So I have been through all this before.
I am looking at an array of icons against a blue background. According to the little red circle in the corner of one of them, I have over a thousand emails waiting for me, but when I open them up, most are junk. It seems as if I was taking my research into the family history seriously, as several messages are concerned with Vavasour genealogy. A couple of emails from friends in London of the ‘we-must-try-to-meet-up-this-year’ variety; I get the impression that we exchange a message once a year or so, and that they are unlikely to have missed me yet.
There’s a message from my father, telling me the Vavasours have finally managed to get in touch with them and have told them that I am out of danger. They are relieved to hear it and hope that I am back on my feet soon. They are sorry that I have had such a bad time, losing my husband and then having such a terrible accident, but at least I am not struggling to survive in the desperate conditions they see every day. When things look bleak, I must never forget how very fortunate I am.
They won’t be coming back to see me. There are too many other lives to save where they are. Michael’s family will look after me, they know, but they are thinking of me and send their fondest love.
I close the message. Fondest love. I think about Felix. Unstoppered at last, my love for my son is welling up inside me, filling me up and making me whole again. There is nothing I would not do to keep him safe. I cannot imagine hearing that he was in hospital and not clawing my way to his side if necessary. If I had to choose between my son and a thousand strangers, I would not hesitate. Does that make me selfish? Is that why my parents cannot love me?
I almost wish I had left the password unguessed, the messages unread, but as I scan through the inbox there is one more email that catches my eye. Greetings from LA, it says in the subject line. It is from a Matt Chandler.
I open it up.
Kate,
We agreed it would be easier if we weren’t in touch, didn’t we? Has it been easier for you? If I’m honest, I haven’t found it easy at all. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat down to send you a message, just to say that I’m thinking of you and Felix and hoping that you’re doing OK. It seemed to me that was what a friend would do, but friends also keep their promises, and I said that I wouldn’t contact you.
But I’m breaking that promise now, because sometimes life sends you a message that you just can’t ignore. The success of The Tower took everyone by surprise – me most of all! – and now they’re talking about a sequel which is to be called, after much deliberation, The Return: Tower II (hey, don’t blame me, I had nothing to do with it). Anyway, I’ve been hired to write another script, same premise, same setting.
I want to come back, Kate. I want to rent a cottage in Askerby for a few months – it’ll be easier to write there, and I can’t help thinking that it’ll be easier to be in the same country as you, too. I want you to know that I don’t expect anything to change. You made your decision and I will always respect that, but I hope that we can be friends as we were before. I miss being friends with you. I miss you.
If you really think it would make things too difficult for you, tell me, and I’ll go write somewhere else, but I hope you won’t. I’d like to see you again.
Your friend
Matt
I read the message through three times. I’m not sure how I feel: unsettled, uneasy, uncertain, guilty. Who is this Matt? Why has no one told me about him? We agreed it would be easier . . . you made your decision: it sounds as if I had a relationship with this stranger. I shift uncomfortably on the window seat. How could I have done that? I was bereft when Michael died, I have remembered that. It doesn’t sound as if it took me long to recover. Am I the kind of woman who will drop her grief like a discarded jacket and move on to someone else?
But there is a tiny glow inside me too, a seeping warmth. Someone has missed me. Someone has been thinking of me. I have a friend.
‘Matt Chandler?’ Angie regards me with dismay when I ask her if the name means anything to her. ‘Please tell me he hasn’t been in touch with you!’
‘I found an email from him,’ I admit. ‘I managed to get into my iPad.’ I hope she won’t ask how I remembered the password, and she doesn’t. She is too busy looking worried.
‘Oh, Lord, I was afraid this would happen!’
It is a warm evening and we are sitting in the Lodge garden. I asked Angie if she would like a drink at the pub but she said it was ‘a bit rough’. She had a bottle in the fridge, she said. ‘I’ll come and pick you up to save you the walk.’
You can’t see the moors from the garden, but I am just glad to be out of Askerby Hall. Too much has happened today. My head is churning with Felix and Kit, my memories overlapping with Isabel’s. Now that I have remembered Felix, Isabel’s power over me seems more of a threat, but what can I do? Felix is more important to me than ever and I don’t dare let the Vavasours get the idea that there is anything wrong with me. I am longing to talk to someone about it, but I know how Angie will react. Ever since that day in the cafe, she has been watching me for signs of an imminent breakdown. She is my friend, she says, but when it comes to Isabel, I know I can’t trust her.
Now it seems I have another friend. I want to know more about Matt before I reply to his message, though. Angie’s reaction is hardly encouraging. She sits back in the garden chair and regards me with a little frown. She looks very pretty in a demure print dress, while I am in jeans and a T-shirt. There is no sun in the garden at this hour, and I’m glad of the jumper with the sleeves that come down over my hands. A tiny hole is unravelling near the hem and I try to poke the threads back through before it gets any bigger.
‘Who is he?’ I ask her.
She sighs. ‘Last year we let the Hall out as a location for a low-budget film.’
‘The Tower,’ I say slowly, remembering what Philippa and George had told me.
‘Yes. Between you and me, it was a load of tosh and a huge hassle, but it turned out to be an unexpected success and I have to admit it’s brought a lot of new visitors here. We’re even planning a new display in the Visitor Centre.’ Angie seems to realize that she is getting off the point, because she picks up her wine. ‘Well, anyway, Matt Chandler was the scriptwriter, and you used to spend a lot of time with him.’
‘What are you saying, Angie? That I had an affair with him?’
She spreads her hands. ‘You said you felt really guilty about sleeping with him. Michael hadn’t been dead that long. I blame Matt,’ Angie says firmly. ‘He was all over Felix, always hanging around, making you laugh.’
Making me laugh. When was the last time I laughed? The atmosphere in the Hall is deadening. There is no laughter, no teasing, no warmth.
There are only shadows. And secrets.
Chapter Twenty-four
‘Why didn’t anyone tell me about this?’
‘Frankly, we were all glad that you’d forgotten him. Matt Chandler was bad for you, Kate,’ Angie says. ‘You weren’t yourself even before they dug up those wretched bones. He changed everything, and you couldn’t seem to see that it was all going to end badly. I mean, the guy’s from Hollywood. He wasn’t going to hang around in Askerby, was he? And of course he didn’t. You were miserable when he left, and the next thing we knew, you were obsessing about bones, and we know what happened after that . . . If you ask me, he’s to blame for everything. We all tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen.’
All? I turn my glass on the arm of the chair. ‘The Vavasours knew about him?’
‘You didn’t make a secret of it. I met you once when you were walking with him and Felix. You weren’t touching, and it’s not like you sprang apart when you saw me or anything, but you were all lit up.’ Angie sounds baffled as she remembers. ‘He was really casual, just said he would see you around and ruffled Felix’s hair, but I saw the way you looked at him.’
I shift uneasily. I don’t like the idea that everyone was watching me and tutting a
bout what a fool I was making of myself.
‘You were obsessed by him,’ Angie tells me, shaking her head at the memory.
Obsessed. That word again. I was obsessed by the bones. Obsessed by Matt Chandler.
Obsessed or possessed?
‘I don’t know how you could have forgotten Michael so easily,’ Angie is saying sadly. ‘I know it had been two years, but Michael was so lovely and Matt Chandler . . . He wasn’t even attractive!’
I’m not sure I agree. I googled him, of course, after I read his message, and I found a photo of him at some award ceremony. Matt Chandler doesn’t look anything like Michael. In the picture he looks faintly crumpled. He’s dark, with a big nose and glasses. Angie’s right, he’s no looker, but there’s a humour and an intelligence in his face that is far more attractive than the classical Vavasour features. I can quite see how I might have been attracted to him, but Angie has made my relationship with him sound so sordid.
I chew my thumbnail uncertainly. Of course, I had gathered from his email that Matt was more than the friend he claimed to be, but still, I’m disappointed. I don’t like the idea of being in sexual thrall to a man I had only just met, of being obsessed, of being a fool. The warmth that has been glowing in the pit of my stomach since reading his message is rapidly cooling to an ashy grey.
‘In his email, he said he was just a friend,’ I say.
‘Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?’
‘I just wish I remembered what it was all about.’ I drink my wine, frustrated. I’m sick of learning about my life at second hand. It’s like hearing about a stranger who has nothing to do with me. ‘Maybe I needed a friend then.’
Angie looks hurt. ‘You had me.’
‘Okay, maybe I needed another friend,’ I amend, managing a smile. ‘Or maybe I was lonely.’
‘How could you be lonely living at the Hall with the Vavasours?’
I can’t believe she doesn’t understand. ‘A crowd is the loneliest place to be. It’s not the same as being with somebody special. Don’t you ever get lonely, Angie?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come on, you’re young, you’re pretty . . .’
‘Oh.’ Her face clears as she realizes what I am driving at. ‘I don’t believe in sleeping around,’ she says primly.
Unlike me, apparently.
‘I’m saving myself for the right man.’
‘George?’ I hear myself ask, and she looks away.
‘Is it obvious?’
‘No, it’s just . . . you spend so much time together.’ I am awkward. I have made a mistake. I know I only said it because I was irritated. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘I did think at one time we might be about to get together,’ Angie says, her expression wistful. ‘There was a point when I’m sure George was beginning to think of me as more than just his assistant. It was as if he suddenly saw me, you know? But then you came back with Michael,’ she finishes flatly. She doesn’t look at me. ‘He’s in love with you.’
‘You know there’s nothing in it, don’t you, Angie?’
‘Why not? George is handsome and kind and he loves Felix. And he belongs at Askerby. You could have everything.’
Everything Angie wants.
‘I can’t believe you would just throw all that away,’ she says bitterly.
‘There’s nothing to throw away, Angie. George doesn’t love me. I don’t think he even knows me.’ I think about what Philippa said: Whatever Michael had, George wanted. ‘It’s been such a strange time,’ I say, ‘but I’m getting stronger every day. As soon as I’m better I’ll be leaving Askerby.’
I would have thought she’d be delighted to be left alone with George, but instead she looks appalled. ‘Do Lord and Lady Vavasour know?’
‘I don’t know. Surely they don’t expect me to stay forever?’
‘But Felix is Lord Vavasour’s heir!’
‘He’s also my son,’ I say with a hint of impatience. And there’s no way I’m leaving him here.’
‘What will you do for money?’
‘What everyone else does – work.’
Angie straightens. ‘Has your memory come back?’
‘Not about that, no, but so many other memories are coming back that I’m sure it will soon.’
‘I didn’t realize you were starting to remember so much,’ she says slowly.
‘It’s still only bits – Michael, Felix, sometimes bits of my childhood. It’s like trying to put together a great jigsaw puzzle.’ I try to explain. ‘When I remember something, I have to work out where it belongs. I can slot in a piece here, a piece there, but I can’t join any of it up yet. And everything since Michael’s death is pretty much a blank. I’ve got no memory of anything that happened last year or why I went up that tower.’
‘Perhaps that’s just as well,’ Angie says. ‘You were very depressed after Matt Chandler left. I wouldn’t try to remember if I were you.’
‘You think I jumped because of Matt Chandler?’
‘That’s why I really think you should ignore his email.’
I’m silent, trying to process what she’s told me. Could I really have been so obsessed by the American that I tried to kill myself? Everything in me screams that it’s not true. I had Felix. I wouldn’t have left him, not unless I had a mental illness.
Not unless I was mad.
What if I was mad?
Angie thinks I was obsessed. It’s a small step to madness from there.
‘How will you work if you can’t remember what you did before?’ Angie has returned to the prospect of me leaving.
‘There’ll be something I can do. Work in a shop. Cleaning.’ I have gathered from Jo, the cook at Askerby, that cooking is not one of my skills, so that’s out. ‘I could be a waitress.’
‘They all sound very bad for your leg.’
The fact that this is true doesn’t make it any less annoying. ‘I don’t know,’ I say irritably. ‘I’ll get something.’
‘I can’t believe you’re really thinking about leaving Askerby,’ Angie says. After everything the Vavasours have done for you!’
‘I’m grateful to them, of course, but I’ve got to have my own life. You work, Angie. I thought you of all people would understand.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she says. ‘I don’t understand how you could even think about taking Felix away from everyone who loves him. He belongs here.’ Her voice thickens. And I’d miss him so much,’ she says, fishing out a tissue and blowing her nose.
‘Well, I’m not going to do anything immediately,’ I say awkwardly. ‘I’ll have to wait until I’m a bit stronger anyway, and I keep hoping more of my memory will come back. But I can’t hang around forever, Angie. Felix will be going to nursery school in the village in September. I’ll go mad if I don’t have something to do.’
I wince at my choice of the word ‘mad’, but Angie doesn’t seem to notice.
‘Why don’t you go back to working on the history exhibition for the Visitor Centre?’ she says eagerly. ‘I’m sure if you were busier, you’d be happier.’ Perhaps she’s hoping that will be enough to distract me from leaving. ‘Now that you’ve got into your iPad, you must be able to get at all the notes you made before.’
I have found various notes, in fact, but it doesn’t seem to me that I had got very far. I had drawn up a family tree but I couldn’t go further back than Edmund Vavasour, who died in 1697. I couldn’t link him to my Edmund. There was no mention of Isabel, no mention of Kit. If it wasn’t for the vividness of my memories I would wonder if they were real or not.
I know what Oliver Raine would say.
‘It looks as if I was thinking of a display about the war and the post-war period,’ I tell Angie. ‘That might be interesting to follow up. Your grandmother was telling me about being here during the war. She must have a lot of memories of the forties and fifties.’
Angie pulls a face. After her determination to get me thinking about the
displays once more, her enthusiasm seems to have waned very quickly. ‘I’m not sure how reliable they’d be. Babcia’s getting so confused nowadays.’
I said hello to Dosia when I arrived and she seemed happy to see me, but Angie didn’t suggest that she join us for a drink. She said something sharp to her grandmother in Polish – or perhaps it just sounded sharp because I didn’t understand – and Dosia nodded, but I saw that her hands were trembling.
‘She’s happy watching television,’ Angie said as she handed me a glass to take out into the garden and pulled the bottle of wine from the fridge, so I didn’t insist, although I was sorry not to talk more to Dosia and there was still so much of her story that I wanted to know.
‘How did your grandparents end up back at Askerby?’ I ask Angie now. ‘Dosia told me they moved around a bit after the war. Didn’t they want to stay here?’
‘Oh, I think so. My grandfather flew with Ralph Vavasour in the RAF, and by all accounts they kept up their hard-living, hard-drinking lifestyle after the war too, but when Ralph married Lady Margaret, that all stopped.’
‘She didn’t want to play second fiddle to Ralph’s friends, I’ll bet,’ I say, but Angie looks disapproving. She doesn’t like it when I criticize the Vavasours.
‘It wasn’t appropriate for Lord Vavasour to be carrying on like that, not now that he was married. I think she hoped that, with Adam out of the way, her husband would settle down.’
‘But they came back eventually.’
‘Because Ralph felt sorry for them. It was hard for my grandfather to have no estate of his own. Before the war, in Poland, he was a count. He never expected to have to work for his living.’
I’m surprised. You’d think Dosia would have mentioned if she was a countess. ‘Dosia didn’t tell me that.’
‘Didn’t she? It’s true,’ Angie says. Her eyes rest on the vegetable patch, where the summer cabbages have gone to seed. ‘We weren’t always confined to a little lodge. If circumstances had been different, I could have grown up in a big house, too.’ She smiles ruefully. ‘Funny how things turn out. But my grandfather was bitter about his lost inheritance. He hated being dependent on his friends, and he took to drinking heavily – vodka, of course. I don’t know what he and Babcia would have done if Ralph hadn’t let them come back here.’
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