by Ruth Dugdall
Holly had picked up on this – he was a working man of the soil, but Maya was educated and owned the farm.
‘Do they have a strong marriage?’
‘Oh goodness, yes!’ Janet seemed shocked that the question was even asked. ‘Livin’ together, workin’ together, for nigh on forty years. I think she thought she were too good for him at first, him not havin’ book-learnin’ like her, and of course he was younger too – just twenty-three to her twenty-seven years when they met. They was both too young for all that responsibility.’
Janet fell silent, and Holly knew why. This story was common folklore: the farmer and his wife, driving along Innocence Lane, had hit a tree with their car. Just yards from the farm, they had been killed and the story went that their daughter could hear their screams as they died. It was their ghosts that were said to haunt the area.
‘That were a terrible time for Maya. So, there she was, all alone with the farm to run. Soon after that, she married Hector.’ Janet paused, rubbed the butter between her fingers and worked it into the flour. ‘When you live in a place like this and you’ve lost your kin, you rely on folk near you. We’ve gathered together at the farm when there’s been a leccy strike or flood warnin’, or just because there was snow on the way.’
‘And you never wanted to move on, work somewhere else?’
‘I have my son and the cottage. That’s enough for me,’ she said firmly. But then she glanced at the door, as if to check no one was listening.
‘It’s a funny thing,’ Holly said cautiously, ‘tragedy striking the farm a second time. Her parents dying in that car accident and then this. Did Mrs Hawke seem . . . ?’
‘What, suicidal?’ Janet’s grey eyes flicked at Holly, narrowed. ‘Friday weren’t a normal day, that’s for sure. It was a shoot – we only have ’em about eight times a year, and there’s always a lot to do. I make the lunch, and of course the men have their hot toddy in the mornin’ and their Sloe Orgasm in the afternoon.’
‘Their what?’
Janet smiled, and the years fell away in that moment. ‘It’s sloe gin mixed with a bit of fizz.’
‘Sounds nice,’ observed Holly.
‘Hmm, well, usually it is. I can’t say Friday was much fun though, with that snooty headmaster Godwin. You must remember him?’ Holly nodded. ‘There was a man from the docks too – Mr Feakes, who seemed very nice and all, but it’s added pressure when there’s guests. And to top it off, they had that reporter there too – Alfie Avon – takin’ pictures and gettin’ in everyone’s way.’
‘Why was he there?’
‘Oh, Godwin had this notion that a piece in the paper, all about the farm and how it works and that, would go down well with the locals. Get ’em on side, like. Also, a picture of Mr Feakes havin’ fun makes him look like a hypocrite if he bulldozes it all over, don’t it? He’s canny, is Godwin.’
Holly thought so too. The whole shoot was just a PR exercise for Save Our Countryside. ‘So did it work?’
‘After a fashion,’ Janet said, considering. ‘Hector even let ’em kill the low-flyin’ birds, which ain’t the done thing, but he wanted to keep ’em happy and they weren’t used to handlin’ guns. Not like Hector and Ash are.’ She looked as if she might have said something wrong. ‘They have licences, of course.’
‘But what about Maya?’
‘Well, she wasn’t happy on Friday, I’ll say that much. A shoot’s an expensive thing to put on, and Hector was footin’ the bill. The farm’s not exactly a gold mine. Cass was there too, and she seemed upset about somethin’. The day just seemed to turn rotten. Who knows what pushed Maya into makin’ that bad decision?’
‘What bad decision, Miss Cley?’
She frowned, and leaned forward as if divulging a secret. ‘The day ended with her sayin’ she were gonna sell to the Port. It caused a right to-do. We was all shocked since she never planned on sellin’ the farm, not afore then. She can be a bit impulsive, fly off the handle sometimes. But then she’s had a lot to put up with, losin’ her parents like she did. Such a tragedy. You have to make allowances, don’t you?’
Holly noticed that Janet seemed to be struggling with all that had happened, as much as Cassandra. Perhaps she too had her doubts about what had happened. ‘What if Maya didn’t shoot herself, Miss Cley? Could someone else have wanted to harm her?’
‘Oh no!’ Janet sounded shocked, and Holly felt she’d overstepped an invisible line. The woman seemed to pull herself in. ‘Her family have been in Kenley for years and are well respected. Her dad was Master of the Hunt afore the accident, and her mum was president of the WI, as much part of this area as the pheasants and partridges. She shot herself in a moment of weakness. Maybe she felt wretched about all this nonsense with the land, and that pushed her over the edge. I told you she could be impulsive. But she’ll be okay, won’t she?’
‘We don’t know yet. We hope so.’
‘For all our sakes! Ash is so upset about it, I could hear him cryin’ after he went to bed last night. Poor boy, he always was sensitive.’
‘I remember he was like that at school. The other boys weren’t always kind to him.’
Janet’s face fell and her mouth nipped small. She was cutting the dough into shapes now, apparently concentrating hard, though Holly noticed that she reshaped and recut the same dough three times.
‘Kids can be cruel, and there’s always gossip in a village. Ash suffered on account of havin’ no dad.’ Janet began to pummel the scone mixture. ‘Godwin didn’t help, makin’ him stand in the corner every time he done summat wrong.’
‘I remember. It wasn’t fair how Ash was treated.’
Janet looked mollified. ‘He were never one for books – kids like him don’t belong in a stuffy schoolroom. Since Hector had his stroke, Ash practically runs that farm on his own. Think a halfwit could do that? Teachers know nothin’. But Hector allus believed in Ash, and I won’t forget that.’
Janet’s face was pink with emotion, and she leaned back to catch her breath.
‘Now, these scones need to bake. Why don’t you come back in twenty minutes and I’ll have ’em wrapped and ready for you to take to the hospital?’
Holly knew she had hit exposed nerves with her questions and Janet needed to be alone.
‘I’ll come back later, Miss Cley. Thank you for your help.’
Holly had time to kill, and speaking with Janet had reawakened her own memories and her curiosity. If Maya didn’t shoot herself, chances were whoever did was someone close to her.
Next to a fenced-off clump of woodland, where maybe the game birds were reared, Ash Cley was working in a field littered with half-domed huts and muddy pigs. The stench of them, rotten and sweet, had been present since she first drove down the lane, but now it hit her nose with force. Beyond the wood lay more farmland, the motorway taking lorries to the Port of Felixstowe, a distant point of civilisation. It seemed a world away from this grim and desolate spot. He was hammering a nail into the side of a hut in the corner, using more force than seemed necessary. Holly had almost reached him when he finally saw her, though he did not stop his angry hammering.
‘Hi,’ she said.
He gave a final bash with the hammer and stood upright, wiping his sweaty brow with his forearm, his face flushed. He didn’t move from his position, the heavy hammer dangling from his hand like a prosthetic. Ash still bore the traces of the boy he’d once been, enhanced by the straggly hair that hung around his face and his intensely blue eyes, which combined to make him seem younger than his thirty-one years.
‘You look busy.’
‘I’ve got all these huts to check afore dark. The sows need protectin’ from the wind now the weather’s turned.’
A cold gust caught Holly’s jacket and whipped it against her, forcing her to hold it close to her body.
‘I’ve just been to see your mum.’
Ash threw the hammer into the soil. It landed just a foot in front of Holly, making her step back. His face was twisted
and he spoke with barely suppressed anger. ‘My mum’s upset. You shouldn’t have gone there.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t go to cause any distress. It’s for Maya. Cass told me what she loves smelling best is your mum’s baking. I’m just killing time while the scones are in the oven.’
His face changed, and relief bloomed across his features now he realised she wasn’t here to interrogate him. ‘Is Maya awake then?’
It struck Holly that this should have been the first thing Ash said. ‘Still unconscious. Cassandra and Hector are by her side.’
He dug his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans and tucked his chin to his chest, leaning back on the hut. A young pig came snouting up to him and he pushed its flank with his boot, sending it scurrying away. Then he ran his hands over his face, as if to remove any pain that might be lodged there. ‘God, what a mess. I still can’t believe she did this.’
Ash’s mask of anger dropped completely. She felt his emotions, mirrored in her gut: anxiety twinned with hurt as he struggled to grasp what had happened.
‘Your mum showed me the pheasant you cooked for her, from your shoot on Friday.’
‘I’m tryin’ to get her to eat more. Unless I remind her, she just forgets about food. But she’s tough – stronger than all of us.’
Janet didn’t look strong, and Holly had sensed she was sick. ‘Has she seen a doctor?’
He blew a long breath into the cold air. ‘She’s not seen a doctor in years – never had a day off. Me and Mum are workers. Doctors are for folk who have time to be sick.’
There it was again, the idea that to be tough meant not seeking help. Holly realised that both of them thought this was a good thing, but how did it serve him when he was a young boy, bullied at school by pupils and teachers? How did it serve Janet, when she discovered she was pregnant after a one-night stand, and the villagers said she wouldn’t cope?
‘It’s none of my business, but I think she really needs to see a doctor . . .’
Ash’s face contorted with anger. ‘You’re right, it’s none of your bloody business. It’s, what, twenty years since you was here? And now you come snoopin’ about, when we’ve got this stress on us. Why you askin’ about Mum anyway? Maya tried to off herself, and thank God she failed, but it ain’t that unusual in farmin’ circles. This ain’t anythin’ for you to get involved with.’
His voice suddenly broke, anger giving way to softer feelings, and he rubbed his sleeve over his face. Holly remembered Janet saying she’d heard him crying in the night. As the wind whipped around her, Holly felt herself fighting just to keep upright. The icy blast didn’t bother Ash, who huddled into it as if it was a comfort. His weather fitted him like a second skin; he belonged here, and she didn’t.
‘I’m just trying to help,’ Holly said weakly. But even as she said it, she knew there was something else, another motive, pressing forward. Ash had been there that Halloween, she and Jamie had left him to face the fallout when they ran. She wanted, more than anything, to know what had really happened that night. What was that ghostly figure? But Ash had turned from her, and she knew she didn’t yet have the strength to hear the answer, in case it was the one she feared most: that it was a human cry. That her brother had shot someone, and they had ran away.
Holly turned into the wind and made her way back to the cottage, where Janet was waiting by the door, a foil-wrapped parcel of scones in her hands.
‘Now off you go,’ said Janet. ‘No need to bring the plate back.’
Holly felt she was warning her away.
Inside Maya’s hospital room, it was very quiet.
Cassandra was sleeping on the grey-blue plastic chair beside the bed, slumped uncomfortably to one side. On the bedside cabinet sat an empty cardboard bowl, a plastic jug half-full of water, and tissues – the trappings of hospitals everywhere. On the wall above the bed, a picture with the title Un Pichet de Limonade by Nicholas Verrall: a perfect scene, a rustic table and some empty chairs, a jug of lemonade. Was it hung there to inspire patients to recover? Most likely it served as a cruel reminder of what they were missing, though for Maya it was neither of these things. Unmoving and unresponsive, she was oblivious to everything. Whatever her secrets, they were locked inside her. Holly looked at her bruised and swollen face, and had to close her eyes against the pain. Violence had been committed, and she was sure that it wasn’t self-inflicted. If only Maya would wake, she could name the culprit. She unwrapped the foiled package, smelling the scones, their buttery scent of warm kitchens and comfort, the sweet tang of sugared fruit. She placed them on the bedside cabinet, and watched to see if Maya responded at all.
But it was Cassandra, still asleep, who reacted. ‘Mmm,’ she said.
Holly reached to gently touch her shoulder and Cassandra jolted upright, her gaze immediately directed at her mother. Holly experienced it as a surge of sorrow twisted with resentment, an invisible cord running from Cassandra towards the woman in the bed. She removed her hand and the feeling snapped away as if it were a figment of her imagination.
‘Oh, Holly, hi. How long have you been here?’ Cassandra rubbed her eyes, then noticed the scones.
‘I just arrived. I brought some of Janet’s baking. Let’s hope it helps.’
Cassandra smiled warmly in gratitude. ‘Thank you. I should have thought of that myself.’
‘You have enough to worry about.’ Holly pulled the second chair closer to Cassandra. ‘Where’s your dad?’
‘Downstairs having a smoke, I imagine. He was here when I fell asleep.’
‘And Daniel?’
‘He can’t cancel his Samphire Studio clients – some of them are very ill. They need him.’ There was no trace of bitterness, though they could hardly be as ‘ill’ as Maya.
‘Don’t you need him?’
Cassandra looked up with watery eyes. ‘Yes, of course. But he can’t be in two places at once. And you’re here.’
Holly was overwhelmed by how openly Cassandra smiled at her, her beautiful face warming like the sun. Her eyes returned to the woman in the bed and the temperature cooled. ‘It makes no sense that Mum would have done this to herself. But it’s what everyone seems to believe.’
‘Not everyone,’ Holly said. Discreetly, she reached her hand forward to touch the mound of bedding that covered Maya’s foot and tried to tune into her subconscious. She felt a shiver of cold and a dull heaviness, very little life and no emotion.
Cassandra closed her eyes tightly, as if to fight an eruption of tears. ‘How can this have happened, Holly? Friday was just an ordinary day. I don’t understand . . .’
Holly knew intuitively that Cassandra needed to talk. She needed to make sense of the fact that her mother was fighting for her life. Holly felt her hazy confusion as she struggled to navigate her way through the emotional landscape of recent days.
‘You can talk to me, Cass. It might help us to work this out.’
Cassandra bit her thumbnail. ‘I don’t know anything . . . I wish I did.’
‘How was your Friday, before this?’
‘I was at the library in Greater Kenley, as usual.’
Holly nodded, remembering that she knew this. ‘You’re a librarian there.’
‘I’m the manager. A therapy group called Team Talk is held there every Friday. I help Dr Clive Marsh run it.’
‘I know Dr Marsh,’ said Holly, glad of a connection to build on, and wanting Cassandra to talk more openly. ‘He’s one of the supervisors at the hospital; he’s marked some of my assignments.’
Cassandra gave a smile. ‘He’s a good friend.’
‘Do you want to talk about Friday?’ said Holly, tuning in to Cassandra’s muddled feelings. ‘I’d like to help, and I think we need to start there.’
12
Cassandra
Friday 31 October
Team Talk starts at ten. Around me, a motley gathering, all in the grip of the same sweat: strained faces, bunched bodies, slow movements. These are the foot soldiers of the me
ntally ill and Clive and I are on a mission to help them.
Roger, in a wide-lapelled suit that would have been fashionable back when he was still a company director, looking at his oversized watch, though he has no job to go to.
Trish, dark roots showing, fumbling in her bag for a box the size of a cigarette packet containing lollies.
Kirsty, milk stains on her jumper, struggling to keep her eyes open.
Alex, passing round the biscuits, ducking his acne-red face when anyone acknowledges his kindness.
An unlikely group, united each Friday. Some by choice, others by obligation.
Supposed to bolster each other up, calm each other down, steady each other to face the brutal world.
‘Go on,’ says Holly, listening intently.
I’m so tired, every bone heavy as lead, that if I close my eyes again, I know I’ll be back there. I want to be back there, to Friday afternoon. I want to be sitting tall on a library chair, wearing my freshly pressed blouse and fitted skirt, hands neatly clasped in my lap. Back to when everything still felt ordinary and within my control.
Across the circle is Clive. Scruffy-collared, his bulging briefcase on the floor, he’s the only one of us paid to be here, though whatever he spends his salary on, it isn’t his appearance. His beard is daubed with something suspiciously organic. Despite his dishevelled appearance, Clive is well respected. A consultant psychiatrist at the Bartlet Hospital, many of the group first met him when they were hospitalised and now he’s working with them in the community. He also gives expert evidence in court and he’s often running behind with deadlines: he’s either a bad time manager or a workaholic. His wife Ellen wishes he’d take a holiday and he asks our advice on this, sharing his own problems.
I’m his unpaid helper, with the added bonus that I can offer a venue, because on Friday mornings the library is closed, and as manager I can give permission for the group to meet there. I believe in this therapy; I know it works. When Daniel and I open Samphire Health Spa, I’ll run sessions like this there, alongside other things to soothe and heal the troubled mind. We’ll keep Punch, the horse. It’s good for depressed people to be around animals, and Victoria will be home to ride him.