My Mother's Silence (ARC)

by Lauren Westwood

  My Mother’s Silence

  A gripping page-turner full of twists and family secrets

  Lauren Westwood

  Books by Lauren Westwood

  My Mother’s Silence

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  Hear More from Lauren

  Books by Lauren Westwood

  A Letter from Lauren

  Acknowledgements

  The Selkie

  * * *

  The cold winds twine the strands of her hair,

  She smiles and beckons you to her lair.

  Leave your house and leave your lands,

  Leave the shore with the pearl grey sands.

  Forget your love, and promises made,

  Follow her voice to a watery grave.

  * * *

  Music and lyrics by Skye Turner, age 17

  Prologue

  My sister stands out on the rocks. Her head tipped back, her arms outstretched. The sky pulses with the beam from the lighthouse. The wind lashes her hair, a golden halo against the dark horizon. Behind her the sea is a seething cauldron, the waves booming their terrible heartbeat. The water rises, arcs above her, the air heavy with spray. Her eyes shine with a strange fire.

  I begin to tremble, the blood thrumming in my veins with fear and pent-up rage. I’ve been here before, too many times. Gone out to the edge, held out my hand. Listened to her laugh at me, but in the end, felt the relief and warmth of her hand in mine.

  ‘Come on,’ I shout. ‘I’m taking you home.’

  She does laugh, but at the same time a tear trickles down her cheek. And I almost go to her then. I almost let myself be pulled back into her relentless orbit. I take a step forward, over the barrier. She takes a step backwards to the edge.

  ‘No,’ she says.

  This is all part of her game. My loyalty, my dignity pushed to the limit. This is where I’m supposed to take charge, become the protector, pull us both back from the brink.

  A giant wave booms against the rocks with a shaking force. Icy water rains down on my head pricking my skin like needles.

  This is where it ends.

  1

  The mists are closing in. Swirling down from the barren hills, creeping out of the glens. The light is fading fast, and with it, my resolve. This is wrong. I shouldn’t be here.

  I wrap the tooled leather strap of my handbag tightly around my palm, cutting off the circulation. But I can’t stop the tide of memories, growing stronger by the mile as the coach heads west.

  Some of them are beautiful and shiny: memories of my childhood, especially at this time of the year. The buttery smell of shortbread in the oven; the dogs sleeping on a rug by the fire. Guests arriving for dinner; Dylan songs on the guitar; board games and laughter. Snow, falling in great white flurries onto the beach.

  I unwrap and examine each one like a child on Christmas morning. Dad stringing lights on the tree, Bill, my little brother, held up to put the star on top. Mum at the hearth lighting a fire to stave off the cold that was forever seeking a way in through the nooks and crannies. The warm glow of being together. A long time ago.

  The coach turns northward and I catch a glimpse of the sea. Mauve-grey, almost purple, with a ghost of orange haze on the horizon as the sun slips away. I see my own reflection in the window, the image sharpening as darkness sets in. For a moment, it’s as if I’m seeing someone else’s face, Ginny’s face, staring back at me from the darkness. Daring me to unwrap those other memories, the ones in the package with no bow and the tag that’s fallen off. Remove the tissue paper, look inside…

  ‘Eilean Shiel,’ the driver calls out.

  I free my hand and untie the scarf around my neck, struggling to breathe. I should have called out and asked the driver to stop, to let me off miles back – anywhere but here. Now, though, it’s too late. A middle-aged woman across the aisle looks at me and frowns.

  ‘You OK, love?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say hoarsely, though it’s probably obvious that I’m not. Since I made my escape fifteen years ago, I suppose that I have been ‘OK’. I’ve had good times that have nothing to do with this place. I’ve seen the sunrise over the Mojave Desert, driven the Sunset Strip with the top down. I’ve lived in Vegas and Nashville, and lots of places in between. I’ve got good memories that I can unwrap and relive when I need them the most: on a sleepless night in a dive motel, in a car driving mile after mile down a long, lonely stretch of highway. Dad used to say that without the bad times, you’d never know how good you have it. Dad said a lot of things, most of which I’ve learned the hard way. But in the end, I can look back and say that I’ve done the best I can. Done my best to live a life for both me and Ginny.

  The coach pulls up at the bus shelter across from the village hall. The door opens and the woman opposite stands up, collecting her bag from the overhead rack. I sit there, not moving, staring out towards the dark, infinite sea. The woman walks to the front of the coach and stops, looking back in my direction. I’m worried she might try to talk to me again. I make myself stand up and move forward.

  I step off the coach onto the pavement. The orange sodium lights can’t even begin to dispel the darkness. I’d forgotten about the darkness, so heavy and eternal this time of year. But it’s the cold that’s truly shocking. I pull my scarf back around my neck and clench my teeth to stop them chattering. The wind lashes at my skin, my thin coat unable to keep out the chill.

  The driver opens the bottom of the coach to unload the baggage. I look out along the curve of the bay to the dark headland opposite the village. Through the drizzle I can just make out the pinprick glow of lights. The cottage where I grew up. In a few minutes, once I get a taxi, those lights will be my reality. Out there, no amount of shiny memories can make up for what’s coming. I’ll be seeing Mum again; I’ll be coming home.

  As the driver unloads the baggage, fifteen years seems like yesterday. I’d just turned twenty and was going the other way: Eilean Shiel to Fort William, Fort William to Glasgow, and, eventually, a plane to America. Yesterday for me. But what will it seem like for Mum?

  We’ve been in touch – of course we have. A hurried postcard, the odd strained phone call on birthdays and Christmases. My brother, Bill, acts as the messenger between the trenches, supplying regular updates by email. I’m grateful that he makes the effort, and sorry that he has to do so. When he contacted me in late November to say that Mum had had a fall and fractured her ankle, I was worried. I sent flowers, chocolates and a nice card. When he wrote again and told me where it happened, I cried. And then, on a lonely November night when
I was dying for a different town, a new lover – something, anything – to make a new escape, Bill rang me. Mum, he said, had asked for me. ‘She wants to know when you’re coming home.’ He didn’t know that those were the only words that could ever make me come back here; the words that I’d been waiting for all these years. I packed up my things, and booked a flight…

  The woman from the coach is still watching me. I take out my phone, pretending I have an important text to send. There’s no signal. No pretending here.

  ‘What you got in there, lass?’ the driver says, bowing under the weight of my wheelie case. ‘Gold nuggets?’ His accent rings in my ears. The rich, almost sing-song voice of the Western Highlands. Over the years, I’ve met people who’ve thought my accent was ‘cute’, ‘sexy’, ‘melodic’, ‘weird’. To me, though, it sounds like home.

  ‘I thought I was travelling pretty light,’ I say.

  He sets my case on the pavement. ‘In my day, all we needed was a toothbrush and a change of knickers.’

  I laugh at that, which warms me up inside. A little.

  The driver closes the hatch and I wheel my case to the side. It’s heavy because I threw in a few books at the last minute, but it’s small considering that I don’t know how long I’ll be staying. Before I left, I gave notice on my rental house in Vegas. As I was packing, I discovered that I had almost no warm clothing. A few cotton jumpers, a pair of boots, some scarves, and a knit hat with sequins and a fake fur pom-pom. I shoved what I could into the suitcase, left my guitar with a friend, and gave everything else to charity. I’m used to being a nomad, a vagabond. My roots have shrivelled up and died.

  The driver climbs back aboard and the door shuts with a hydraulic hiss. The engine judders to life. There may still be time. This is the end of the line, but if I gave him twenty quid, I’m sure he’d let me back on. Drop me at a different village, a different cove, maybe take me all the way back to Fort William.

  Too late. The coach pulls away. The woman is still hovering about. I stand up a little straighter, like I know what the hell I’m doing next. In fact, I’ve no idea. There are no taxis. There used to be a village taxi that met the coach, I’m sure of it.

  ‘Would you be needing a ride, love?’ the woman says. ‘My other half will be here in a few minutes. He’s meeting me.’ She smiles and, in the glow of the lights, something about her looks familiar. I don’t want familiar.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I say. ‘Someone’s meeting me too.’ The lie comes easily.

  ‘Right,’ she says. Car headlamps come towards us, blinding me for a second. ‘This is me, then. You sure…?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be fine. You have a good evening.’ I take advantage of a well-practiced ‘have a nice day’ American answer to everything.

  As the car pulls up, the woman cocks her head. ‘It’s good you’ve finally come home,’ she says. ‘Your mum will be glad to see you.’

  I stare at her as she gets in the car. If only I knew for sure that that was true. Her words poke at the place inside where my guilt is coiled, lying in wait. She doesn’t know anything – can’t know anything. About the things that can never be unsaid, the wounds that time can plaster over but never heal.

  The car drives away and I’m left standing in the wind and the darkness, feeling utterly alone.

  2

  The drizzle is becoming a steady rain and I can no longer see the lights on the headland. I take a breath and steel myself. It’s fine that there are no taxis. It’s late afternoon, not the middle of the night. I haven’t eaten for over six hours, not since the airport at Glasgow. I’ll walk into the village, get a coffee, warm up, and call for a taxi. I’ll be half an hour at most. It will be good to get the lay of the land again before going to the cottage. I’ve rehearsed my reunion with Mum many times in my head, but it won’t hurt to go through it again. What’s another half hour when it’s been fifteen years?

  I walk quickly, hunched over as the wind blows the rain into my face. The village is only a few streets, all of which lead down to the harbour and the promenade along the front.

  I head towards Annie’s Tearoom. I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t there, and the summer before I left, I worked there part-time serving tea and cakes and clearing tables. It’s owned by a woman called Annie MacClellan, whom everyone in the village called ‘Aunt Annie’, probably because she knew everything about everyone, and was everyone’s best friend – if you stayed on her good side. Annie made melt-in-the-mouth cranachan from wild raspberries and fresh cream, and in winter her clootie dumpling, rich and heavy with dried fruit and spices, was the toast of Hogmanay. Cranachan, clootie, black bun… all those remembered tastes and smells… My senses go on high alert.

  My bag rumbles behind me along the uneven pavement. I pass a row of gabled, whitewashed cottages and as I get nearer the water, a small parade of shops. Most of them are closed, but the Spar is open, along with a general store selling fishing supplies, souvenirs and so-called antiques. A signboard outside, optimistically advertising ice cream, creaks in the wind.

  The harbour is deserted. I pass the boat-launching ramp, strewn with fishing traps and nets. The breakwater juts out into the gloom and a few wind-tossed boats are moored along the front. My eyes are tearful from the salt and the sharp gusts of wind. I turn onto the promenade looking for Annie’s Tearoom along the row of buildings. Where is it? It can’t be… gone.

  I come to the place where I know it must be. The teashop is dark and there’s a sign in the window. Closed. I shut my eyes until the irrational sense of despair ebbs away. Regroup, start again. I’m good at making new starts. Not so good at making them last. I don’t need a coffee and a cake anyway.

  I walk on. A little way further down the front there’s a lit up sign: The Fisherman’s Arms.

  Fish and chips – now there’s a thought. The proper kind, wrapped in newspaper, doused so thoroughly with salt and vinegar that the flavours stick on your tongue, making you thirsty for hours afterwards. Dad used to take us for them on Saturday evenings in summer. We’d find a bench along the front, and the gulls would swoop and dive, squabbling over dropped chips. Bill would chase after them, leaving his chips on the bench to be attacked by other birds. The batter was crisp and the fish was so moist it would just flake apart. How could I have forgotten those fish and chips?

  I hurry towards the lit up sign. The pub is neatly whitewashed, and there’s a strand of Christmas lights strung inside the bay window. As soon as I open the door, my senses are assaulted by familiar smells: frying food, beer, and wood smoke. The warmth draws me in. I shiver from the sheer pleasure of it.

  The pub isn’t crowded. A few tables are occupied by couples and families eating fish and chips, and an old man is playing a fruit machine by the door. The room is lit by lanterns and wall lights made from old glass fishing floats. In the corner at the back there’s a carved figurehead of a woman with flowing hair trimmed with rose garlands. I recall the odd prickly sensation I had, aged twelve or so, when I first noticed the bare breasts of the figurehead. Even now the carved woman strikes me as garish and risqué.

  I approach the bar. Most of the stools are taken. The bartender’s back is to me as he pours a measure of whiskey into a glass. But even before he turns around, I know him. I had no idea he worked here now, or else I wouldn’t have come inside. I should have arranged for a taxi before I arrived, or better yet, rented a car in Glasgow. Now, it’s too late. He turns around and spots me. Byron.

  He stares at me. Long seconds pass. I don’t know which is worse: that he recognise me, or not recognise me. Surely, I haven’t changed that much…

  A smile blooms across his face. He begins walking towards me. His fair hair is longer than it was back then, his skin tanner, like he’s been somewhere getting winter sun. He’s still big, and though he’s wearing a woolly grey fisherman’s jumper, looks very fit. His features are bold and handsome, the years making the planes and angles more defined. Byron…

  Once I would have done anyth
ing for Byron.

  ‘Skye! Skye Turner – it’s you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Guilty,’ I say, then instantly regret it.

  Byron engulfs me in his strong arms. He smells of beer and man and it’s so familiar that my knees wobble.

  ‘So let’s see you.’ He holds me at arm’s length. ‘You look great. What’s it been? Ten years?’

  ‘Fifteen,’ I say hoarsely.

  ‘Fifteen! Did you hear that, Lachie?’

  A ginger-haired man with a scraggly beard turns around on one of the bar stools. I know him too. Lachlan McCray.

  ‘Yeah,’ Lachlan says. He doesn’t smile or look remotely friendly.

  ‘And you’re a celebrity now!’ Byron’s voice is loud enough that people are starting to look over. He’s still holding on to my shoulders.

  ‘No.’ I take an awkward step back. ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Byron teases, ‘don’t be modest. Wee Bill keeps us updated. We’ve all seen you on YouTube.’

  This is getting worse and worse. When I left here everyone knew that I had big dreams. Singing my songs, on my terms, conquering the world with elegant poetry and haunting melodies. Instead I’ve spent most of the time tarted up in denim and diamonds, singing country music classics in tacky shows and cheap nightclubs. I suppose it was too much to hope for that they didn’t know that.