘Why didn’t he stop her? Didn’t he notice there was something wrong?’
‘We can’t know. There was such a taboo around mental illness – there still is. He probably just thought she was tired. He knew nothing about childbirth or women. You know how reticent he is, even now.’
‘I always wondered why he avoided the lake. I remember when Margaret organised that extraordinary water and light show for the Millennium, he didn’t watch it. I found him sitting in his study looking sad. Too bound up in myself then to wonder why.’
Sarah went on, ‘When we visited after the birth, she seemed fine, just tired. Then I was ill for a long time and your grandfather insisted I stay quietly at home. We had organised a very experienced monthly nurse for Melissa, as you know, and the plan was for me to go and stay when her month was up and look after you and your mother. But I was still too ill, and Munty had employed Pauline from the village as a housekeeper to allow Melissa to rest. We thought she would be well looked after. It was such a shock.’
‘Granny, can you hold Hari, I think he’s had enough of his bottle.’
Sarah held out her hands and took the baby, putting him over her shoulder to wind him. Damson put on her wellington boots which were waiting by the door. She turned back to see her grandmother checking Hari’s nappy.
‘He’ll be fine, don’t worry about that. Do you mind watching him for me, for a bit?’
‘Of course I will. I’d love to. I’m just so sorry about all of it.’
‘I always wondered, I suppose. I am glad I didn’t know before I had Mellita though. I don’t know what I would have done. Something even more stupid probably.’
She could hear her grandmother protesting gently in the background, but she had to get outside, so she opened the door and let herself out, walking fast towards the lake. She found it sparkling in the spring sunshine, neatly landscaped in contrast to the muddy shore and rank grass of her childhood. She glanced at Margaret's fountain. Presumably she didn't know that Melissa had died in the water. She didn't believe her stepmother could be that tactless.
It would have been November when Melissa had waded into the icy water. Dead grey sky. Cold still air. She didn’t know of course. Helpless frustration stoked her anger and she clenched her fists and growled deep in her throat, the sound building and startling her as it came out of her mouth as a roar of ‘Hell and damnation. Why didn’t anyone stop her? Where were they all?’
She stared at the trees on the other side of the lake, trying once more to rip through the fabric of time between herself and Melissa, standing in that same spot separated only by the years.
Her own behaviour after she had had Mellita had been odd but she had always continued to function. She had wept and raged but had not wanted to destroy herself. Just waded on stubbornly against the muddy tide of her life never letting it overwhelm her. How much worse an experience had Sarah suffered, grieving so bitterly and never complaining. Had guilt made it worse?
Damson might have suffered the loss of a child but at least she knew that Mellita was alive somewhere. Where and doing what? She didn’t even know if Leeta had looked at her cache of photographs of Hari online.
She heard someone crunching across the gravel sweep behind her and turned to see Sarah approaching pushing the old-fashioned pram that Margaret had left in the Lodge’s porch for Hari.
‘Hari could do with some air,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to leave you alone.’
‘Was that my pram?’
Damson could hear herself sounding abrupt.
‘Yes, the one your mother put you in for safety on her last walk.’
She took a steadying breath and moved closer to her grandmother. Sarah’s arm found its familiar place around her waist. Damson bent forward to pick up the child, careful not to dislodge her grandmother’s embrace, straightening to hold him upright in her arms. They looked out over the water.
The swifts nipped insects out of the air to feed their young, diving to break the silvery surface with their sharp beaks. Every year the fledglings slipped away while their parents hunted and flew alone to Africa. Every year the same nesting pairs returned to the eaves of Castle Hey.
Damson lifted Hari higher to watch the little birds whirl and shriek.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to my mother-in-law Elizabeth Young – an early reader and always so encouraging. Thank you to Rachel Hore, whose generous cover quotation came out of the blue and jolted me back into action. Thank you to Lizzie Kremer for her enthusiasm. Thank you to my generous beta readers for your invaluable suggestions: Maud Young, Fred Adderley, Marianne Thomas, Charlie Keyes, Kate Morris, Helen Walters, Phoebe Frangoul, Deborah Botwood-Smith, Jillian Moore, Lia Keyes, Holly
Thomas, Michele Gorman and Caroline Driggs. Thank you to Monisha Rajesh for information. Any mistakes are entirely my own and forgive me if I have left anyone out. Grateful thanks to Lawrence Mynott for the beautiful drawings, and to Alison Eddy for the originality of her cover design. Above all I want to thank my children, Maud, Archie and Tolly Young, to all three of whom this book is dedicated with my love.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Josa Young was born in Kent, England. She has worked as a commissioning editor and features writer on Vogue, Country Living and the Times. She now specialises in digital content and strategy. Her first novel One Apple Tasted was published in 2009 by Elliot & Thompson. Sail Upon the Land is her second novel. She lives in London.
Follow her on Twitter @JosaYoung
Find out more at www.josayoungauthor.com
Praise for One Apple Tasted
‘Following in the footsteps of once-popular novelists Rose Macaulay and Margaret Kennedy, Josa Young debuts with an entertaining and charming romance about love, sex and the upper-middle classes behaving badly.’ THE INDEPENDENT
‘Delicious froth combines with wit and insight in this romantic comedy of manners.’ MARIKA COBBOLD
‘One Apple Tasted is by far the best-written new romantic comedy I’ve read this year.’ AMANDA CRAIG
‘Funny, warm, touchingly eccentric and irresistibly readable.’ JULIE MYERSON
‘Compelling, original, cleverly plotted and funny, One Apple Tasted reads like a Virago Modern Classic.’ ISABEL WOLFF
‘It reminded me very much of Mary Wesley in its lack of sentimentality, the way a certain class of people all seem to know or know of each other and the slightly odd way the characters behave. The author obviously lived through the 1980s but the earlier setting also comes across as very authentic, which only usually happens in works by writers that have actually lived through the era such as Wesley, Elizabeth Jane Howard and Rosamunde Pilcher.’ ‘GINGER’ FROM YORKSHIRE ON AMAZON