‘Yes.’ I’m not going to lie about that. ‘I’ll take Felix, but you and George can make a relationship on your own, if that’s what you really want. You’re a pretty woman, Angie,’ I add cajolingly. ‘You could make him want you.’
I sound like a pimp. Maybe it isn’t fair to play on her delusions, but I am afraid. Afraid for myself and afraid for Felix if she gets her way. Angie might love him, but there is a hollowness inside her that I can only now see. Behind that mask of cheerful competence is an absence of empathy that means she can watch a friend jump to her death and think only of what it means for her. I don’t want Felix brought up by a woman like that. I don’t want him brought up by anyone but me.
For a moment I think that she has heard me. She looks straight at me, and I can see her thinking about it, twisting her hands together obsessively as her mind ticks away at the possibilities.
She has a choice. She can step back now and accept that her idea of using Felix to create a Vavasour family all for herself is nothing more than a fantasy. She can face the truth and choose to make a family of her own in the real world, with a man who will treat her to more than a quick shag after a Christmas party, away from Askerby.
Or she can choose a dream based on yearning and wishful thinking and envy. And death. Mine.
‘No,’ she decides at last. ‘George wouldn’t leave Askerby if Felix was all alone. He’d stay and help, and he’d need me to look after Felix. I’d be there for both of them.’
She has considered her options, and her best bet is for me to die.
I struggle to my feet, ignoring the white heat of pain in my leg. I am not going to sit meekly here and discuss my death.
‘I’m not going to jump, Angie,’ I say, unable to prevent the breathless waver in my voice. ‘It’s different this time. I’ve remembered what happened, but I’m not possessed. I’m not going to make things easy for you. If you want me to die, you’re going to have to push me off yourself.’
I am betting that Angie isn’t capable of murder . . . but what if I’m wrong?
Her face crumples. ‘I don’t want to kill you! I just want a family! Is that so much to ask?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘But you can’t have mine. You can’t have Felix.’
‘But George won’t look at me unless he needs me to look after Felix,’ she says, as if that is entirely reasonable. ‘Even if he loved me, he’s afraid I might have a freak baby like Peter.’ She makes a sound that is halfway between a sob and a laugh as she paces between me and the stairwell. ‘It’s ironic, really.’
‘Because Peter was Ralph Vavasour’s son, and George is related to him, too?’
She spins round. ‘You know?’
‘I guessed,’ I say. ‘I wondered if Ralph and your grandmother might have had an affair.’
‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you? No, Babcia wasn’t Peter’s mother.’
‘Then who was?’
‘Why, Lady Margaret, of course.’
I gape at her. ‘Margaret?’
‘Yes!’ Angie’s smile is eerily normal and I blink, disorientated by the sudden conviction that I am not really standing on top of the tower discussing whether or not Angie is prepared to kill me. ‘You have no idea, do you?’
My mind is racing. I feel as if I have missed a turn and am backtracking frantically, desperate to catch up. ‘Peter was Margaret and Ralph’s son?’
‘Got it in one! Babcia told me all about it one day when she was confused, but she was sworn to secrecy if she wanted to stay at the Lodge, so she gets very anxious if you try to ask her about it. I think it’s best that nobody else knows, don’t you? The Vavasours wouldn’t like the truth getting out.’
I am hardly listening. ‘Margaret and Ralph gave their son away?’
‘Well, you couldn’t have the next Lord Vavasour looking like that, could you? They were both so beautiful, it must have been quite a shock to them,’ Angie says reflectively. ‘Of course, the doctor and the midwife knew the truth, but in those days it was easier to hush things up. They gave out that the baby had died, and Ralph took Peter to his old friends Adam and Dosia. They were living in some dump in Leeds, apparently. Adam was drinking, they had no money . . . they were in no position to refuse. And Babcia thought, I think, that if they could come back to Askerby, everything would be all right. Adam and Ralph could resume their friendship and Adam would stop drinking.
‘Of course, it didn’t work out like that. The last thing Margaret wanted was a permanent reminder of her ugly child, but what could she do? When it was clear that there were going to be no more good old days, Adam took to blackmail like a duck to water, and he never had to work again. Ralph kept paying out until he died, and then Adam extracted a promise from Margaret that he and Dosia had the use of the Lodge for as long as they lived.
‘Meanwhile, Ralph and Margaret kept trying for a baby who didn’t look like he belonged in a circus.’ Angie recounts the story coolly, cruelly. ‘It took them a little while. First they had Joanna, who was a girl and no good to them, but at last Jasper was born, and after that they never touched each other again. It’s an edifying little story, isn’t it?’
‘It’s horrible,’ I say. ‘But it sounds as if Peter ended up with a kinder mother than his own would have been.’
‘Oh, Peter, he didn’t care about anything except his stupid pheasants,’ Angie says dismissively. ‘He never said boo to a goose. He wouldn’t have wanted to be Lord Vavasour. Can you imagine his portrait hanging on the wall?’ She laughs, a high, wild laugh that sends a convulsive shudder down my spine. ‘It was better for everybody when he died. It’s better if he’s just forgotten, and he nearly was, until you came along wanting to include him in your display, like a genetic slip was something to be proud of!’
How is it possible that I have never sensed the wrongness in Angie before? I cannot believe what I am hearing. It’s better if he’s just forgotten. ‘Why would you want to be part of a family that could just give away a child who doesn’t look the way they want him to look?’ I ask her in disbelief.
‘Because of Askerby.’ Angie looks at me as uncomprehendingly, just as I must be looking at her. She gazes over the battlements to the gatehouse below. ‘I love every stone of this house, I know every picture. Nobody knows Askerby the way I do,’ she says fiercely. ‘Nobody. This is my home. Why does nobody understand that? But I’ll never be part of it unless George marries me.’
My stomach twists nervously. My leg is jangling with pain, but I am afraid that sitting down again will put me at a disadvantage if I need to run after all.
‘There are other families to be part of,’ I say. ‘Other places to love.’
But Angie isn’t listening. ‘I could tell him about Peter,’ she says, and I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or to herself. ‘George knows I’d never tell anyone else the truth. The bad genes are on his side, and anyway, we’d have Felix. I’m sure he’d be a good father. We’d be such a lovely family.’ She turns on me suddenly. ‘Much better than you,’ she adds with a resentful look.
I’m not having that. In spite of my fear, I put up my chin. ‘I’m Felix’s mother. Nobody is going to be better than me.’
She shakes her head. ‘You’re a bad mother, Kate. You jumped off the tower here and left Felix all alone. You forgot all about him. All that time you were lying in hospital, who was looking after him? I was! I’m the one who picked Felix up when he fell over. I’m the one who kissed his scraped knee better. I put him to bed and fed him and read him stories while you, you didn’t even recognize him! You’ve been too lost in some past to bother about your own son,’ she says contemptuously.
‘Look at you today! You couldn’t even be bothered to pick him up from school or wait to see him when he got home. You were too busy wanting to get up here and find out about your precious past. Well, now you know. You chose the past, and I choose Felix.’
There is just enough truth in her words to make me wince, but there is no point in claiming that it
was not my fault, that I didn’t choose to be possessed by Isabel. Maybe at some level I did. Maybe in my grief for Michael I refused to let go of the past, just as Angie says.
‘I begged you to leave things be,’ she reminds me. ‘I begged you not to come up here today, didn’t I? I didn’t want to come, but you made me. You remember that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do.’ She’s right, I asked her to come. ‘Please, Angie,’ I said. This is my fault.
‘If you had just listened to me, none of this would have happened,’ she tells me, her eyes bright and accusing. ‘But maybe it is just as well.’ She lets out a long sigh. ‘George will go away if I don’t do something and at least this way I’ve got a chance. There’s only one problem.’ She looks at me. ‘You.’
She has crossed some threshold. She could have stepped back, but she has surrendered instead to the void inside her, to the hungry hole that demands a child, a family, a place with the Vavasours. She is committed now. I can see it in her empty eyes.
‘So . . . what can I do?’ Angie spreads her hands, inviting me to help solve her problem. ‘I don’t suppose you’d like to jump again?’ She smiles at me, looking so normal that the breath stops in my throat.
‘No.’ I back away until I come up against the step. ‘No, it won’t work this time, Angie. I haven’t been behaving strangely.’
‘I think you have. Talking about disinheriting Felix, obsessing about some old tomb. Oh yes, Joanna and Philippa told George you were up to your old tricks again. And then, of course, I’ll be able to tell them that you sat in the cafe and said you could smell a grave. It doesn’t get stranger than that.’
‘It’s not the same. I didn’t know what I was doing last time,’ I say, ‘but this time, I do. No one will believe it if I fall now. If anything happens to me, they’ll know you’re responsible.’
‘Why should they? Did anyone see us come up here together?’
‘Matt knows I was coming up the tower,’ I say.
Angie dismisses Matt with a wave of her hand. ‘Who cares what he thinks? Anyway, he doesn’t know I’m up here with you, does he? He won’t be able to prove anything, and I’ll be there to console George.’
‘He didn’t want to be consoled last time,’ I point out, and Angie’s lips thin.
‘Because you survived. That won’t happen this time. I’ll make sure you go over where there are no trees to break your fall.’
I watch in horror as she jumps up onto the platform and walks around the walls, peering over between the gaps in the battlements so that she can choose the best spot. ‘Here, I think,’ she decides at last. ‘Flat onto the gravel.’
‘They won’t believe it.’ Carefully, I edge around so that I have a clear run to the stairs. If only I had my phone with me. But I wasn’t meaning to come up the tower when I met Angie. I was waiting for Matt.
Longing for him gusts through me. I can picture him so clearly: the alert eyes, the smile that hovers around his mouth. He is sensible, self-deprecating, sane. When he comes, I will tell him I am ready to leave this place, with its sour secrets and centuries of bitterness and betrayal.
But first I have to get past Angie. She has jumped down from the step and is eyeing me with a calculating, predatory look that slows my heart to a painful thud. Is this how a rabbit feels, skewered in headlights, or a vole, sensing too late the owl poised overhead for a dive?
‘Oh, they’ll believe me,’ she says. ‘They’ll believe me because they’ll want to.’ She taps her fingers thoughtfully against her mouth. ‘I’ll tell them you lured me up here,’ she decides. ‘I may as well use your own story, after all. You’ve been obsessing about those bones again, so I’ll say you thought you were the ghost, and that I was the poor Judith who you were shouting about before. Ah, you see!’ she exclaims as my expression changes. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’
She shouldn’t have reminded me about Judith. That was a mistake, I think, as something implacable settles hard inside me. The memory of Judith holding Kit runs through me clear and cold. She threatened to hurt my son. This time, Judith isn’t going to win.
‘Well, we’d better get on with it.’ Angie rubs her hands together, all practicality. She sees my gaze flicker to the stairs, and steps quickly into my way. ‘Don’t make this hard on yourself, Kate. You’ll never get there before me with that peg leg of yours.’
‘I can try,’ I say, knowing I won’t make it.
‘Then I’ll catch you and push you down,’ she says. ‘You can break your neck. It’s all the same to me.’
‘You won’t be able to explain that away as suicide.’ I am oddly calm.
‘True. Another fall would be more poetic, but at least you’d be gone.’ Without warning, she lunges at me on the last word and I stumble back, my bad leg buckling. I cry out as I fall, and Angie is on top of me. It is like being attacked by a wild animal. There is no reasoning with her, no rules. I am fighting for my life. I am fighting for Kit, and for Felix.
I am unprepared for how fast and powerful she is. I’m trying to beat her off with my hands, but she gets her knee on my chest, right where my ribs were broken, and the pain is a bright dazzle behind my eyes. I can’t think about it, though, I can’t pass out. I have to stay alive.
There is a great red roaring in my head as I scrabble desperately for a hold, but the panels on the tower roof are smooth and my heels skid over them. I manage to grab onto one of the vents, but Angie is straightening and hauling me up. I can’t believe how strong she is. The vent slips from my damp grasp and my fingers scrape over the panels as Angie drags me towards the edge.
I have no breath to scream but I do my best to make myself heavy, and kick and scratch at her when she bends for a better grip.
‘Bitch!’ Angie draws back her arm and delivers a slap to my face that makes my head jerk to one side.
Angie, for God’s sake! Stop this!’ I gasp, beating at her, but she won’t stop.
‘This is all your fault,’ she mutters. ‘You always have to spoil everything.’ And she kicks my bad leg.
Agony blossoms so violently that it blots out everything for a few seconds. When I come round, I am too close to the wall. Terror gives me the strength to break free and I start to crawl away.
‘Come back here!’ Furious, Angie pounces on me and grabs at my arm and twists it behind my back so that I sob with the pain of it.
Angie, please!’ I try as she yanks me up and back against the parapet. I am perilously close to the gap now. ‘We can stop this.’
‘No,’ she pants. For an instant sadness races over her face, regret for the path not taken, but then it is gone. ‘No, it’s too late now.’
‘You’re not having Felix – argb!’ I can’t prevent the howl as she hits me again in the ribs. She knows exactly where to hurt me. My yell almost smothers the sound of tyres on the gravel below, but I hear the clunk of a car door closing. Hope energizes me. ‘Matt! Matt!’ I scream, before Angie drags me down out of sight and claps her palm over my face.
Did he hear me? It’s so high up here, but he’ll be looking for me, won’t he?
Angie is punching at me one-handed, but the thought of Matt has given me strength and I grab hold of her hair and pull it as hard as I can. The neat, shiny bob is wildly dishevelled now.
She grunts in pain, swearing under her breath as she gets her knee back on my stomach and beats at me with her vicious hand, but I am fighting not just for myself but for Isabel, who could not risk fighting Judith with Kit in danger. I can feel her remembered rage swelling in my head. She knows now that Judith didn’t win in the end, that Kit survived and Edmund was buried alone. Judith might have been mistress in name, but I know in my bones – or perhaps it is Isabel who knows – that she had no joy of it.
Angie’s palm is clamped over my face, smothering me, but I summon another burst of energy to bite her hand. She yelps and snatches it away, which allows me to draw breath for another scream, and I scramble up as best I can. We’re right over by the gap again, s
cratching and scrabbling at each other, swearing, sobbing for breath.
‘Matt!’ I manage desperately, but it is Angie who risks a glance below, and she laughs triumphantly.
‘It’s not Matt, it’s George! Looks like your hero isn’t coming after all!’ And then she starts screaming, too. ‘George! George! Help me! She’s trying to kill me!’
Does she really believe there’s a way out of this? I can’t spare the energy to contradict her or to see how George reacts. Having summoned him, Angie cannot afford to have me still here on top of the tower by the time he gets up the stairs to rescue her. She redoubles her efforts, but I have Isabel’s strength inside me. We are not going to give in now, but still, I am tiring as Angie’s blows rain down on me, and pain hammers at me. She manages to drag me up and back to the gap, and is shoving at me, forcing me down into it when George bursts out of the stairwell.
‘Kate! Angie!’ He bends over, heaving for breath, just as I did when I ran up those stairs to reach Kit. ‘What the hell is going on?’
I can’t speak. I don’t dare take my attention from Angie. She is debating whether to give me one last shove and send me over anyway. I can feel it, feel her hands tense, but at the last minute she must realize that her only chance with George would go with me. Changing tactic, she lets me slump back onto the tower roof, where I curl up against the pain, whooping for breath.
‘George! Thank God!’ she cries, and stumbles over towards him. ‘I think Kate’s gone mad!’
‘What the—?’ George staggers a little as she throws herself at him.
‘She attacked me!’
‘What? Why?’
‘She’s had another breakdown,’ Angie says breathlessly, but George is already putting her to one side and hurrying over to me.
‘Kate! My God, Kate, what’s happened to you?’
Angie’s face convulses. ‘George! She went for me!’
George isn’t listening. He’s patting his pockets for his phone, handing it back to her without looking at her. ‘Kate’s hurt. Call an ambulance.’
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