by Helen Grant
What if my mother killed my father?
The next morning, I woke very late to find that the rain had stopped and there was brilliant spring sunshine, bright enough to pierce the threadbare parts of the green velvet curtains. I sat up in bed rather gingerly.
The last thing I could recall was lying awake, staring wide-eyed into the darkness, convinced that I would never get to sleep. Thoughts of what my grandmother and mother might have done had run through my head with the sickly repetitiveness of a fever dream. I had imagined Grandmother, her face as grim as an inquisitor’s, listening to the rumble of an engine outside, the crunch of tyres on the gravel, long-awaited, always dreaded. I imagined my mother beside her, and because I did not know her face I supplied it with my own, and I saw in the eyes of both her and my grandmother a savage light that seemed to illuminate their faces from within. I tried not to think of the rifle that I had aimed at Tom that day on the staircase, gripped in steadier hands than my own, of the fearful explosion as it went off. It was no use. If not the rifle, worse things suggested themselves: the axe that was even now standing, blade down, handle up, in the chopping block at the back of the house. Grandmother’s hands, the papery skin drawn tight over bunched knuckles that were red and slippery with blood.
I had been sure that unconsciousness would never come, but at some point, it had, and I had slept until my limbs were heavy and my head was foggy, the thoughts unravelling slowly and unevenly. I felt as though I should make my first movements with care, as though I were recovering from a bout of fever and unsure of my own strength. After a few moments, I slid my legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, the floorboards cool under my feet. Then I went to the window and recklessly yanked the curtains apart.
The sunlight was blinding but it seared away the horrors of the night before. I put up my hand to shield my eyes. It was still too early in the year for the green of springtime, but even the bare tree branches and the desiccated remains of brambles and the balding patch of grass visible from my window looked better in sunshine. I watched a flock of starlings poking about, their plumage iridescent in the light, and smiled to myself.
Bad dreams, I said to myself. Just bad dreams. You never even knew your mother. How could you imagine her a murderess? And how could you ever think that Grandmother would help kill someone?
It all seemed so stupid now, like something from the pages of one of the lurid old romances in the library. The sunlight streaming into the bedroom showed up every sign of wear and neglect: the floorboards worn smooth by the passage of feet over many years, the chips and scuffs in the paintwork, the little clouds of dust under the iron bedstead and the festoons of cobwebs that looped as gracefully as Christmas garlands in the upper corners of the room. All of it was old and decayed, but there was nothing sinister about it. I could not imagine murder taking place here; I could hardly imagine anything taking place here anymore. Langlands had a faded quality, as though it were the painted backdrop to a drama that had long since played out.
I dressed quickly, putting on some of my old clothes; the new things Tom had bought for me were not to be ruined with chores. Then I went downstairs to the kitchen to make tea. I filled the kettle with water, put it on the range to boil and made myself some bread and jam. The bread was home made, but the jam came from a jar Tom had brought me. It still seemed strange to me that Tom could just go and buy so many things that I would have made for myself; it seemed oddly helpless somehow, to get everything ready-made. But there was no doubt that the jam was good; it had set to a beautiful consistency that I didn’t always manage with my own efforts, and the explosion of sweetness in my mouth was wonderful.
Tom loves me.
That was the sweetest thing of all. Now that the dread of the night time had evaporated, the thought had room to blossom extravagantly, as though it were a flower opening up to the sun. Nothing seemed too difficult anymore. We would find out what had happened to my mother, and we would lay Grandmother to rest, and we would face all the questions together.
I smiled to myself as I went about my morning tasks: washing up my breakfast things, feeding the chickens, carrying in more wood for the range. There were fresh eggs today; I decided I would make an omelette later if I could find mushrooms to put in it. At this time of year, I might hope to find morels. As I fetched a basket, I wondered whether Tom bought mushrooms from a shop too. But surely not? Keeping hens was certainly a nuisance sometimes, but mushrooms were simply there for the taking, so long as you knew which ones were good to eat.
I put on a coat against the cold spring air, picked up the basket and let myself out by the front door. There was a place that I knew, halfway up the hillside behind the house, where a stream flowing down over a rocky outcrop cascaded into a little pool. The water was freezing pretty nearly all the time, even in the middle of summer, but I loved to watch it foaming down over the rocks. I thought that I would go there now, and hunt for the morels on the way.
The forest was shot through with overgrown tracks, some of them paths used by former inhabitants of the estate, and some of them nothing more than rabbit trails. I followed one of these now, picking my way along as quietly as I could. There were rabbits and foxes and deer in the forest, as well as game birds, but there was never any hope of seeing any of them if you blundered through the undergrowth snapping twigs and splashing in puddles.
Very quickly, I ran into a place where the track was impassable; during the winter a tree had come down, and the way ahead was a mass of protruding branches. I turned right, aiming to make a wide loop around it. The detour took me to within sight of the old mausoleum, where the former inhabitants of Langlands lay buried. There was no discernible path leading to it anymore. The stone building was surrounded by a tangle of brambles, as impenetrable-looking as the hedge of thorns that surrounded Sleeping Beauty’s castle. I was not tempted to try; my skirts would have stuck fast to the thorns. All the same, the old mausoleum was on my mind as I circled the fallen tree and began to make my way uphill.
Supposing Grandmother had not been buried or cremated yet? I wondered if it would be possible to bury her in the mausoleum. The ground would need to be cleared, of course; at the moment it was not only inaccessible but neglected. If the place could be made tidy, it would be a beautiful thing to do. Grandmother had spent some of the happiest times of her life here at Langlands. She had never forgotten that. In her deepest crisis, she had fled here. Even the deceit she had woven about our lives at Langlands had grown from the desire to go back to those better times. I thought that she would have chosen the estate for her last resting-place. It was the last thing I could ever do for her; it would feel like making peace between us.
When I came to the pool, I found that the wild garlic which grew nearby was coming out; the air was heavy with the scent of it. I gathered some of the leaves and flowers to add to the morels. It was very pleasant to kneel on the ground picking the plants and feeling the aroma of garlic intensify as I bruised the leaves between my fingers, until my mouth began to water. Afterwards, I knelt by the pool and washed my hands in the glacially-cold water, watching the water foam white as it descended from the rocks.
By the time I came down the hill, the basket piled with mushrooms and garlic leaves, I was beginning to feel pleasantly tired and a little thirsty. Thoughts were going lazily through my head, of taking Tom to see the little waterfall, and of the things I was going to cook, and finally, as the mausoleum came into sight, of my idea that Grandmother might be buried there.
The sun had gone behind a cloud, but as I approached the part of the track that passed the mausoleum, it came out again, dazzlingly, its rays piercing the leafless branches above. At the front of the mausoleum, something – a metal tie embedded in the wall, perhaps, or a crystal in the stone – was suddenly lit up, a brilliant point of reflected golden light that blazed briefly like the heart of a tiny fire. Then I had moved forward too far to see it, or the light had changed, an
d it was extinguished.
I walked the rest of the way back to the house feeling somehow comforted. I didn’t really believe in signs; Grandmother had brought me up in too brisk and practical a manner. But still I felt as though the rightness of my idea about Grandmother’s resting place had been confirmed by that brief moment of beauty. That day, all was right with the world.
It’s half past twelve at night and dark outside. It’s dark in here, too, with just the bluish light from my laptop screen. I’m hoping Mum won’t notice the light under the door. It’s difficult to do anything in peace right now. Dad’s taken on a job in Dunkeld, a customer who moved there last year, so we’re getting back later than normal anyway, and then Mum wants us all to have dinner together; there’s no sneaking a plate of food upstairs. Even when dinner’s finished and I can escape, she keeps coming up on any excuse. I’ve never had so many hot drinks. I think she’s hoping to catch me Skyping the mystery girlfriend or something, which is ironic really since Ghost is probably the only seventeen-year-old girl in Scotland who isn’t online.
I yawn, a great big yawn that ends in a sigh. I’m not getting anywhere with this. I’ve tried every combination of Elspeth or Edith and Hepburn or McAndrew or that name neither of us can pronounce. There are a few Edith Hepburns and McAndrews on social media sites but none of them looks like the right person, which is no surprise really. If you went off to start a new life you wouldn’t put it all over Facebook, not without changing your name. I haven’t found anything on any of the news sites either, which might mean something or nothing. It looks like nobody reported her missing. On the other hand, she never came back for Ghost.
I have a bad feeling about this, a feeling that won’t go away. Nobody is going to go off and leave their kid in a place like Langlands with one crazy old lady who pretends it’s still 1945 and won’t call a doctor when the kid is sick – not if they can help it. Unless...
Unless she had to stay away, because the guy’s disappearance was down to her.
That was the first thing that came into my head. She wouldn’t have been the first person to stick a knife into a man who’d been beating them up.
And then other things started to occur to me. Maybe what old Mrs. McAndrew said was right all along and Elspeth’s dead. It would make sense. The dead don’t leave a trail, online or anywhere else.
That still leaves the question: if she’s dead, how did she die?
I think about that again as I scroll down another page of useless search results, mostly genealogy sites full of Hepburns who died in the 1800s.
Maybe she did do something to Ghost’s dad, and then she killed herself afterwards. Maybe they fought it out, and they both died. Maybe she did go back to him, and wherever he went, he took her with him.
No, I think. This is nuts. All of it sounds over the top, like I’m trying to work out the plot for a TV series. But is it any crazier than keeping someone hidden for nearly eighteen years, and telling them it’s still World War Two?
There’s an opened can of Relentless sitting by my laptop. I upend it over my mouth, but there’s nothing left in it.
Maybe she just...died, I think to myself, helplessly. Natural causes. People do.
It’s useless. I’m never going to solve this. I rub my face, as though I can massage my overloaded brain back into life.
Natural causes, I think, and then: Childbirth. People used to die of that all the time.
I think that one through. Langlands House, eighteen years ago. Cold and dirty, with no running water or light. No way to keep things properly clean. And the old lady had had to go off for help, leaving Ghost’s mother on her own.
Maybe it took longer to persuade the doctor to come with her than she thought it would. Longer than he said it did, anyway. Maybe they got back to Langlands and it was already too late.
That would mean Dr. Robertson lied about that bit, about making sure the mother and baby were both okay. And it would also be a lie about him meeting old Mrs. McAndrew in the street later on, and her telling him Ghost was at boarding school and her mother abroad. He could have been covering his own arse, knowing there wasn’t anybody to call him out on it. Even for a retired doctor, it wouldn’t be great for it to come out that he’d been involved in something like that – someone dying from lack of medical care in an abandoned house, and someone else helping themself to the baby, even if it was their own granddaughter...
And just like that, it comes to me. The most monstrous idea of all. All of it was a lie. All of it. Not just the bit about it’s-1945-and-World-War-Two-is-still-on. Everything. Ghost’s mother, and her husband, the bastard she had to run away from. The long drive up from England in the dark. The late-night call on Dr. Robertson. The birth of a baby in a huge old derelict house in the middle of nowhere.
Supposing, I say to myself, Rose McAndrew took a baby. Not her granddaughter. Just someone else’s baby.
If it wasn’t so late and I wasn’t so tired maybe I wouldn’t even be considering such an insane idea, but the more I think about it, the more it takes shape in my head.
There’s the why, but that’s not too difficult to guess. I remember when I was a little kid, there was a woman in the town who used to push around a big old-fashioned pram with nothing in it. I asked Mum why she did that, and Mum said she wasn’t well in her head, and maybe she’d lost a baby of her own and had never been able to have any more.
But Mrs. McAndrew did have a kid, I think. There was a photo of her, with Elspeth written on the back.
And then right away I think: Maybe she died.
I think about the stuff we found in the safe. There was that one photo of Elspeth as a little kid, but nothing of her when she was older. Maybe she never got any older. Maybe she never got old enough to marry or have a kid of her own.
In that case, who married Max?
Estranged wife, that was all it said in that newspaper article about the guy who was supposed to be Ghost’s dad. It didn’t say Estranged wife, Elspeth. Max, the guy with the surname none of us can say, might not be Ghost’s dad at all, and his ex-wife might not be Ghost’s mum.
I slump back in my chair, rubbing my hands over my face and my hair. It all fits. It’s scary how neatly it fits. It would explain why I can’t find Elspeth McAndrew online, if she’s been dead for forty years.
Ghost looks like Rose did when she was young, I think. They have to be related.
But then I wonder about that, too. If you grow up with someone, you pick up some of their expressions, their body language, all that stuff. Mum says that sometimes – I sound just like your Gran. If you grew up with just one person, if you spent seventeen years basically just with them, wouldn’t you get to be a lot like them?
If I’m right, Rose McAndrew was – what? Criminally insane? An evil monster? Pitiable? Maybe all of those things. Dr. Robertson isn’t innocent either – in fact, his part in it is starting to look worse and worse. He told Ghost he saw her mother, right after the birth at Langlands. Was he lying? And why did he give her Max’s name?
I hear a creak from the landing floorboards outside my room. Mum on the prowl. I shut the laptop quickly, extinguishing the screen light, and wait in the dark for her to go away. Even after I hear her door close, I don’t open the laptop again immediately. The darkness is comforting in a way; I can hide in it while I ask myself very seriously what the fuck I’m going to do about all this.
Tom came back late in the week, on a clear dry afternoon when the sound of the motorcycle carried to me through the cool air long before the machine burst out from under the trees.
I ran out of the house to meet him, and found that he had already dismounted and was standing bare-headed by the machine, the helmet swinging from the fingers of one hand. He encircled me with his arm, pulled me close and pressed his lips to my forehead. This was different from his usual greeting; it was more like something Grandmother would have done,
somehow protective. I drew back a little and looked up at him.
Tom smiled at me. I still distrusted my own ability to read other people’s expressions, but it seemed to me that there was sadness in his smile. Then he relaxed and the look was gone.
“Let’s go somewhere,” he said.
“Where?”
“Anywhere.” I saw his gaze shift to the front of the house. “Let’s just get away from here for a while.”
I didn’t point out that he had only just got here. A trip outside was exciting, although I hoped Tom wasn’t going to suggest anywhere full of people.
I went back into the house to change my clothes; Tom stayed outside. When I came out again, he was standing on the gravel staring up at the house again. Was it my imagination that there was something unfriendly in his gaze?
“A penny for them,” I said as I went up to him.
He shook his head. “Nothing, really.”
He helped me to put on the spare helmet and when I was settled behind him on the motorcycle we set off. I liked to travel this way, with the open air streaming past us like a torrent and my arms tight around Tom. The part down the track to the edge of the forest was unpleasant because of the ruts and bumps, but after that it was exhilarating. We sped past the fields and into the town and right out the other side, and then we turned up a lane flanked with hedges, that cut across the land towards rising ground and the hill beyond.
Tom parked the motorcycle by a gate that had been secured with a heavy padlock and chain. I took off my helmet and shook back my hair from my face. On the other side of the gate, a track led up into the forest between towering fir trees.
Tom was already scaling the gate with ease. He jumped down on the other side and waited for me.
It seemed to me that I could have climbed more easily in my old skirts than in the tight modern trousers Tom had bought for me, but I managed it anyway. Tom took my hand and we began to walk up the hill.