My Mother's Silence (ARC)

by Lauren Westwood

  ‘Yes, all fine.’ She turns to me. ‘The kids are feeding the alpacas.’

  ‘Good,’ I say. It’s nice to see Katie, but I’m not here to learn about alpacas. As I’m trying to think of a way to steer the conversation back on track, James intervenes. ‘We were just having a word about what happened… before.’ He looks apologetically at his wife. ‘Skye is trying to fill in the blanks in her memory. I’ve told her about the row I had with Ginny.’

  Katie tuts. ‘It was such a terrible thing, and we’re all so sorry, Skye,’ she says. She takes James’s hand protectively, making it clear that they are a united front. ‘I know it was years ago, but it still must be hard for you. Every time we go to the seaside, I think of her…’ She trails off, as if she’s misspoken.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘It has been hard. Everything triggers a memory, but not the ones about that night. After the car accident, all my memories are blank. But I’m hoping to put the pieces together, get it out in the open, and then, hopefully, close it again. I don’t want things to be awkward. You know?’

  Katie’s face is guarded. ‘Your mum seems to think it was all James’s fault. Because he didn’t “take care of her”. But she wasn’t his responsibility. They weren’t even together.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I guess Mum just needed to blame someone. She certainly blames me. I should have collected Ginny that night and brought her home.’

  ‘She wasn’t a child,’ Katie counters.

  ‘I know but I still feel responsible.’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ she says. ‘I understand. But I’m not sure I can help. To be honest, I’ve tried to forget, not remember.’

  ‘I tried that too,’ I say.

  Katie nods. ‘OK, well, James and I started getting close after she dumped him. His heart was broken, but for the first time I was in with a chance. She was leaving… going off to that audition. Everyone knew that.’

  I glance at James. He’s staring down at their laced fingers.

  ‘So I wasn’t very happy when she turned up at the party and took James away. I was jealous.’

  I nod.

  ‘I went to find them. I was pretty off my face. And when I did…’ she winces ‘… it wasn’t pretty. James was happy to get back with her.’

  ‘No…’ James tries to protest. Katie gives him a look. It’s pointless.

  ‘I started calling her names,’ Katie says. ‘I said a few things that I shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Katie…’ James warns.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she says. ‘I want her to know. She’s right, we need to get it out in the open.’

  ‘I know,’ James says, ‘but—’

  ‘I told her she should bugger off and not come back.’ Katie gives a long sigh. ‘She just laughed in my face. Said “you wish”. I was really angry.’ She takes a breath. ‘I would have hit her, but James held me back.’

  ‘Katie!’ James stands up, as if to shield her from me.

  I look from one to the other. ‘You didn’t mention that,’ I say to James.

  ‘He’s protecting me,’ Katie says. She takes James’s hand again and they have eyes only for each other. ‘I didn’t ask him to, but that’s the way he is.’

  I ignore the display of affection. ‘So what happened next?’

  ‘James told Ginny that he was really sorry, but it was over. He’d moved on.’ There’s a hint of smugness in her voice. ‘I went back to the fire. He stayed with her to make sure she was OK.’

  ‘We sat in the car for a while,’ James says, ‘and then I went outside and smoked a couple of cigarettes. I said she should come back with me and join the others. She said no, she wanted some time by herself. So eventually I left to go find Katie. Ginny was still there in the car. I didn’t see her go down to the jetty. Besides, there were other people there, coming and going. Lachlan – he was trying to get with Maggie, I think. Byron, and others. It wasn’t like she was alone.’

  ‘Byron? I thought he left to get more alcohol.’

  They exchange a look. ‘Yes,’ Katie says. ‘At some point. I don’t remember the timing of all of it. But when I got back to the campfire, you were there.’

  ‘Me…?’ I try desperately to remember. Faces flickering in the light… the taste of whiskey and Coke. And nothing else.

  ‘I don’t remember you arriving,’ she says. ‘You must have got there when James was in the car with her. You seemed annoyed – that you drove all the way out and she wasn’t there. You had a few drinks. Kept going on about a ripped up ticket?’

  ‘So what did I do?’ My brain is desperately trying to put all the pieces together.

  ‘You said you were going to find her and take her home. You walked back up towards the car park. That’s all I know.’

  ‘I said that? I went to look for her?’ In every other account, people have said that I just got fed up and left.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ she says, frowning.

  ‘But did I find her? Did I speak to her?’ I’m desperate, terrified to know.

  ‘I don’t know, Skye.’ James shakes his head. ‘I’m not too clear on the timing of any of it. All I know was that sometime later, Byron came and said you’d been in an accident. He wanted to find Ginny to tell her, but no one had seen her. Some of us went to search and ran into Jimmy and Mackie. That’s when we heard.’ James puts his hand on mine. ‘That wave… I didn’t see it, but I can picture her out on the rocks. There one moment, and the next just… gone.’

  ‘It’s all just so tragic,’ Katie says.

  I stare up at the barren hills, the shadows shifting across them as clouds cross the winter sun. Everything I’ve heard just seems wrong. People seeing things, not seeing things, coming and going. People lying. How can I ever find out the truth? The sound of a steam whistle pulls me back to the here and now. The train is pulling into the little depot. Emily gets off the train, yanking Robbie by the hand. Jamie sees me and runs over. In a way, I’m grateful that they’re back. I couldn’t stand another minute of this awful conversation.

  I give Emily a ten-pound note and send her and the boys to buy a notebook and some sweets. I stand up, feeling dizzy and unsettled.

  ‘I’m sorry, Skye,’ James says. ‘Sorry that I… that we…’ he indicates his wife ‘… didn’t tell you all this before. We weren’t the last people to see her alive. But that’s not an excuse. We helped with the search. I told the police I’d spoken with Ginny in the car park. But I didn’t see her die.’ He chokes back a sob.

  I nod slowly. James might not have told the whole truth at the time, but I believe that he’s come clean now. I decide not to tell him that the ‘rogue wave’ was most likely a complete fabrication of Byron and his mates. James and Katie clearly feel guilt over what happened that night. As they should. If James hadn’t rejected her, if Katie hadn’t come upon them during their ‘reunion’ there almost certainly would have been a different outcome. Just like there would have been if I’d found Ginny and brought her home. But, in the end, it was Ginny herself who chose to go out onto those rocks, and maybe… I have to consider the possibility now… chose to die.

  I muster a smile. ‘We all wish that night would have ended differently. I appreciate your help. Sorry to dredge up all those painful memories.’

  ‘Sure.’ James steps forward and gives me a hug. ‘And don’t be a stranger, OK? Come back and let’s talk of happier times.’

  ‘I will,’ I say. ‘I promise.’

  I round up the children and wave to James and Katie as we go out of the farm shop to the car park. I feel a little closer to Mum, knowing that I will never be setting foot back here again.

  At dinner, the boys give an enthusiastic account of the farm, the animals, James’s kids, and the sweets I bought them. At first I’m worried that the mention of MacDougall’s might send Mum round the bend again, but she seems entirely back to normal. I manage a quick word with Fiona as we’re doing the washing-up. Apparently Mum cried for a while when we left, had a cup of tea, and then got on with making the br
ead, kneading out her aggressions in the dough.

  ‘Bill doesn’t necessarily agree, but I think it’s a good thing that she has these little bouts of grief,’ Fiona says. ‘Like a volcano blowing off steam. Better to do it a little at a time than to have a full-blown eruption.’

  ‘Grief is one thing,’ I say. ‘But her breaks with reality are very unsettling. Especially for Emily.’

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ Fiona says, sounding not entirely convinced.

  ‘I hope so.’

  As I go upstairs to my room, I wonder how Mum would react under Fiona’s ‘volcano theory’ to what I learned from James and Katie. Ginny must have been in a bad state after the encounter with her ex and his would-be new girlfriend. I wouldn’t have known that when I went to look for her. Did I call out to Ginny, telling her that I’d come to take her home? Did she answer that she didn’t want go with me, or just keep quiet and I didn’t see her in the dark? My vision of her on the cliffs – it’s looking more and more like it could be a real memory. But how can I find out?

  Before going to bed, I tune the harp for Emily. I wish I could move it out to the hallway, but then Mum would definitely know that I’m clearing out the room. I don’t want to cause another one of her ‘mini-eruptions’.

  I move the harp back into the corner and take out Dad’s guitar. I spend an hour or so experimenting with chords and notes, trying to bring my own ideas to the surface. Just melodies, not words. I’m not ready for words. Eventually I put the guitar away and lie awake staring up at the ceiling in the circle of lamplight. The knots of the pine take the shape of sinister faces and accusing eyes. If I did find Ginny and speak to her that night, what passed between us? If she was upset, did I comfort her, tell her that everything was going to be fine? That it wasn’t too late – we’d both go to the audition like we’d planned? Or did I get angry with her? Say the wrong thing, intentionally or unintentionally, exaggerating the hurt she was already feeling? For fifteen years, I’ve believed that my sister’s death was a tragic accident. But if that isn’t true, then what else might have happened? When I saw the book about suicide in Mum’s room, I’d dismissed the possibility – absolutely certain that I knew my sister. Now, I realise that I didn’t know my sister at all.

  29

  It’s almost dawn before I fall into a restless sleep. When I wake up, bright sun is shining through the window. The temperature has dropped and there are frost florets on the glass. In the morning light, my fears from the night before seem ludicrous. Ginny never would have taken her own life – not when she had so much to live for.

  I stare up at the knots on the ceiling, but now they just look like knots. If Ginny had lived, we would have spent nights in motel rooms all over the world, staring up at different ceilings. It would have been such an adventure! I just wish that she’d confided in me: told me that she was feeling a little bit homesick, a little bit guilty for breaking up with James, maybe still a lot in love with him. I could have helped her deal with his rejection, and we would have gone to the audition together. There was no way her nostalgia for a local boy would have held her back once she escaped the misty veils of Eilean Shiel.

  When I go downstairs Lorna is with Mum – they’re getting ready to go out to a WI event. The others are going to the village. Emily asks if I’ll go with them, but I decline. There’s something else I want to do. Emily seems a bit sulky at my response. ‘Are you seeing your boyfriend?’ she asks. ‘The man who was here the other day?’

  I frown at her as my mind slips back in time. Ginny in our room, sulky. ‘Are you seeing Byron again?’

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ I say.

  ‘No?’ she teases. ‘Seemed like maybe he wants to be.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ I leave it at that.

  When she and the others are finally gone, I take the car keys from the peg. Maybe I should have asked Mum if I could borrow the car, but in the spirit of ‘not rocking the boat’ I’ve decided just to do it.

  Outside, the cold is shocking. My breath curls and rises in the air as I start the car and use a credit card to scrape the ice from the window. The road will be icy and treacherous. Where I’m going, I’ll need my wits about me.

  I drive past the village of Eilean Shiel, heading south. The road undulates up and down, twisting and rising through frost-covered hills and windswept dunes. The sea is hazy and blue, and the mist-shrouded islands shimmer like magical, drowned worlds. Eventually I reach the turn off to the single-track road that leads to the Shiel Peninsula, and the lighthouse where my sister died.

  For the first few miles, the road winds along the shore of a narrow sea loch. I pass through ancient woodlands of oak and rhododendron, the moss-covered branches of the trees forming a tunnel over the road. Further west the landscape turns almost lunar as the road snakes through a barren land of bog and boulders with tiny arctic plants clinging to life in the waterlogged soil, and the odd sheep poking its head out of the bracken. In the spring, the land will be a kaleidoscope of colour: the yellow broom, the bright greens of grass and fern, and in summer when the heather blooms, the hills will be carpeted with dark purple. But now, the landscape is soft browns and greys with a light dusting of frost like icing sugar.

  After driving for almost an hour, I reach a crossroads. The north road goes off to a settlement of caravans. I continue going west. The last few miles of track going up to the lighthouse are twisty and treacherous, with the verge dropping off sharply in places to a rocky, boggy wilderness cut deep with ravines. I pull into a passing place in the shadow of a huge rock face with a frozen waterfall snaking down a fracture in the rock. From here, I can see the tip of the lighthouse on the cliffs, the road zigzagging below.

  I get out of the car and walk along the road. I don’t know exactly where I had the accident, just that the car went off the road on a bend into a rock, and ended up teetering at the edge of a steep gully.

  A car comes around the bend and I jump out of the way. Even though it’s daytime, it has its headlamps on and flashes me. Headlamps? A flashing light. Did I see flashing headlamps that night? Was there another car oncoming? Is that why I swerved and went off the road?

  ‘Damn it,’ I say aloud as the car goes by. It’s hopeless trying to remember. I stop walking and turn back. Having gone only a short distance, I can no longer see the top of the lighthouse. Another one of Dad’s sayings comes into my mind. ‘The road of life is full of twists and turns. Best, love, always to go in a straight line.’

  A straight line. I get back in the car, feeling that the truth of that night is more twisted than ever. The flashing lights… is that a real memory? How can I ever be sure?

  I drive on to Shiel Lighthouse, perched at the top of the headland. I remember learning on a long-ago school trip that the lighthouse is built in the ‘Egyptian’ style – like the lighthouse at Alexandria. There’s a legend that any sailor who successfully navigated the treacherous seas around the point would earn a sprig of lucky white heather to nail to the mast of his ship. I drive past a small museum, closed this time of year, to the parking area below the lighthouse.

  I park the car near the remains of a toppled wind turbine, felled like a soldier in battle. There are a few other vehicles parked next to a row of rusty fuel tanks. The wind practically takes the door off when I open it, and I have to wrestle it closed. I imagine Mum arriving here, tired after the long drive, and yet determined to ‘find’ my sister.

  I pull my scarf over my mouth and bow my head against the freezing wind. To the left of the car park is a trail down to a small cove: just a fringe of sand dotted with lichen-covered rocks. The cove was where the party was that night. I guess some genius chose it because of its remoteness, and the fact that there would be no caravaners out at that time of year to disturb the fun.

  I take the path down to the cove. That night, I would have seen the campfire from above and gone there, expecting my sister to be with the others. I find a rock to sit on that’s sheltered from the wind. The force of
the waves vibrates through the rocks, and the air shimmers with spray.

  I close my eyes and focus on the flickering light of memory. Faces around the fire. Are the memories real? Or am I projecting what my conscious mind ‘knows’ from the police report and other people’s accounts?

  The party was for the 18th birthday of a girl called Maggie, who was a classmate of Katie’s. Ginny and I were almost twenty and Byron and Lachlan were already twenty. We were gatecrashers, really. Along with Maggie and Katie, there were several other girls from their year and a few of James’s mates from the rugby team. Byron’s cousins, Jimmy and Mackie, came late to the party. All in all, there were about fifteen people, excluding me, who saw, or said they didn’t see, Ginny.

  Mum was relying on me to bring Ginny home safely. I didn’t do that. But what did I do? I kick at the sand in frustration. Faces in the firelight. Katie’s face? She said she heard me say I was going to look for Ginny. Once again, it’s a memory filled in by someone else.

  I go back up to the lighthouse and take another path to the right of the car park, a dirt track that zigzags down to a small picnic area and the remains of an old jetty used for getting in supplies. Near the bottom, the path is cut into the rocks, and I can hear the shriek of sea birds and the pounding of the surf below.

  The ruined jetty is a small rectangular platform with a rusty metal ring stuck in the concrete. My heart is in my throat as I peer out over the edge. With each wave that breaks against the rocks, long tendrils of kelp move in the water like mermaid hair. Hypnotic and chilling. The Selkie… No. Selkies aren’t real. If Ginny went out on the rocks it wouldn’t have been because of some supernatural call – or a moment of happiness and freedom. James had rejected her, he had ‘moved on’. She would have been upset. Devastated.

  At the edge of the platform there’s a rusty barrier, and beyond that, the black, barnacle-studded rocks. I step beyond the barrier and instantly I know this place. It’s the same as in my ‘vision’. I close my eyes as the water booms beyond the furthest rocks. Ginny, her arms outstretched, a strange fire in her eyes. The light from the lighthouse pulsating above. Her bracelet glinting in the darkness as she unfurls her scarf and it catches in the wind and flies away.