There is a sudden change in the tempo of the music as it shifts from a classic disco number to the gentle acoustic riffs of ‘Harvest Moon’. Andrew comes and stands in front of them, a hand held out to Eve. ‘It’s our song, Eve.’
Eve glances uncertainly at Margot. Margot nods as Lucy pushes her up off the hay bale. ‘Go on,’ she says. ‘For God’s sake, go and dance with your husband.’
32
The night stretches – long and rowdy – a carousel of music and dancing and drinking. Andrew gathers up their sleeping girls from sofas in the house and carries them to the car. ‘Stay,’ he says. ‘It’s important. You won’t have this night again.’
Eve nods. ‘Thank you.’ She turns away before he can see the tears in her eyes.
In the kitchen, she busies herself with rinsing champagne glasses and scraping discarded plates of food, stacking them by the sink for the morning clean-up. She empties the bin and replaces the rubbish bag. Somewhere out in the orchard, she can hear a guitar playing. There is low laughter and singing. Why is she in here, she wonders? What is she hiding from?
She finds Lucy and Margot stretched out on the grass near the bonfire, propped up on cushions and wrapped in blankets stolen from the house to fend off the cooler night air. The fire has slumped to embers and the mood has settled into something more considered and contemplative as the idea of morning creeps closer. A pale violet hue rises on the horizon, drawing a faint outline over the surrounding hills.
Eve looks at her sisters, Margot with her arms wrapped around her knees, her face lit in the glow of the fire and Lucy lying next to her, looking exhausted, but beatifically happy. She thinks of Andrew and the girls tucked safely in their beds at home. She thinks of the amount of tidying still to do in the morning, when ‘tomorrow’ has officially arrived. ‘Andrew’s already taken the girls home, but I should probably go too,’ she says.
‘Why should you go?’ asks Lucy.
Eve shrugs. ‘I don’t know. Mother guilt. Wife guilt. Guilt guilt.’
‘I’m sure Andrew can handle it. Stay. Just a little longer.’
Eve looks at her sisters and realises why she has always felt ‘other’. Perhaps it wasn’t them. Perhaps it was always her, holding herself at arm’s length. She had created the gap, set herself apart, taken responsibilities and duties upon herself that perhaps she hadn’t needed to. She nods and sinks down onto the cushion beside Lucy. ‘For a little bit.’
‘Look what Jonas gave me,’ says Margot, producing a spliff from the folds of her dress.
‘I don’t know where you found him, but I think I might be a little in love your photographer friend,’ says Lucy, with a happy sigh. ‘He’s fit, too,’ she adds, nudging Margot in the ribs. ‘I hope you’re going to let him love you. It’s obvious that he does.’
Margot’s blushes mirror the warm glow of the fire. Eve frowns at the spliff in her hand. ‘Is that a good idea?’
Lucy laughs. ‘For fuck’s sake, Eve. I’ve got cancer. I think the least I deserve is a medicinal spliff.’
Margot lights the joint and passes it to Lucy. They sit in silence for a while, watching the fading bonfire, the way the sparks crackle and fade away into the still-dark sky. Eve accepts the spliff from Lucy and takes a drag. She ignores the amused look shared between her sisters.
‘Don’t you sometimes wonder what it’s all about?’ Margot asks, after a long silence. ‘If there’s any rhyme or reason to it all?’
‘All the time,’ says Lucy.
‘You must think, “why me?”’ says Eve, turning to Lucy.
Lucy shrugs. ‘Yes. But you know, “why not me?” Life is a lottery. Isn’t that what makes it such a wild ride?’
Margot clears her throat. ‘Are you scared?’
‘I am.’ The bonfire shifts, logs collapsing into ash, sparks spiralling up into the sky. ‘I’m going to give it my best shot though. I’m young. I’m fit and I’ve got great doctors. I mean, for fuck’s sake, I run a yoga and wellness studio. That’s got to be in my favour, right?’
Margot and Eve nod vehemently.
‘This diagnosis makes every day even more precious. It makes me want to be more open, to live more boldly and to love more wholeheartedly, in the time that I have. And,’ she adds, with a small smile, ‘if I can abuse your sympathies,’ she turns to Margot, ‘and force you to face up to the rifts of the past … well, then I can die happy and with you lot all thoroughly annoyed with me. Right?’
Lucy is trying to make a joke but Margot has fallen silent, staring into the embers of the bonfire. Her face is ashen and she wears an expression Eve hasn’t seen in a long time. Uncertainty, trepidation, as if she is perched on a ledge, wondering whether to jump.
With a sigh, Margot turns to them both. There is a shift in her expression and Eve sees something new in her eyes. Determination. She has made a decision.
‘There’s something I need to tell you both,’ Margot says quietly.
Eve stays silent. She senses Lucy’s stillness too, their held breath. They both watch as Margot turns back to the fire. ‘It’s something I should have told you years ago.’
Eve and Lucy, sensing the precipice Margot hangs on, remain still as their sister begins to speak. They listen as Margot plunges for the first time, with halting words, into her untold truth.
THE PAST 2009–2010
33
At Christmas, Ted invited Eve, Margot and a recently returned Lucy to a Christmas Eve dinner at the pub. It was to be their first proper catch-up since Lucy’s globetrotting, and with Ted and Sibella as an offi cial couple. Margot, dreading the idea of an evening of false festivities and close scrutiny, slid reluctantly into the backseat of Ted’s car where he sat waiting for her outside Windfalls. Sibella, wearing a red coat and with her hair flowing down her back and Ted – jubilant from a recent return from London where his long-awaited new play, Attrition, had opened to critical acclaim – were both in high spirits. Ted seemed intent on grilling Margot on every aspect of her life. Margot slumped down in the back seat and answered their questions with the most perfunctory of replies.
‘How are the A levels going?’ Ted asked, steering the car round the hairpin bends of the Mortford lanes.
‘Fine.’
‘You’re coping with the workload?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Everything all right with your mum?’
‘Yes.’
She saw Ted and Sibella exchange a glance. No doubt they thought her a moody teenager, struggling to accept her father’s new partner. Let them think that. It was easier.
Lucy and Eve were waiting inside the pub, perched on bar stools. Lucy, golden brown, her hair knotted in tight plaits and dressed in head-to-toe flowing tie-dye from her stint in India – where three months had turned to six months after a heady but doomed love affair with a fellow yogi – looked impossibly radiant and healthy and Eve, well, Eve looked impossibly tired on a rare night off from looking after baby Chloe.
Ted ordered champagne and regaled them with stories from Theatreland. They pulled Christmas crackers and Margot tried to blend in with them all, tried to look like she was having fun, while saying very little of anything to anyone. When she excused herself, Lucy followed her to the ladies, accosting her at the washbasins. ‘Is everything all right? You don’t seem yourself.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Margot kept her gaze fixed on her hands, the soap foaming between her fingers, the water scalding hot.
Lucy narrowed her eyes. ‘You sure? It’s like … it’s like someone’s switched you off. Like a light’s gone out.’
Margot met Lucy’s gaze in the mirror. ‘A light? You’ve been in India too long.’
‘Is it stuff at home? Is it weird being there just you and Mum?’
‘She’s busy with the final book,’ muttered Margot.
Lucy sighed. ‘I know it’s hard but we’ve got to give Sibella a chance, for Dad’s sake.’
Margot shook her head. ‘Sibella’s all right.’
Lucy nodde
d, taking the opening, clearly eager to discuss their father’s girlfriend. ‘She seems sane, which is a start, right?’ She grinned at Margot. ‘Wonder what she sees in Dad?’
Margot tried to muster a smile.
‘I’m a bit jealous of her hair.’
Margot felt Lucy’s close gaze sweeping over her again. She forced herself not to shrink away as Lucy reached out and tugged at the sleeve of her hoodie. ‘Isn’t this one of Eve’s old tops?’
Margot shrugged. ‘It’s comfy.’
‘It’s hideous. I need to take you shopping. You’re so pretty. You shouldn’t hide away.’
Margot remembered the last time she’d felt pretty. The night she had stood on a stage and felt seen and appreciated, an audience applauding her. She remembered Mr Hudson’s gaze – the way he had looked at her. The way she had encouraged it. Why would she draw attention to herself? She knows what happens when you do … things that hurt … things you can’t control.
The door to the ladies opened. ‘There you are,’ said Eve, ducking inside. ‘I need in on this. Are we dissecting Dad and Sibella?’
Lucy nodded. ‘Quick. Shut the door. What do you make of her?’
‘I want to dislike her, but I think Dad’s done well. What about you two?’
Lucy shrugged. ‘It would help a bit if she wasn’t one of those annoying women who looks gorgeous without a scrap of make-up, but yeah, we’re in agreement. Though I think we could all do with a little less of his puppy-dog eyes. It’s a bit cringe.’
‘What do you think she sees in him?’ Eve asked. ‘He’s so much older.’
‘I asked her that,’ said Lucy, matter-of-factly.
Eve gawped at Lucy. ‘You what? Oh Lucy. Of course you did.’ She shook her head. ‘Well, come on then, what did she say?’
‘She said he was “sweet and loving” and then said something about him having “a brilliant mind”.’ Lucy shrugged.
Margot eyed the door. She wanted to be at home, under her duvet, away from the intense family analysis.
‘I was just telling Margot she needs to sort out her look,’ Lucy said, switching subjects. ‘These old hoodies and tracksuit bottoms are doing nothing for her.’
‘I like them,’ said Margot, jutting her chin. ‘Besides, there’s more to life than clothes and make-up.’
Eve turned to regard herself in the mirror, tugging at her own loose top, adjusting a breast pad inside her bra. ‘God, my boobs are so huge! I thought I would have lost all this baby weight by now. The midwives told me breastfeeding would suck the fat out of me, but they lied. I feel more enormous than ever.’
‘Will you two stop already?’ Lucy asked. ‘You’re both gorgeous. If you don’t feel good about yourselves, maybe you should try one of my yoga classes.’
Eve and Margot looked at each other and burst out laughing.
‘What? It’s fun. Yoga is for every body. That’s our mantra at the studio. You might enjoy it.’
Eve rolled her eyes. ‘Lucy, if I could find an hour to myself without a crying, mewling thing clinging to me demanding milk and nappy changes, do you know what I’d do with it? I’d crawl into bed and sleep.’
Yes, thought Margot silently. Me too.
‘It would be good for you,’ argued Lucy, unwilling to give up so easily. ‘And it might put a spring back in your step too, Margot. You seem so … so …’ Lucy didn’t finish her sentence but Margot knew what she wanted to say. She saw them both regarding her in the mirror, her lank, greasy hair, her dull skin, the ugly grey hoodie now a permanent fixture dwarfing her body. She knew what they saw: the disgusting, unlovable truth of her, manifested there for all to see.
Her reflection stared back at her from the graffitied mirror over the sink. It startled her, in many ways, that she was visible in the glass. She felt so hollowed-out and numb. There was something wrong with her, something broken that she wasn’t sure could be fixed. She was a husk, emptied out and ready to blow away on the breeze.
Eve yawned. ‘We’d best get back out there. They’ll know we’re talking about them. Besides, the sooner we order dessert, the sooner I can get home to bed. Unless there is a Christmas miracle tonight, Chloe’s going to be waking me up at 2 a.m. for another feed.’
Back at the table, Margot slumped into her seat and allowed the conversation and laughter to wash over her. They swapped presents and attempted a little Christmas cheer, toasting with champagne. Ted couldn’t take his eyes off Sibella. She sat with her hand on his knee. He acted as if she were a prize, clutching at her like she was some giant teddy bear won at a fairground stall. Eve couldn’t stop yawning and checking her watch and Lucy seemed capable of only talking about India and how incredible her trip had been. It was like being behind glass or submerged under water, Margot thought, visible but disconnected from their shiny, happy lives. She was grateful when Ted settled the bill and drove her back to Windfalls.
All winter, Margot held her shameful secret like a hot coal simmering at the very heart of her. She spent hours lying on her bed reading books, listening to music on her headphones or drifting in and out of a strange, numb state: not quite sleep, not quite wakefulness. Occasionally, she’d steal wine from the cupboard in the kitchen, knowing Kit would never notice its absence. She’d drink it up in her room, chasing that buzz, that fuzzy sense of otherness that took her away from herself. Other times she’d buy cigarettes and sit at her bedroom window chain-smoking until she felt lightheaded and sick. She dressed in Eve’s baggiest hand-me-downs and let her hair turn into a wild, tangled nest. At school she kept her head down, did the bare minimum to scrape by, and tried to summon the energy to care about it all. She wasn’t interested in school plays or exam results. The Bad Thing sapped all her energy. She willed it to be a bad dream, willed it to be gone, but each morning she awoke, knowing that it had happened. It was still there.
On the last day of the Easter term, Margot left the school bus and began her walk home. It had not been a good day. The English teacher had pulled her up in front of everyone for missing yet another end-of-term essay deadline. She had sat in class, head bowed, and let the admonishment wash over her. ‘I don’t understand it, Margot,’ the teacher had berated. ‘It’s not like you to be so sloppy in your work.’ Maybe, Margot thought simmering silently, that’s because you don’t know me at all. She was tired, irritable and her back had ached no matter how she sat at her desk. It took all of her willpower not to snap back at the teacher and storm out of the classroom. At lunch she had dropped her tray in the canteen and been the cause of much laughter and derision, and she’d spent the rest of the afternoon hiding in the girls’ toilets, sitting in a cubicle weeping inexplicably.
A little ahead of her was a group of students, walking down the lane, laughing and joking, Jamie and some others from the Romeo and Juliet cast among them. Margot pulled her hood over her head and ducked down onto a nearby pathway leading through the woods towards the river. It was a less direct route, but that way she could take the towpath home to Windfalls and avoid them.
Walking through the woods, Margot felt a little of her irritation lift. The spring sun was gathering strength and the woods were ripe with the scent of wild garlic. Two weeks stretched ahead of her: no school, no bus journeys, nobody to avoid. She knew her mother was in the final, frenzied stages of her novel. ‘The last two chapters, darling,’ she’d told her with a glazed look on her face that morning over breakfast. Until then, it wouldn’t be hard to avoid Kit. Eve was still caught up with the baby and Lucy had hatched a plan to launch her own yoga studio in Bath. She would be able to spend most of the Easter holidays on her own. Perhaps she’d focus on the late English essay, pull something out of the bag.
Halfway home, among the sun-dappled trees, Margot felt something release inside of her. A physical ‘pop’, followed by a hot liquid gush flooding down her inner thighs. She stood stock still, shocked at the sensation. It felt as if she’d wet herself. No warning, just a sudden release. Almost as quickly, a sharp band of pressure ros
e up and gripped her, like a belt pulling tight across her abdomen. Margot reached for the nearest tree trunk, leaning her weight upon it, waiting for the pressure to release. It felt like the worst kind of stomach ache, as if her insides were fighting to leave her body.
As the pain eased, Margot let out a long exhalation and released her hold on the tree. It had passed. She waited for the strength to return to her legs, felt the clammy fabric of her tracksuit bottoms where it clung to her thighs, then began to walk with a little more purpose towards home.
A few steps on and the pain came again, a seizing of muscles so powerful it paralysed her in her tracks. She clutched her stomach, felt the rock hard tautness of it bulging beneath her hands and let out a small whimper. She was afraid. The Bad Thing was coming. It was coming now.
Margot carried on down the path, gripped by pain, staggering between the trees as waves of awful tightening then release came upon her. At one point she bent over and vomited the undigested remains of her school lunch into the undergrowth. She moaned, feeling prickles of sweat breaking out on her neck and forehead. She was so hot. And there it was, another crashing pain rising up within her.
Clutching her belly, she moved with a primal instinct through the trees, away from the path to a denser area of woodland where the Alders grew taller and more closely together. Unable to go any further, she crouched down in the shadows to vomit again onto the leaf-strewn ground, heaving until her stomach was empty and the tears were running down her face. Help me, she implored, gazing silently up through the leafy boughs at the faint shard of sky. She didn’t know whom she addressed, but she willed for something – anything to take pity on her. Please help me.
And then she was sweating and panting and tearing at her clothes, a pressure building in her – a pressure so strong and inevitable that she knew there was nothing she could do to stop it. She dropped to her knees and placed her hands on the muddy ground, bracing herself against the damp earth, moaning and whimpering as the pain took hold of her again, a splitting sensation tearing at her. There was a short release and then it came again and she could do nothing but ride the sensations and let her body purge whatever was coming.
The River Home : A Novel (2020) Page 26