by Lucy Atkins
I batter on the door again. ‘Helloooo?’ Then I get out my phone – maybe they’re somewhere out the back and can’t hear me. Maybe because I’m arriving so late, they thought I wasn’t coming and they went to bed. But it’s only 7.30 p.m. Finn is yelling at full throttle now; his face is contorted and purple.
The last ferry back was the one we came on.
I go over to the car with the phone at my ear, and open the door. A blast of wailing. ‘It’s OK, love. Just a minute. I’m just …just a minute, sweetheart.’ His face is blotchy and big tears roll down his cheeks.
‘Up! Up!’ he howls, holding out his arms.
‘Just one minute, lovie, hang on just one minute, Mummy’s right here, OK? I’m not leaving you.’ The B & B phone rings on. I can hear it through the windows. I go and I batter at the door again. Then I hear something over the road. A man’s gruff voice, ‘Hey?’
I hesitate. Do I leave Finn yelling in the car, or go and haul him out, and take him to a stranger’s doorstep in the fog?
I call out across the street, ‘Hello?’
‘You need something?’
‘I’m booked into the B & B but no one seems to be in.’ I squint, but all I can see is a shadow in the fog.
‘They’re on vacation.’
‘No. They can’t be. I have a reservation!’
‘For a fortnight.’
‘Are you sure?’
I hear his front door slam.
I swallow. I let the phone drop down to my side. Finn carries on wailing.
*
It is bitterly cold in the street, even with the parka. I get back into the car. Finn sobs and hiccups behind me. ‘Up,’ he sobs. ‘Up, up, up, up, up.’ I could go and knock on the man’s door. But he could be anybody.
My heart is galloping now. I feel queasy. Finn’s sobbing, at least, has subsided now that I’m back in the car.
There will be other B & Bs. Surely. But my phone battery is almost drained. If I go into Google, it’s going to die.
‘OK, love.’ I turn and smile through the gloom at my tearful boy. ‘Everything’s OK. I’ll get you up in a minute. In a minute, love. OK?’
He is shattered. His eyes are red-rimmed and puffy. He has had no nap today at all. It’s a miracle he hasn’t exploded before now, after the excitement of the port and the ferry ride. I dig in my bag and find a juice box crushed at the bottom. ‘How about some juice?’
I fumble around, putting in the straw, then give him the carton. He stops crying, and squeezes it so apple juice spurts out of the straw across his red suit and the grey upholstery of the hire car. He starts to cry again. I steel myself – I can’t get him out here, in the middle of this freezing street. I start the engine.
Susannah’s house is about five miles west along the coast. Maybe I should try to find her now. The route would probably be quite straightforward without this fog. But there can’t be more than one Isabella Point on the island. I have a number from the gallery website. My phone will probably hold out for a short call.
The gallery phone rings and an answerphone clicks in. I hang up. Of course, she wouldn’t be there at this time of night. The truth is, I never fully expected to meet Susannah Gillespie. She could be anywhere in the world right now.
I want to call Doug.
But no. I definitely can’t call Doug. Doug is the very last person I can call right now.
I could call Alice, but clearly that would only worry her. I have to stop wanting to call people. I have to think for myself and sort this out. There will be a pub somewhere. Or a restaurant. I’ll find that, then someone can tell me where the nearest B & Bs are. If all else fails I can always go to the police – though I can’t imagine how I’d explain to a police officer how I came to be here with a toddler and nowhere to stay. They could probably arrest me for criminal incompetence.
I decide to drive through town. If all else fails, I’ll circle this godforsaken island all night until it’s light, and we can get the ferry back to the mainland. I glance at the petrol gauge. Half full. I have no idea how much petrol a person would use up if they drove all night.
I start the car and pull out, slowly, through the fog and back to the main street.
I crawl along, squinting through the windscreen. There are a few shops – a bakery, a drugstore, a health food store, a clothes shop, then The Fisherman’s Catch – a bar – but no lights. No signs of life. The bar is shuttered up, presumably only open in season. This is a ghost town.
Then I see the sign through the fog: Susannah Gillespie Gallery. I’m right outside it. The windows are dark. But for a moment I feel a thrill. It is real. She is real. I did not make this whole thing up.
I’ve looked at the map enough to know that I just have to follow the coast road west to get to Isabella Point, so I keep driving.
‘Up?’ Finn says. But it’s half-hearted and I can hear the sleep in his voice now.
‘In a little bit, love, soon. We just need to find … ’ I hear myself waver, then clear my throat. ‘We’ll be there soon, and then we can get you out, OK?’
Clearly I need to tell someone where I am. It is insane to head off into the wilderness without telling someone. I stop the car and pull out my phone, praying that the battery will last. Then I dial Alice. It goes straight to voicemail: ‘This is Alice MacKenzie … ’ Of course, she is asleep. I need to text.
My phone beeps, and dies.
*
I pull out again, slowly. We’re at the top of the tiny main street, and the street lamps just stop. The world shrinks to the patch of road directly in front of the car.
If I’m lucky, I’ll find a B & B at any moment. If not, maybe I’ll get to Isabella Point and Susannah will be there. I have a vision of myself, and Finn, knocking on doors, asking people to take us in. Doug would rightly be livid if he knew what I was doing right now.
‘Mama up?’
‘It’s OK, love. Everything’s just fine.’ My voice has the artificial smoothness of the true lunatic. ‘Not far, now.’
*
I crawl along with my eyes on the kerb, the low beam bouncing back at me. There are no other cars, because clearly no locals are unhinged enough to drive in this soup at night. There are no houses – my headlamps show tall pine trees on both sides of the road. It is like being in a submarine, creeping through grey water.
Somehow, I am going to have to find the turning to Isabella Point. I pull over again and the fog edges eerily around the car. I try to picture Google maps. It really wasn’t far. Maybe three miles? I make myself breathe. I have to stay calm.
Slowly, I pull out again.
As I crawl along the road, I start to sing.
‘She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes, she’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes… ’ I don’t know where the urge to sing this song came from, but out of nowhere I find a memory of my mother stroking my hair and her voice – ‘She’ll be riding six white horses when she comes. She’ll be riding six white horses… ’ I’d forgotten that she used to sing to me. But now her voice floats up so clear it’s as if she’s in the back seat next to Finn.
I have edited out so many of the good bits of her as a mother. The rows and hurts are the more tenacious memories. The good bits must have faded into my subconscious. I search for more good memories.
We made a honey cake once. That’s one. We mixed whole-wheat flour and butter and spoonfuls of honey, and when it came out of the oven it fell apart, and we ate it anyway, in warm sticky chunks at the kitchen counter.
She read to me. That’s another. She read Grimm’s Fairy Tales about dogs with saucer eyes, evil godmothers laying curses, needles jabbing into pale fingers, the sinister baby-stealing Rumpelstiltskin who must be named. I’d rest my head on her belly, and feel her voice vibrate beneath my ear. But I remember the anxiety too – the fear that at any moment she’d get up and go. Once, I reached up a hand and touched her hair, and she looked down at my face and her expression changed, her features conto
rted – she burst into tears.
She could make me feel so good when she chose to, but I could never touch her sadness. I just felt it there, squatting between us with its saucer eyes fixed on my face. Sometimes, just looking at me seemed to cause her pain.
‘Again again!’ Finn says. I realize I’ve stopped singing.
‘Singing ay ay yippee yippee ay… ’ I peer through the windscreen, trying to remember the other verses. ‘She’ll be wearing pink pyjamas … Oh, we’ll all come out to meet her … Oh, she’ll have to sleep with grandma when she comes.’
I sing on, and on. Every time I stop singing, Finn says ‘Again again!’ so I keep singing. ‘She’ll be comin’ down a road that’s five miles long.’ And somehow the singing makes me feel less afraid. It works.
I glance at the mileage counter and slam my foot on the brake, peering through the windscreen.
‘Mamamamamama.’
‘Wait a minute, Finn. Wait. I have to think.’
Fog swirls over the bonnet. I have to be close to the turning because we’ve come three miles now.
I edge forward, five or six miles an hour, braced to slam on the brakes if a car should pull out of a side road.
‘Oh, we’ll kill the old red rooster when she comes… ’
I imagine a vehicle ploughing into our flank, crumpled metal.
I crawl along like this for maybe ten more minutes. I’ve missed it. I’ve missed the turning. I’m about to stop and turn back when a sign – carved on a log – looms in the headlamps: Isabella Point.
The arrow points left. I turn down a single-track road, bumping over potholes and lumps of broken tarmac. If I can find Susannah – if she’s in – I can explain myself, and ask her for the name of a nearby B & B.
It’s better than dying of hypothermia in January in the car, plunging off a hidden cliffside in the fog, or knocking on a psychopath’s door.
The headlamps bounce off something white – a mailbox with a red flag. Next to it, fog swirls around another wood-carved sign: Isabella House.
Finn had gone very still. I glance over my shoulder at him. His heart-shaped face is blank, but his eyes are still open.
It is impossible to see anything of the house through the fog, but I think I can see a slight glow and my heart gives a bounce. Please let her be home. Please. It’s only just gone eight. Not really late. Please let her be in.
I get out and suck in a lungful of freezing, salty fog. I can hear the sea crashing onto rocks not too far off and a bitter wind bashes my ears. I zip up the parka, pull the hood up and go round to get Finn out. He is still wearing his all-in-one suit. He is bundled up, stiff-limbed, but thank goodness for that, in this freezing air. I bury my nose in his neck for a moment, inhaling his sweet, sleepy, apple-juice smell. ‘What an adventure,’ I whisper. ‘What an adventure.’ He looks at me with big eyes, clearly unconvinced.
I beep the car locked as I climb the icy steps with Finn. Somewhere in the house dogs begin to bark, savagely. There are lights. The lights really are on. There’s a deck running across the front of the building, but it’s impossible to see anything beyond a few feet. The waves sound louder up here and the wind howls in the trees. The fog is damp on my face and I can taste the sea.
I stand by the front door, listening to the dogs, and I feel as if I’ve climbed up to a high cliff and am about to plunge off, not knowing if there’s water below.
Then the door opens.
Two golden retrievers burst out. I hoik Finn higher. The dogs weave around us, huffing and growling.
‘Get back, stay.’
The voice is low and authoritative. She steps into the light and for a moment we look at each other in silence.
*
She is tall, a few inches bigger than me, wearing a fisherman’s sweater and old jeans. I recognize her from the picture on her website, though she is more angular and tired-looking. Her shoulders are broad and straight, her hair is twisted up behind her head and there is a deep frown line between her eyebrows. But the thing that really stands out is her eyes. They are an extraordinary pale-blue colour.
She is holding the door open with one hand and I see thick silver rings, one on her thumb, and a couple of silver bangles. A pair of reading glasses dangles from a beaded chain round her neck. I realize she is waiting for me to speak.
‘Hello,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry to just show up your doorstep like this. I – I – I emailed you and I tried to call you earlier – I’m Kal MacKenzie. I think you may have known my mother? Elena Halmstrom? I’m Elena’s daughter, from England.’
Her eyes widen. She glances at Finn, blinks, then looks back at me. ‘You’re what?’
‘Elena Halmstrom – I think she was your old friend who went to live in England? You sent her … Elena … I’m her daughter. I’m Kal. I’m Kali.’
She takes a step back, as if I’ve threatened her – the colour drains out of her face. Her eyes fix on Finn again, then back on me. Then she squares herself, seems to raise herself up even taller.
‘Kali?’
One dog circles us, pushing me from behind so that my knees buckle. I wrap both arms around Finn. The other dog joins the first and they barge, as if trying to knock me off the deck. She doesn’t notice or try to stop them, she just stares.
‘Look, I’m so sorry to just knock on your door like this.’
‘Kali?’ Her voice is hoarse. ‘You’re Kali? Elena’s Kali?’
‘Yes, yes, well, Kal. I know this is … ’
‘And this – him.’ She swallows hard. ‘This … little boy … ’
‘This is my son, Finn.’
‘Shit.’ She covers her mouth with both hands. ‘Holy shit.’ She backs away, staring at Finn as if he is a terrible apparition.
‘I’m so sorry. I know I should have got hold of you first, but I was rather stranded … the B & B I thought I’d booked turned out to be shut and I couldn’t find anything else – I just didn’t know where else to go.’
She takes her hands away from her mouth. Her face is still very white. But she opens the door wider. The dogs bundle back in. She steps aside, and I see her take a big breath.
‘Well, Kali,’ she says. ‘I guess you’d better come inside.’
It’s warm and beautiful inside – pale wooden floors, off-white walls and a pleasant smell of essential oils, cooked onions and woodsmoke. I feel myself relax, just a tiny bit. This is civilized. This is OK.
The lights are soft, and I can see a log fire burning at the end of the corridor in what must be her sitting room.
Susannah doesn’t speak.
‘I won’t … ’ I begin, but she shuts the front door and passes me without a glance, then just walks off down the corridor, taking long strides, not looking back. She clearly assumes I’ll follow. So I do.
The hairpin that roughly holds her hair off her neck has a big silver wasp on it. The pin comes out of the wasp’s body – an oversized sting. It flips gently as she strides down the corridor. Finn grabs the neck of my sweater with one small fist and keeps his other arm wrapped tight round me. I hug him close.
The fireplace is medievally huge. In front of it is a thick white rug. Two large brown sofas, with plenty of cushions, face one other, and on one there is a crumpled blanket and a biography of Barack Obama, spine cracked, face down.
Finn clings, silently. I hold him away from the dogs’ noses, praying that he won’t start to scream again.
There are books and plants and paintings everywhere and above the fireplace hangs a huge abstract in swirling blues and greens. Susannah turns to face me, with her back to the fire. Her eyes really are a peculiar colour – a light blue-grey, as if the pigment has been bleached from them; wolf’s eyes. The dogs stop by her feet, one on each side, looking up at me.
‘Well.’ She takes a breath. ‘You look exactly like her, and your son … ’ She stops. ‘Your son is so much like … ’ But she stops there. Again, she looks shaken.
I have never thought about whether Finn looks li
ke my mother, but I suppose he might. He has the same half-moon eye shape and our heart-shaped face. But he also looks like Doug. He has Doug’s chocolate-brown eyes, and a dimple on his chin, like Doug, not on his cheeks like my mother and me.
I glance at my feet. I probably should have taken my boots off at the door – I’m making dark wet stains on the rug. I move back a few steps, away from Susannah and onto the wood floor. Finn is heavy and my arms are getting tired now, holding him so tight.
‘I’m so sorry to just show up like this,’ I say again. ‘I just wasn’t sure where else to go.’
‘Yeah, well. I’m amazed you found your way here in this fog, at this time of night. That’s quite an achievement.’
‘I drove very slowly.’
She stares at me for a beat too long. Then she thrusts out her arms. ‘OK. Why don’t you take off your things and give them to me? I’ll hang them up.’
I look around, unwilling to put Finn down until I know that the dogs are safe. She seems to understand this and whistles them to her side. They flank her. I turn around, and unpeel Finn’s hands from my neck. I sit him on the sofa, and, with my back to her and the dogs, I unzip his suit. For once he doesn’t struggle to get up and run off. He looks at me, and I can see the doubt in his eyes. I kiss his head. ‘It’s OK, sweetheart. I’m here. Mummy’s here. Are you a bit sleepy? What a long day it’s been, eh?’
Then I take off my own boots and coat.
Beneath all this weather gear, our clothes are warm and dry, though Finn’s hands are chilly, just from the brief time outside.
I pick him up again and he doesn’t object, and with one hand I try to gather up our things. She doesn’t move or try to help. She is just watching.
When I hand everything to her, she still doesn’t move, and I feel, for a moment, as if we are an art exhibit that she’s assessing. I see her take in Finn’s face, his hair, his hands, then she looks up and down my body, just briefly, from my feet to my head. Finally, her eyes meet mine and I see something in them that is not irritation or shock at an unannounced visitor. It is suspicion. And then she looks away, and for a moment I wonder if she is afraid.