She bites her lip. What could her mum be looking for? And what is it that she needs to tell her? Could it really be that after all these years with so little to say between them there is finally something her mother wants her to know?
She hears herself sigh. Although she feels almost desperate to be back in Scalby, where the daily rhythms of life are familiar and soothing, she is now aware of the insistent pull of her old life. Her mother is disappearing: she has a progressive disease that will slowly rob her of her memory and reason, and then she will die. It will be too late.
It’s nearly midnight when she turns into the yard and parks the Renault next to Doris. The ancient Volkswagen camper hasn’t been roadworthy for a long time, but Eleanor can’t quite bear to part with her. After all, Doris was her home for almost two years, and for a long time she’d had the idea that one day she’d renovate the camper and take off again. Poor old Doris – her tyres have perished and there’s ivy growing over her roof and in through the passenger door. Eleanor knows her attachment is ridiculously sentimental, but Doris was what she’d needed at the time. There was something about the smallness of the living space and the fact that nothing was expected in return; she’d felt protected, as though there were arms around her. Doris was a tiny, safe place to crawl back to when the effort of a day of normal living had left her raw and drained. Her mum had no doubt tried her best, but living with her at that time had seemed impossibly painful.
She looks along the row of cabins. Only the outside lights are on now; everyone is in bed by the look of it. There’s not much wind at the moment, and all is quiet. She sighs as she looks up at the clean, clear sky, where the stars shine like glass chips in the velvet darkness. She loves the landscape itself: the dark, scalloped coastline, the wind that whistles around the farm and haunts the chimneys day and night; she loves the salty North Sea air and the long, plaintive cry of the seagulls. In fact, she loves everything about her life here, especially the friends she’s made. Her stomach gives a little jump as she remembers that Dylan will be coming again soon. Dylan – she loves him for all he is and all he will never be.
A quiet sadness inches through her and she realises how much she’ll miss this place if she has to leave, but the reality of the situation is drumming in her head; time is running out.
*
Despite being exhausted from the long drive, she sleeps fitfully. The wind has got up again and its howling seems particularly loud. At one point she wakes with a start as something is hurled against the front of the cabin. She is just drifting off when it happens again, so she gets up and opens the door, bracing herself against the gust that nearly wrenches it from her hands. She picks up the battered wooden crate that has blown up against the door and brings it inside so it doesn’t crash around the yard any more. She is about to shut the door when she glances over to the main house and sees a light on in the kitchen. She reaches for her dressing gown and slides her bare feet into her shoes. With some difficulty, she pulls the door closed behind her and then battles her way across the blustery yard to the house.
Through the window, she can see Jill standing by the Rayburn, pouring water from the kettle into a mug. She taps gently on the window and waves, then pushes the door open, allowing a gush of dried leaves into the room. ‘Shit!’ Jill says. ‘For a minute I thought you were Cathy’s ghost come looking for Heathcliff.’
‘Sorry. It is a bit Gothic out there, isn’t it?’
‘Want some chamomile tea? Can’t sleep with this din going on.’
‘Please.’
Jill fills another mug and hands it to her. ‘So? How did it go?’
She feels all the remaining energy drain from her body. She puts her mug on the table and slumps onto a rickety wooden chair. ‘I think I’m going to go back down for a few weeks, see how bad things really are, get a few things sorted out – her paperwork’s all over the place and she can’t find anything. Well, she can’t find what she’s looking for, anyway.’
Jill sits down opposite, her hands cupped around her mug. ‘Makes sense. She’ll manage better if things are more organised to start with.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ She sips her tea. ‘I’d rather be here, though, especially at such a busy time.’
‘Listen, we’ll cope. I hate to tell you this, Eleanor Crawford, but you are not indispensable!’
‘I bloody am, you know.’ She smiles. ‘David’ll have to do all the baking. And who’s going to do the accounts?’
‘Ah. This is true. How long do you think you’ll stay?’
She shrugs. ‘I honestly don’t know. I was thinking maybe three or four weeks initially, but it may turn out to be a lot longer. I suppose it depends on what happens and how she is.’
The kitchen is quiet. Jill takes another sip from her mug then wrinkles her nose. ‘God, that chamomile tea is bloody disgusting.’ She gets to her feet and starts opening cupboards. ‘I thought it might help me sleep, but I’m sure alcohol would do just as . . . Ah, here we are. Port.’ She pours them each a glass. ‘Cheers. So come on, tell me. Was it awful?’
‘Not awful. It’s mixed, to be honest. One minute she doesn’t seem any different, and the next she can’t remember something you said ten minutes ago. Peggy says it’s worse when she’s tired or upset.’
‘David’s mother was like that. She’d change dramatically from one hour to the next, and she was definitely worse in the evenings when she was tired.’
‘She gets confused, puts things in the wrong places, uses the wrong words. Each thing on its own isn’t a big deal, but I keep remembering more – like when I found her trying to fry an egg that was still in its shell. The awful thing was that when I pointed it out, she looked mortified.’
Jill sighs. ‘So it’s getting worse.’
‘Definitely. And we don’t know how long she had it before she was diagnosed.’ She sighed. ‘So really, this is my last chance.’
‘Last chance for what?’
‘To try and get a bit closer, maybe. If she’ll let me. I was thinking the other day, I can’t remember ever being that nice to her, even when I was little. I just avoided her. She seemed to be in hospital for ages, but she was still depressed, even after she went back to work. Or she was too tired or preoccupied to talk to me. But I wasn’t ever sympathetic.’
‘You were a little kid. It wasn’t your job to be sympathetic.’
Eleanor shrugs and takes another sip of port, surprised to find she’s nearly emptied her glass.
‘I feel like I don’t even know her. I found out while I was down there that she’d actually come to look for me once. When I was living in Doris.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, and I had no idea. I’m not sure I’d have felt any better at the time – I don’t remember much about that couple of years, to be honest – but it’s made me think maybe there’s more I don’t know. And she keeps going on about there being something she needs to tell me.’
‘That’s what she said when she phoned here.’
Eleanor nods. ‘She keeps saying it, and when she’s going through all the cupboards and drawers, she says there’s something she wants to show me. It might be nothing, but she obviously feels it’s important. Thing is, it’s only now that it’s beginning to hit me properly; she’s actually losing her mind. If we’re ever going to say what we need to say to each other—’
‘You need to say it soon.’
‘Exactly.’ She rests her elbows on the table and takes the weight of her head in her hands. ‘Maybe we won’t ever be able to talk properly, but one thing’s for sure – it won’t happen if I never see her. God, I’ll miss this place, especially if I end up staying for any length of time.’
‘You can always drive back up now and again. It’s a long way, but I do it every six to eight weeks and it doesn’t kill me.’
‘True.’ She’d forgotten that Dawn, Jill’s daughter, lives in Greenwich now.
‘And there’s always the phone. And email. And Skype!’
She has to smile. When they first set up this place, Jill had been so anti-technology that they could only just about get her to use a calculator. And when they first bought the old Amstrad, you’d have thought it was an instrument from hell the way Jill avoided it. Now she’s practically a computer nerd.
‘Also true.’
‘I don’t know what I’d do without Skype now Alex is living on the other side of the bloody world. At least Dawn didn’t follow in her brother’s footsteps – Greenwich is bad enough, but at least I get to see the grandchildren.’
Poor Jill. Alex has four kids now, and Jill has only ever seen the youngest on Skype.
‘Greenwich isn’t far from your mum’s, is it? Perhaps you and Dawn could meet for coffee.’
‘Good idea. Might help keep me sane!’ She glances at the kitchen clock. It’s coming up for two and her alarm is set for seven. ‘I suppose we should try and get some sleep.’ She stands up. ‘Thank you. For the port and the chat.’ She leans down and kisses Jill on the top of her head. ‘Night.’
The wind has dropped a little, although, as she walks over to her cabin, she can still hear it whistling around the buildings, moving things and making its presence known. She yawns as she climbs back into bed. Now she just has to decide when to actually go. She wants to be here when Dylan arrives, but that isn’t for another few weeks at the very least. She hasn’t seen him for almost eighteen months. She can’t wait, this time, partly because of her new hair but also because, apart from Jill and David, he is the one person in her life here that she’s allowed herself to become close to, even though it’s only for a summer at a time; maybe because it’s only a summer at a time.
She thinks about the two of them taking a walk along the clifftop, perhaps scrambling down to the small, rocky beach where they sometimes look for fossils or collect seaweed for the compost. She pictures them walking along the coastline as they usually do, although it’ll be chilly; windy, probably. Maybe she’ll wear a scarf and whip it off later as a surprise. It’s a shame the weather isn’t warmer. On those summer walks, they might take a hastily gathered picnic of hard-boiled eggs, newly baked bread, strawberries and white wine, then eat it sitting on the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs, gazing out to sea and enjoying the sound of the waves lapping gently around them.
In her head, she follows the clifftop all the way along the coastline. Sometimes she goes too near to the edge, giving herself vertigo as she looks down to the dark water below, mesmerised by its beauty and the unsettling sense that it is pulling her towards it. Her heart beats faster and her breath catches as she thinks about how, when swimming, she has occasionally forced herself to stay underwater until her breath runs out, just so she has some idea of what it would be like to drown. She pushes the thought away and tries to relax into sleep, concentrating instead on the gentle movement of the waves. As she watches, the water changes: it isn’t the sea any more, but a thick green pond, choked with weeds; and then she is about five years old, sitting on a vast beach in glorious sunshine. Her mother is standing a little distance away and is looking around frantically. Eleanor shouts, ‘I’m here!’ She waves. ‘Over here!’ Her mother turns and looks at her. ‘Who are you?’ she says, and starts to walk away. But Eleanor can’t follow her, because all around there is quicksand and if she starts to sink, there won’t be anyone to pull her out. She feels the panic start to rise, but then she tells herself she is only dreaming; she makes herself feel the pillow under her head and the duvet over her shoulder; she tries to open her eyes, but still she can’t make herself wake up properly. She thinks she hears the wind outside, but then realises that she’s standing on the edge of the cliff again, with her back towards the sea this time. A few yards away stands a tall, faceless figure who turns towards her and suddenly, from nowhere, produces a bundle which Eleanor knows instantly is a baby. Before she can speak, the figure throws the baby towards her. Instinctively, she puts her arms up to try to catch the child, which has now slipped from its bundle of clothes and is hurtling naked towards her outstretched arms. She feels its slight weight land in her hands, the bare skin wet and slippery, but then she wakes with a start as the baby slithers straight through her fingers.
Eleanor: summer 2002, North Yorkshire
Eleanor had been into Scalby village to post a birthday card to her mum. She always felt better when she’d sent a card with a couple of lines of news inside; it eased her conscience. As she drove the old camper van back up the track, she wondered how much work she’d have to do on Doris if she were to take to the road again. She suspected the camper would need some serious attention first. She could do minor repairs herself – she’d replaced brake pads, the fuel pump, even put a new clutch in – but the gearbox was sticking every now and again and the engine didn’t sound right. The cattle grid shuddered and banged as she crossed it, then she parked in the yard and turned off the ignition. As she climbed out, she realised that the sudden quiet emphasised just how noisy the engine had become.
Would she really want to live in the camper again? She wished she could remember more about that couple of years before she came here, but much of it was still a blur. She wasn’t sure why she was even considering leaving this place she loved so much, but every few years her attachment to the farm, to these people who had become her family, would cause her to panic slightly, because she knew that with love came responsibility.
‘Ellie.’ Jill was walking towards her, squinting against the sunlight. ‘I was hoping you were back. Can you sort out the new volunteer for me? He’s in the kitchen. I’ve made him a cup of tea but I need to help David in the polytunnel, so I said you’d look after him. Do you mind?’
‘Course not.’ She automatically put her hand up to her head, which she’d wrapped in a black scarf, turban-style, for her trip to the village. She hated wearing wigs in summer, but, although she frequently told herself it wasn’t her problem if people were offended by her baldness, she chickened out of displaying it when meeting someone for the first time. ‘I’ll sort my head out and go straight over.’
‘Thanks. Seems a nice bloke. Name of Dylan. Says he’s a painter – very young, early twenties, I should think.’ She leant in to Eleanor. ‘And quite fit.’
‘Jill!’ Eleanor laughed. ‘You’re going to have to stop lusting after young men soon.’
‘Darling,’ Jill said, ‘I’m fifty-four, not eighty-four, and I’m only human.’ She waved as she strode off to join David.
Most of the volunteers were fine once they knew, but there had been some horrible reactions over the years, so she was always aware of how she looked at a first meeting. She stood in front of the mirror in her cabin. She was wearing a white vest top which looked good with her strong, tanned arms. Her jeans were old and scruffy, but they were clean on this morning, so she didn’t really need to change. She sighed as she pulled the wig properly into place. It was dark blonde, close to her natural colour, and it was quite short, so at least it wouldn’t make her neck hot. She turned her head to the side. Bloody thing. It felt too tight, too noticeable; it was as if she was walking around with some huge, sharp-clawed creature clutching at her scalp.
As she made her way over to the kitchen, she tried to let the tension slip from her face. So the new volunteer was a painter. That would be useful. The cabin doors and windows all needed painting soon or they’d start to rot, then it would cost a fortune to sort them out.
Dylan was sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of tea, leafing through the volunteer information folder. He looked up when she walked in. ‘Hi.’ He smiled and extended his hand. Jill was right: there was something instantly attractive about him.
‘Hello, I’m Eleanor.’ She shook his hand; it felt smooth and warm. ‘Welcome! Jill’s asked me to show you around. Finish your tea first, though.’ The kettle on the Rayburn was still hot, so she made herself a cup and pulled out the chair opposite. He smiled again. She wasn’t sure whether he was trying to nurture a beard or he just hadn’t shaved, but the sandy-red gro
wth on his chin and upper lip suited him and made his face slightly less boyish. His shoulder-length hair was straight and smooth. It was a rich reddish brown, and the sunlight that was coming in through the kitchen window made it shine like a fresh conker. It was beautiful hair. She instinctively put her hand to the back of her head. She was glad the wig she’d chosen today was a decent one. They were all pretty good these days, though, not like the horrible things she’d had to wear when it first happened.
‘Are you one of the owners, then?’ he asked.
Eleanor gave a half-laugh. ‘Good God, no. I can’t be trusted to look after myself, never mind anything else. I’m what they call a “resident helper” – means I haven’t got round to moving on yet. I was here at the start, though. Moved here with Jill and David and their children, Alex – he’s got two kids of his own now – and Dawn. We set the place up between us.’
‘Cool. How long ago was that?’
‘Almost sixteen years now.’
His eyes opened a little wider. Then he nodded. ‘Sixteen years; that’s a long time. It can’t be that bad here, then. How long do people usually stay?’
‘Not usually as long as that! The minimum’s five nights. Some people only come for a short while at first, but quite a lot stay for several weeks. They tend to come back, too – we’ve got quite a few regulars. Anyone who’s here for more than a month gets a share of profits from the farm shop, and when things are tight here, we all do other bits and pieces – there’s plenty of work in the pubs and hotels locally. No one earns a lot, but if you’re living here, you don’t need a lot.’ She smiled and took a mouthful of tea, burning her tongue. ‘How long do you think you might stay?’ She tried to sound casual.
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