The River Home : A Novel (2020)

by Richell, Hannah

  With a loud groan, Margot, still down on all fours, felt something hot and muscular slide from her body. There was a sharp, burning sensation and then she heard something drop with a thud onto the earth. She felt the wetness between her legs, the sweat on her face, heard her breath coming in short pants. She stayed there, her forehead resting on the cool earth, waiting, knowing through some deep internal instinct that it wasn’t over. And then, moments later, it came again, another crashing wave of pressure, not as strong as before, but still urgent. There was a second release, another warm and wet thing sliding from her body onto the soil below. She leaned forward again, her face pressed against the ground, and breathed in the mud, the damp leaves and the solid reassuring scent of the earth holding her up.

  She didn’t know how long she stayed like that, but when she opened her eyes, it felt as if the world had tilted. The sunlight streaming through the trees a little lower, the air a little cooler on her skin. She could see a misshapen toadstool poking up through the mud, a black earwig scuttling up its grey stem.

  She knew there was something she should do, but while her face remained resting on the soil, she could pretend. She could gather herself, come back into herself.

  It was only as the air began to cool the slick wetness between her legs, and her sweat-covered skin started to prickle into goosebumps that she moved. Only then did she allow herself to look.

  She saw it lying on the ground between her legs. The Bad Thing. A silent, blue baby, slippery with blood, a white-grey cord tangled about its neck, connecting it to a congealed pile of bloody matter lying in the leaves beside it.

  Margot studied it for a moment before retching again and again onto the dry earth.

  It was almost dark when she eventually shuffled back along the towpath, dirt-stained and weary, following the black slide of the river home. Her hands ached and when she looked down she saw they were black and bleeding, her fingernails torn and caked in mud. There was a strange buzzing in her head and though her legs felt as heavy as stone, she stumbled on, a hunched version of herself, autopilot drawing her back to Windfalls. One word echoed over and over in her head. She walked to the beat of it. Gone … gone … the Bad Thing was gone.

  The jetty below the orchard came into view, jutting out into dark water. Margot hesitated, one hand on her stomach, hearing the echo of long-ago laughter, the sound of bottles clinking. There it was: her mother’s studio, looming at her out of the shadows. The place of her undoing. The buzzing in her head grew louder.

  So this is where the magic happens?

  His voice echoed in her head. She could hear it so clearly she had to wrestle the urge to claw at her ears. Unable to stop herself, she shuffled forward and placed a bloodstained hand on the door handle. Was she in there? Would she help her?

  Who did you think about, Margot?

  Inside, a familiar smell rose up. It made her want to gag: paper, apples, her mother’s perfume. The room was empty but across from the door stood the desk, a perfect pile of stacked A4 pages placed neatly on its surface next to the old black typewriter. She closed her eyes, remembering the sensation of paper pressed against her face, the pressure of his hands on her skin, his thumb pressing into the soft part of her neck, the juddering of the desk beneath her all flooding back in a sickening rush.

  You don’t know what you do to me.

  Feeling the dull, aching emptiness inside of her, Margot let out a howl of rage. She crossed to the desk and in one violent move, swept the stack of paper, the lamp and the typewriter to the floor. The sheets of paper spiralled like a flock of displaced birds. She snatched up the oil lamp hanging on a nail in the wall and threw it to the ground, taking satisfaction in the loud shattering of the glass and the sight of the oil leaking across the floor. She pulled books off the shelves, ripped the gauze curtains from their rails. The pink crystal paperweight flew through the window pane with a crash. This place – the place of her mother’s distraction, the cause of their father’s departure, the site of her shame – it was to blame for everything.

  The box of matches sat on the windowsill. It seemed the most obvious thing in the world to reach for them and strike one against the side of the box. She watched it flare in the gloom, then threw it towards the puddle of oil leaking from the broken lamp, hearing the satisfying whoomph as it instantly caught alight.

  The flames rose fast. They ran across the floor, dogs licking the legs of the desk, blackening the neatly typed pages of paper lying strewn across the floor, words turning to ash in seconds. Margot, transfixed by the flames, watched for a while, amazed at how quickly they took ownership and lit the whole studio in a bright, smoky haze. She wanted to stay and watch the whole lot burn. She wanted to let it claim her too, but as the fire rose to the roof of the studio and advanced toward her, a deep, primal instinct saw her turn and stagger from the old apple store where she collapsed, choking on the jetty, watching the remains disappear behind a wall of heat and flames.

  It could have been minutes, it could have been longer, Margot had no idea how long it took for the figure to emerge from the darkness, running down the path leading from the house. Margot watched with detachment, the woman standing there in her nightdress with her hair hanging loose and wild about her shoulders. ‘No!’ she screamed, her hands on her head, her face a picture of pure horror as she gazed at the burning building. ‘Oh my God. No!’

  As Kit turned, Margot saw the jolt of recognition on her mother’s face as she caught sight of her crouched on the jetty. Margot, her body numb with exhaustion and shock, watched as Kit’s face twisted with sudden understanding and rage. ‘What have you done?’ her mother cried, pulling at her own hair, fixing her with a furious, burning gaze. ‘What have you done? My book! What on earth have you done?’

  Margot swallowed, the taste of ash and smoke heavy in her mouth. ‘He’s gone,’ was all she could reply, the words little more than a whisper. ‘He’s gone.’ Overhead the bulbs swayed on their wire, dusty and unlit, while beside her, the dark water flowed endlessly, silently on its course.

  SUNDAY

  34

  Lucy lies beside a snoring Tom, blinking in the dim light of her childhood bedroom. She knows she should sleep too, that her body won’t thank her for the early start after such a late night, but it’s a losing battle. She is still pulsing with adrenaline from the party, and from the horror of Margot’s early hours confession. Fragments of their conversation play on repeat in her mind. At the sound of a blackbird calling from the garden, she gives up completely, and slides out from beneath the bed covers.

  She pulls on UGG boots and a long woollen cardigan, wrapping it tightly over her pyjamas. There is a familiar, low-lying pain rolling in her stomach, dull enough that she can ignore it, for now.

  The house is quiet and still, in complete disarray, like a forest rearranged after a storm. Downstairs in the living room, an unidentifiable wedding guest lies curled beneath a blanket on the velvet sofa, bare feet hanging over one end, soft snores drifting through the open door. The kitchen is a mess. The long oak table is covered in empty wine bottles, dirty glasses and the remains of a cheese platter no one has thought to put away, a wheel of brie oozing into a molten puddle, a bunch of grapes turning brown. An ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts stands next to it. Lucy regards the mess with quiet triumph – all signs of a good party – before letting herself out of the back door and into the morning light. She needs a moment to herself before she can face the clean-up operation ahead.

  Outside, the morning air holds the first notes of autumn. The light is bright and clean and beautiful, though lower in the valley, a mist shrouds the river from view. She walks through the orchard, past the ashen remains of the smouldering bonfire, the marquee standing limp with condensation and drooping bunting, a champagne bottle lying discarded in the trampled grass, the scent of fallen apples rising from the earth. The hem of her pyjamas soaks up the morning dew.

  A blackbird sings from a branch high above. She wonders if it is
the same one that called her from her bed as she wraps the cardigan more tightly around her and heads for the fallen trunk of an old tree resting beside the slow-trickling stream. As she sits, her gaze lands on the carved initials hewn into the trunk of the nearby apple tree: K. T. E. L. M. Five letters marking their place, confirming their family’s presence in this landscape, their belonging. She imagines what it would look like without the L. She takes a moment to imagine it being scrubbed from existence and swallows hard.

  Her gaze shifts back to the house, standing on top of the hill in the morning light, her family home, a place of dysfunction and chaos, yes, but also love and safety. At least that was how she’d always thought of it. Margot’s revelations have shaken her to the core. How had her sister carried such a terrible secret burden for so long? How had none of them seen what she had been through – what she had carried, both physically and emotionally? Why had none of them thought to dig a little deeper? They had all been so quick to interpret her moodiness and destructive act as teenage defiance and anger. And as Margot had built her walls, they had allowed her to slip away. They had turned away. Lucy feels her own sense of shame, for missing the signals – for failing to help.

  She remembers the look on Margot’s face as she had lain between her and Eve, gazing into the dying flames of the bonfire, and told them about the rape, and of the baby she had secretly carried. She remembers Margot’s tears as she had told them about the birth. Stillborn, she’d said – at least, she had thought so. She told them about the silence. The blue baby with the cord wrapped around its neck.

  ‘What did you do?’ Lucy had asked, a little afraid of the answer.

  Margot had closed her eyes. She hadn’t spoken for a long time. ‘I didn’t want to touch it,’ she’d said after a long moment. ‘But I couldn’t not. I carried him to the river.’ Him. That one word. It had taken all of Lucy’s self-control not to cry, but to stay with Margot, present and silent. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight.’

  ‘You would have been in terrible shock,’ Eve had said gently, reaching out to take her sister’s hand. ‘Tell us, Margot.’

  So she had. She had told them, in faltering words, how she had decided, at first, to hide the baby in the river. ‘I wanted him to disappear. I thought he would float away. Be gone.’ But when she had reached the water’s edge, she couldn’t do it. ‘It didn’t seem right. The water was so cold and I couldn’t let go of him. Not like that.’

  Lucy had closed her eyes to hold back her tears as Margot had explained how she had used her bare hands to dig a grave at the river’s edge, clawing at the mud with her fingers. ‘Underneath the bridge,’ she’d told them. ‘The river bank was softer, and it was dark and quiet there in the shadows. I thought he would be … safe there.’ Margot’s voice had caught on a sob. ‘I know … I know it was wrong, but I didn’t know what else to do.’

  She’d told them both about the terrible walk home and how turning off the towpath, she’d been confronted by the sight of their mother’s studio – the place where the attack had happened. She told them how it felt to see it standing there in darkness, goading her from the shadows, and in that moment, Lucy had thought she understood exactly why Margot had done what she had done. She had known that she probably would have done the same.

  When Lucy thinks of all her sister has suffered, she feels an overwhelming sadness. Kit would surely understand? Kit would surely forgive the destruction Margot had wreaked, if she could only find a way to tell their mother?

  Lucy had heard it over and over last night, as the news had trickled out about her illness: you are so brave, you are so strong. Is she brave? She doesn’t feel it. She is putting one foot in front of the other and carrying on. What else can she do? It was Margot who had suffered, who had carried so much misplaced shame. It was Margot who was brave, living silently with her secret.

  She sees the truth now: they all carry pain. Kit’s lost love for Ted, and Eve’s crumbling marriage; Lucy’s disease and Margot’s harrowing past. There is braveness in living, she thinks. There is strength in carrying on. Margot is proof of that and Lucy’s hope for her sister, now that she has started to talk about what happened, is that she will find a way to pull down the protective exterior that has kept her from so much and so many. If she can only find the strength to tell Kit what had happened, perhaps there is still a chance the two of them could come back from this.

  A figure appears at the top of the garden and walks down through the long grass towards her. ‘I don’t want to intrude,’ Sibella says, drawing a little closer. ‘I came to help with the clear-up and I heard you leaving the house.’ She holds a blanket out to Lucy. ‘I thought you might want this. Don’t catch a chill.’

  Lucy takes it with a nod. ‘Is this how it’s going to be from now on: knitted blankets, tea and sympathy?’

  Sibella smiles. ‘Take it while you can. The alternative is the washing-up.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

  Sibella is turning away when Lucy speaks. ‘I’m afraid,’ she says, her voice cracking slightly as the words leave her mouth.

  Sibella comes and settles herself on the log and places her hand gently over Lucy’s. It feels soft and reassuringly warm. ‘I know, love. I know.’

  ‘I was so focused on yesterday’s party – the grand gesture of it. I thought it would bring a sense of accomplishment. Maybe even a sense of peace.’ She gives a small laugh. ‘And it has, to a degree. Marrying Tom and celebrating with everyone yesterday was exactly what I wanted. Everyone together. I felt so … happy and so …’ she wrestles for the right word, ‘… loved.’

  ‘But today,’ she sighs and kicks out at a rock lying on the ground near her feet, sending it skittling away through the grass, ‘today I feel pissed off and angry. I can’t fix it. I can’t fix any of it – my pain, the pain of others.’

  Sibella stares off into the middle distance. ‘It’s not fair,’ she agrees. ‘What you did yesterday, the way you showed everyone how you want it to be, how you want to live right now, it took real courage. It was inspiring.’

  Lucy thinks of Margot again and feels a tear trickle down her cheek. It splashes onto her cardigan, forming a dark spot. ‘We can hold ourselves so tightly. We build our protective walls and set ourselves apart. But what I see more and more is how much we all need each other.’ Lucy swallows back a sob, thinking again of Margot alone in the woods, cradling her stillborn baby. What she had gone through, birthing him all on her own before taking the poor infant and burying his body in the mud beneath the stone bridge with her bare hands, a last act of desperation, only the river to bear witness.

  Sibella, unaware of Lucy’s thoughts, squeezes her hand tightly. ‘You can’t fix everyone else’s problems, Lucy. You aren’t responsible. Forgive me if this sounds like meddling, but I wonder if it isn’t time for you to think about what you need, right now, to keep yourself strong?’

  ‘Isn’t that selfish?’ Lucy manages a weak smile. ‘I think there are a few people who already think I’m selfish for forcing everyone back together yesterday.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone could call you selfish, Lucy. Yesterday was wonderful. You showed incredible strength of heart. It was a day filled with memories that your family will cherish in the days to come, whatever they bring. But your wedding to Tom isn’t the end. It’s not the end of your story, is it? You’re still here. Alive. So live, Lucy. Live to the best of your ability.’

  Lucy gives a small smile. ‘Not dead yet, right?’

  ‘Exactly. Each day is a gift.’

  Sibella leaves her sitting on the old tree trunk. Lucy watches her go, not quite ready to move. Gradually, in her stillness, other, happier memories from the previous night return to her: twirling with her friends under flashing lights; Chloe and May laughing with their dad; Eve sitting on a hay bale, resting her head on Margot’s shoulder; Tom drawing her close and whispering how proud he was to be her husband; Andrew holding out his hand to Eve and inviting he
r to dance; Ted and Kit sitting on deck chairs beneath the stars, quietly conversing.

  Gazing around the orchard, her eyes land again on the five initials carved into the old apple tree. This time, the sight of them brings comfort. The love will remain, she realises. The love they hold for each other will still be here, even when she no longer is.

  A breeze shifts the tree branches overhead, sending a small flurry of copper leaves spiralling to the earth. Lucy turns her face to find the sun, allowing it to warm her cheek. She knows the day heralds the equinox, when the northern hemisphere will begin to lean away from the sun. Today, the earth is in balance, but soon the nights will be longer than the days. Summer is giving way to autumn. Lucy watches as one brown leaf lands on the stream and floats away on the current towards the river, part of the endless flow. The light, settling on the mist in the valley, is almost too beautiful. She feels herself surrender – to the beauty, the love, the pain, the sadness, the joy of living.

  What does she need right now? She needs to return to her family. She needs to hug her husband and thank her family for a wonderful day. But first, she thinks, gazing down into the valley, there is something else.

  The white mist gathers round her in a fine veil as she wanders down through the orchard and beyond the wooden gate to meet the riverside. Everything is muffled, shrouded in strange silence. It is a feeling of separation, a peculiar sensation, as if she steps into another world. At the bottom of the valley, the river stretches out pale grey and flat, merging on the horizon with the mist to create a seamless blank canvas, eerily pretty and still. She walks onto the jetty and shrugs off her clothes. The cooler air brings goosebumps prickling on her skin. Standing at the edge of the wooden platform, she looks down into the smooth water, as pale as milk. It stretches out, a sheet of glass, to meet the white horizon – blank and formless in the mist. The overhanging trees are faded and smudged, as if an artist has taken an eraser and blurred their edges, blending them to white. The silent river waits to embrace her.