‘No. Are you?’
‘No. I feel like I’ll never be hungry again.’ She shook her head. ‘But Ann went to such a lot of trouble to make it. All for you. She’s very fond of you, you know.’
‘Yes. And I’m very fond of her.’
Phoebe studied the sleeping face. ‘She was a beautiful little girl. Exquisite. And so intense. That’s the Madeiran blood. She was her father’s daughter.’
‘Why did he do it, Phoebe? I’d like to understand. I think I might be more use to Ann if I knew what actually happened.’
She sat in silence for some moments, staring into space, her face blank. Eventually she said, ‘I suppose I might as well tell you. I haven’t spoken of it in… forty years.’ She sat back and folded her arms. Fixing her eyes on a point in the middle of the floor, Phoebe said, ‘The marriage was already over by then. There had been a stupid row... I might have been a bit drunk. I went to bed and took a sleeping pill, so I knew nothing till Ann woke me up the following morning, pulling at the bedclothes, hysterical.’
‘Did she see him die?’
‘No, thank God. The post-mortem established the time of death. He’d been dead for hours when she found him.’
‘Did Sylvester suffer from depression?’
‘Oh, yes. He’d always had a tendency to mood swings. He was mercurial. Unbearable in the winter. You’d think we were living in Siberia, the fuss he used to make about the weather! So I encouraged him to spend time abroad, for the good of his health and the business. He imported wine and he was away a lot. Well, I’m not faithful by nature and I’m easily bored. Opportunities presented themselves… I’m not proud of what I did, but they were just flings, not relationships. They meant very little to me. Sylvester was the only man I ever loved, but he found that hard to believe. He couldn’t understand hurting people you loved… But just look at what he did! What he did to Ann and me! Yet I know he really loved us. He was ill, you see. Very ill. And I had no idea… It took me a long time to forgive him, but in the end I did. I’m still working on forgiving myself.’
‘He found out you’d been unfaithful?’
‘No, he didn’t suspect a thing! He was a trusting soul. No, it was more complicated than that and I didn’t handle it well… I had an abortion, you see. Sylvester was furious. Heartbroken. He’d wanted another child for years and I’d refused. This one was an accident, but he’d guessed I was pregnant. I was throwing up and couldn’t work. So I got rid of it. In Sylvester’s eyes that was murder. I’d murdered a child, his child. I should have left it at that, said no more, but I thought the truth might make things easier for him.’
‘I’m guessing it didn’t.’
Phoebe looked at Ann and murmured, ‘When does the truth ever make anything easier?’
‘What did you say?’
‘I told him the truth, which was that the baby wasn’t even his.’ Connor winced. ‘What else could I say? I didn’t want him thinking he’d lost a child. He hadn’t.’
‘But he took it badly?’
‘The marriage didn’t recover. Nor did Sylvester. He moved into the spare room and started putting things in order. Filing. Accounts. I assumed he was preparing to leave me, which was what I deserved, so I didn’t say anything. Nor did he. We both suffered in silence.’
‘You didn’t realise he was cracking up?
‘No, I was used to his black moods They’d always passed. Eventually.’
‘And Ann knew nothing of all this?’
‘She was only five. If she’d overheard anything, she wouldn’t have understood. But I should have seen it coming. It was all too much for him. The abortion. The infidelity. I think he even began to doubt whether Ann was his child. But he said nothing, just went quietly mad. Towards the end he was very tender with Ann. Spent a lot of time with her. I thought he was trying to compensate for landing her with a monster for a mother, but he was saying goodbye. He wanted her to have good memories of him. And he succeeded. She didn’t remember any of what came afterwards. Until today.’
‘Why didn’t you ever tell her what had happened to him?’
‘I couldn’t explain because she’d forgotten! How do you tell a five-year-old her Dad has hanged himself, if her brain is telling her it didn’t happen? Everyone said her memory would come back eventually, so I just played along. What else could I do? I was beside myself. Don’t you see, I loved Sylvester and I’d killed him!’
‘No, Phoebe.’
‘As good as! I drove him to suicide.’
‘That tendency must have been there already. Plenty of men have survived unfaithful wives. You might have contributed to his depression, but you weren’t responsible for his death.’
‘It’s very kind of you to say so, Connor, but I haven’t changed my mind in forty years. I’m guilty as hell.’
He regarded Phoebe’s ravaged face and said gently, ‘How did you cope with Ann – after she found him?’
‘She had hysterics, then she went to sleep. Out like a light. She slept for a very long time, then when she woke up, she seemed all right. Normal, almost. I remember she was very hungry, but she said nothing about Sylvester. So I rang Dagmar – she’s my agent – and asked her to come and take Ann back to London for a few days. She’d been to Dagmar’s flat before and knew her well, so I made out this was a special treat and told Dagmar to spoil her rotten. The minute Ann was gone, I took the damn swing down.’ Phoebe looked up, her eyes filling with tears. ‘He must have stood on it… before he jumped.’
‘That’s why Ann had the flashback. She saw me standing on a swing.’ Phoebe looked perplexed. ‘I made one for her. As a present.’
‘Oh God, you didn’t!’ Phoebe exclaimed.
Ann stirred and they watched her sleeping figure anxiously until she settled again.
Connor sighed. ‘I had no idea what a swing would mean to Ann.’
‘No, of course you didn’t. I’m sorry, that was stupid of me.’
‘I’d hung it in the wood and I was testing it for weight. I wanted to make sure it was safe.’ He bowed his head and looked at his hands. ‘If I hadn’t made that swing—’
‘No, don’t blame yourself! It’s probably better she knows what happened. It was a brain bomb waiting to go off at any time.’
‘When she came back from London, did she ask about the swing?’
‘No, that’s what was so very odd. She didn’t mention the disappearance of the swing, but if she’d wiped the incident completely, she would have asked what happened to it, wouldn’t she?’
‘Did she ever mention it?’
‘No, never. Then after she’d been home for a few days, she asked me when Daddy was coming home. That’s when I realised. She didn’t remember anything. I didn’t know what to say, so I just played for time. I concocted some story about Sylvester going away for a long time. Abroad, for work. She asked me again and I stuck to my story, then after a few weeks, I told her Daddy wouldn’t be coming home any more. She asked if we were getting divorced. God knows where she’d heard the word. School, I suppose. I didn’t even know if she knew what it meant, but I said, yes, we were. I told her Daddy had decided he didn’t want to live with us any more – which was true. I said he’d gone away and I didn’t know even where he was – which was also true, in a way. It seemed the kindest thing to say. She was so very young and her brain seemed to be protecting her from the horror, so I thought I should too. I knew I’d have to come clean one day, but I thought it could wait until she was older, until she had a chance of understanding why Sylvester did what he did. Somehow the opportunity never arose. Then once she was an adult, I didn’t want to tell her because…’ Phoebe hesitated.
‘Because of the abortion.’
‘Yes. She and Jack went through so much trying to conceive a child. How could I tell Ann I got rid of a baby with scarcely a second thought? It just became impossible to talk about it, any of it. There were so many lies! Eventually the lies were so old, they seemed like the truth.’
Ann stir
red again, tossing her head back and forth on the pillow.
‘I think she’s surfacing,’ Phoebe hissed.
‘Maybe she’s thirsty.’
‘Hungry more likely. It’s been hours since she ate anything and she only grabbed a bite at lunchtime.’
They continued to watch as she rolled over in bed, mumbling. Connor thought he caught his name, then decided he’d imagined it. As Ann’s eyelids began to flicker, he said in an urgent undertone, ‘You have to tell her, Phoebe. All of it. She has to understand what happened. She will understand, if you tell her.’
She stared at him, dull-eyed and exhausted. ‘You really think so?’
‘You treated Sylvester badly, but not Ann. You never did anything other than try to protect her from the trauma of what she’d witnessed, but couldn’t possibly understand.’
‘She might not see it like that.’
‘Maybe she won’t, but you still have to tell her.’
‘Yes, I know. I’ve always known… I think perhaps you’d better leave us now, Connor. Would you mind? I’d like to be alone with my daughter.’
‘Of course.’
‘You might bring me a whisky. In a while. Not yet. And pour one for yourself. It’s been a long day.’
He got to his feet, still watching Ann. ‘I’ll put that pie in the oven. She’d want us to eat it, wouldn’t she?’
‘Oh, yes! She made it with such loving care. She had to make an extra trip to the supermarket because she’d run out of nutmegs. I said you wouldn’t have noticed.’
‘Damn right I wouldn’t.’
‘Ann said that wasn’t the point. She wanted to do it properly.’ Phoebe shook her head. ‘I love that in her. Her thoroughness. The attention to detail. It’s beautiful.’
‘You should tell her.’
‘I will when she wakes up. I’ll tell her everything… You won’t forget to bring me that whisky, will you? I’m going to need it. Gin for the good times, whisky for the bad times, eh?’
Connor was almost out of the room when he heard a sharp intake of breath and the rustle of bedclothes. He spun round to see Ann sitting up in bed, staring at Phoebe.
‘Mum?... Is something wrong?’ she asked, frowning. ‘Where’s Connor?’
‘He’s still here,’ Phoebe said, pointing towards the door.
‘I was about to put your fish pie in the oven,’ he said, approaching the bed again, glad to see recognition and relief in Ann’s eyes.
‘We can all have a lovely midnight feast!’ Phoebe announced with a fixed smile.
Ann looked from Phoebe to Connor and said, ‘What happened in the wood?’
‘Tonight?’ he asked.
‘No. Forty years ago.’
‘Phoebe will explain. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.’
He closed the door behind him and began to descend the stairs. Glancing at his watch, he saw it was almost 2.00am. Still a long time till dawn, but at first light he would go up to the beech wood and take down the swing before Ann had a chance to set eyes on it again.
ANN
By the time Ann arrived at the clearing in the beech wood Connor had already taken down the swing. She stood at a distance, watching him, trying to remember what life was like before yesterday; before Connor rang the doorbell on a rainy January morning and asked to view the house; before he’d come to seem so very necessary in her life. She couldn’t remember that time. There was only now.
She walked on towards him, stepping carefully on the mossy ground, heavy with dew. She made no noise, but he looked up, suddenly alert. Winding long pieces of rope round the swing seat, he said, ‘You’re up. How are you feeling?’
‘Very strange. Fish pie for breakfast was a new experience. It tasted surprisingly good.’
‘You can’t beat home-made.’
As he bundled the seat into a holdall, Ann said, ‘No, don’t. Show me. I’d like to see it.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes, I’m sure. Phoebe said you borrowed one of my books on William Morris.’
‘For the decoration. I know you love what he does with plants.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Phoebe said. She explained about the Morris room. How he was your hero.’
She smiled. ‘You like Phoebe, don’t you?’
‘I think I love Phoebe.’ He held Ann’s eyes. ‘But not as much as I love you.’
She said nothing and looked down. When she felt able to speak, she said, ‘Show me what you made.’
He unravelled the ropes again and displayed the wooden seat. A pattern of carved beech leaves curled around the edge and in the centre it said Ann de Freitas 2015.
‘I wanted to make something to remind you of the time we spent here. And I’m not really up to making garden benches.’
She traced the shape of a leaf with her finger. ‘It’s beautiful, Connor. Such a thoughtful present. Thank you’
‘I didn’t know—’
‘No, of course you didn’t.’
‘And I wanted to give you something that would last.’
She looked up into his face. ‘Oh, believe me, you have… If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like you to hang the swing back up for me. It belongs here.’
‘No trouble at all.’
He bent to put to the seat down. As he straightened up, Ann put her arms round his waist and laid her head down on his chest. He folded her in his arms and they stood in silence until she said, ‘Phoebe always said he loved us. She insisted on that. I suppose that love just wasn’t enough.’
‘If you’re very ill, sometimes it’s not. My Dad didn’t love me enough to stop drinking.’
‘She talked about him recently. Sylvester. I’d brought the subject up. I said I wondered if he ever thought of me, the way I often think about him. She said something rather odd. It seems even odder now that I know.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She said, “I’m absolutely convinced, wherever he is now, your welfare still matters to him”.’
‘I think she believes that.’
‘Do you?... I wish I could.’
‘You could try. Can’t do any harm, can it?’
‘No, I suppose not.’
She laid her head down again and they listened to the silence of the beech wood until Connor whispered, ‘Could you use some coffee? Let me make you some.’
‘That would be nice.’
He took her hand and they walked through the wood, past the laughing Green Woman, into the spring sunlight.
Connor looked up at the cloudless sky and said, ‘It’s going to be fine.’
‘Yes,’ Ann replied. ‘I think it is.’
THE BEECH WOOD
She has remembered what she saw long ago, what she found. There was a dark place in the wood and in her heart, a place that held secrets. Now nothing is hidden. Now she can grieve. Forgive. Love. Her life is full.
We, who have lived long, have borne witness to these things.
Were we human, we should rejoice.
Were we human, we should weep to see what we have seen, see what we see.
~~~~~
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to thank the following people for their help and support in the writing of this book: Tina Betts, Clare Cooper, Amanda Fairclough, Lorna Fergusson, Margaret Gillard, Amy Glover, Philip Glover, David J. Hogg, Bill Marshall, Erica Munro, Joanne Phillips, Sally Salmon and Katherine Wren.
I would also like to thank the staff of the National Trust at Tyntesfield, Somerset.
~~~
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~~~
Also by Linda Gillard
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When Gwen discovers fragments of forgotten family letters sewn into an old patchwork quilt, she starts to piece together the jigsaw of the past and realises there's more to the family history than she's been told. It seems there are things people don’t want her to know. And one of those people is Alfie…
~
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~
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THE TRYSTING TREE Page 27